Transcending The Self: An Object Relations Model of Psychoanalytic Therapy.

Summers, Frank L.:

ISBN 10: 0881634239 / ISBN 13: 9780881634235

Published by London : Routledge, 1999

About this Item

280 p. In very good condition. - Preface -- This book is written for practicing clinicians who are looking for useful ideas in treating their patients. Although this volume presents yet another theoretical model to join the plethora of existing psychoanalytic viewpoints, its purpose is clinical. I am concerned that too many of the current debates in psychoanalysis target theoretical concepts with too litde focus on how personality change occurs. I hope to have constructed a theoretical model with clinical application for many of the patients psychotherapists counsel on a daily basis. Although this volume engages some of the most hotly debated theoretical issues in contemporary psychoanalytic thought, the purpose of this discussion is to contribute to understanding the change process. I offer here a theoretical model that I hope will illuminate how psychoanalytic therapists can help patients move beyond their existing limitationsa theory, that is, of self-transcendence. -- Despite the variety of current viewpoints, I have not found a current model that fits just the right combination of classical, contemporary, interpretive depth, and relationship focus that I believe is most useful for patients. I agree with many contemporary critics of classical and ego psychology that these traditional analytic paradigms are too narrow and reductionis tic to have optimal clinical value, but I am also concerned that some of the proposed alternatives have moved too far from the depth psychology that has always been the strength of psychoanalytic therapy. -- It is my conviction that an object relations model, broadly conceived and carefully elaborated, embraces the strengths of both extremes and provides the most useful guide for psychoanalytic therapists. In my reading of the analytic literature, I have found important elements of such a broad model in the work of a variety of theorists, such as Winnicott, Kohut, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Bellas, and Benjamin. The proposed model incorporates components of the work of each of these theorists but is not to be found in any of them; the findings of much developmental research from a variety of viewpoints corroborate these theoretical ideas. I believe I have constructed a theory that carries out the implicit theoretical and clinical ideas embedded in much current psychoanalytic theory and is substantiated by the experimental evidence on infancy and childhood. -- In 1994,1 published a text, Object Relations Theories and Psychopathology, that showed the unique clinical contribution of each of the major object relations theories. In the final chapter of that book, I brought together my own integration that utilized elements of each theory to outline a broad object relations model. In this book, I have elaborated the theoretical and clinical ideas implied in that outline to develop in greater detail a model that, I believe, can be put into practice by psychoanalytic therapists. -- In the introductory chapter, I use a clinical case to situate my model between two broad psychoanalytic paradigms, ego psychology and relational psychoanalysis. The next two chapters present the empirical and theoretical basis of the model. Chapter 4 begins the discussion of clinical implications by presenting a concept of therapeutic action derived from the theoretical model. The following three chapters show how the model applies to different categories of patients, traditionally conceptualized as borderline, narcissistic, and neurotic; and a brief concluding chapter moves the discussion once again to a more abstract level by reflection on the craft of conducting psychoanalytic therapy. ISBN 9780881634235 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 482.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Transcending The Self: An Object Relations Model of Psychoanalytic Therapy.
• Publisher: London : Routledge
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0881634239
• ISBN 13: 9780881634235
• Binding: Softcover.
• Condition: Sehr gut
• Weight: 482 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Psychoanalyse

About this title

Synopsis

Despite the popularity of object relations theories, these theories are often abstract, with the relation between theory and clinical technique left vague and unclear. 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.

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.

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.

About the Author

Frank Summers, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, is a training and supervising analyst at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Medical School.  A member of the faculties of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, the Minnesota Psychoanalytic Institute, and the Wisconsin Psychoanalytic Institute, Dr. Summers maintains a private practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy in Chicago, IL.