Know before whom you stand: Mikael Enckell’s Companions of the Unknown [Okändhetens följeslagare]

ABSTRACT

Mikael Enckell’s book is discussed as a combined self-analytic tour de force and psychoanalytic supplement to Jewish philosophy represented by Frans Rosenzweig and others. The author discusses Enckell’s views on the roots of psychoanalysis in Jewish thought, anti-Semitism, historiography, the importance of human dialogue, revelation and psychic integration, atheism, and the nature of recovery in psychoanalysis. Enckell’s views of a triad of human activities open to conflict and ambiguity – Judaism, poetry, and psychoanalysis – are supplemented by a short discussion on the role of annihilation anxiety in these areas.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychoanalysis and Judaism
• revelation
• recovery
• annihilation anxiety
• Frans Rosenzweig

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Titelman

David Titelman, PhD, is a full member, training analyst, and supervisor of the Swedish Psychoanalytic Association. In addition to working in private practice, he is an associate professor and senior affiliate of the National Center for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. He has published articles on anti-Semitism and on psychosis, depression, and suicide. He was an associate editor the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review 2002–07 and editor-in-chief 2008–2012. From 2002 to 2004 he chaired a Nordic subgroup of a committee on contemporary anti-Semitism, organized by the International Psychoanalytic Association.