Pathologizing Twinship: An Exploration of Robert Stolorow's Traumatocentrism

Abstract

In his most recent work on trauma, Robert Stolorow rejects Kohut's understanding of twinship as an inherent developmental need and asserts that it is a reaction to trauma. I argue that this theoretical move is part of Stolorow's evolving worldview that both privileges the traumatic and uses the universal language of philosophy to offer “a God's eye view” on why we seek out bonds with others and create human community. Just as Freud turned to biology (e.g., the death instinct) as a means of grounding his increasingly pessimistic worldview, Stolorow turns to Martin Heidegger to situate his. I argue that the context-specific thinking of sociology may offer us a way of seeing Stolorow's traumatocentrism as historically situated; as contextually derived; and hence, subject to change.