The Demanded Self: Levinasian Ethics and Identity in Psychology

Contents

CONTENTS Acknowledgments ................................................................ xi 1 • An Introduction: The Self Out of Which We Live .............................. 1 The Self Out of Which We Live ................................. 4 Narrowly Lived Self ............................................... 5 Science: A Parentified Child ................................... 6 Scientific Reformation of the Self ........................... 7 Forgetting the Other: Ethics Excluded ................... 10 Forgetting Ethics: The Other Excluded .................. 12 Ethics “Defined” ................................................... 16 Conclusion ................................................................ 18 Part One Levinas’s Project: Love of Wisdom ≠ Wisdom of Love 2 • Jewgreek.Greekjew: A Translation of Hebrew into Greek ...................... 25 Background on Levinas: Essential Influences .............. 26 Levinas the Jew (The Jerusalem Pole) .................... 27 Levinas the Philosopher (The Athens Pole) ............ 30 Levinas and the Holocaust ..................................... 31 Levinas as Jewish Philosopher? ................................... 34 Levinas as Postsecular ................................................ 37 Levinas and Translation ............................................. 40 Torah and Translation ............................................ 40 Levinas’s Translation Project .................................. 44 Psychology as Greek .................................................. 50 Conclusion ................................................................ 52 3 • The Idol of Reason: From a Disengaged Self to a Dis-interested Ethics ........................................ 55 Western Self: A Gyges Complex ................................. 57 viii Contents Levinas’s Critique of Detached Reason: The “Temptation of Temptation” .......................... 62 The Reasoned Therapist and Rational Patient ............. 66 Faceless Theories and Reasoned Therapists ............. 66 Rational Patients .................................................... 69 Conclusion ................................................................ 70 4 • The Normal Bell-Shaped Self: From Immanentization of Knowledge to Transcendence of the Other ................................ 73 The Ego Called Forth: The Ennui of Egoism ............. 74 The Powerful Powerlessness of the Face ..................... 77 Immanent Psychologies: Science, History, and the Plastic Face ............................................................ 81 The Normal Bell-Shaped Self .................................. 82 Levinas’s Critique of Scientific Theory .................... 84 Reforming Science ................................................. 88 Conclusion ................................................................ 91 5 • The Buffered Self: From the Individual Subject to a Subjected Individual ......................................... 95 Idolatry: The Narcissistic Self of the Present Order ......................................................... 96 “Conatus Amandi” Rather than “Conatus Essendi” ... 100 Individual Uniqueness as Noninterchangeable Responsibility ......................................................... 103 Egological Psychology: Sameness without Exit ........... 107 Alienation of the “Masterfully Bounded” Self ......... 107 Countercultural Therapy and a Demanded Self ....... 112 Conclusion ................................................................ 115 Part Two The Demanded Self: Clinical Applications 6 • Hineni and Transference: The Remembering and Forgetting of the Other .................................... 119 My Brother’s Keeper? ................................................ 121 Self Lived as Hineni ................................................... 123 Contents ix Forgetting Hineni ..................................................... 129 Conceptual Case Study: Transference ......................... 131 Psychotherapy as Remembering ................................. 137 Systematizing Levinas? The Clinical Conundrum and “Idea of Possibility” ..................... 141 Conclusion ................................................................ 143 7 • Hearing “Thou Shalt Not Kill”: Psychoanalysis, Enactment, and Levinasian Ethics .......................... 145 Enactment in Psychological Perspective: Relationship and Repetition ................................... 147 Levinas and Enactment: Violence and Expiation ......... 151 Conclusion ................................................................ 154 8 • The Psyche Awakened: The Other as a “Trauma Which Heals” .................. 159 The Assault of the Other ............................................ 161 Traumatizing the Traumatized: A Nucleus Fortified ... 164 Case Example: Jill ...................................................... 165 Insomnia: Self Lived with Windows and Doors Open ... 168 Conclusion ................................................................ 171 CONCLUSION • The Demanded Self: Horizons More Vast Than History .................................................. 173 Levinas as a Prophetic Voice ............................. 173 Parting Statements: The Demanded Self ........... 180 Notes ................................................................................... 181 References ........................................................................... 205 Index ................................................................................... 225 ...