Some Reflections on the Concept of Conflict in Classical Psychoanalysis and Self-Psychology

In this paper, I would like to discuss the concept of conflict in classical psychoanalysis and the role it plays in the understanding of changes in the psychoanalytic process. Furthermore, I wish to elucidate some central features of self-psychology as presented by Kohut, particularly in his two last books “Restoration of the Self” (1977) and “How does Analysis Cure” (1984). In order to save time, I shall focus on Kohut's thinking, and since the question of which factors are active in analysis is taken up at the congress, it would be reasonable to lay particular emphasis on his last book. This procedure cannot be said to do justice to self-psychology, since there are several psychologists who call themselves self-psychologists without thereby agreeing to everything stated by Kohut. Finally, I shall attempt to discuss the question of where self-psychology stands in relation to classical analysis, especially with regard to the concept of conflict, and then pose the question about the necessity of expanding or redefining the classical concept of conflict.

The concept of psychic conflict was launched by Freud at a very early date. After having discarded hypnosis as an adequate method of examining the source of psychogenic symptoms and their treatment, he was faced by the phenomenon which he termed resistance and which he explained by postulating the existence of conflict and repression (Freud, 1894). Thus, conflict came to occupy an important position in psychoanalytic theory from the very beginning. However, it was not until 1926 in “Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety”, that anxiety and conflict were given a decisive place in the theory of the genesis of neurosis, a position that has maintained