Bernard J. Paris: Third Force Psychoanalysis and the Study of Literature

Abstract:The life and career of Bernard Paris, the foremost scholar of Third Force Psychology and its applications to literary study, are reviewed. Paris is praised for the openness with which he writes about his personal struggles and for the depth of his insights into literature. In his autobiographical writings, Paris shows how his reading of Karen Horney, in conjunction with his experience of psychotherapy, allowed him to replace his allegiance to George Eliot's self-effacing Religion of Humanity with a sounder value system. The utility of Paris's focus on the tension between rhetoric and mimesis in literary works, as well as his use of the concepts of the implied author and the authorial personality, is underscored. The legitimacy of analyzing the childhoods of literary characters and of considering the author as a historical person is defended as an enhancement of Paris's synchronic approach.