Re-Biographing and Deviance: Psychotherapeutic Narrativism and the Midrash

by Mordecha Rotenberg

Overview

Re-Biographing and Deviance examines the Jewish Midrashic model for self-renewal through time. In this important new study, author Rotenberg questions how traditional Judaism, with its contradictory notions of teshuvah (repentance) and of remembrance of the past, allows for the contemporary Jew to maintain a healthy cognitive dialogue between past failures and future aspirations. The author illustrates how the Midrashic narrative philosophy entails a psychotherapeutic system for reinterpretation of past sins into positive future-oriented biographies—which in turban provide fuel for Jewish vitality and its continuity between past, present and future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275923914
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/10/1987
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

MORDECHAI ROTENBERG is Professor of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Department of Social Work, Psychology, and Sociology.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Living through Midrashic Interpretation
Narrative "Missionarism" in Dialectic Psychotherapy
The Midrash and "Biographic Rehabilitation" Philosophies of History and the Psychology of "Self Renewal"
The Oedipal Conflict and the Isaac Solution
The "Non-Melting Pot"
The Hermeneutic Dialogue and Interhemispheric Balance
Linear Conversion Versus Cyclistic Teshuvah: An Empirical Differentiation
The Midrashic Dialogue Between Past and Future
The Temporal Dialogue as "Chutzpah Therapy"
Bibliography
About the Author
Index