Kohut's Self Psychology for a Fractured World: New Ways of Understanding the Self and Human Community (New Directions in Self Psychology) - Hardcover

Riker, John Hanwell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 103230149X ISBN 13: 9781032301495

Publisher: Routledge, 2024

Synopsis

Drawing from Kohut's conceptualisation of self, Riker sets out how contemporary America's formulation of persons as autonomous, self-sufficient individuals is deeply injurious to the development of a vitalizing self-structure―a condition which lies behind much of the mental illness and social malaise of today's world.

By carefully attending to Kohut's texts, Riker explains the structural, functional, and dynamic dimensions of Kohut's concept of the self. He creatively extends this concept to show how the self can be conceived of as an erotic striving for connectedness, beauty, and harmony, separate from the ego. Riker uses this distinction to reveal how social practices of contemporary American society foster skills and traits to advance the aims of the ego for power and control, but tend to suppress the needs of the self to authentically express its ideals and connect with others. The book explores the impact that this view can have on clinical practice, and concludes by imaginatively constructing an ideal self-psychological society, using Plato's Republic as a touchstone.

Informed by self psychology and philosophy, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and philosophers, seeking to revisit and revise constructions of both self and humanity.

About this title

About the Author

John Hanwell Riker has been an award-winning professor of philosophy at Colorado College since 1968 and has published four books. He was the Kohut Distinguished Professor at the University of Chicago in 2003.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 103230149X
• ISBN 13: 9781032301495
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290