Transcending the Self: An Object Relations Model of Psychoanalytic Therapy

Description: Despite the popularity of object relations theories, these theories are often abstract, with the relation between theory and clinical technique left vague and unclear. In his widely praised Object Relations Theories and Psychopathology: A Comprehensive Text (1994), Frank Summers provided critical accounts of the work of each major object relations theorist with an eye to understanding how each theorist approached issues of technique. One point of his undertaking was to demonstrate how object relations theorists differ among themselves, even contradict one another, in providing guidelines for clinical work. Now, in Transcending the Self: An Object Relations Model of Psychoanalytic Therapy, Summers answers the need for an integrative object relations model that can be understood and applied by the clinician in the daily conduct of psychoanalytic therapy. It is the object relations viewpoint, for Summers, that best addresses contemporary criticisms of classical psychoanalysis and ego psychology while retaining the depth-psychological focus that has always been the strength of psychoanalytic therapy. Drawing on recent infancy research, developmental psychology, and the works of major theorists, including Bollas, Benjamin, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Kohut, and Winnicott, Summers melds diverse object-relational contributions into a coherent viewpoint with broad clinical applications. The object relations model emerges as a distinct amalgam of interpersonal/relational and interpretive perspectives. It is a model that can help patients undertake the most gratifying and treacherous of personality journeys: that aiming at the transcendence of the childhood self. Self-transcendence, in Summers' sense, means moving beyond the profound limitations of early life via the therapeutically mediated creation of a newly meaningful and authentic sense of self. Summers uses a full-length case presentation as the vehicle for situating his object relations model between two broad psychoanalytic paradigms, ego psychology and relational psychoanalysis. Following two chapters that present the empirical and theoretical basis of the model, he launches into clinical applications by presenting the concept of therapeutic action that derives from the model. Then, in three successive chapters, he applies the model to patients traditionally conceptualized as borderline, narcissistic, and neurotic. He concludes with a chapter that addresses more broadly the craft of conducting psychoanalytic therapy. Filled with richly detailed case discussions, Transcending the Self provides practicing clinicians with a powerful demonstration of how psychoanalytic therapy informed by an object relations model can effect radical personality change. It is an outstanding example of integrative theorizing in the service of a real-world therapeutic approach.

Price: 79.36 AUD

Location: Hillsdale, NSW

End Time: 2025-01-26T04:50:14.000Z

Shipping Cost: 31.08 AUD