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The purpose of these essays is 'to review the theoretical climate in which Jacobson worked, to appreciate and survey her contribution, and to offer new essays on object relations based on her legacy and her memory' (p. 3).
A historical survey of the development of object relations concepts in psychoanalytic theory forms the preface of this volume. The remainder of the book is divided into three parts. Part I spells out the contributions of Edith Jacobson. Part II deals with issues of theory and treatment and Part III is occupied with applications of object relations theory. There are a total of 21 essays.
The historical survey of the development of object relations concepts in psychoanalytic theory provides a background that enhances our ability to appreciate Edith Jacobson's unique impact upon psychoanalysis. Arlow, in Part I, by emphasizing the clinical base to her theoretical contributions, stressed Jacobson's access to her patients' inner life by means of her empathic identification with their pain and suffering. He noted that 'alongside the well-known concepts of instinctual regression, she introduced the novel and significant concept of regression of the self, i.e., the backward dissolution of the organized self, i.e., the backward dissolution of the organized self representations and of the superego into their antecedent identifications and to their earlier levels of function'… 'The role that identifications play in the organization of the self and the superego really expresses how experience with the real world of people—the object world—impinges on the organization of the personality' (p. 61). Thus identifications form a bridge between the self and object world. Kernberg completes Part I by discussing the theoretical implications of Jacobson's work upon psychoanalysis as a body of knowledge. Kernberg thinks 'that Jacobson's developmental model includes the only comprehensive psychoanalytic object relations theory that links earliest development in t