Review of More Human than Otherwise: Selected Papers

Abstract

I rwin Hirsch has been a prolific representative and voice of the interpersonal psychoanalytical tradition for four decades now. His volume, More Human than Otherwise, collects sixteen of his previously published papers, spanning the years 1983–2017. Each essay is introduced with a short retrospective framing comment, and the volume as a whole comes with a brief introduction. In one of these essays, Hirsch immerses himself in Phillip Roth’s iconic novel, Portnoy’s Complaint. In lieu of Portnoy’s classical Freudian analyst, Hirsch figures himself as Portnoy’s interpersonally oriented analyst and imagines how their work together might unfold. Hirsch openly identifies with Roth so, if Portnoy is some version of Roth, it may not be going too far to read this as a sort of fan fictional self-analysis. By way of introduction to the chapter, Hirsch shares parts of its only-in-New York origin story. One evening, while working on the essay, and so with Portnoy on his mind, Hirsch is having dinner at an Upper East Side luncheonette. He looks down the counter only to see Phillip Roth having his own meal. Hirsch intuits that Roth is heading to his analyst’s office next, which he confirms by following him there. In addition to its wry appeal, the essay conveys two key purposes of the volume as a whole. First, More Human than Otherwise articulates the interpersonal approach to psychoanalysis and does so while engaging a wide variety of contexts and themes. In addition to analysis of fiction and television (Portnoy, Seinfeld, and others), topics include the nature of analytic