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Schopenhauer's Porcupines: Intimacy and Its Dilemmas

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Deborah Luepnitz has crafted not only an engrossing telling of five very different and revealing stories but, between the lines and around the edges, a revelation of the power of the "talking cure" of psychoanalysis in contemporary society. She helped me understand the applicability of the often obtuse Jacques Lacan and creates the wonderful image of the analyst working in a space between the teachings of Lacan and the more optimistic (I would once have thought incompatible) Donald Winnicott. An intellectual, spiritual, sweet, and often funny work.

"Schopenhauer's Pocupines" is an amazing and very human book, detailing with wisdom and sharp wit our struggle to balance desire for intimacy with an ongoing need for autonomy, even--perhaps especially!--in our most cherished relationships. Deborah Luepnitz has a graceful, witty style, and her book is chock full of insights, without being in the least bit overbearing or patronizing. The book doesn't try to be a panacea for all relationships; instead, it reveals common traits that often spoil and undermine them. I recommend the book highly.

With great grace and empathy, Luepnitz traces five divergent routes through the sometimes difficult process of analysis. Luepnitz' considerable training and erudition illuminate not just psychoanalytic history and theory, but the relationships of patients and their families as they evolve through analysis. The stories of her patients' progress are as richly rewarding in analytic terms as any found in Freud or Lacan, but told with more humor and consideration for the reader. (In that respect, I suspect Luepnitz has implictly situated the reader as a necessary and welcome participant in the book and the analytic process she describes--as being in another kind of relationship with the analyst/writer and patient/subject). Perhaps most impressive is Luepnitz' ability to challenge and engage those familiar with psychotherapy, while remaining accessible and rewarding to newcomers. As her wonderful chapter titles suggest ("A Darwinian Finch," "Don Juan in Trenton") Luepnitz is especially adept, aesthetically and analytically, at translating the paradoxes of the unconscious, and showing how analysis can help us understand our possibilities as well as our limitations. Her reflections on the analyst's political and social role in contemporary society are also compelling and refreshing.

In this book, the author moves deftly between playfulness and seriousness, commentary and case content, case theory and compassion. For a psychodynamic therapist, Luepnitz is unusually self-revealing, without in any way allowing her own presence to preempt the central role of her patients in their own dramas.

The book made me think about Lacan some more, which was something of a surprise as he is a thinker whose work I tend to dismiss out of hand. It also helped me think about the practice of psychotherapy and the ways in which sticking to received wisdom -- as patient or therapist -- can lead to a central deadness in the work. No such danger appears to attend Luepnitz' work as presented here, and it strikes me that she must be a damn good therapist.

In Schopenhauer's Porcupines: Intimacy and Its Dilemmas, Deborah Luepnitz presents the theories, intricacies, failings and victories of the analytic process of psychotherapy as she relates the case histories of five diverse patients/subjects. Although her target audience may ultimately be students of psychoanalysis, Luepnitz describes the process of the "talking cure" without pretensions. Even the reader without a background in psychology will find her stories compelling and her analysis easy to understand.

There is something in each of the five case studies that most readers will be able to identify with. Even more interesting than the subjects' various challenges with balancing intimacy with independence in their personal relationships, are Luepnitz's revelations and insights.

C.A.Wulff

A beautifully written book - Luepnitz comes across as intelligent and educated, and genuinely sensitive and caring. Not at all preachy. An unusually delightful read.

Wonderful and insightfulr volume about the difficulties with intimacy we all have. Excellent addition to the libraries of both therapist and paitent.

Through five captivating patient narratives, psychologist Deborah Luepnitz amazingly captures the essence of the human struggle of finding balance between the self and the other. Each chapter paints a version of the push-pull relationship between our simultaneous needs for independence and connection. This universal dilemma of intimacy is nicely portrayed with the ongoing metaphor of a troop of porcupines huddling to stay warm on a cold winter's day: they strive to be close enough to stay warm, but not so close that they poke each other. Deborah's book explores how the answer to this core dilemma of intimacy may very well rest on our ability to create a balanced life that allows us "to chose solitude freely [and] to love and engage fully."

Not only this book has great examples of today's psychotherapy practice and dilemma's, it has a high literary value. It offers an easy and exciting read. The author seems to be passionate about her profession and has a lot to offer colleagues and students without the famous "psychoanalytic snobism." It also offers an insightful view of how intimacy problems look today and how to deal with them in our narcissistic society. The book is beneficial for both students and professionals.

Luepnitz tells five stories of patients she has worked with in therapy. All are resounding successes, though all come from wildly different backgrounds.

Luepnitz is a traditional Freudian therapist and that bothered me at first. But as I read on, I could see Luepnitz seems to use traditional Freudian techniques to read a patient, much like I read the characters in a book. It was a fascinating read, watching as patients became more and more forthcoming with their problems and difficulties. Do all people, even the most psychologically healthy, have secrets? How is it that some people deal with the world despite their secrets and others fail to do so? What do therapists do to help patients become healthier? How can these techniques be brought into common usage in all relationships? These were questions I thought about as I read.

Schopenhauer tells the story of porcupines and their need for warmth as a metaphor for people and their need for love. Porcupines are cold and approach other porcupines for warmth. As the porcupine gets closer and closer, he gets warmer and warmer, but it also becomes more and more painful for the porcupines and the porcupines began to move apart. Some porcupines, Schopenhauer notes, have so much internal warmth that they have little need for other porcupines.