Book Review: The Paradoxical Self: Toward an Understanding of Our Contradictory Nature

The Paradoxical Self: Toward an Understanding of Our Contradictory Nature by Kirk J. Schneider. Plenum Press, New York and London, 1990. 221pp.

Kirk Schneider is a psychologist who works at the Center for Existential Therapy in San Francisco. He has trained with such people as Stanley Krippner, Rollo May and James and Elizabeth Bugental. His book is an analysis of the paradoxes inherent in human existence and describes a method to "help reconcile them and clear the way for a balanced future".

In the beginning of the book Schneider reviews Kierkegaard's work on finitude and infinitude. He reminds the reader how Kierkegaard came to the conclusion that health consists essentially in being able to resolve contradictions and being able to both finitude (constrict oneself) and infinitize (expand). Schneider links Kierkegaard's notion to what he calls the paradox principle in existential-phenomenology.

He then makes the following assumptions:

1. The human psyche is a constrictive/expansive continuum, only degrees of which are conscious.
2. Bread of constrictive or expansive polarities promotes dysfunction, extremism of polarization.
3. Confrontation with or integration of the poles promotes optimal living.

These premises are elaborated with reference to the work of Freud, Bugental, May and others. Schneider thus develops the idea that people can function in what he calls a centric mode, which is the capacity to be aware of and direct one's constructive and expansive potentialities.

In the next chapter he examines the dysfunctional extremes people can find themselves caught up in and he reconsiders psychopathological categories in the light of his principles (e.g. mania is overexpansion and depression is overconstriction). The causes of such conditions are studied in the following chapter, where we find the author ascends much of Freudian instinctual theory. Rank and Jung are described as existentialists of sorts for going beyond biologism and then their theories are explained in terms of the expansion/constriction polarity. Kohut and self psychology get the same treatment and some interesting phenomenological descriptions are given in the process.

Some noteworthy distinctions are also made between existential and cognitive methods by arguing that cognitive psychology and existential psychology recognize the same phenomena but that the former thinks of these as thought aberrations while the latter sees them as glimpses into Being. This is then fleshed out by descriptions of cosmic experiences and schizophrenia referring to the work of Jaspers, Laing and others.

What follows is much the same as child development and other aspects are brought back to the same principle of expansion/constriction. Here and there some case material livens up the text, but there are few surprises once one has understood the basic tenet of the book.

The last section of the book is concerned with the application of this idea and lays claim to a method for "optimal confrontations with paradox", promising a joyful way forward for those of us who are willing to "grapple with their polarities and maintaining some sense of control over them".

I must admit that I was getting distinctly nervous by this time and found myself profoundly in disagreement with the project of the book. For in spite of its good intentions and its refreshing foundation in the notion of paradox (so often ignored), the book floundered for me as it failed to capture the challenge and tension of human living and tried to overcome, ease and smoothe over the contradictions.

In this sense I thought the book suffered an acute case of californism in its attempt to find solutions and an optimistic stance, which to me seems to deny the very essence of the paradox it tries to capture. Instead of being confronted with the raw stuff that life is made of, we are served a rather bland diet of diluted existential trivia, such as "parents need to push their children – gently and not too much – into doing the things they fear".

At some points the therapy that is intended to solve people's dilemmas sounds rather more like a crude cognitive-behavioural method than anything remotely resembling serious existential analysis. I think that one of the traps Schneider falls into is to try and oversimplify human living. The book lacks philosophical depth and seems based on a wistful striving for a controlled universe.

But in spite of these strong reservations I still appreciated the book for making some worthwhile connections across the field by applying its idea of paradox systematically. It was also a confirmation that it is not enough to have existential foundations in theory, but that in order to remain true to life itself we must be willing to be thrown into paradox rather than trying so hard to constantly control and overcome it.

Emmy van Deurzen-Smith