Playing Pygmalion How People Create One Another

We create the characters that people our lives. Although others appear to us to be who they just are, there are complicated unconscious psychological processes that lead us to experience people in ways that we ourselves construct. This book analyzes how four pairs of people, central in each other's lives, create one another. It demonstrates how each of us is like a theater director, casting others into roles on our stage, even as others are casting us into their dramas.

Ruthellen Josselson is a professor of psychology at the Fielding Graduate University.