December 2, 2007

• Down to Earth:

  Icarus

  Part I: Matisse

  
  
  The
  Wisdom of the Ego,
  by George E. Vaillant,
  Harvard University Press (1993)

  Cover illustration:
  “Icarus,” from Jazz,
  by Henri Matisse

  Publisher’s
  description of author:

  George E. Vaillant is Professor of Psychiatry;
  Director of the Study of Adult Development,
  Harvard University Health
  Services;
  and Director of Research in
  the Division of Psychiatry,
  Brigham and
  Women’s Hospital.

  
  A review:

  “This is a remarkable synthesis of the best current thinking on ego
  psychology as well as a many-faceted picture of what Robert White would
  call ‘lives in progress.’ It makes on its own not only a highly
  innovative contribution to ego psychology but an equally original and
  impressive contribution to longitudinal research. A remarkable and
  many-faceted work.”

  – The late George W. Goethals    
  of Harvard University

  Part II:
  The Hospital
  

  Cached from http://bostonist.com/2007/12/01/boston_blotter_164.php December 1, 2007 Boston Blotter: More on Harvard Student Found Dead –John Edwards, the Harvard sophomore whose body was found yesterday at Harvard Medical School,* committed suicide. People who knew him, such as a professor and his roommate are mystified. Eva Wolchover lists Edwards’ many accomplishments. He was a top science student (and that’s saying something around here), a stem cell researcher, and a guitar player. A Facebook group named “In Memory of John Edwards” has already been established. * Other reports say the body was found at about 11 PM on Thursday, Nov. 29– the presumed date of Edwards’s death.  Edwards was said to have conducted stem cell research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

  
  Part III:
  Down to Earth

  The reviewer in Icarus, Part I, above,
  Dr. Goethals, was my teacher in a
  1960-61 freshman seminar at Harvard.
  He admired the work of
  
  Harry Stack Sullivan.

  The cover of the Sullivan book below
  may serve to illustrate yesterday’s
  “Plato’s Horses” remarks.

  

  The ego defenses of today’s
  Harvard students seem to need some
   
  strengthening. Perhaps Vaillant, Sullivan,
  and the philosophies of Pirsig and of Plato
  discussed in yesterday’s entry
  may be of use in this regard.
  
  Related material:

  In
  the Details and
  The Crimson Passion.

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