Benjamin Kilborne’s first love and passion is the piano and music, which he began at the age of 5. Music absorbed him then and does to this day. After Julliard, he migrated to universities: NYU, Yale and Columbia, focusing on the humanities (art history, philosophy, history and literature). Subsequently he went to Paris, where he got his first PhD at the Sorbonne in Anthropology/Ethnopsychiatry after fieldwork on dream interpretation and incubation practices in Morocco. Subsequently he went to Paris, studied with Roland Barthes and received his first PhD at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes/Sorbonne in Anthropology/Ethnopsychiatry after fieldwork on dream interpretation and incubation practices in Morocco.  He then went on to be Professor of Anthropology: first in Paris at the Sorbonne, the Ecole and Paris X (Nanterre), and then at University California, San Diego, The University of California, Los Angeles, and The University of Southern California. His second PhD in clinical psychoanalysis was awarded by the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute.

He has written extensively on a range of subjects: anthropology, history, philosophy, literature, and the history and philosophy of the social sciences. For the past twenty years he has focused on shame dynamics as the interface between clinical work (inner worlds, psychic conflict, trauma and suffering) and culture (history, conflicts, values, ideals, beliefs, perceptions, and defenses). In his many writings, he has sought to integrate literature, anthropology, and psychoanalysis with theories of human tragedy. His most recent book, Disappearing Persons: shame and appearance  (SUNY, 2002) has been translated into Italian (Persone che Scompaiono, Borla, 2005). Another book, Danger and Appearance has been published in Russian, and a third book, The Evil Eye, Shame Dynamics and Cultural Defenses, in Turkish and Greek, is currently in press. His many books and papers have been translated into nine languages.

A Training and Supervising Analyst of the International Psychoanalytic Association and an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis, he supervises and teaches in both Istanbul and Moscow, and lectures regularly throughout Europe. Currently he lives in the Berkshire hills of West Stockbridge, MA. with his wife, Kathleen, whose boundless gifts and generosity of heart combine with the beauty of her gardens to transform the life that Puzzle (trusty whippet) knew needed just the right feminine presence.