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Paul Ornstein (1983), in speaking of Kohut's preference to resist attempts to integrate conflict psychology and deficit psychology until new clinical data could be obtained from the vantage point of the self, appealed to our professional tolerance and good will to accept the various attempts to struggle with the very real clinical and theoretical problems at hand:
Why should we not recognize the presently maintained complementarity as a clear-cut, legitimate difference of opinion and, rather than counseling moderation or accommodation, accept the heuristic value of sharply divergent formulations and leave the decision about integration to the arbitrating influence of further clinical-empirical observations [pp. 381-382].
Rather than integration being left to the influence of further clinical observations, as suggested by Kohut and Ornstein, a de facto integration of theory has been taking place through a confusion of the meaning of one of Kohut's most fundamental constructs, the concept of selfobject. This is especially disturbing since Kohut's concept of selfobject has radically altered our understanding of our patient's experiences in the analytic situation (Stolorow, 1983), including the more advanced developmental levels of selfobject experiences (Ornstein, 1983).