The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 2013 Volume LXXXII, Number 1
ROY SCHAFER : A BEG INNING
By Henry P. Schwartz
The author provides a biographical overview of Schafer’s life, culled from his published work and focused primarily on his professional development. This biography is used to demonstrate some of Schafer’s central theoretical insights on narrativity and language, and reveals the consistency of his thinking over his long career. A brief discussion of his writing on King Lear provides a bridge between theoretical and biographical material.
Keywords: Roy Schafer, history of analysis, philosophy, ego psychology,King Lear, creation of experience, creation of facts, language,narration, forgiveness, love.
There is no correct introduction I can give to Roy Schafer. What I can do is tell my version of that story, a story that implies an interpretation, and in doing that I will also tell something about the storyteller. That is the part for you the reader to figure out, and as you figure it out, you will become another storyteller and interpreter of this “beginning.”
We have all read his books and papers, and I will provide a very brief overview in a moment. Before getting to that, however, let me tell you some of his tellings of himself as a person.
“Where to begin?” he once asked, then continued as follows.