Observing the self, avoiding the experience? The role of the observer perspective in autobiographical recall and its relationship to depression in adolescence

This paper is a contribution to the growing literature on the role of projective identification in understanding couples' dynamics. Projective identification as a defence is well suited to couples, as intimate partners provide an ideal location to deposit unwanted parts of the self. This paper illustrates how projective identification functions differently depending on the psychological health of the couple. It elucidates how healthier couples use projective identification more as a form of communication, whereas disturbed couples are inclined to employ it to invade and control the other, as captured by Meltzer's concept of "intrusive identification". These different uses of projective identification affect couples' capacities to provide what Bion called "containment". In disturbed couples, partners serve as what Meltzer termed "claustrums" whereby projections are not contained, but imprisoned or entombed in the other. Applying the concept of claustrum helps illuminate common feelings these couples express, such as feeling suffocated, stifled, trapped, held hostage, or feeling as if the relationship is killing them. Finally, this paper presents treatment challenges in working with more disturbed couples.

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Cartesian Fingerprints in Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine

Journal of Beckett Studies ◽

10.3366/jobs.2012.0047 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 223-243

Author(s):

Irit Degani-Raz

Keyword(s):

The Self ◽

Levels Of Abstraction ◽

The Media ◽

The Mind ◽

Limiting Case

The idea that Beckett investigates in his works the limits of the media he uses has been widely discussed. In this article I examine the fiction Imagination Dead Imagine as a limiting case in Beckett's exploration of limits at large and the limits of the media he uses in particular. Imagination Dead Imagine is shown to be the self-reflexive act of an artist who imaginatively explores the limits of that ultimate medium – the artist's imagination itself. My central aim is to show that various types of structural homologies (at several levels of abstraction) can be discerned between this poetic exploration of the limits of imagination and Cartesian thought. The homologies indicated here transcend what might be termed as ‘Cartesian typical topics’ (such as the mind-body dualism, the cogito, rationalism versus empiricism, etc.). The most important homologies that are indicated here are those existing between the role of imagination in Descartes' thought - an issue that until only a few decades ago was quite neglected, even by Cartesian scholars - and Beckett's perception of imagination. I suggest the use of these homologies as a tool for tracing possible sources of inspiration for Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine.

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Samuel Beckett's Disruptive Translations of ‘je voudrais que mon amour meure’

Journal of Beckett Studies ◽

10.3366/jobs.2019.0266 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 28 (2) ◽

pp. 163-178

Author(s):

Trask Roberts

Keyword(s):

Samuel Beckett ◽

The Self ◽

Irish Poetry ◽

Poetic Translation

Self-translators are often granted freedoms in their translations unimaginable for standard translators. Whereas a standard translation usually prizes sameness (or invisibility as Lawrence Venuti argues), the self-translator may instead highlight difference or disruption. A burgeoning subfield of criticism has outlined the ways in which one of the most famous of these self-translators, Samuel Beckett, makes use of his role as translator to further the reach of his work beyond the constraints of a monolingual text. Whereas most of this criticism has taken aim at Beckett's prose and theater, this essay asks what can be gleaned about Beckett's translation style from his early poetry. Here I focus on Beckett's four-line, untitled poem which begins ‘je voudrais que mon amour meure’ (‘I would like my love to die’). Originally published in 1948 in the bilingual journal Transition Forty-eight, this poem would go on to be edited, translated, reedited, and retranslated over the course of nearly thirty years. The various iterations and translations of the poem are not always harmonious and instead force the reader to consider more deeply the themes of the poem and to question the role of translation. I read the poem in light of Beckett's 1934 essay ‘Recent Irish Poetry’ as well as consider it in response to W.B. Yeats' 1899 poem ‘He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead’. By situating the poem in this context, I argue that this poem is a manifestation of Beckett's argument in the essay that poetry must take into account the division between poet and object. His short poem demonstrates this division as well as that between original and translation and thus allows us a window onto his translation project at large. Considering Beckett's poetic translation permits us to consider how a complementarity of intention towards language does not necessarily entail complementary translations.

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The role of writing in constructing the self in Alawiyah Sobh's Mariam Al -Hakaya [Mariam the tales] and Rabih Alameddine's I, the divine. (c2007)

10.26756/th.2007.49 ◽

2007 ◽

Author(s):

Hanan Sbeiti

Keyword(s):

The Self

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Le premier moment de l’art dans À la recherche du temps perdu de Marcel Proust – une « leçon d’idéalisme » ?

Revista Cercurilor studenţeşti ale Departamentului de Limba şi Literatura Franceză ◽

10.31178/rcsdllf.9.3 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 25-40

Author(s):

Larisa Botnari

Keyword(s):

Essential Role ◽

Marcel Proust ◽

The Self ◽

Philosophy Of Art ◽

The Novel ◽

Philosophical Interpretation ◽

German Philosopher ◽

Lost Time ◽

Aesthetic Thinking

Although very famous, some key moments of the novel In Search of Lost Time, such as those of the madeleine or the uneven pavement, often remain enigmatic for the reader. Our article attempts to formulate a possible philosophical interpretation of the narrator's experiences during these scenes, through a confrontation of the Proustian text with the ideas found in the System of Transcendental Idealism (1800) of the German philosopher F. W. J. Schelling. We thus try to highlight the essential role of the self in Marcel Proust's aesthetic thinking, by showing that the mysterious happiness felt by the narrator, and from which the project of creating a work of art is ultimately born, is similar to the experiences of pure self-consciousness evoked and analyzed by Schellingian philosophy of art.

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