The Hero in the Mirror

From Fear to Fortitude
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-0-88163-482-2
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 226 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 337 g

Reihe: Relational Perspectives Book Series

In times of stress, trauma and crisis—whether on a personal or global scale—it can be all too easy for us to externalize a larger-than-life figure who can assuage our suffering, a Hero who comes to the fore even as we recede into the background. In taking on our collective burden, however, such an omnipotent Hero can actually undermine us, representing as it does the very same characteristics we fail to note in one another. By granting the Hero to power to set things right, we seem to deny it to ourselves, leaving us temporarily lightened but ultimately helpless.

In response, Sue Grand deconstructs the myth of the Heroic and argues for the "ordinary hero," a more realistic figure with the same limitations, concerns and fears as the rest of us, but who nonetheless stands up for the greater good in the face of danger, despair and villainy. From the foundation of relational psychoanalysis, Grand incorporates cultural and ethical considerations in her examination of what this ordinary hero might look like, a trip that takes us from the consulting room to right outside our front doors, from the heart of a "civilized" nation to the myriad war-torn regions dappling the globe, both past and present. Along the way we meet individuals whose encounters with adversity range from the mundane to the catastrophic, and learn how they struggle against the dubious concept of the Hero looming large in their lives. Recounting this journey in finely-tuned yet imminently accessible and enjoyable prose, Grand demonstrates that the best place to ultimately find the ordinary hero is within each other: The hero is us.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Professional, and Professional Practice & Development

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grand, Sue

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Psychologische Theorie, Psychoanalyse Psychoanalyse (S. Freud)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

The Hero in the Mirror. Section I: Heroes and Warriors. Combat Speaks I: Heroic Performance, Civilian Desire. Combat Speaks II: Grief and Tragic Memory. Section II: Childhood and the Heroic Imagination. Fantastic Dangers: Reality Meets the Edge of the World. Strange Bodies in Strange Encounters: Transfiguration and Inquiry. Section III: Analytic Heroes: Finding Courage. False Courage, Analytic Lies. Intrepid Subjects: Rescuing Lost Generations. Section IV: Resisting Demonic Heroes. Restoring Reverence to Sacrificial Bodies: Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Torture. Dignifying the Abject: Genocide and State Terror. Epilogue.

Über Autor(innen)

Sue Grand, Ph.D., is faculty and supervisor at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, where she holds a specialization in trauma as well as family and couples. In addition, she is faculty at the Mitchell Center for Relational Psychoanalysis, the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, and the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. She is an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and author of The Reproduction of Evil (Analytic Press, 2000), and has a private practive in New York City and Teaneck, NJ.