Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

152. Self and Other: Conceptual and Empirical Aspects of Identityand DifferenceOtto Rank, the Brothers Grimm, and Snow White’s Queen: PsychologicalDistortions in Seeing Ourselves and OthersOlivette R. Burton, University of Pennsylvania (burtoethics@yahoo.com)‘“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?” And the mirror always said:“You, my queen, are fairest of all”’. And thus the Queen in Snow White begins her day by beingreassured, by some hazy figure, that she is somehow different, better and more special thanothers. Discrimination begins with self-delusion. This can and has been quickly followed bycognitive dissonance and the inability to tolerate difference. This chain contributes significantlyto produce the “isms” with which our society continues to struggle. This presentation is about theothers; those that society perceives as being different and possibly threatening and the reasonswhy. People who look different, act different and possibly think differently irrespective ofwhether that difference is religious, cultural, or racial. Is the inability to tolerate the other’sdifference a product of personality? Does it emanate from personal defects of egodevelopment, or from issues of paranoia or lack of object constancy? Or rather is it trainingproduced by the environment, lack of resources, or biochemical factors? This presentation willdiscuss how narcissistic distortion on both the societal and individual level consciously andunconsciously creates significant psychic pain and suffering.Patient Responsibilities in a Psychotherapeutic AllianceDuff R. Waring, York University (dwaring@yorku.ca)Patients in a psychotherapeutic alliance should act responsibly in their progression towardrestoration of self. I will concentrate on the ethical virtues that patients should cultivate in thisprogression. The patient in this alliance is a “normative project” for both the therapist and him orherself. I focus on self-regarding ethical responsibilities. I elucidate them as virtue ethicalaspirations to develop and strengthen one’s capacity for better responding to the demands of theworld, i.e. commitments to aspire to self-improvement. This requires cultivation of a contextspecificprofile virtue of self-regarding care. This idea was foreshadowed by Hellenistic ethicsand invites a reformulated contemporary expression. To that end, I will show how this virtuediffers from Kantian duties to the self (Kant 1985) and from Foucault’s notion of “care of theself” (Foucault 1994, 2001). I relate it to Swanton’s profile virtues of self-respect and self-love(Swanton 2003). It subsumes more specific patient virtues, e.g., persistence, courage, honesty,hopefulness, and flexibility (Radden and Sadler 2010, 137). Psychotherapy can enable patients torespond to the ethical challenge of leading a critically good life. Meeting this challenge connectswith moral respect for others (cf. Dworkin 2011).361