Introduction

The annual volume of Progress in Self Psychology serves the valuable function of providing an outlet for ongoing contributions to the expansion of self psychology in regard to both theory and clinical practice. It also offers the reader the opportunity to discern the current central issues among those who have been influenced in their practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis by Kohut's contributions. Identifying a central theme from this yearly collection of chapters has been a practice of many who have written this introduction. The subjectivity of the author of the introduction sometimes can be discerned, even without any effort on his or her part to explicitly identify it to the reader. Having myself found Kohut's papers essential in a process of liberating myself from the now obvious oppressive constraint of classical theory and technique, I have, in turn, found aspects of self psychology excessively restrictive in regard to how the analyst's participation in the process is conceived. This concern has been shared and expressed by many psychoanalysts from the relational schools, as well as those psychoanalysts like Renik and Hoffman who have attempted to modify classical psychoanalytic technique. The abstinent-anonymous self of the analyst as prescribed by the classical approach could at times seem to have been replaced by a selfless analyst of self psychology who participated in the process of analysis only in the service of repairing the injured narcissism of the patient. From my perspective, the appeal of such a version of the analyst's role has always been problematic. It could only be acceptable to the degree that remaining in this position of unconditional acceptance of the patient's subjectivity as essentially dominant was compatible with both therapeutic action and the safety of the patient's interpersonal