Using Self Psychology in Psychotherapy

Self psychology offers a new perception of how pathology develops. It emerges, not from intrapsychic conflict, but from the pervasive absence of empathically responsive selfobject in the child's inner and outer world. The goal of this book is to familiarize mental health professionals with this new approach to human behavior and demonstrate its implications for treatment in various stages of development and in a broad range of situations. Mental health professionals who are familiar with the concepts of self psychology will find this book useful in expanding their treatment ideas. For those who are unfamiliar with self psychology, this material will provide new, different, exciting, and effective ways of thinking about patients and intervening in the treatment relationship.

This volume is a celebration of Kohut's legacy. It provides ample evidence of how far self psychology has gone beyond its early applications to psychoanalysis to become a coherent and comprehensive clinical theory. The editor has ably pulled together a group of authors who articulate the mainstream position of self psychology. This work is a basic text on psychotherapeutic applications of self psychology to a wide range of ages and dysfunctional states. It has much to offer all mental health practitioners. The initiated as well as the uninitiated would profit greatly from reading it., Using Self Psychology in Psychotherapy is a well-designed book to bring to mental health professionals meaningful applications of self psychology. Initially presenting the theoretical basics for those unfamiliar with self psychology, the major thrust of the book is the psychotherapeutic treatment of persons of all ages, from children to the elderly, and specific syndromes and issues, including illuminating chapters on eating disorders, alcoholism, psychoses, and the 'demanding' patient. This book will be most valuable reading for all mental health professionals engaged in the psychotherapeutic process.

Helene Jackson, Ph.D., is on the faculty at Boston College, Graduate School of Social Work. As a recipient of an NIMH Clinical Faculty Scholar Award, she conducts national research on clinical bias and child abuse. Dr. Jackson received her MSW from Boston University and her doctorate from Smith College School for Social Work. She is in private practice in Brookline, Massachusetts.