Progress in Self Psychology

Volume 14 of Progress in Self Psychology, <em>The World of Self Psychology</em>, introduces a valuable new section to the series: publication of noteworthy material from the Kohut Archives of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. In this volume, "From the Kohut Archives" features a selection of previously unpublished Kohut correspondence from the 1940s through the 1970s. The clinical papers that follow are divided into sections dealing with "Transference and Countertransference," "Selfobjects and Objects," and " Schizoid and Psychotic Patients." As Howad Bacal explains in his introduction, these papers bear witness to the way in which self psychology has increasingly become a <em>relational</em> self psychology - a psychology of the individuals experience in the context of relatedness. Coburns reconstrual of "countertransference" as an experience of self-injury in the wake of unresponsiveness to the analysts own selfobject needs; Livingstons demonstration of the ways in which dreams can be used to facilitate "a playful and metaphorical communication between analyst and patient"; Gorneys examination of twinship experience as a fundamental goal of analytic technique; and Lenoffs emphasis on the relational aspects of "phantasy selfobject experience" are among the highlights of the collection. Enlarged by contemporary perspectives on gender and self-experience and a critical examination of "Kohut, Loewald, and the Postmoderns," Volume 14 reaffirms the position of self psychology at the forefront of clinical, developmental, and conceptual advance.