Reason and Emotion: A Physician's Life Story

Book excerpt: This book describes Oscar’s life story and his efforts to develop an academic career, to heal emotional wounds and to develop a coherent worldview. His medical career focused on patient care, research and the study of kidney diseases. To get to the root causes of his emotional problems, he rejected Freud’s drive-frustration theory and embraced both object relations and attachment theories. He believed that an adequate attachment to the primary caregiver facilitates the development of the true self, the regulation of affect and the ability to project intentions, beliefs and perceptions into the minds of others. Only securely attached children are able to separate from the mother and to acquire the skills necessary for socialization. After his retirement he was able to formulate a personal philosophy of life and to articulate a worldview which was based on Naturalism, Humanism and Agnosticism.