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ONE OF THE QUESTIONS POSED to the panel was "how do your various theories of the self affect your analytic work as it concerns persons presenting characterological, neurotic and borderline problems?"
Those of us who hold an interpersonal-humanistic position have traditionally worked with all sorts of people psychoanalytically. The criterion of the patient's ability to establish the transference neurosis or the currently held view, the ability to establish a narcissistic or mirror transference (Kohut, 1970) has never been of concern. To conceive of oneself as potentially a mirror may be due to one's own omnipotent, grandiose fantasies. Indeed, we hope not to change the character or quality of our work in accordance with any particular diagnostic categorization. On the contrary, we hold that to whatever extent we lose our own sense of being, our own authenticity, the relationship is non-therapeutic. Our common view is that a persons' goals can best be accomplished by a genuine encounter between the analyst and the patient—what Dr. Singer has called "therapy by being." Furthermore, we would hold that diagnostic