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In this paper I discuss John Riker's article, "A Critique of Stolorow's Erasure of Self Psychology and his Appropriation of Heigegger's Theory of Authenticity, plus the Possibility of an Intersubjective Self Psychology" a paper in which Riker sets out to evaluate Stolorow's intersubjectivity theory and its contribution to psychoanalysis. I attempt to add something to Riker's consideration of intersubjectivity especially as it relates to our shared mortality, a topic addressed by Stolorow in a lifetime of books and papers. I also comment on some of the similarities and differences between the ideas of Kohut and Stolorow, suggesting that to some extent these differences lie more in the distinctive languages coined by the two authors than in the ideas themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I discuss Magid, Fosshage and Shane's impressive overview of the contributions to Relational Self Psychology in the psychoanalytic literature, contributions they see as having emerged for the most part after Kohut's death and therefore as having been carried out almost entirely by Kohut's followers. But while the authors see Kohut's work as having hewed closely to a one-person psychology, I use my discussion to highlight what I see as the two-person themes in Kohut's own writings, suggesting that he may have been more relational in his thinking than initially meets the eye. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two principal resources will be used to discuss Darren Haber's paper Simulated Selfhood, Authentic Dialogue: An Intersubjective Systems Look at Treating Addiction. They are Intersubjective Self Psychology: A Primer and Narcissus in Wonderland: The Self Psychology of Addiction and its Treatment. Both of these resources provide a different and more complete way of understanding this excellent case presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with Kohut's classic 1959 paper on the subject, empathy has been conceptualized as a process of finding something in one's self (introspection) that has resonance with one's experience of the other. This paper, inspired by advances in queer studies, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the Black American theater, identifies the limitations of this understanding. By putting Kohut's ideas about empathy in dialogue with French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, Black American playwrights Jeremy O. Harris, Michael R. Jackson, and James Ijames, and the author's own clinical experience, a queered empathy is theorized that relies less on self-reference and more on passibility. The theoretical and clinical implications of this shift are explored, and the possibilities for a queered Psychology of the Self that contain a heightened possibility for responsiveness to marginalized experience are suggested. The hope of this paper is that the reader, from a multidisciplinary perspective, will be inspired to imagine a psychoanalysis and Self Psychology for all that has the potential to flourish for generations to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the theoretical similarities between Harm Reduction Psychotherapy and Heinz Kohut's Self Psychology, and delineates how each of these clinical perspectives complement and enhance one another. Using these two theories in tandem provides further opportunities for clinicians to treat a larger proportion of the substance using population not yet ready for cessation or abstinence. A case involving crystal meth addiction is presented, and aspects of the treatment are explicated including identifying the self-regulatory and symbolic functionality of substance use, and working with the patient's own ambivalence about his behavior. A self- object "twinship" is also highlighted as having an important mutative impact on the treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents the treatment of a deeply traumatized, high conflict couple, massively overwhelmed by multiple stressors. Building upon the rich legacy of self psychology, this paper aims to illustrate how couple therapists can invite traumatized partners to move from despair and rage into hope and connection. This treatment approach is fundamentally based upon a systems perspective, but nested within that overarching stance are several foundational principles, including: 1) the concept of thirdness, or the view that surrendering one's own perspective for the sake of connection allows an additional perspective 2) empathic, subject-centered listening that includes emotional dwelling as advocated by self psychology; 3) conceptualizing the system as a whole, rather than only the individuals, as lacking adequate soothing; 4) recognizing the influence of cultural forces upon the couple; 5) working with each partner's self states or the idea that each individual has many parts within themselves and when invited into the treatment room can generate greater connection and healing; and 6) enlisting the partners as co-therapists. These basic tenets helped a mutually traumatized couple find their way out of fear. The paper illustrates how even in a barren landscape, where there is emotional dwelling, hope can germinate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous paper on the application of contemporary self psychology to the treatment of couples dealing with infidelity, I decried the chances of repairing and rebuilding the original relationship if one of the partners was still involved with or in love with an extramarital partner. Yet no sooner was that paper published when a couple who met this description began treatment with me and successfully rebuilt their relationship, somewhat to the surprise of all of us, I think. After a brief review of relevant theoretical concepts, the present paper details the case and speculates on the critical clinical moments and important extra-analytic factors that contributed to its positive outcome – including luck, an influence on treatment outcome not often discussed in the literature. Inclusion of the extra-analytic factors highlights the importance of situating treatments in their overall context when presenting them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a therapeutic process between myself and Ben who, through his drawings and our co-creation of their meaning, came to articulate and transform deeply hidden and shameful aspects of himself. I look at the material through the lenses of The Psychology of Being Human, Kohut's early thoughts about "various selves fighting for ascendancy" and Togashi's idea of an "intersubjective taboo". The paper illustrates how the complex interplay between these concepts organizes an alter-ego experience. In so doing, the paper elaborates both Kohut's embryonic and little-developed idea of an alter-ego, and the framework of The Psychology of Being Human [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We express our deep appreciation to our three commentators, William Coburn, Jill Gardner, and Judy Teicholz, recognizing the value we gained by each of them reading our paper closely and respectfully, and responding accordingly. We begin with William Coburn, who saw our efforts as the latest move in the evolution of the complex system we call Self Psychology. We feel he appreciated our account of how Self Psychology has developed and changed both within Kohut's lifetime and since his death, moving from a one-person to a two-person psychology, in part in response to interaction with infant research, Intersubjectivity theory, and other relational theories. We then move to Jill Gardner, who raises questions about just how differently we view the nature of the self and transference and asks if there are predetermined aspects of each that are not relationally co-created in the analysis. Finally, we turn to Judy Teicholz, for whom Kohut has always been a relational Self Psychologist. We feel this is an ahistorical view that fails to enter into the classical one-person psychology milieu in which Kohut was trained and initially worked, and obscures the significant changes in Self Psychology that emerged both in his lifetime and through the efforts of subsequent theorists. All in all, we are grateful for the time and effort all three of our commentators devoted to what we wrote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I want to contest claims made by Robert Stolorow that Kohut's notion of the self is a reified concept that seriously distorts our understanding of human experience, that his own theory of phenomenological contextualism is an adequate way to explore the psychological depths of human subjectivity, and that Heidegger's theory of authentic individuality can be adequately translated into his intersubjective contextualism. My aim is to salvage the notion of self and authentic individuality from collapsing into what I see as an overzealous contextualism, establish the importance of doing theory that explores psychological and metaphysical structures underlying experience, and show how self psychology and intersubjectivity theory might be fused into a comprehensive way to investigate the human psyche. It is the dialectical tension between being an independent center of initiative and perception and being thoroughly contextualized that is the truth of the self and I believe that this is Kohut's basic position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comments on Cushman’s “The Earthquake That Is the Hoffman Report on Torture,” placing the paper in the broader context of discussion of the ethics of psychologist involvement in national security interrogations and other military operations. In a preliminary discussion of the Hoffman Report, a few details that Cushman does not get quite right are pointed out. It then discusses the reasons for American Psychological Association leaders’ behavior in this episode and the mechanisms used to deflect attention from what was really happening. Broader issues regarding the appropriate ethical roles for psychologists in national security operations, or “operational psychology,” are then discussed. Along the way issues are raised regarding the appropriate Telos or goal of psychology as a profession and the distinction between science and scientism. While strongly defending science, Cushman’s call for a re-moralizing of psychology is endorsed. The paper ties it all together with a call for a Truth Commission to create a permanent record of the involvement of psychologists and health professionals with the national security state in the wake of 9/11 and to make sure that lessons are learned for future generations of psychologists and citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the evolution of a critical dimension of self psychology that has evolved since Heinz Kohut's death, one characterized by the transition from a one-person to a two-person psychology. This transition involved, initially, the change in the analyst's role as limited to interpreting the patient's intrapsychically generated selfobject experiences of development, rupture, and repair, to an emergence into full personhood; second, a new emphasis on the analyst's subjectivity participating in a bi-directional relationship of mutuality rather than a unidirectional provision of needed functions; and finally, an overall approach to the therapeutic process as a complex, dynamic system. This emergent paradigm within self psychology we term relational self psychology. We illustrate its evolution through a historical review of critical papers that extended and transformed Kohut's original vision, which already contained the seeds of a genuinely intersubjective and relational model. We outline these changes in four sections: (I) "Empathy and Beyond," detailing the concept's evolution within Kohut's writing and its subsequent elaboration; (II) "From Provision to Mutuality," describing the movement beyond Kohut's focus on understanding and explaining and the mutative force of optimal frustration; (III) "You've Come a Long Way, Baby," discussing infant research emphasizing face-to-face interaction and mutual regulation moving into the development of a truly bi-directional model of therapeutic action; and finally, (IV) "From Dyads to Systems," integrating self psychology into a broader intersubjective, relational, dynamic system and theoretical context. Each section concludes with a bibliography of seminal-related articles that may offer a syllabus for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of the journal is a compilation of papers from the 41 SP st sp IAPSP Annual Conference entitled "Vienna-Kohut-Self Psychology: Searching for Creativity in Times of Crisis." Kottler and Ben co-create a unique, shared visual language in treatment, giving voice to Ben's less articulated and nascent self-states. As they work through their painful encounter, Kottler and Ben confront their largely hidden, alienated alter-ego self-states, "between different parts within a person and between people" (p. 74), which Togashi links to Buber's notion of I-Thou authentic dialogue. [Extracted from the article]

Both Roger Frie and Ilene Philipson introduce us to beloved and flawed forebears. They challenge us to mourn the confusion involved with our affection for these idealized figures, and to ask ourselves why we do not want to see them more clearly. Frie examines his own family and his own conscience, while Philipson approaches like an outside observer debunking self psychologists, as well as their attachment to an admittedly traumatized and limited progenitor. Thus, the tone of their two papers differs greatly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]