A collection of thoughtul presentations on transference and countertransference highlights The Realities of Transference, Volume 6 in the Progress in Self Psychology series. The selfobject transferences receive special attention. Elsewhere in this volme, selfobject phenomena are examined in relation to the process of working through, the origins of ambition, the psychology of addiction, the psychodynamic consequences of AIDS, and creativity. An exploration of the selfobjects of the second half of life offers new insight into later development.
Volume 12 of the Progress in Self Psychology series begins with reassessments of frustration and responsiveness, optimal and otherwise, by MacIsaac, Bacal and Thomson, the Shanes, and Doctors. The philosophical dimension of self psychology is addressed by Riker, who looks at Kohut's bipolar theory of the self, and Kriegman, who examines the subjectivism-objectivism dialectic in self psychology from the standpoint of evolutionary biology. Clinical studies focus on self- and mutual regulation in relation to therapeutic action, countertransference and the curative process, and the consequences of the negative selfobject in early character formation. A separate section of child studies includes a case study exemplifying a self-psychological approach to child therapy and an examination of pathological adaptation to childhood parent loss. With a concluding section of richly varied studies in applied self psychology, Basic Ideas Reconsidered promises to be basic reading for all students of contemporary self psychology.
Volume 16 of Progress in Self Psychology, How Responsive Should We Be, illuminates the continuing tension between Kohut's emphasis on the patient's subjective experience and the post-Kohutian intersubjectivists' concern with the therapist's own subjectivity by focusing on issues of therapeutic posture and degree of therapist activity. Teicholz provides an integrative context for examining this tension by discussing affect as the common denominator underlying the analyst's empathy, subjectivity, and authenticity. Responses to the tension encompass the stance of intersubjective contextualism, advocacy of "active responsiveness," and emphasis on the thorough-going bidirectionality of the analytic endeavor. Balancing these perspectives are a reprise on Kohut's concept of prolonged empathic immersion and a recasting of the issue of closeness and distance in the analytic relationship in terms of analysis of "the tie to the negative selfobject." Additional clinical contributions examine severe bulimia and suicidal rage as attempts at self-state regulation and address the self-reparative functions that inhere in the act of dreaming. Like previous volumes in the series, volume 16 demonstrates the applicability of self psychology to nonanalytic treatment modalities and clinical populations. Here, self psychology is brought to bear on psychotherapy with placed children, on work with adults with nonverbal learning disabilities, and on brief therapy. Rector's examination of twinship and religious experience, Hagman's elucidation of the creative process, and Siegel and Topel's experiment with supervision via the internet exemplify the ever-expanding explanatory range of self-psychological insights.
Volume 13 provides valuable examples of the very type of clinically grounded theorizing that represents progress in self psychology. The opening section of clinical papers encompasses compensatory structures, facilitating responsiveness, repressed memories, mature selfobject experience, shame in the analyst, and the resolution of intersubjective impasses. Two self-psychologically informed approaches to supervision are followed by a section of contemporary explorations of sexuality. Contributions to therapy address transference and countertransference issues in drama therapy, an intersubjective approach to conjoint family therapy, and the subjective worlds of profound abuse survivors. A concluding section of studies in applied self psychology round out this broad and illuminating survey of the field.
A special section of papers on the evolution, current status, and future development of self psychology highlights The Evolution of Self Psychology, volume 7 of the Progress in Self Psychology series. A critical review of recent books by Basch, Goldberg, and Stolorow et al. is part of this endeavor. Theoretical contributions to Volume 7 examine self psychology in relation to object relations theory and reconsider the relationship of psychotherapy to psychoanalysis. Clinical contributions deal with an intersubjective perspective on countertransference, the trauma of incest, and envy in the transference.
New Therapeutic Visions begins with Lachmann and Beebe's developmental perspectives on representational and selfobject transferences, followed by commentaries. In Section II, the self-psychological approach is brought to bear on the clinical treatment of an adolescent girl, incest survivors, addictive personalities, patients exhibiting codependency, and a case of desomatization. Section III, on applied self psychology, contains chapters on the theory of creativity; subjectivism, relativism, and realism in psychoanalysis; and quantum physics and self psychology. The final section offers two critical review essays on major contributions to the self psychology literature by Wolf, by Bacal and Newman, and by Lichtenberg. Stolorow's chronicle of his personal odyssey into self psychology and intersubjectivity theory rounds out volume 8 of the Progress in Self Psychology series.
The tenth volume in the Progress in Self Psychology series begins with four timely assessments of the selfobject concept, followed by a section of clinical papers that span the topics of homosexuality, alter ego countertransference, hypnosis, trauma, dream theory, and intersubjective approaches to conjoint therapy. Section III, "A Dialogue of Self Psychology," offers Merton Gill's astute appreciation of "Heinz Kohut's Self Psychology," followed by commentaries by Leider and Stolorow and Gill's reply. The concluding section offers Stolorow and Atwood's "The Myth of the Isolated Mind," followed by discussions by Gehrie and the Shanes. A forum for the kind of spirited, productive exchanges that have long found a home within the self-psychological community, A Decade of Progress builds on the past in responding to the theoretical and clinical challenges of the present.
Transformations in Self Psychology highlights the manner in which contemporary self psychology has become, in the words of series editor William Coburn, "a continuing series of revolutions within a revolution." Of special note are contributions that explore the bidirectional influences between self psychology and other explanatory paradigms. The volume begins with Stern's thoughtful attempt to integrate self-psychological and relational perspectives on transference-countertransference enactments. Fosshage and Munschauer's presentation of a case of "extreme nihilism and aversiveness" elicits a series of discussions that constructively highlights divergent perspectives on the meaning and role of enactment in treatment and on the so-called empathy/authenticity dichotomy. The productive exploration of theoretical differences also enters in the redefinition of notions of gender and sexuality, a topic of increasing interest to self psychologists. Differing perspectives, which give rise to differing clinical emphases, emerge in the exchanges of Clifford and Goldner, and of VanDerHeide and Hartmann. The special "contextualist" demands of work with intercultural couples foster a more integrative sensibility, with self-psychological borrowings from interpretive anthropology and attachment theory. Clinical contributors to Volume 20 explore manifestations of a tension that permeates all analytic work: that between the patient's newly emerging ability to expand the self in growth-consolidating ways and the countervailing dread to repeat. Enlarged by Malin's personal reflections of "Fifty Years of Psychoanalysis" and by book review essays focusing on the writings of Lachmann and Stolorow, respectively, Transformations in Self Psychology bespeaks the continuing vitality of contemporary self psychology.
Volume 11 begins with a timely assessment of self psychology and intersubjectivity theory, with original contributions by Carveth, Trop, and Powell, and a critical commentary by P. Ornstein. Clinical studies span the transferences, the complementarity of individual and group therapy, the termination phase, and multiple personality disorder. A special section of "dying and mourning" encompasses women professionals and suicide, the self psychology of the mourning process, and the selfobject function of religious experience with the dying patient. The volume concludes with theoretical and applied studies of personality testing in analysis, writer's block, "The Guilt of the Tragic Man," and the historical significance of self psychology. A testimony to the evolutionary growth of self-psychology, The Impact of New Ideas will be warmly welcomed by readers of the Progress in Self Psychology series.
Postmodern Self Psychology, the last volume of the Progress in Self Psychology series under the editorship of Arnold Goldberg, charts the path of self psychology into the postmodern era of psychoanalysis. It begins with Goldberg's thoughtful consideration of the several tributaries of self-psychological thought in the decades after Kohut and continues with Mark Gehrie's elaboration of "reflective realism" as a self-psychological way out of epistemological quagmires about the "essential reality" of the analytic endeavor. Clinical contributions offer contemporary perspectives on clinical themes that engaged Kohut in the 1970s: a study of the effect of "moments of meeting" on systems of pathological accomodation; a reappraisal of empathy as a "bi-directional negation"; and an assessment of the diverse clinical phenomena that justify a prolonged "understanding only" phase of treatment. The theory section of Volume 18 comparably charts the movement of self psychology toward a postmodern sensibility. Contributors reappraise intersubjectivity theory as a contextualist treatment approach consistent with dynamic systems theory; return to Kohut's concept of selfobject relationships, with special attention to the separate subjective and intersubjective components of selfobject experiences; and develop one of Kohut's early ideas into a theory of "forward edge" transferences that strengthen normal self-development. In all, Volume 18 is a richly insightful progress report on the current status of self psychology and a fitting capstone to Arnold Goldberg's distinguished tenure as editor of the Progress in Self Psychology series.
