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In her recent article, Sands (1997a) seeks to cure self psychology's “phobic” opposition to projective identification by reformulating the concept “in terms that are more experience-near to self psychologists” (p. 652). From her extensive citations of our work, we infer that we are prominent among the phobics she wishes to disabuse of such aversive attitudes. Let us make our position clear from the start of our reply. We have never objected to the concept of projective identification because it is incompatible with self psychology. We object to it because we think it is bad theory. Before presenting our argument, however, there is another matter we must address. Despite being a thoughtful, knowledgeable, and respectful student and critic of our work, Sands seriously mischaracterizes our ideas in at least three instances.
Throughout her article, Sands repeatedly amalgamates our intersubjective perspective with self psychology, as if the two theories were one. They are not. In several publications now (e.g., Stolorow, 1992; Stolorow and Atwood, 1992; Atwood and Stolorow, 1993; Orange, Atwood, and Stolorow, 1997), we have
Robert D. Stolorow, Ph.D. is Faculty, Training and Supervising Analyst, Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles; Faculty, Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine.
Donna M. Orange, Ph.D., Psy.D. is Faculty and Supervising Analyst, Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, New York City.
George E. Atwood, Ph.D. is a Founding Faculty Member, Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, New York City, and Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University.
* Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Vol. 7, No. 5, 1997.
© 1998 The Analytic Press
spelled out the historical origins and essential features of intersubjectivity theory that distinguish it from self psychology. Although incorporating several of Kohut's contributions seamlessly into its fabric (e.g., the