Tragic Greek Wisdom and Young Kohut’s Empathic Understanding

Abstract

ABSTRACTMy comments add some points for reflection and open-ended questions rather than a structured and exhaustive discourse to Dr. Dobson’s fascinating exploration of quite unknown aspects of Kohut’s personal experience and thought. Recalling Kohut’s essays on Courage and on Leadership I emphasize his open mind conception of simultaneous existence of different and even contradictory selves in the same person. I address the differences between the Odysseus of Homer, with his epic vision, and the Odysseus of Euripides, in his version of the satyr play. I also underscore that Kohut’s early choice to focus on a satyr play can glimpse Kohut’s curious mentality and openness to a non-linear and non-conformist way of thinking that brought so much vitality into self psychology and psychoanalysis. Kohut understood that, at certain historical moments, there may exist a dangerous narcissistic imbalance in large segments of a country’s population. I connect this intuition with Arendt’s reflections on totalitarianism.