Chapter 7 The Complementary Function of Individual and Group Psychotherapy in the Management and Working Through of Archaic Selfobject Transferences

There are people who are unable to risk the development of an archaic selfobject transference, because it will overwhelm a precariously maintained self structure. Kohut (1977) has commented on this and has suggested that when this kind of patient withdraws from therapy in an obviously “premature” fashion, it may be best to respect this wish. For him or her, continued immersion in an archaic selfobject transference may provoke an irreversible regression and loss of essential, basic self-organization. It is as if either a successful and regressed selfobject transference or an empathically failed selfobject transference will overburden the patient's capacity to process what is happening. Perhaps most of these patients will not withdraw from therapy. Instead, they will continue and distance the transference in a way that does not really offer the potential for genuine psychological growth. It will be as if they are in therapy, as if something like a selfobject transference has occurred, but they will, in fact, be presenting a false self (Winnicott, 1965) for analysis.