In Search of the Authentic: Contributions of Jewish Mysticism to a Conceptualization and Experience of the Self

Abstract

The search for an understanding of the Self spans centuries across disciplines. Historic models have been static describing an apparatus existing somewhere within the mind. This expanded through the development of psychological relational models, both through psychoanalytic and family systems theory. The research objective of this qualitative historical analysis is to trace the idea of the concept of the Self, particularly through psychodynamic models, and to build upon these paradigms through a similar analysis from Jewish mysticism. Like other spiritual pathways, Jewish mysticism can augment this understanding through intriguing maps of the Self, paradigms of relatedness, ideas of language, descriptions of subjective experience, and powerful, metaphoric imagery regarding the process of fracture and repair. This review is among the first to integrate these paradigms. Much common ground is discovered, and the model enriched, through Jewish mystical ideas of an unfolding Self interconnected with an experience of the Divine.

Keywords

• psychodynamic psychology
• jewish mysticism
• hasidism