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A schematic overview of the theory and practice of self psychology is presented with a particular focus on what the author believes to be the most important contributions to psychoanalysis. It is recognized that self psychology, as with all psychoanalytic approaches, is an evolving and non-unitary theory. Fundamental features of self psychology are:
The empathic mode of observation, that is, to listen and understand from within the vantage point of the patient, is used consistently.
Strivings to develop and regulate a positive cohesive sense of self is posited to be the overriding motivation.
Unique to each person are pre-wired “givens” which are included in the concept of the nuclear self.
Selfobject needs are fundamental and refer to the use of the object for the development and regulation of a positive sense of self.
Selfobject needs include mirroring (acknowledgement and affirmation), idealizing (protection, safety, and admired qualities), and twinship (a feeling of essential likeness, of sharing) needs.
Portions of this paper have previously appeared in “Self Psychology and Its Contributions to Psychoanalysis,” International Forum for Psychoanalysis, 1995, 2: 9-12.
Development and maintenance of a positive cohesive sense of self requires a sufficient responsiveness to selfobject needs from the environmental surround.
Insufficient responsiveness arrests normal development, creates problematic organizing patterns of self, others, and self with others, and causes unresolvable conflict.
Psychoanalytic treatment focuses on the analysis of the selfobject and repetitive (that is, the activation of problematic organizing patterns) dimensions of the transference for purposes of facilitating expansion of awareness, symbolic reorganization and self-righting.
Intersubjectivity theory has emphasized the mutually reciprocating influence of differently organized subjectivities within a dyadic system. Within motivational systems and self theory, five definitive motivational systems have been conceptualized. Their development and shitting priorities have contributed to our understanding of the development and regulation of selfhood within an intersubjective system. Both intersubjectivity theory and motivational systems and self theory have expanded self psychology's horizons theoretically and clinically.