Self Psychology: Later, The Same Day Response to Editors' Follow-Up Questions

There is a remarkable diversity of ideas among the contributing analysts, who nevertheless agree about the essentials of self psychology. In our view, the differences among the authors are based on the extent of the authors' relationship to Heinz Kohut, the diversity of prior training and philosophical beliefs, and varying desires to stretch self psychology to unexplored areas.

The selfobject concept is used in many different ways in the self psychology literature. The experiences that provide selfobject functlons can range from reciprocated love relations, a chess game, a work of art, music, a beautiful day, to an addiction to heroin, food, or pain. We regard the selfobject experience as an attempt at self-regulation through self-strengthening, enlivening, and affect regulation, even if the means seem self-destructive. At best, this attempt contributes to affective vitalization, self-coherence, and a sense of continuity in time.

We do not see the selfobject dimension of the transference in contrast to another type of object but in a figure—ground relationship to the representational configurations (see Stolorow and Lachmann, 1980; Lichtenberg, 1983; Lachmann and Beebe, 1992). The two dimensions serve different functions, but each is a critical context for organizing and interpreting the other. If we confine ourselves to self-object transferences, we may neglect the themes that organize the patient's representation of past and current experiences. If we confine ourselves to the interpretation of representational configurations, we may lose our sensitivity to the patient's vulnerabilities and strivings for self-restoration.

The representational configuration can be illustrated by a patient who formed a dependent, self-depreciating relationship with her analyst. The patient retained the analyst in an idealized position,