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Recent debates within self psychology pit proponents of optimal frustration and those who wish to limit the analyst's role to empathic attunement and interpretation against advocates of optimal responsiveness, many of whom also emphasize the relational aspects of curative process. The goal of this chapter is to contribute to that dialogue.
My contribution is twofold: First, I propose that, rather than seeing writers as representing opposing camps, we view self psychologists as being on a continuum regarding their perspectives on the analyst's responsiveness. Second, we should address developmental strivings wherein the patient needs active responsiveness within a relationship in order for his experience with the analyst to be useable as a selfobject experience. I suggest that a patient's requiring this active responsiveness in order to maintain a selfobject transference results in additional types of selfobject transferences. Such responsiveness at those times is an essential part of the treatment rather than a parameter.
After introducing and defining two categories of selfobject transferences (“mirroring” and “twinning”), I shall define and discuss active