Action Language and the Psychology of the Self

I undertook to prepare this short paper on the relation between action language and Heinz Kohut's psychology of the self because I regard his work as perhaps the most significant effort in recent years to introduce a systematic and fresh clinical-theoretical viewpoint in psychoanalysis. I have been very much concerned with problems of theory construction; a large part of my own efforts to develop action language may be understood in the light of that concern (Schafer, 1976, 1978).

I share with Dr. Kohut the interrelated assumptions that guide his effort: that psychoanalysis is an investigation of meaning; that once psychoanalysis is viewed as an empathic-introspective method the place of determinism in psychoanalysis is uncertain at best; that there must be a constant and close relation between theory, technique, and the phenomena of the psychoanalytic situation; and that psychoanalysis is a unique discipline which creates a reality of its own in which things can only appear in a certain way and not in others. These assumptions are at variance with the traditional metapsychological assumptions according to which a natural-science model is accepted as a precommitment and an objectivist stand toward data is accepted without question. According to the objectivist (or empiricist) stand, the data are out there in the world waiting to be encountered; data are discovered rather than constituted within a framework of assumptions and methods.

My interest in problems of theory construction might also be described as an interest in the as-yet-underdeveloped discipline or method of comparative psychoanalysis. In this connection I want to mention that in my own teaching of Freud and Freudian psychoanalysis, I have found it very useful to bring in Kohut's ideas as a way of indicating that theory construction is always a matter of choosing options and then trying as systematically as one can to abide by the rules or conventions inherent in the option chosen. I have also found, both