Psychoanalytic crosscurrents
1 total work
In this book Robert Rogers presents a powerful argument for the adoption of a new theory of object relations combining the best features of traditional psychoanalytic theory with recent contemporary views concerning the person. This new theory, purged of drive theory but merged with the best features of attachment theory and theory of the self, makes a bold step in furthering the development of a person-oriented theory of object relations. To illustrate this argument, Rogers undertakes a rereading of all of Freud's major cases as well as the published case histories of Winnicott, Lichtenstein, Sechehaye and Bettelheum. Switching his focus to persons in literature, Rogers examines in depth the relations of self and other in Melville's "Moby Dick", Camus' "The Stranger", the poetry of Emily Dickenson and the tragedies of Shakespeare. A book that aspires to be at once scientific and humanistic in orientation, it provides a complex interweaving of theoretical, clinical, and literary consideratons.