Kohut's Twinship Across Cultures ― The Psychology of Being Human

Kohut's Twinship Across Cultures: The Psychology of Being Human chronicles a 10-year-voyage in which the authors struggled, initially independently, to make sense of Kohut‘s intentions when he radically re-defined the twinship experience to one of "being human among other human beings".

Commencing with an exploration of Kohut’s work on twinship and an illustration of the value of what he left for elaboration, Togashi and Kottler proceed to introduce a new and very different sensitivity to understanding particular psychoanalytic relational processes and ideas about human existential anguish, trauma, and the meaning of life. Together they tackle the twinship concept, which has often been misunderstood and about which little has been written. Uniquely, the book expands and elaborates upon Kohut’s final definition, "being human among other human beings." It problematizes this apparently simple concept with a wide range of clinical material, demonstrating the complexity of the statement and the intricacies involved in recognizing and working with traumatized patients who have never experienced this feeling. It asks how a sense of being human, as opposed to being described as human, can be generated and how this might help clinicians to better understand and work with trauma.

Written for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists interested in self-psychological, intersubjective, and relational theories,Twinship Across Cultures will also be invaluable to clinicians working in the broader areas of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, social work, psychiatry and education. It will enrich their sensitivity and capacity to understand and treat traumatized patients and the alienation they feel among other human beings.

Koichi Togashi, PhD is a professor at Konan University, Kobe, Japan. He is also a Member, Training & Supervising Analyst at the TRISP Foundation in New York whilst maintaining a private practice in Kobe & Hiroshima, Japan. He is a Council Member of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology and an editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology. He has published and presented numerous Contemporary Self Psychology articles in the United States, Japan, and Taiwan; and has translated into Japanese, numerous papers and books.

Amanda Kottler, M.A. (Clinical Psychology) was a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town for a number of years. She works in private practice in Cape Town, South Africa. Affiliations include the Cape Town Psychoanalytic Self Psychology Group (a founding and faculty member) and the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. She is an Emeritus Council Member of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, and an International Editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology and of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. Her most recent published book is the co-editedNew Developments in Self Psychology Practice, published in 2007.