The Relationship of Models of the Mind to Clinical Work: Self Psychology

THE PURPOSE OF THE PANEL WAS succinctly identified in Cooper's introductory remarks. He explained that over the past several years psychoanalysis has benefitted from lively debate over different models of the mind used to understand human development, intrapsychic conflict, and case material. These debates have generated both excitement and controversy; but whereas the models and their associated theories have been well described, the specific technical application of these models has not been sufficiently examined. To paraphrase Cooper, we know much more about what different analysts think than about what they actually do with their patients.

Hoping to fill this gap in our knowledge, the Program Committee organized a series of panels intended to illustrate the clinical work of psychoanalysts who follow specific theoretical models. As one in this series, the Committee chose the model of self psychology. As Cooper indicated, this choice was most fitting in that self psychology has been responsible for much of the current effort in analysis to clarify our theories and our clinical work. Tolpin, a proponent of the self psychology model, generously agreed to present a case and distribute process notes, then have others representing various models discuss the material and the analyst's interventions.

The patient presented by Tolpin was a professionally successful man who had entered analysis in his early forties because of chronic failure to sustain meaningful relationships; for example, his unfulfilling marriage had ended after ten years with "an emotional stand-off" and his subsequent relationships had also typically gone flat after an initial infatuation. Tolpin had concluded that this failure in relationships and the concomitant failure to maintain self-esteem derived