Description
Most books on psychoanalytical ethics focus on rules, but author Luigi Zoja argues that ethics is really concerned with personal decisions—as is analysis itself. Rules are defined by others and center on punishment, but the purpose of analysis is to free the individual to make choices from his or her own “best” psychological and emotional center while still respecting society. Rules establish black and white; real ethics and psychological understanding both operate in the gray zone. Rules emerge from Enlightenment rationality; true ethics proceeds from choices and thus cannot be given in advance or be satisfied by respecting the rational part of the psyche only.