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From: Christopher N. Heard J.D., Ph.D.
Date: 8/28/98
I think some of the concern with Stolorow's creation of new myths may have to do more with the level of depth to which his concepts are taken, rather than to an inherent flaw in his position. With regard to both decentering and empathic attunement, the issue is to what degree we encapsulize the "self". In other words it does not seem to really advance the theoretical struggle to speak of intersubjectively constructed selves, yet retreat into the more classic view of an intrapsychic self, which appears to be implicit in your comments. Once a radical appreciation of intersubjectivity is arrived at, centering, not decentering, is the problematic phenoenological data, and there is no "in here" which must be made somehow permeable in order to achieve attunement. I am not maintaining that this is in fact the case, or even Stolorow's position, but it is a position that must be seriously considered if for no other reason than to avoid the logical and existential questions you pose. Tremendous problems have arisen in classic theory due to the ambiguous definition afforded the term ego,i.e. is it to be considered a function or an identity structure, or both. The definition of the "self" threatens to cause similar problems for relational psychodynamic theory if careful attention is not paid the the more "extreme" ramifications of intersubjectivity.
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