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MPSA 2(2):255-257 (1977-78)

Sin and Madness: Studies in Narcissism. By Shirley Sugerman. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976. 184 pp.

Author: Hyman Spotnitz

Abstract

Ideas derived from theology and depth psychology are masterfully woven together in this post-Freudian model for self-understanding. It is a work of high literary quality. The author, a lecturer on world religions and faculty member of Drew University, from which she received her doctorate in theology, is also a psychotherapist and trainee in modern psychoanalysis.

In explaining what prompted this wide-ranging analysis of the human condition, Sugermen states that:

[S] tudies in the self have led me to an understanding of sin, as it is traditionally defined, and madness, in a more contemporary idiom, as correlative modes that reflect the human situation in a similar way. Later Eastern studies suggested images of man that relate to and reflect a similar understanding of the human condition and of man's existential relationship to being—granting, of course, cultural differences. Furthermore, psychoanalytic work and studies over a long period of time led to the practical, concrete, and specific understanding of our condition as narcissism, as well as to the therapeutic possibilities inherent in that understanding. Finally, all the paths that I followed in my search for understanding led to the image of Narcissus as the metaphor of the human condition but not
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the myth of Narcissus as it is usually interpreted as a representation of self-love. My awareness of these deep connections and my desire to put all the strands of this skein together, despite the obvious difficulties involved in cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary correlations, have resulted in this volume. (p. 12)

It is postulated that the whole image of Narcissus and his fate is a paradigm of man's relationship to existence, representing the “sin” and “madness” of his unwitting descent into nonbeing and loss of the self. That image (the Narcissus myth reconsidered) thus serves as a lens for scrutinizing a core of human reality and a pattern of behavior through the eyes of psychologically astute theologians adheri

MPSA 2(2):255-257 (1977-78)

Sin and Madness: Studies in Narcissism. By Shirley Sugerman. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976. 184 pp.

Author: Hyman Spotnitz

Abstract

In explaining what prompted this wide-ranging analysis of the human condition, Sugermen states that:

[S] tudies in the self have led me to an understanding of sin, as it is traditionally defined, and madness, in a more contemporary idiom, as correlative modes that reflect the human situation in a similar way. Later Eastern studies suggested images of man that relate to and reflect a similar understanding of the human condition and of man's existential relationship to being—granting, of course, cultural differences. Furthermore, psychoanalytic work and studies over a long period of time led to the practical, concrete, and specific understanding of our condition as narcissism, as well as to the therapeutic possibilities inherent in that understanding. Finally, all the paths that I followed in my search for understanding led to the image of Narcissus as the metaphor of the human condition but not
Page 255
the myth of Narcissus as it is usually interpreted as a representation of self-love. My awareness of these deep connections and my desire to put all the strands of this skein together, despite the obvious difficulties involved in cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary correlations, have resulted in this volume. (p. 12)