Spirituality Studies 10-2 Fall 2024 23 Jeffrey Katzman, Ben Bernstein, Matthew Ponak In Search of the Authentic: Contributions of Jewish Mysticism to a Conceptualization and Experience of the Self Jeffrey Katzman, Ben Bernstein, Matthew Ponak Received August 3, 2024 Revised August 21, 2024 Accepted August 22, 2024 Keywords Psychodynamic Psychology, Jewish Mysticism, Hasidism The search for an understanding of the Self spans centuries across disciplines. Historic models have been static describing an apparatus existing somewhere within the mind. This expanded through the development of psychological relational models, both through psychoanalytic and family systems theory. The research objective of this qualitative historical analysis is to trace the idea of the concept of the Self, particularly through psychodynamic models, and to build upon these paradigms through a similar analysis from Jewish mysticism. Like other spiritual pathways, Jewish mysticism can augment this understanding through intriguing maps of the Self, paradigms of relatedness, ideas of language, descriptions of subjective experience, and powerful, metaphoric imagery regarding the process of fracture and repair. This review is among the first to integrate these paradigms. Much common ground is discovered, and the model enriched, through Jewish mystical ideas of an unfolding Self interconnected with an experience of the Divine. About the Lead Author Jeff Katzman, MD, is Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico Department of Psychiatry, Director of Education at Silver Hill Hospital in Connecticut, Adjunct Professor at the Yale Dept of Psychiatry, and the medical director for Project ECHO Resiliency programs. He is a longtime student and teacher of psychodynamic psychotherapy, attachment, and the role of play in our lives. Dr. Katzman has been a student of improvisational theatre for the past thirty years and has spent years considering the applications of improvisation to psychotherapy training, team building, and spiritual practices. He has widely published in these areas, including two books, Life Unscripted and Ensemble, multiple peer-reviewed articles, a workbook for clinicians to build resilience, and The Storymaker – a quarterfinalist of 10,000 entries in the Amazon Breakthrough novel competition. His email contact is jkatzman@silverhillhospital.org. ←← Sefirot by Robert Fludd (1574–1637), Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia (1617–1621).
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