Self psychology: Theory and clinical application
Abstract
The origins of self psychology are traced from Freud’s “On Narcissism" and "Analysis Terminable and Interminable', and Hartmann’s later clarification of narcissism to Kohut’s reconceptualization of narcissism in “The Analysis of the Self”. In contrast to prior work, Kohut understood narcissistic pathology to be a consequence of the patient’s structural vulnerability derived from repeated ruptures in the patient’s ties to parental figures in childhood. In the transference these vulnerable ties were revived in relation to the analyst.
The current self psychology literature has built on Kohut’s work, elaborated some aspects of it and challenged others, for example, the exclusive role of the selfobject concept in defining the transference. A case is presented to illustrate transference as a foreground-background relationship between a selfobject dimension and representational configurations.
Keywords:
Narcissism, selfobject, self pathology, representational configurations, empathy, transference.
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