Playing Pygmalion : how people create one another / Ruthellen Josselson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Josselson, Ruthellen.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Expectation (Psychology).

Social perception.

Identity (Psychology)--Social aspects.

Identity (Psychology).

Physical Description:

xiii, 151 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Md. : Jason Aronson, [2007]

Summary:

Like Pygmalion with his Galatea, we create the characters of people in our lives. Although others appear to us to be just who they "are," there are complicated psychological processes, outside of our awareness, that lead us to experience people in ways that we ourselves construct. Psychoanalytic theory offers a wealth of understanding of how people unconsciously create what they both need and dread. But these processes are not well understood by most therapists. Too often, therapists join their patients in overlooking their own role in creating the relationships in their lives, such that it seems that patients were simply unfortunate to "have" an ungiving mother or to "find" an unloving spouse. Because processes of creation in relationships are largely unconscious, they are much harder to see. As a result, most theorists of relationships acknowledge that they exist, but offer little language or explication for how they unfold or manifest themselves. Playing Pygmalion is an effort to trace in psychological terms the subtle interplay by which people create each other.

Contents:

Creating one another

Recreating the other in memory

You are what I can't bear in myself: Donna and Roberta

No feelings allowed on the stage: Mark and Joan

"A daughter is a daughter": Mary and Lavinia

Secure knots: Tom and Kathy

Pygmalion and Galatea.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 141-145) and index.

ISBN:

9780765704870

0765704870

9780765704887

0765704889

OCLC:

82673580