Editorial Introduction

This issue’s frontispiece honors the recent passing of a pioneer and giant of self psychology, Anna Ornstein, M.D. We plan to dedicate part of a future issue to tributes and reflections on her life and work.

Our fourth and final issue of 2025 begins by exploring Kohut’s profoundly important concept of the “Tragic Man.” We then expand this idea to the “Tragic Human,” confronting the devastations of war, earthquakes, climate change, political and cultural divisions, and the inevitable grief that follows personal loss.

Featured are papers from the 2024 IAPSP Rome conference. Marcia Dobson opens with an analysis of Sophocles’ and Kohut’s Oedipus, clarifying Kohut’s own understanding of “Tragic Man.” Gianni Nebbiosi follows with a discussion of Greek tragedy as embodied art, showing how mirroring and mime can help us perceive our patients in more embodied ways. Next, John Riker argues that self psychology must incorporate the existentialists’ ontological insights to grasp why human life is inherently tragic, developing what he calls “existential self psychology.” This leads to David Fireman’s moving and poetic paper on surviving personal grief and how it can foster self-growth. Banu Bülbül Çam examines the experience of living tragically within Turkey’s culturally and politically fragmented society, demonstrating how culture and politics shape our psychic lives. Closing this section, Sascha Schipflinger shows how Kohut’s concept of “Tragic Man” (or “Tragic Person”) illuminates psychological dynamics in the context of multiple crises in advanced capitalist Western societies.

The second section of this issue is devoted to the memory of Donna Orange, whose sudden and tragic death last November deeply shocked the self psychology community. Donna devoted her life to empathy and ethics, and everyone she met felt her grounding presence. This section includes tributes, introduced and selected by William Coburn, from Jack Foehl, David Goodman, Elizabeth Corpt, Lynne Jacobs, and Alli