Routledge Kohut's Twinship Across Cultures: The Psychology of Being Human (Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series)

Kohut's Twinship Across Cultures: The Psychology of Being Human chronicles a 10-year-voyage in which the authors struggled, initially independently, to make sense of Kohut‘s intentions when he radically re-defined the twinship experience to one of "being human among other human beings". Commencing with an exploration of Kohut’s work on twinship and an illustration of the value of what he left for elaboration, Togashi and Kottler proceed to introduce a new and very different sensitivity to understanding particular psychoanalytic relational processes and ideas about human existential anguish, trauma, and the meaning of life. Together they tackle the twinship concept, which has often been misunderstood and about which little has been written. Uniquely, the book expands and elaborates upon Kohut’s final definition, "being human among other human beings." It problematizes this apparently simple concept with a wide range of clinical material, demonstrating the complexity of the statement and the intricacies involved in recognizing and working with traumatized patients who have never experienced this feeling. It asks how a sense of being human, as opposed to being described as human, can be generated and how this might help clinicians to better understand and work with trauma. Written for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists interested in self-psychological, intersubjective, and relational theories, Twinship Across Cultures will also be invaluable to clinicians working in the broader areas of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, social work, psychiatry and education. It will enrich their sensitivity and capacity to understand and treat traumatized patients and the alienation they feel among other human beings. Review Original and groundbreaking, this book by Togashi and Kottler constitutes the most important contribution to self psychology’s theory in many years, and thus expands also the range of relational psychoanalysis. Their focus on experience of otherness in yearning for connection, for the sense of being human among humans, will make this a classic. A great gift for every clinician. - Donna Orange Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, New York, USA "In a work of superb scholarship, Togashi and Kottler offer an expansion and refinement of Kohut’s concept of twinship (which originated in his studies of narcissism) entailing a delicate balance of sameness and difference that constitutes a sense of what I prefer to call existential kinship, of being a human among humans. They show with rich and convincing clinical examples how twinship/existential kinship experiences in the therapeutic relationship can be enormously beneficial for those who suffer from profound feelings of alienation, estrangement, meaninglessness, and existential anguish―feelings that are a ubiquitous legacy of emotional trauma."―Robert D. Stolorow, PhD, author, World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis This is an important book. Too often psychoanalysis is perceived as a universalizing theory that neglects the cultures and contexts of psychological experience. The authors, one from Japan, the other from South Africa, bring their unique perspectives to bear on the question of human relating. They suggest that while the human need to relate is present across cultures, it is shaped by the specific cultural practices in which each person develops. Chapters on the role of culture difference and gendered discourses illustrate the veracity of their perspective. The authors convincingly demonstrate the evolving nature of contemporary self-psychology and its intersection with relational psychoanalysis. Above all this is a study of what it means to be human and how to think about the fundamental issues raised by our relational existence. - Roger Frie, Ph.D. Psy.D. R. Psych Professor, Simon Fraser University and University of British Columbia. Arguably Heinz Kohut’s most central, ph