Disappearing Persons

Benjamin Kilborne is a practicing psychoanalyst in Massachusetts. He is the coeditor, with L. L. Langness, of Culture and Human Nature.

Though Disappearing Persons will appeal to psychoanalysts, shame theorists, and scholars interested in the study of shame in literature and the psychoanalytic study of literature and culture, Kilborne has also made a special effort to reach a wider general audience. He carefully identifies the theoretical framework he is using and clearly defines his key terms and concepts. He also makes careful connections between his clinical vignettes and his literary examples so that the reader moves effortlessly from the clinical to the literary (and philosophical) and back again." — J. Brooks Bouson, author of Quiet As It's Kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison"Kilborne brings together in striking and illuminating ways a diverse wealth of reading and research—Sophocles, Milton, Swift, Lewis Carroll, Pirandello, Kafka, Graham Greene, Kim Philby, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, case studies, fairy tales, and popular culture, along with the intricacies of psychoanalytic theory and his own experience as a therapist—all of which supports a fascinating exploration of the crucial role of shame and 'appearance' in the psychodynamics of human personality." — Joseph Adamson, coeditor of Scenes of Shame: Psychoanalysis, Shame, and Writing

• AcknowledgmentsPreface Introduction Oedipal Shame and the Origins of Appearance AnxietyAppearance Anxiety as a Cultural PhenomenonAppearance Anxiety, Observation, and PerceptionSeeing, Knowing, Image, and AppearanceOedipus, Shame, and the Void of Avoidance 1. The Contempt of the Queen's Dwarf Psychic Size and Self-RegardAsclepius, the Tall Man, and Little PeopleBrobdingnag and LilliputLarge or Small We Are Only By ComparisonLiterary Littleness and MiniaturizationAmplification and Defenses Against DiminishmentSize Symbolism and Fantasized MeasurementSize Anxiety and Oedipal Shame: Clinical VariantsThe Shape of Experience and Fantasies of Size 2. Fantasy, Anguish, and Misconstrual Pirandello and The UnrecognizableShame and Oedipal Defeat in the Analysis of SamThe Heartbreaking Curiosity of the Blind 3. A Hole in a Paper Sky: Deceit and Remedies by Still More Deceit Shame and AidosShame and the Sneeze: The Analysis of MarkDeception, Outrage, and Remedy by Even More DeceitThe Vain Invention of the Onlooker 4. What Do You See Me to Be? Invisibility and Performance Exposure and Invisibility: AdamSpy Glass Hill and the "Rage of Personality:" Adam, Graham Greene, and Kim PhilbyOedipal Shame, Spies and FantasyRecognizing Choice in the UnseenOf Oedipal Blindness and Oedipal Shame: Loss, Disappearance, and RageThe Hunger ArtistShame and Performance Anxiety: A Shamed Violinist Plays to a LionShame and Creativity 5. I Can't See; I'm Invisible When I Don't See You I Can Invent You Better: The Anaylsis of SusanDo You Want Me To Be Someone Else?Peek-a-boo, Disappearance, and the Game of the BobbinI Am Invisible; I Can't See MyselfSeeing, Being Seen, and Matters of Privacy 6. What the Camera Sees: The Tragedy of Modern Heroes and "The Rules of the Game" Free Association and Open FormOf Disguises, Mechanisms, and Music BoxesEveryone Has His ReasonsDeceit, Denial, Honor, and the Rules of the Game 7. Satan, Shame, and the Fragility of the Self Sin's Out and Out's SinShame and Sin: The Garden of EdenShame and InnocenceKierkegaard, Dread, and the Self So Easily LostShame, Deception, and DespairHe Who Sheds Shame Sheds Himself 8. Narcissus and Lady Godiva: Lethal Looks and Oedipal Shame Looking, Narcissus, and NarcissismFreud, Looking, and Psychoanalytic Theories of NarcissismNarcissistic Pain, Looking, and MirrorsLooking and Dreams: Freud's Self-PortraitDreams of Two Patients: A Painter and a StripperLooking and the Transference 9. Of Fig Leaves, Real and Imagined Fashioning Looks, Shaping ShameFreud and ExhibitionismHow Conscious is Fashion-consciousness?Plastic Surgery and Con-FormityClothe the Naked 10. These Weeping Eyes, Those Seeing Tears: Trauma, Mourning, and Oedipal Shame Regression, Shame, and Trauma: Ferenczi and FreudUncontrollable Ears and the Social-Political Context of Oedipal ShameAppearance and ConnivancesA Burdenous Drone: Samson AgonistesShame, Disappearance, and TraumaAnd a Tear Shall Lead the Blind Man NotesReferencesIndex