Abstract
Book reviews engage the work of interpretation and translation. Every review we publish presents an interpretation of an author’s work—an attempt to invite readers into conversation with the author and the reviewer about ideas seen through the reviewer’s translational lens. In this issue of JAPA devoted to interpretation, we are pleased to inaugurate a unique series of reviews, each corresponding to an entry in the recently launched International Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary (IRED), edited by the IPA and chaired by Eva Papiasvili. In this time of global strife, the IRED project, an online, interregional encyclopedic dictionary of psychoanalysis, speaks to the power of translation and interpretation across a range of perspectives and diversities. IRED is not a dictionary of concepts; rather, it is a dictionary of interpretations of concepts in different regions, languages, and cultures at different times. “The history of our profession starts in a center (Vienna, London, Paris). When it moves toward the periphery, new phenomena occur, and more so when it crosses the oceans. There the fortunate expansion of psychoanalysis intertwines with a variety of factors” (IRED, “Intersubjectivity,” p. 241). One of the key principles of this evolving dictionary is that concepts are not fixed; their meanings migrate across time, space, and languages. In an intricately woven tapestry of interpretation and translation, IRED’s editors strive to capture core psychoanalytic concepts in four-dimensional context.
IRED’s multiperspectival approach highlights the transformative activity of language in reflecting differences among interpretations, thus building “translational bridges” (Papiasvili 2023). Thanks to the extraordinary collective effort of committed contributors worldwide, IRED embraces plurality without erasing differences. Against our common wish for simplification, IRED embraces a plurality of interpretations, preserving complexity and singularity in our understanding of analytic concepts. IRED reflects an unavoidable tension between words and meanings, which echoes the work of interpretation in psychoanalytic process. In this regard, IRED is the epistemological version of psychoanalytic practice; it offers a real-time representation of the intrinsic pluralism of our thought processes, requiring a multitude of interpretations.
We are pleased to introduce our IRED review series with a rich and enlightening essay by Barbara Marcus. Through a series of interviews she has conducted with IRED’s main editors since the project’s inception, Marcus explores its structure, methodology, and ethics, laying out the process of a complex system of interregional collaboration among a group of devoted, thoughtful, curious, and passionate colleagues. In future issues of JAPA, the IRED series will continue with reviews by psychoanalysts selected for their critical expertise on a range of IRED entry topics that have been published online. Our IRED series will spotlight the philosophy, plurality, interconnectivity, and evolving understandings of psychoanalysis as a global, perpetually unfolding conversation. We will offer a window onto the surprising discoveries and rich stories that have emerged with each entry. Through this conversation, we hope to uncover together what is lost, and what is found, in translation and interpretation.
Three Takes on Barbie
In this issue devoted to interpretation, we have borrowed the same lens to explore a range of topics of central concern in our fractured world. We begin with a triptych of essays on the summertime film Barbie, a smash hit based on the iconic figure whose figure itself has elicited powerful reactions since the doll’s creation. The Barbie movie resonates for many, giving rise to a flood of emotions for viewers. For some it evokes memories of childhood play; for others it stirred deep ambivalence about women’s bodies, desires, roles, and relationships. Our three reviewers—Rosemary Balsam, Alice Huang, and Jeri Isaacson—offer three very different interpretations of the movie. Isaacson observes that “without intending to, the movie shines a light on how unconscious feelings about women continue to break through into consciousness, defining how we relate to each other. . . .” Balsam notes the physical manifestations of men’s efforts to control and contain the powers of a woman’s body—one that can bear children and be powerful, brilliant, and autonomous. Balsam laments that “here we are, yet again, with Barbie’s distorted body, a representation accepted and colluded with by a vast majority in many societies, and with the fact that there is big money to be made from this distortion.”
Huang interprets Barbie by “dressing” her in Laplanche, viewing the movie itself as an illustration of Laplanche’s theories about gender. “Gender,” she writes, “is not a translation of biological sex but rather a translation of something more complicated and unconscious that occurs in the interpersonal domain. . . . Through the enigmas entangled in this question, we are all given an assignment to translate ourselves through our gender identities before our biological bodies even get started.”
Book Reviews
Next we present two reviews that tackle sociopolitical complexities. Leon Hoffman’s review of The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, by Joseph Henrich, considers how the Western emphasis on individualism and personal motivation has shifted focus away from a “kinship-based” psychology. The significance of this volume, Hoffman explains, is “that it lets go of the old value-laden distinctions between primitive and developed, pathological and rational. . . . it helps us recognize the various moral codes and modes of response that exist within all of us.” Understanding the reasons for a group’s moral stance, argues Hoffman, might allow for a shift in how radically polarized groups view each other. David Cooper’s review of The Trauma of Racism: Lessons from the Therapeutic Encounter, edited by Beverly Stoute and Michael Slevin, addresses phenomena that reveal the insidious infiltration of racism, blatant or hidden. “How do we explain,” asks Cooper, “how well-meaning people of the dominant racial grouping participate in systems that tilt to their advantage, in spite of their professed commitment to social change?” Like Hoffman, Cooper views psychoanalysis as a potentially powerful catalyst for transformation.
Eric Marcus’s comprehensive review of Toward a Unified Psychoanalytic Theory: Foundation in a Revised and Expanded Ego Psychology, by Morris Eagle, grounds us once more in a psychoanalytic frame that allows for a rich, broad, and thorough exploration of modern ego psychology. Marcus strongly endorses Eagle’s push toward a unifying theory of psychoanalysis moored in ego psychology—one “encompassing all aspects of mind: the biological, the developmental, the interpersonal and relational, the structural, and the subjective.”
Partners in Conversation
Finally, we are pleased to present Mitchell Wilson’s Why I Write essay, “My Partners in Conversation.” Mitchell Wilson has been an extraordinary supporter of the Book Review section during his tenure as JAPA editor. Here he shares with us his thoughts about the intimate act of writing as conversing with “an audience of beloved ghosts,” loved ones “with whom [I] still speak.” “They form,” Wilson tells us, “. . . a kind of ideal audience, that group that lives in the shadows because they are dead, with whom, therefore, I can have the kind of timeless conversations that populate my dreams.” For Wilson, analytic writing can be thought of as “love letters to psychoanalysis,” as expressions of love, gratitude, respect, and appreciation for colleagues and teachers—and for patients, who “trust us to care for them in such a risky engagement, in what is often the deepest intimacy that they and we experience.”
