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| Transcending the Self: An Object Relations Model of Psychoanalytic Therapy
ISBN: 9781315803333
Platform/Publisher: Taylor & Francis / Routledge
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Mental Health; Psychoanalysis;
Despite the popularity of object relations theories, these theories are often abstract, with the relation between theory and clinical technique left vague and unclear.nbsp; Now, in Transcending the Self: An Object Relations Model of Psychoanalytic Therapy,nbsp; 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.
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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.nbsp; The object relations model emerges as a distinct amalgam of interpersonal/relationalnbsp; and interpretive perspectives.nbsp; It is a model that can help patients undertake the most gratifying and treacherous of personality journeys:nbsp; that aiming at the transcendence of the childhood self.nbsp; 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.
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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.nbsp; Then, in three successive chapters, he applies the model to patients traditionally conceptualized as borderline, narcissistic, and neurotic.nbsp; He concludes with a chapter that addresses more broadly the craft of conducting psychoanalytic therapy.
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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.nbsp; It is an outstanding example of integrative theorizing in the service of a real-world therapeutic approach.
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. |
