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RESEARCH PRODUCT
Social mirrors. Tove Jansson’sInvisibleChildand the importance of being seen
Joona Taipalesubject
mirror-functionSubjectivityMoominPsychoanalysisInvisibilityPsychology of selfta6122Analogy050108 psychoanalysis0603 philosophy ethics and religionWinnicottsubjectivity0501 psychology and cognitive sciencessocial recognitionPsychoanalytic theoryta611ta515JanssonPhilosophyaggression05 social sciencessense of selfinvisibilityvisibilityTove06 humanities and the artsSocial recognitionDonaldPsychiatry and Mental healthClinical PsychologySocial invisibility060302 philosophyspontaneityMirroringdescription
ABSTRACTThis article examines the experience of being seen and analyzes its central role in the formation of a coherent sense of self. Tove Jansson’s short story from 1962, ‘The Invisible Child’, serves as the red thread of the article, and the story is analyzed in the light of Donald Winnicott’s work on social mirroring. The analysis is enriched by the psychoanalytic insights of Veikko Tahka and Heinz Kohut, and complemented by Axel Honneth’s philosophical elaborations as well as by recent developmental findings as presented by Vasudevi Reddy. The article is divided into an introduction and three sections. After summarizing Jansson’s story in the introduction, the first section elaborates and examines different senses of social invisibility. The second section assesses developmental factors that promote social invisibility and highlights the importance of being seen. The third and final section interprets Jansson’s story as an analogy to an intensive therapeutic process, while pinpointing those elements ...
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-01-02 | The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review |