Two Spies: Espionage and Empathy

This essay is a self-psychological exploration of two Israeli field operatives, or spies, and their radically different experiences after retirement. The spies, whom the author calls Ariel and Jonah, worked in the 1970s and 1980s in various locales in the Middle East. Ariel and Jonah shared similarities in their abilities as spies but diverged in the way they were able to integrate into society afterward. One went adrift, while the other integrated and was able to find his place in Israeli society. Based on in-person interviews when the author was living in Israel and subsequent visits and phone conversations, this paper explores the way empathy proved effective for Ariel and Jonah when they were working as spies in the field but functioned differently in their lives afterwards. It incorporates core self-psychological concepts such as rage, mirroring, twinship and idealization, and explores the contrast between Kohut’s early conception of empathy as vicarious introspection, and his later conceptualization of what the author calls loving empathy. It also treats the notion of cultural selfobjects, including one’s country of origin and religious symbols, and the concept of generational trauma as an ancestral narcissistic wound that lies at the heart of insatiable feelings of rage and revenge.