Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

CHAPTER SIXTEEN. PATTERNS OF ENGAGEMENT – SELF-
PSYCHOLOGY, INTERPERSONAL, INTERSUBJECTIVE AND
RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
In the last thirty years the most important change influencing psychoanalysis has been the
impact of approaches that identified the objective and subjective relationship between the
analyst and patient as forming a new intersubjective encounter at the heart of analytic work.
Kohut’s self-psychology moved away from classical psychoanalytic theory and became an
important strand in the evolution of contemporary psychoanalysis, focusing on the
formation of the self and how the self becomes restored through intersubjective encounter
(Stolorow, Atwood, and Brandchaft 1994; Mollon 2001). Ghent saw psychoanalysis as a
place where there is mutuality (after Buber) and the experience of the transcendent which
requires a clear identification of what one believes and why (Ghent 1989). 331 Mitchell
emphasized the relational dimension, building bridges between American theorists and
object relations, later emphasizing intersubjective approaches (Greenberg and Mitchell
1983; Mitchell 2000). Ogden identified an ‘analytic Third’ that has intersubjective clinical
implications (Ogden 1994, 2006). 332 Stolorow, Atwood, Orange, Brandchaft and others
evolved intersubjective systems theory with philosophical implications (Stolorow 2006;
Stolorow, Atwood, and Brandchaft 1994; Stolorow, Brandchaft, and Atwood 1987). Lacan
focused on the intersubjective subject where the unconscious engages with the Other, ideas
taken up by Eigen. 333 Mitchell and Eigen viewed psychoanalysis as an intersubjective space
331 Ghent examines how he evolved his personal psychoanalytic beliefs system through a critical reflection of
the importance of the key figures in the evolution of interpersonal and relational psychoanalysis, object
relations and self-psychology.
332 Ogden limits his work to a specific clinical state, remaining theoretically within a Kleinian and post-
Kleinian tradition, although his concept of the analytic Third is taken up more broadly as a metaphor of
psychoanalytic engagement.
333 Lacan’s ideas are influential in France, Europe, Ireland and the UK but less so in the USA although they are
found in Eigen. His complex evolution of Freud requires further research in its own right and the approach
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