SOURCE: “Psychological Analysis and Literary Form: A Study of the Doubles in Dostoevsky,” in Daedalus, Vol. 92, No. 2, Spring, 1993, pp. 345–62.

In the following essay, Kohlberg presents a psychoanalytic interpretation of doubles in Dostoevsky's works.

Psychology is a knife that cuts both ways.

—The Brothers Karamazov

Illness, delirium, amnesia, but why were you haunted by just those delusions and not by any others?

—Crime and Punishment

To the psychologist looking at contemporary literature, there is a rather paradoxical discrepancy between the impact of psychoanalysis upon creative and upon critical writing. While it is almost impossible to find a serious modern novel or drama which would not be profoundly different without the existence of psychoanalytic concepts, this can hardly be said for modern literary criticism.

A major factor in the impact of psychoanalytic ideas upon creative writing is the ability of psychoanalysis to breathe new life into old myths and literary...