Paul John Eakin and the Psychology of English

The work of the autobiography critic Paul John Eakin, while coming squarely out of the discipline of English, attempts to join literature and psychology without relying on psychoanalysis. In doing so, Eakin exposes the sophistications of English to be based on a model of selfhood that is deeply impoverished. In this brief article, we attempt to follow Eakins own journey through and away from psychoanalysis as a means to open up a more general dialogue on the status of psychology in English, and to look at future developments in both disciplines. We will also ask how far this move has been propelled by the field of life writing that Eakin has so persistently mapped. Are the specific demands of reading and writing life writing useful in revealing the psychology of literature more generally, useful in opening up a self that is wider than the psychoanalytic?