A Biased View:
Report on the Final Panel,
20th Self Psychology ConferenceSunday, November 16, 1997 - Chicago
by Rosalind Kindler, MFA
Self Psychology Page | Conference Reports
Uninformed listeners to the final panel of the 20th Self Psychology Conference held in Chicago last November would have been forgiven for mistaking it for a meeting of the editorial board of Architectural Digest. However, at its conclusion the comments from those in the audience sounded more like the buzz after a Miss Universe contest. Example; "Who did you like best? I liked number 3." "No way! Number 2 was far and away the winner." In the view of this biased reporter, there was no contest.
Chairman James Fisch began the proceedings by evoking for us the rather elegant metaphor of a house. Like a benign but slightly ingenuous uncle, he insisted that the three discussants, Fosshage, Ornstein and Stolorow should dwell happily within the same structure, assuring them that, after all, they all have lots in common and must get along fine together. They really can share the same toys. No need for fighting. However, if one listened very carefully, one could hear some mumbling and grumbling under the breath, as they pulled their most beloved theoretical ideas closer to their chests.
Alan Kindler, with typical Australian affability, like some amiable house guest blithely unaware of the tensions roiling around him, said that he feels free to move around this house with ease, visiting with each tenant, trying out their theories for relative comfort and suitability.
Kindler presented early clinical material from the treatment, completed some years ago, of a deeply disturbed female patient. This woman had been the victim of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of virtually every man with whom she had come in contact, including her father and her previous therapist. Kindler presented four sessions from the second year of treatment which included verbatim exchanges, enactments and responses as they occurred in the clinical encounter. The issue which emerged as the most arresting from the sessions he presented, was the patient’s repetitive, insistent and ritualized need for reassurances that he was not angry at her. Kindler reported these exchanges exactly as they occurred, and thus provided the panel with a bounty of rich and stimulating material. All three discussants acknowledged Kindler for the honesty and generosity required for such a presentation.
James Fosshage provided a thoughtful discussion from the Motivational Systems point of view, honing in on, and tracking the moment-to-moment interactions as they had been described. (As Fisch later quipped, "Nobody can track like a Motivational Systems theorist.") Fosshage provided a very brief overview of Motivational Systems theory and demonstrated its application to the clinical situation by offering an alternative response to the patient’s anxiety about Kindler’s possible negative response to her hat. Fosshage suggested a comment which would include an understanding of the patient’s need for physiological regulation by protecting her sinuses. Similarly, he proposed that attention to the patient’s need to react adversely in the face of Kindler’s silence and perceived withdrawal, would have allowed more room for the development of the transference and expansion in the treatment. Fosshage pointed out there was a need for exploration of this patient’s expectations that any expression of aggression or self assertion would be met with a negative response. He questioned Kindler’s move to quickly reassure his patient in the face of her repetitive inquiry, "Are you angry with me?"
Paul Ornstein began his discussion by elaborating on Fisch’s house metaphor, asserting that it should be understood that his theoretical view occupies the center suite; and that furthermore, he finds his neighbors to be far too noisy. He begged for adequate sound-proofing. Ornstein described in masterful terms how he might have responded to the patient’s assertive and insistent sexual provocation in the early stages of the analysis. He focused on the evolution of the selfobject transferences as they emerged in the moment-to-moment, session-to-session, week-to-week "microprocess" as well as the "macroprocess" of the patient’s experience over time. He also wondered about the absence in Kindler’s presentation of consideration of the patient’s archaic mirror transference as expressed in her wish for the sexualization of her relationship with him. Ornstein questioned the wisdom of neglecting this central theoretical issue in favor of what he called the "rather bland, non-specific" notion of "attachment" needs. Ornstein also questioned Kindler’s responses to his patient’s repeated question: "Are you angry at me?" He suggested, like Fosshage, that inadequate attention to the patient’s underlying fears, that any expression of self revelation would evoke anger and rejection, obstructed the possibility of exploration and mutual understanding of the question. Ornstein concluded by throwing down the gauntlet and challenging those who might "wish to supplant the selfobject concept in the clinical situation, or push it out of the center to present a sample of verbatim interchanges of a sequence of analytic sessions, to show that he or she could offer a richer analytic experience without the aid of the concept of the selfobject transferences."
Stolorow titled his discussion ANTIDOTES, ENACTMENTS, RITUALS, AND THE DANCE OF REASSURANCE. He focused on the multidimensional (intersubjectivity theory) versus the unidimensional (selfobject theory) perspectives, and supported his argument with a quote from his recent book written by himself with Atwood and Orange (1997), Working Intersubjectively. The passage proposed the notion that "the term selfobject transference refers to two types of relational experiences that have distinctly different origins and meanings. In one, the longing for a bond with the analyst to supply missing developmental experiences. In the other, the patient seeks responses that would counteract invariant organizing principles." pp.65-66 Stolorow’s understanding of the case material centered around his belief that Kindler had not addressed the reality of his patient’s "crushing" central organizing principle - "that her affective core is rotten, destructive and utterly repugnant to other human beings." He argued that Kindler’s ritualized responses to his patient’s ritualized question, "Are you angry with me?" will lead only to more of the same - the endless "dance of reassurance" between patient and analyst. This uni-dimensional approach to the patient’s "need" for selfobject experience, ignores the fact that the patient’s "killer" organizing principles must be challenged by the analyst. Instead, Stolorow stated, Kindler participated in the frantic search for an
"antidote". Stolorow also wondered about Kindler’s own organizing principle which would account for his participation in the dance. He settled for a generic explanation, quoting from his own earlier writing, in which he proposes that, for many analysts, early childhood experiences of serving psychological functions for a parent, can shape the analyst’s counter-transference. "When empathy is equated with an ideal of optimal human responsiveness and is claimed to lie at the heart of the psychoanalytic process, this takes the form of a requirement to provide positive selfobject experience uncontaminated by painful repetitions of past childhood traumata -- a requirement now invoked in the name of Kohut... W hen an analyst comes under the grip of such a requirement, the quintessential psychoanalytic aim of investigating and illuminating the patient’s inner experience can become significantly subverted." p.44
Stolorow had begun his discussion by reiterating his view that intersubjectivity theory and motivational systems theory reside at a higher level of abstraction than does selfobject theory. The thought occurred that the co-habitation problem could be solved by simply adding another storey to the house.
However, for this reporter, the fact that she actually does co-habit with the presenter put a crimp in her ability to vote with her head alone. During her husband’s presentation she had noticed that certain meaningful, if not downright sympathetic, glances were being cast in her direction, and for a moment she wondered about the wisdom of encouraging him to expose himself in this way.
But in the end, the last word belonged to Marian Tolpin. In her inimitable fashion, she asserted that she could never live with any of the panelists, and would insist (shades of Virginia Woolf) on a house of her own. She got my vote. And from the roar of applause from the audience, I think many agreed.
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