Dead end kids : projective identification and sacrifice in Orphans

Abstract

After decades of what theologian Hans Kung argues amounts to the repression of religiousness by psychoanalysts and of psychoanalysis by the religious, in recent years an increasingly interesting and sophisticated dialogue between psychoanalysis and theology has been developing. Since Lyle Kessler's (1987) play Orphans (and the film version directed by Alan J. Pakula for which Kessler wrote the screenplay) lends itself to both psychoanalytic and theological interpretation, the present essay is intended both as an exercise in applied psychoanalysis in the field of literary and cinematic studies and, at the same time, as a demonstration of the complementarity that may sometimes exist between hermeneutic perspectives often considered to be antithetical. It is my thesis that the contrasting psychoanalytic concepts of projective identification on the one hand and empathic identification on the other not only illuminate the central action and meaning of the play, but also provide psychoanalytic insight into the nature of sacrifice, in both its destructive and creative forms-phenomena that are of fundamental significance in various religious traditions. go >>