Introduction: A Systems View
(1997)
The doctrine of defects in the self leads to a clinical focus on what is missing rather than on what is present in pathological organizatons of self-experience. Felt deficiencies in the sense of self may be understood not as manifestations of an irreducible internal defect within the person, but rather as the consequence of various organizing principles established in early transactions with caregivers. An illustration of this idea is provided by a brief description of the life and treatment of a young woman who felt that she had no self and that she did not exist.
This article locates self psychology within the context of the evolving paradigm for psychoanalysis that the author calls intersubjectivity theory. It is argued that Kohut contributed significantly to the new paradigm but stopped short of fully embracing it. Self psychology and intersubjectivity theory are compared and contrasted, and an intersubjective view is offered of the patient's transference, the analyst's transference, and the system created by their reciprocal interaction.
Afterword
(1992)
This article illustrates the varying transference meanings of defense analysis as conceptualized from a self psychology perspective. A case presentation is offered demonstrating the changing meanings of the analyst's defense interpretations resulting from the differing developmental contexts that organized the transference during the course of the analysis. It is emphasized that what the analyst interprets should be guided by an understanding of the primary developmental longings mobilized in the transference at any juncture.
This article explores the nature and determining conditions of the different relationships that may exist in experience between the mind and the body. Various boundaries and relationships forming between the subjectively experienced mind and body are disclosed through an examination of (1) the experience of affect, (2) the phenomenon of concretization, and (3) embodied selfhood and its derailments. It is shown that the analytic approach to such mind-body relationships must take into account the differing intersubjective contexts in which they originate.