The Application of Self Psychology to Brief Psychotherapy

This article seeks to establish brief or time-limited psychotherapy as an appropriate domain for the application of self psychology. In this form of treatment, the central focus of the therapist's attention is on the state of the patient's self and on the establishment of a self-selfobject bond as the matrix for change. Whatever the specific precipitants, symptoms, and treatment goals, the therapist attends to ways in which the self is vulnerable, injured, or arrested. The therapist understands symptoms as manifestations of these deficits and enables the patient to establish a selfobject matrix which will facilitate the self's repair and growth. Empathic interpretations which articulate and legitimize the patient's frustrated selfobject longings are continuously offered in an explicit and active way. When conducted along these lines, even a brief treatment relationship may serve to reinstate a previously arrested process of development and structure building. A case example illustrates these principles and provides the reader with an experience in detail of the unfolding therapeutic and developmental process.