Thread: self psychology
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Old Dec 13, 2006, 12:35 AM
Balzac Balzac is offline
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Member Since: Nov 2006
Location: USA
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Kohut came on the scene when, as it later became clear, there was starting to be a shift in the view of many analysts (especially non-mainstream Freudian analysts) in the USA, anyway.

One of the main areas of shift was in the area of judgments about patient reactions, and also the degree to which patients have a view of the analyst that is somewhat real, as well as transferential.

One really important issue is that of so called "gratification." Strict Freudian psychology (eg, in the USA, ego psychology) had evolved pretty strongly theoretically in the direction of claiming that "gratification" of the patients' needs in the analyst setting was counterproductive, because it would lead the patient always to seek to have the analyst as a gratifying object. Thus the patients transference needs (or implicit requests for response, emotional or otherwise) would be met by "neutral" interpretations, rather than any emotional or other gratifying response.

Kohut was beginning to question the utility of this approach, by saying that analysts should accept and even mirror, rather than analyze, the patients idealizations. This would be considered a gratification.

The idea was that people with naracissitic personality disorder (ie personality disorders generally, but that one specifically for Kohut) had more psychic damage than other merely neurotic (hysterical) patients and therefore needed gratifications that would be unacceptable in patients who could benefit from analysis without that.

As time went on, these ideas were extended to patients generally, in areas of analysis where the ideas caught on-- or more and more patients were considered to have personality disorders and therefore to need this less severe form of treatment.

Etc. At least this is my version of it. At the moment.

Vautrin