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Afterword a view from theoutsidePublished online: 02 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: (1995) Afterword a view from the outside, PsychoanalyticDialogues: The International Journal of Relational Perspectives, 5:3, 431-434, DOI:10.1080/10481889509539084

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Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 5(3):431-434, 1995Symposium on Self Psychology After Kohut

AfterwordA View from the Outside

The Editors

THE STRUGGLE AMONG THESE AUTHORS TO DEFINE THE ESSENTIAL

features of Kohut's contributions and the future direction forself psychology is of interest not only to proponents of self

psychology, but also to anyone interested in the history of ideas,psychoanalytic and otherwise.

All these authors note the richness of Kohut's innovations in bothmethod (sustained empathic immersion in the patient's subjectivereality) and theory (particularly the selfobject concept). Yet, Stolorowargues, there seem to be two groups of theorists in self psychologytoday: the loyalists and the expansionists. These terms are heavilyvalue laden and, naturally enough, reflect Stolorow's own particularvantage point. Another way to characterize these groupings would beto contrast their strategies of theorizing and the way they positionKohut's contribution vis-a-vis other psychoanalytic schools.

One strategy (including Basch's and the Omsteins') establishesKohut's work as constituting a complete, enduring, revolutionaryparadigm, leaving only small details or implications to be worked out.

A second strategy positions Kohut's ouvre as a transitional develop-ment on the way to the fuller emergence of a more encompassing,more comprehensively revolutionary paradigm. Thus, Stolorow regardsintersubjectivity theory and relational theories of various sorts asproviding a more complete field or systems model, emphasizing thefully contextual interaction of subjectivities with reciprocal, mutualinfluence. Stolorow positions Kohut as caught between paradigms andregards as anachronistic some of Kohut's basic concepts, like the rein-cation of a self with a nuclear program or inherent design.

In a different, but closely related, fashion, Bacal also regards Kohut'sself psychology as incomplete and transitional. Bacal positions selfpsychology as half a (relational) revolution, with object relations theo-

431 © 1995 The Analytic Press

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432 The Editors

ries constituting the missing other half. Self psychology leaves onlyimplicit the other, in its relation to the self; object relations theoriesleave only implicit the self, in its relation to objects. As Bacal notes,people suffer not just from self-depletion but from self-distortion, high-lighting (as do object relations theorists) the embeddedness within theself of the history of unsatisfying relationships with others. Thus, inBacal's perspective, as in Stolorow's, Kohut's contribution is inherentlyunstable and transitional. Kohut was moving us toward a more com-prehensive framework, but, like Moses, Kohut himself never quite gotthere. Thus, Bacal has added important innovations to self-psychologi-cal theory (bad selfobjects and fantasy selfobjects) that borrow heavilyfrom basic concepts in British object relations theories.

Lachmann and Beebe adopt a carefully honed middle position.Regarding Kohut's concepts as fundamental and seminal but incom-plete, they integrate those concepts with a broad range of ideas andperspectives drawn from empirical research on children and mothers.Thus, Kohut's notion of internalization as resulting from graded frustra-tion (transmuting internalization) is expanded into a view of internal-ization as resulting from a multiplicity of causes; Kohut's contributionsregarding empathic listening and selfobject transferences are expandedinto a range of more specific and fully developed concepts. UnlikeStolorow and Bacal, Lachmann and Beebe do not seem to regardKohut's self psychology as a transition to something else; but, unlikeBasch and the Ornsteins, Lachmann and Beebe do not regard Kohut'sself psychology as fundamentally complete in itself.

The approaches taken by these various authors on specific issues liketransference—countertransference and the selfobject concept reflectthese differences in the way Kohut's contribution is positioned.

Basch and the Omsteins have adopted Kohut's basic understandingof transference as reflecting a need for a particular kind of (selfobject)response from another for the purposes of self-healing of a damaged orendangered (less than intact) self. (The Ornsteins have added toKohut's delineation of narcissistic transferences the interesting corol-lary of "transference symptoms" anticipating progressive changes and a"new beginning.")

The other authors all seem to be struggling to build upon Kohut'skey contributions concerning selfobjects and narcissistic transferencesby adding to them other dimensions of relatedness, particularly those

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Afterword 433

stressed by alternative relational models like object relations and inter-personal theories. Thus, Stolorow adds to the selfobject dimension oftransference what he calls a repetitive and resistive dimension; hebroadens the concepts of both transference and countertransference byspeaking of the organizing principles of both analysand and analyst;and, with his concepts of conjunction and disjunction, he brings to beara wider range of the analyst's own dynamics as they interact with thepatient's.

Lachmann and Beebe also build bridges between Kohut's conceptsand other relational perspectives. They add a "representational"dimension of the transference to the selfobject dimension, thereby, likeStolorow, bringing Kohut's notion into a dialectical relationship withother dimensions of relatedness. Bacal seems to present a similar vision,although he wants to use the terminology somewhat differently. Heargues that the term transference should be retained for the repetitionof old relationships; the term selfobject should be more inclusive,designating both old (transferential) patterns of relatedness and thepursuit of experiences in these same relationships that are fundamen-tally new.

This dialogic process between the editors of Psychoanalytic Dialoguesand this septet of self psychologists has produced a rich and interestingexperience, starting with the initial conversations between editors andtheorists to establish the questions worth addressing. The first set ofanswers provoked more questions and also allowed each of the writersto find points of difference and connection with other theoretical posi-tions. Dialogue and theory building are living, interactive systems.

Beebe and Lachman describe self psychology as an inherited houseof many rooms: some redecorate, some may do full renovations, andsome keep the space in traditional forms. To use a less structuralmetaphor, we might see this group of theoretical leaders in selfpsychology as providing complex music with harmonies, counterpoint,and plenty of fruitful discordance.

If, as this exercise suggests, self psychology is a living and complexlyevolving theoretical/clinical enterprise, it calls our attention to themetatheoretical question of how theories and theoretical traditionschange.

What sparked the Kohutian revolution? Basch gives a mostconvincing description of one powerful impetus to change: the sharp

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434 The Editors

and immediate shift in the clinical experience with patients created bythe adoption of Kohutian clinical practices. Here we want to remarkon the complex relational and mutually evolving systems within selfpsychology and between self psychology and other theoretical tenden-cies in psychoanalysis. Theoretical positions may begin in opposition toentrenched ideas or theories, but the process of opposing alters theentire theoretical field; in both proactive and reactive theory building,the whole anatomy of psychoanalysis is changing. A relational perspec-tive on institutional and scientific paradigm shifts would view theevolution in self psychology within the highly charged contemporaryclimate of much theoretical change and reformulation in almost allbranches of psychoanalytic thought.

Consider: the potentially productive encounters between the devel-oping ideas of intersubjectivity and the interpersonal tradition; the dualpractice of empathy and introspection as it is evolving in self psychol-ogy and the work of Green, Winnicott, or even Ferenczi on the devel-opment of the analytic instrument; the powerful work on rupture andrepair within selfobject transferences and both the empirical work oninfancy research and the more neo-Kleinian preoccupation withaggression. There is a most interesting potential dialogue between theevolving work on the selfobject function and selfobject transferences(even as these have multiple interpretations within self psychology)and the contemporary Kleinian work on induced countertransference.Here one might observe the struggle in very different theoretical enter-prises to encompass a powerful intersubjective and two-person experi-ence. One would look here for the impact of self psychology's rigorouscommitment to exploring the selfobject concept on the less mutuallyconceived, although increasingly intersubjective, concept of projectiveidentification within contemporary Kleinian thought.

In short, theories evolve in reaction to clinical experiences and tointernal dialogues within a theoretical field and in the complex, oftencontentious context of the broader field of psychoanalysis. This set ofessays brings together the living evolution of one strand of theorydevelopment; we can notice connections and contradictions, points ofcontact and points of difference. A conversation to be continued.

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