The The origins of David Rapaport's 'Portrait of Moses' story

Authors

• Richard Raskin Aarhus University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1790-8766

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.110168

Keywords:

David Rapaport, Ego psychology, portrait of Moses, ego autonomy

Abstract

David Rapaport, one of the founders of psychoanalytic ego psychology, used a story about a portrait of Moses in three of his papers in the 1950s in order to illustrate his view that the self has the power to shape its own nature. The present article traces the origins and evolution of that story through Latin, Islamic and Jewish versions.