10. Development of a Self-Psychologist Psychoanalytic Clinician
Presenter: |
Jerome S. Beigler, MD |
Chair: |
Jane C. Jordan, LCSW |
Self Psychology Page | 21th Conference
Program
Summary
Countertransference is considered the principal skill of the psychoanalyst. Empathy is therapeutic in itself and sensitizes the analyst not only to the analysand, but also to himself so that he augments his ability to recognize his countertransferences. Clinical theory is oriented to enable the patient to free himself from a disabling psychopathology so he can learn to fly and to soar (Kohut's "joy"). Emphasis is placed on developing healthy skills as well as to reconstruct and understand psychopathology.
The phenomenon of nonverbal and subliminal communication between analyst and analysand is illustrated with clinical examples.
The concept of the superego is replaced with the theory of affect regulation and the learning of self-loathing by the infant exposed to a non-responsive mother (Socarides). Case examples illustrate therapeutic interventions to neutralize the self-hatred and the negative therapeutic reactions due to the patient's existential anxiety over the prospect of fledging (learning to be free). Clinical improvements are conceptualized as due not only to new insights, but also to the unconscious use of helpful psychologic accidents a la Darwinian natural selection (Edelman).
Clinical material is used to illustrate that so-called projective identification is simply the child's perception of its mother's real hatred of the child resulting from the mother's reaction to the hatred and subjugation by her own mother.