The origins of David Rapaport's 'Portrait of Moses' story

Richard Raskin

doi:10.30752/nj.110168

Abstract

David Rapaport, one of the founders of psychoanalytic ego psychology, used a story about a portrait of Moses in three of his papers in the 1950s in order to illustrate his view that the self has the power to shape its own nature. The present article traces the origins and evolution of that story through Latin, Islamic and Jewish versions.

Highlights

David Rapaport (1911–60) was an acclaimed Hungarian-born psychologist who helped found psychoanalytic ego psychology, a Freudian school which viewed the self as fully capable of pursuing its own goals independently of instinctual drives and external constraints
In the 1940s, he worked at the Menninger Clinic, eventually as chief psychologist and research director, and in the 1950s, he served at the Austin Riggs Center in Massachusetts
The king, who had heard that Moses was a leader, kindly, generous, and bold, was puzzled, and went to visit Moses. He saw that the portrait was good, and said: ‘My phrenologists and astrologers were wrong.’

Summary

Introduction

David Rapaport (1911–60) was an acclaimed Hungarian-born psychologist who helped found psychoanalytic ego psychology, a Freudian school which viewed the self as fully capable of pursuing its own goals independently of instinctual drives and external constraints. Each retelling of the story was more concise than the previous one, and the third and shortest version is undoubtedly the best: I tried to illuminate the autonomy of the ego from the id by an old Jewish story in which Moses’ portrait was brought to an Oriental king whose astrologers and phren ologists concluded from it that Moses was a cruel, greedy, craven, self-seeking man.

Results

Conclusion