Psychology and the Other

Edited by David Goodman and Mark Freeman

Provides a new paradigm for exploring classic psychological and philosophical issues
Deploys clinical vignettes to illustrate complex psychological and philosophical issues
Uses response pieces to provide nuanced analysis of the chapters' arguments

Psychology and the Other

Edited by David Goodman and Mark Freeman

Description

The figure of the Other is an important though underutilized vehicle for exploring and reconceptualizing classic psychological and philosophical issues, from identity and purpose to human frailty and suffering. Moreover, it can be used to reorient inquiry toward aspects of the human condition that are often regarded as secondary or peripheral--for instance, our responsibility to others and to the environment. A broad spectrum of disciplines including psychology, philosophy, theology, and religious studies speak about the challenges we face in encountering the Other vis-à-vis our receptivity, openness, and capacity to entertain the stranger in our midst.

Through constructive critical exchange, Psychology and the Other engages such perspectives on the Other from various subdisciplines within psychology and related disciplines. The volume uses the language of the Other as a vehicle for rethinking aspects of psychological processes, especially within the therapeutic context. As a group, the contributors demonstrate that the language of the Other may be more fitting than the egocentric language frequently employed in psychology. They also embrace the challenge to create new theories and practices that are more ethically attuned to the dynamic realities of psychological functioning.

The book is organized into three sections. The first deals with foundational philosophical concerns and provides an introduction to the project of "thinking Otherwise." The second section brings these fundamental philosophical concerns to bear on the therapeutic situation, especially in the realm of relational psychoanalysis. The final section of the book addresses concrete psychological situations in which the Other figures prominently and where the power of thinking Otherwise is most visibly demonstrated.

Psychology and the Other

Edited by David Goodman and Mark Freeman

Contributors

Introduction: Why the Other?
David Goodman and Mark Freeman

Section I: Thinking Otherwise about the Human Condition

Chapter 2: Time and Lament: Levinas and the Impossible Possibility of Therapy
Eric Severson

Chapter 3: The Fourth/Reduction: Carl Jung, Richard Kearney, and the Via Tertia of Otherness
Amy Bentley Lamborn

Chapter 4: Transcendence, Renewal, and Reconciliation in Ronald Laing and Hans Loewald
Marsha Hewitt

Chapter 5: Eros, Transcendence, and Reconciliation: Ronald Laing and Hans Loewald
Alfred Tauber

Chapter 6: The Melancholy of Psychoanalysis: Marion, Kristeva, and the Difference of Theology
Jennifer Wang

Section II: Healing Through Relation

Chapter 7: Kierkegaard and the Other: A Phenomenological Psychotherapy
Merold Westphal
Commentary on Westphal: The Patient's Intentionality as Primary
Elizabeth A. Corpt

Chapter 8: The Difficulty of Being Two: Subjectivity and Otherness according to Lacan and Levinas
Jeffrey Bloechl
Commentary on Bloechl: The Levinasian Freud
Mark Freeman

Chapter 9: Beyond Sameness and Difference: Normative Unconscious Processes and Our Mutual Implication in Each Other's Suffering
Lynne Layton
Commentary on Layton: Beyond Sameness and Difference--Some Transnational Perspectives
Leslie A. Adelson

Chapter 10: The Shock of Recognition: What My Grandfather Taught Me About Psychoanalytic Process
Stuart A. Pizer
Commentary on Pizer: The Refugee in the Kitchen--Variations on Hineni for Stuart Pizer and His Grandfather
Donna M. Orange

Chapter 11: Beyond Alterity: The Path to Gratitude
Marie Hoffman
Commentary on Hoffman: Gratitude and Existential Uncertainty
Doris Brothers

Chapter 12: Being-in-the-World and Schizophrenia: Three Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Experience in Schizophrenia
Elizabeth Grosz
Commentary on Grosz: The Anguish of the Intermediaries--The Lived Experience of Schizophrenia
Heather Macdonald and Christy Hobza

Section III: Voices in the Field of the Other

Chapter 13: Confronting Otherness and Negotiating Identity in the German Jewish Experience
Roger Frie

Chapter 14: On Psychologizing the Other: Plato, Pith Helmets, and Pathology
Alvin Dueck

Chapter 15: The Pornographic Self: Technology, Vulnerability, and "Risk Free" Desire
David Goodman

Chapter 16: The Inbox as Home: A Radical Rethinking of Hospitality
Heather Macdonald

Chapter 17: Writing the Vignette: The Reversing of the Subjective
Peter August

Index

Psychology and the Other

Edited by David Goodman and Mark Freeman

Author Information

David Goodman is the Interim Associate Dean at Boston College's Woods College of Advancing Studies; the Director of the Psychology and the Other institute; and a Teaching Associate at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Hospital. He has written articles and book chapters on continental philosophy, Jewish thought, social justice, and psychotherapy, and his recent book The Demanded Self: Levinasian Ethics and Identity in Psychology (Duquesne University Press, 2012) considers the intersection of psychology, philosophy, and theology as it pertains to narcissism, ethical phenomenology, and selfhood. He is also a licensed clinical psychologist and has a private practice in Cambridge, MA.

Mark Freeman is Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Department of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross. He is the author of Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative (Routledge, 1993); Finding the Muse: A Sociopsychological Inquiry into the Conditions of Artistic Creativity (Cambridge University Press, 1994); Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward (Oxford University Press, 2010); The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Living Beyond the Self (Oxford University Press, 2014); and numerous articles on issues ranging from memory and identity to the psychology of art and religion. Winner of the 2010 Theodore R. Sarbin Award in the Division of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology of the American Psychological Association, he is also editor for the Oxford University Press series Explorations in Narrative Psychology.

Contributors:

Leslie A. Adelson
Department of German Studies
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

Peter August
Private Practice
Oakland, CA

Jeffrey Bloechl
Department of Philosphy
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA

Doris Brothers
Co-founder and Faculty Member
Training and Research in Self Psychology Foundation
New York, NY

Elizabeth A. Corpt
Department of Psychiatry
Harvard Medical School
Cambridge, MA

Alvin Dueck
Department of Clinical Psychology
Fuller Theological Seminary
Pasadena, CA

Mark Freeman
Department of Psychology
College of the Holy Cross
Worcester, MA

Roger Frie
Faculty of Education
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC

David Goodman
Department of Psychology
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA

Elizabeth Grosz
Department of Philosophy
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR

Marsha Hewitt
Faculty of Divinity
Trinity College
Toronto, ON

Christy Hobza
American School of Professional Psychology
Argosy University
Alameda, CA

Marie Hoffman
Department of Psychology
New York University
New York, NY

Amy Bentley Lamborn
The General Theological Seminary
New York, NY

Lynne Layton
Department of Psychology
Harvard Medical School
Cambridge, MA

Heather MacDonald
Department of Psychology
Lesley University
Cambridge, MA

Donna M. Orange
Department of Psychology
New York University
New York, NY

Stuart A. Pizer
Department of Psychology
Harvard Medical School
Cambridge, MA

Eric Severson
Department of Philosophy
Eastern Nazarene College
Quincy, MA

Alfred Tauber
Department of Philosophy
Boston University
Boston, MA

Jennifer Wang
The New School for Social Research
The New School
New York, NY

Merold Westphal
Department of Philosophy
Fordham University
Bronx, NY

Psychology and the Other

Edited by David Goodman and Mark Freeman

Reviews and Awards

"This volume illuminates the contours of one of the most important movements in contemporary psychology, and indeed within cultural consciousness more generally. Abandoned is the atomistic view of society, with its alienating and morally insensitive consequences. The focus importantly shifts to the relational processes in which we are immersed. As this rich and powerful collection makes clear, the conceptual, practical, and moral consequences are profound." --Kenneth J. Gergen, Senior Research Professor, Swarthmore College, and President of the Taos Institute

"Bringing together a diverse set of prominent thinkers who represent fields including philosophy, gender studies, psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis, German studies, and theology, David Goodman and Mark Freeman have assembled a truly interdisciplinary collection of essays devoted to discussions of our relations with the other. Although titled Psychology and the Other, this volume moves well beyond psychology in the questions it raises." --Claire Katz, Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies, Cornerstone Fellow, Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University

"Splendid and invaluable. Leading theorists and several bright young scholars include the reader in a penetrating, cutting-edge conversation about how to think and live 'Otherwise' about human suffering, healing, identity, and potential. They tackle perhaps the most pressing question today of how to re-imagine the self-encapsulated modern self-liberated, in ways, but also truncated and stifled-in profoundly 'relational' and 'ethical' terms. There may be no other way, the editors suggest, to retrieve the 'transformative power of love.'" --Frank Richardson, Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin