A demanding if not always well-organized study of why we persist in
lying to ourselves. Psychoanalyst Shengold, whose fifth book this
is (the best known is Soul Murder, 1989, about children whose
parents have emotionally crippled them), develops a kind of
phenomenology of such major and common emotional delusions as
narcissism, malignant envy, paranoia, and even love (which often
involves idealization of the other, accompanied by a suspension of
critical judgment). We all are more or less under the sway of such
delusions, Shengold observes; in the psychotic they take over the
personality, while in the neurotic they coexist with more rational
and less grandiose self-conceptions while remaining mentally split
off from them. He illustrates the major kinds of delusions with a
few case studies and through extensive allusions to and citations
from major works of literature, particularly by Sophocles and
Shakespeare (there is also a somewhat rambling chapter devoted to
Samuel Butler, the misanthropic 19th-century English novelist and
essayist). Shengold's basic thesis concerns "the
universal...retentions of delusions as a residue of the earliest
mental functioning" and the claim that delusions "tie us to our
early mental impressions of parents, to whom we cling as
indispensable to our existence." They are the fruit of the desire
to remain parented forever. Shengold has too little to say here
about how the psychoanalyst or therapist might most effectively
help "surface" and work with the patient's delusions. However, this
book, which is almost entirely free of the kind of convoluted prose
that too often characterizes psychoanalytic writing, will help
clinicians focus on their patients' and their own deepest, largely
submerged self-myths, and how they contribute to resistance (in
both the colloquial and psychotherapeutic senses) to insight and
change. Informative and thought-provoking, but of interest largely
to clinicians. (Kirkus Reviews)
We are all more primitive and irrational than we care to
acknowledge, says Dr. Leonard Shengold in this profound and
eloquent book. We all suffer to some degree from delusions-vestiges
of infantile mental functioning that continue into adult life and
that at times of crisis manifest themselves in narcissistic
thoughts of omnipotence, immortality, or perfection. Dr. Shengold
argues that we can never eliminate these delusions of everyday
life, but we can lessen their effect if we acknowledge, or "own",
them. He asserts that insight into what we are and what has
happened to us is a prerequisite for caring about others and for
accepting the transient conditions of life-both necessary to attain
happiness. Dr. Shengold discusses delusions we all experience as
well as delusions associated with paranoia, perversions, being in
love, and identification with delusional parents. He illustrates
his ideas by referring to the lives and works of such literary
figures as Shakespeare, Swift, Tolstoy, Pascal, Rilke, Randall
Jarrell, Dickens, Hardy, and, especially, Samuel Butler. Dr.
Shengold also brings in relevant clinical material because, as he
points out, delusions of everyday life are at the heart of
misunderstanding and conflict in life and of resistance to change
in psychological treatment. These delusions must be attenuated if
therapy is to be successful.
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