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In his introduction to this volume of 20 chapters by a variety of authors, Paul Ornstein successfully and articulately attempts to answer the question, Is self psychology on a promising trajectory? He cites statistics and other kinds of evidence indicating a growing knowledge and interest about self psychology, both in the United States and Europe, as well as recently in South America and Asia. Ornstein boldly presents a controversial proposition about the overriding importance of selfobject phenomena in this way: “The vicissitudes of the selfobject phenomena throughout life—are the foundational constructs of self psychology from which all the rest derives” (p. 7).
In his chapter about interpretation, Ernest Wolf advances a broad definition of interpretation as “all those intentional activities of the analyst that in their totality bring about a modification of the analysand's psyche” (p. 15). Wolf recommends a consistent, benign, nonmoralizing listening approach that will blunt patients' fears and raise their hopes of finally being understood by someone who cares. Unfortunately, Wolf downgrades and fails to appreciate either the clinical or theoretical significance of explanation and cognitive elaboration in interpretations. For Wolf, the importance of interpretation rests almost exclusively on the restoration of the selfobject bond by providing an experience of being understood.