Prologue: The Many Faces of Self Psychology

We bring together, in this issue aptly entitled “The Many Faces of Self Psychology,” nine contributors who explore the depth and breadth of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking from within the always expanding big tent of self psychology, The articles beautifully reflect the world of self psychology today – a world which is diverse in its thinking and international in its membership. Composed, then, of a diverse, international group of thinkers and clinicians, their articles attest to the sustaining genius of Heinz Kohut’s foundational ideas. Further, with their unique voices and perspectives, the authors expand contemporary self psychology by developing and articulating their own original ideas, demonstrating the vitality and thoughtfulness within self psychology today.

In total, the issue consists of six individual articles followed by a two-part reflective essay. The article contributors are: 1) Joye Weisel-Barth, 2) Daniel Goldin, 3) Martin Gossmann, 4) Richard Geist, 5) Koichi Togashi and Amanda Kottler, and 6) Marie Hellinger and Elizabeth Carr. The two-part extensive essay is written by Estelle Shane and Elizabeth Carr. In the first part, Shane presents her current thinking about relational self psychology and in the second part, Carr, with contributions from Shane, provides a reflective and integrative essay concerning the six original articles presented in the issue.

To begin, Joye Weisel-Barth from Los Angeles, California, explores the way Kohut used his literary sensibility to articulate his ideas, making them come alive in ways that have inspired generations of psychoanalysts as well as continuing to influence psychoanalytic thinking. In particular, Weisel-Barth shows that Kohut was a great story-teller who brilliantly used narratives to demonstrate his new clinical approach – an approach that was both revolutionary and transformative. She argues that Kohut made a compelling case for his new theory through his literary sensibility and his skill at conveying powerful clinical stories, especially his own in the case of Mr. Z (Kohut, 1979).

Daniel Goldin from Los Angeles, California, brings his own background as a story-teller (former script-writer) to continue a focus on the importance of story-telling for psychoanalysis. In his reflections and expansions on Kohut’s ideas about a nuclear self, Goldin elaborates on the interactive processes involved in the analytic couple’s creating stories together by going back and forth in time, from the present clinical moment to the patient’s past, thereby co-constructing a coherent narrative of the patient’s development, and then returning to the present moment, over and over again. Goldin argues that these interactive processes are central to the very process of coming into being – a coming into being defined by the enlivening process of patient and analyst co-creating stories together.

Next, Martin Gossmann from Berlin, Germany, shares a compelling story about some of his earliest ideas about how a healing professional sitting with a suffering patient and talking together about the patient’s troubles would alleviate the patient’s suffering. These same ideas may well have been in the background at the pivotal time Gossmann was first introduced to Kohut’s perspective at a conference. His introduction to these new concepts and clinical approaches deeply resonated with him and he wanted to learn more. Subsequently he moved to the U.S. in order to study with Paul and Anna Ornstein, both part of Kohut’s inner circle. In his moving story of his own personal journey to embrace the tenets and clinical approaches of self psychology, Gossmann raises an important concern about current trends within contemporary self psychology that may emphasize relational processes at the expense of attending to a patient’s narcissistic needs.

Richard Geist from Boston, Massachusetts, also shares his own introduction to self psychology through his discovery of Kohut’s first book (Kohut, 1971), The Analysis of the Self, at a time when he found himself caught in a psychoanalytic world that he found stifling, dark, and limiting. Later Geist began intensive study with both Paul and Anna Ornstein. His article is dedicated to Paul Ornstein who provided Geist with a way of understanding and working that he found transformative. Geist reflects on his own clinical attitudes that he finds central to a self psychological approach – trusting the patient, rekindling a stalled developmental trajectory, and, most importantly, focusing on the importance of a mutuality – a sense of being in it together, a we-ness – that strengthens and restores both the patient’s and the analyst’s sense of self.

From Japan and South Africa respectively, Koichi Togashi and Amanda Kottler continue their scholarship toward expanding Kohut’s ideas through an examination of the twinship selfobject experience. Their article reviews Kohut’s theorizing about twinship selfobject experiences, taking special note of his thinking at the end of his life. They agree with Kohut concerning the importance of a twinship selfobject experience that involves a powerful sense of being human among other human beings. They argue with their close examination of the relational and intersubjective processes existing at the heart of a twinship experience that self psychology has moved from being a psychology of self to a psychology of being human. In a beautifully rendered case example, they share how their own thinking has evolved and how their ideas contribute to new understandings about the interpenetrating nature of shared intergenerational trauma.

In the sixth article, Marie Hellinger and Elizabeth Carr from Washington, DC, explore the challenging question regarding self psychology’s attitude about aggression. They move from examining Kohut’s position on aggression to presenting Joseph Lichtenberg’s proposals regarding motivational systems, especially Lichtenberg’s aversive motivational system which may include both maladaptive and adaptive responses in regard to anger, rage, and other affective responses. Hellinger and Carr then present a number of well-chosen and evocative clinical vignettes in which a patient’s intense aversive affects directed toward the analyst and the ensuing encounter between them were central to the therapeutic engagement. In this moment of racial reckoning with otherness and prejudice in the U.S. and around the world, their vignettes provide compelling clinical stories that involve in each case the patient being on the receiving end of prejudice and discrimination, including such aversive feelings coming from the analyst herself.

Following the six original articles, there is a two-part essay from Estelle Shane, Los Angeles, and from Elizabeth Carr, Washington, DC. Part 1 presents Shane’s elaboration of her conceptualization of a relational self psychology which expands Kohut’s theory to encompass a fully two-person model in which intersubjective processes are central to the change process. Shane shares the influences that have informed her thinking, including developmental research and Gerald Edelman global brain constructs. She argues that these and other new ideas lead to a profound change in clinical attitudes that highlight the importance of the analyst’s role in promoting growth and underscore the never-ending human possibility for transformation. In this, she reminds the reader of the importance of sustaining hope in our capacity to make a difference in our patients lives.

In Part 2, Elizabeth Carr, with contributions from Estelle Shane, provides a reflective and integrative essay regarding the six articles demonstrating the expansion and individualization of views on self psychology today. The very process of coming into being is described in these articles – coming into being through co-creating stories (Weisel-Barth, Goldin), through connecting with the human surround (Gossmann, Geist, Togashi and Kottler, Hellinger and Carr), and through experiences of being known and recognized by both analyst and analysand in the mutuality of their relationship (Geist, Togashi and Kottler, Hellinger and Carr).

Estelle Shane, Ph.D.

Elizabeth M. Carr, APRN, MSN, BC

Issue Editors