Self Psychology and Its Place Among Contemporary Psychoanalytic Theories

Self psychology has had a profound and far-reaching influence in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theory, yet its place in the history of psychoanalytic ideas requires clarification. Kohut (1984) regarded self psychology as a unique theory, and his followers, with the exception of Bacal and Newman (1990), have tended to view self psychology in this way (for example, Wolf, 1988; Ornstein and Ornstein, 1995). Basch's (1995) statement that self psychology is the first original psychoanalytic paradigm since Freud is representative of the way self psychologists tend to place their theory in the history of psychoanalytic ideas.

According to Tolpin (1992, 1995), all psychoanalytic theories fit into one of three broad paradigms. The first model is Freud's original trajectory of development from autoerotism through the organization of primary narcissism to the libidinalized parental relations in the Oedipus complex. In this paradigm, the role of the environment is not conceptualized, and developmental progress is tantamount to advance toward the Oedipus complex and its resolution, whereas regression is retreat from the Oedipus complex back toward the earlier narcissistic positions. The second paradigm adds the recognition of preoedipal objects and aims and the aggression as a second drive. Tolpin includes in this paradigm the concept of an original infantile unity out of which independence must grow, a view popularized by Mahler, Pine, and Bergman (1975) and developed in different ways by a wide variety of theorists.

Kohut's early theory of narcissism fits here because he endorsed the notion of original ego nuclei that must coalesce into infantile omnipotence and gradually be relinquished to form the healthy self. According to Tolpin, both paradigms assume the frustration theory of the mind, view the psyche as a closed apparatus, share the concept of an early infantile disease state that must be