Discovery of the Self

Peter L. Rudnytsky is Professor of English at the University of Florida and Head of the Department of Academic and Professional Affairs of the American Psychoanalytic Association. From 2001 to 2011 he was editor of American Imago and he currently coedits the History of Psychoanalysis series with Karnac and the Psychoanalytic Horizons series with Bloomsbury.

• PrefaceThe Work of Elizabeth Severn: An Appreciation by Adrienne Harris and Lewis AronIntroduction: The Other Side of the Story: Severn on Ferenczi and Mutual Analysis Peter L. RudnytskyI. What Is the Self?: An Analysis of the Human Psyche.II. What Makes People Ill: Psychological Causes behind Physical Phenomena—an Analysis of Human Pain and Disorder.III. Psycho-Analysis—the Modern Method of Cure: Its Aims and Practice. Its Limitations.IV. Psycho-Synthesis—the Building-up Process: Reintegration of Mind and Body.V. Nightmares are Real: Dreams and Insanity—the Light they Throw on Psychic Traumas and Human Destiny in General.VI. The Emotional Life: On Being in Love. Problems of the Affections, Sexuality, etc.—Emotional Maladies, their Readjustment and Cure.VII. A Way Out—Plasticity of the Human Mind, Education of Children: Expansion of Perception. Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Yoga, Nirvana, etc. Acquaintance with one’s own Unconscious Recognition of ‘Infinity.’ The Liberation of the Self.

"The Discovery of the Self is a fascinating and historically significant work introducing and promoting a psychoanalytic project (with underpinnings of Freud and Ferenczi) for a general audience. We see Severn's preoccupation with trauma and fragmentation and her determination to explore the newly opened realm of unconscious forces underlying conscious thought and action. This was and still is the most alarming and unsettling aspect of psychoanalytic thought. Severn understands its fecundity and makes her case with fervor and clarity."-from the essay The Work of Elizabeth Severn: An Appreciation by Adrienne Harris and Lewis Aron."Just as Josef Breuer and Bertha Pappenheim ("Anna O.") are known as co-creators of the talking cure, another generative dyad, Sandor Ferenczi and Elizabeth Severn ("R.N."), co-created mutual analysis. Nowadays, nobody practices it concretely (patient and therapist taking turns on the analytic couch), but we recognize its enormous contribution to appreciating intersubjectivity and thoughtful self-disclosure in psychoanalytic treatment. So far we knew about this bold experiment only from Ferenczi's Clinical Diary; with the republication of Severn's Discovery of the Self, the other side of the coin allows us fuller understanding of their fateful encounter."-Emanuel Berman, Ph.D, Israel Psychoanalytic Society.