Self psychology

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The self psychology is a psychoanalytic theory of Heinz Kohut was established in the 1970s. It deals with the organization and maintenance of the self depending on the objects of the environment , i.e. the most important people for the individual.

The term "self"

The self was first introduced by the psychoanalytic ego psychologist Heinz Hartmann . It complements the id of Sigmund Freud . He set up the model of the psyche consisting of id , ego and superego .

In object relationship theory and self psychology, the self is understood in relation to an object, i.e. the self in relation to another person.

Daniel N. Stern , a well-known self-psychologist and infant researcher , writes: "Even if nobody really knows what the self actually is, we as adults have a very real sense of self." He describes that the self: as an individual, more limited, integrated body is perceived; as an agency (in which we ourselves act); feels our feelings; grasped our intentions; forges our plans; translates our experiences into language and communicates our personal knowledge.

The term "I"

The fact that the ego has to realistically mediate between the claims of the id , the superego and the social environment means that it is oriented towards its own psychic abilities and possibilities and towards the possible and real circumstances of the natural world and the cultural world . The acquisition of knowledge about one's own psychological abilities, possibilities and realities and the possibilities of the natural and cultural world is called self-knowledge : Know yourself! (Motto in Greek philosophy) Self-knowledge is a prerequisite for almost every successful self-realization . - “ Happiness ” is only intended to mean here in general that a person can say of himself at the end of his life that his life was a success for him: meaningful , productive, full of experience.

For its mediation function, the ego therefore needs realistic ideas about itself, which are called "self" or "self-representations". A person draws his self-definition, his psycho-social identity, from self-representations .

Comparing myself and me

In contrast to the ego, the self is an overarching instance in the personality (but is also partially described as a part of the ego), which includes all instances such as superego and id as well as all objects, i.e. the idea of ​​people close to them. Its functions are self-awareness , self-control , communication and bonding . The self can only be experienced by conveying a feeling of well-being and self- worth.

At first glance it seems that there is little difference between the ego and the self. Appearances are deceptive, however, because the self, as the structured images of itself, is of course not capable of reflection and criticism . Only the ego with its functions of perception, thinking and memory is able to reflect and be self-critical . The formation of a critical self is one of the main functions of the ego.

A self can then be called critical or the self-representations have been critically grasped and developed by the ego if they can adequately realistically grasp the boundaries of the self (the person ) and reflect them in consciousness . Self-knowledge is a prerequisite for perceiving yourself realistically.

Self-knowledge

Self-knowledge in the deep psychological sense is the often humiliating and painful realization of the real limits of the self. This realization is painful because we all like to see each other less endangered, more significant, safer, etc. than we really are. This is known as narcissism . Adults should have a realistic picture of themselves - preferably one that comes closest to their reality. And they should learn to love and accept each other as they are - and not as an unrealistic super-ego - ego ideal would like them to have. And they shouldn't see themselves smaller than their possibilities, otherwise they cannot become who they could and should be.

“Become who you are” (= from your abilities and possibilities, from your essence- abilities and essence-possibilities) is initially apparently a claim that is only offered to a person from the educational environment and through reward and punishment mechanisms is socialized into the superego . But it is also a more or less unconscious claim from the id: the psychosomatic urge to move, the urge to be curious (interest in perception) and the urge to confirm (primary narcissism) lead unconsciously - that is automatically - to testing oneself, asserting oneself and solving problems to want. However, the ego has to critically and above all self-critically examine the impulses for action and claims to action from the id, the super-ego and from the social environment and then use them to guide action so that one can say: "Become who you are" is a claim of the functionally educated self Conscience .

The formation of the self is a process of compromise formation, so far as the I in the self-realization between the demands of the id, the superego and social exterior ( feedback ) taught. The optimal goal of compromise is to find a stable, i.e. H. conflict- capable self: a self that is able to organize human action in a life-unfolding (conflict-resolving and conflict-minimizing) life. This compromise of the self is sometimes a difficult life problem to solve. The question 'Who am I?' Often arises as a crisis of meaning .

Forms of transference in self psychology

According to Heinz Kohut's theory, practitioners with a self-psychological focus would pay attention to when or how patients develop certain forms of narcissistic transmission. "Various psychopathological disorders, not just narcissistic personality disorder, but also depression, eating disorders, hypochondria or fears, can therefore be traced back to a weakened self. All pathologies are conceptualized as expressions of developmental arrests and not of conflicts. Defense mechanisms generally serve to protect themselves". This self-protection could show itself in three different forms of transmission:

  • The mirror transfer . In such moments a patient needs or demands admiration for himself, he seeks (viewed from the line of development of narcissism) the “shine in the mother's eye” in order to stabilize his self. The therapist as a self-object should admire, idealize and praise the patient. This should strengthen and stabilize the fragile size self.
  • The twin or alter ego transference . "Here the therapist acts as a self-object with which agreement is sought, in a sense an intensified form of reflection (" I am like you! "). Its function is to represent comfort through recognition and thereby stabilize the self."
  • The transference of idealization . Here the patient admires and idealizes the therapist. Just as the patient's size self is to be strengthened with the mirror transfer, this is now to be done by the therapist. Self-esteem is then increased by the fact that the patient surrounds himself with special therapists and thus becomes someone special himself. "The therapist is used here as a self-object who accepts the idealization of the patient."

All three forms of transmission have in common that positive feelings are (should) be built up and / or that unconscious fears of ruin and fragmentation are fended off. "In Kohut's view, a psychology of the self is dispensable or even useless in psychological states in which the self either does not exist or only exists in rudimentary or residual form, such as in very early childhood and in certain states of severe disorganization and regression, e.g. A psychology of the self is relatively unimportant [even if] self-cohesion is firmly established and self-acceptance is optimally established […] However, it is always indispensable when those states are examined in which experiences the disturbed self-acceptance and / or the fragmentation of the self formed the center of the psychic state, as this is the case with the narcissistic personality disorders par excellence ".

Critique of Self Psychology

Otto Kernberg criticizes several aspects of the self-psychological treatment approach.

  1. Lack of differentiation: Kohut has "overlooked the differences between the pathological forms of idealization [...] and the more normal forms of idealization [...] [as a result] he overlooks the differences between different levels of development of this defense mechanism. […] Furthermore, Kohut does not differentiate the pathological size self from normal self-formation in infancy and childhood. From this it follows that his efforts to maintain the great self [...] fail when it comes to dissolving the pathology of internalized object relationships, and this decisively limits the effectiveness of the treatment of these patients ”.
  2. Confusion of words and inner experience: “Kohut's case studies are far from any resemblance to real fusion phenomena such as those that develop in the symbiotic transferences of schizophrenic patients. This is part of a larger problem: confusing what a patient is saying about their experience with the real nature and severity of their regression. For example, if a patient says they feel confused or like they are falling to pieces, that does not necessarily mean that they are "subject to a" fragmentation of self. "
  3. Neglect of negative and unconscious transferences . “One has the impression that Kohut only strives to gradually weaken the size-self so that it does not have an overly corrosive influence on others. [...] Kohut neglects the interpretation of the negative transference and even artificially promotes the idealization in the transference. In my view, the method he uses with narcissistic patients is supportive and re-educational in helping them rationalize their aggressive responses as the natural result of other people's failures in their past. This problem occurs even consistently in the case material presented by both Kohut and Goldberg's The Psychology of the Self: A Casebook (1978) ”. (271) “Kohut also neglects the analysis of the unconscious aspects of transference, that is, of the defensive nature. [...] By limiting the concept of empathy to the analyst's emotional awareness of the patient's central subjective state, Kohut neglects the broader function of psychoanalytic empathy, which involves making the analyst aware of what the patient is experiencing and what he dissociates, suppresses and projects. "
  4. Theoretical limitation: “Libidinal and aggressively cathected ideas of self and object have no place in Kohut's theoretical system [...] Kohut's intrapsychic world contains only idealized imagines of the self and others (self-objects). Given this theoretical limitation, it is not possible to explain the reproduction of internal relationships with "bad" objects that occurs in the transference, which is a crucial observation not only in pathological narcissism but in all cases of severe psychopathology. [...] If one thinks that a patient's aggression in the transference is caused by the analyst's “failure”, then this is diametrically opposed to the interpretation of this aggression as a transference distortion [...] [The theoretical limitation also means the success of the treatment and the Effectiveness limited:] Kohut has admitted that his method brings about an improvement in the narcissistic part of the personality, but not in its object-related part ”.
  5. Open questions: Kohut's theory would leave central questions unanswered (what motivates the self, how do idealizations and self-objects develop, what is the role of object relationships?)

Other authors emphasize that self psychology is worthy of criticism on three points:

  1. Lack of specificity: Kohut's type of treatment is not disorder-specific, because he believes a self-strengthening approach can help every patient, which in turn amounts to a homogenization of mental disorders.
  2. One-sided responsibility: It is too one-sided to always hold the therapist's or parents' empathy responsible for aggression that occurs in the patient - this is not very differentiated and like a naive “environmentalism”.
  3. Confusing conceptualizations : The concept of the self-object is so vaguely conceptualized (everything can become a self-object, not only people, but also activities, hobbies - the latter comes from the “late Kohut”) that the explanatory power is lost.

Web links and literature

  • W. Herbold, U. Sachsse: The so-called inner child. From Inner Child to Self . Schattauer, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 3-7945-2588-4 . (Review: Deutsches Ärzteblatt, December 2007 ) The book combines the self-psychology of Heinz Kohut with the concept of inner-child work. Pp. 107-133.
  • H. Kohut: The healing of the self . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1981.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DN Stern: The Infant's Life Experiences . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1992.
  2. ↑ Annegret Boll-Klatt, Mathias Kohrs: Practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Basics - models - concepts . Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7945-2899-8 , pp. 75 .
  3. ↑ Annegret Boll-Klatt, Mathias Kohrs: Practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Basics - models - concepts . Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7945-2899-8 , pp. 71 .
  4. ↑ Annegret Boll-Klatt, Mathias Kohrs: Practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Basics - models - concepts . Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7945-2899-8 , pp. 71-72 .
  5. ↑ Annegret Boll-Klatt, Mathias Kohrs: Practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Basics - models - concepts . 1st edition. Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7945-2899-8 , pp. 71 .
  6. ↑ Annegret Boll-Klatt, Mathias Kohrs: Practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Basics - models - concepts . 1st edition. Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7945-2899-8 , pp. 124 .
  7. ↑ Annegret Boll-Klatt, Mathias Kohrs: Practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Basics - models - concepts . 1st edition. Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7945-2899-8 , pp. 124 .
  8. ↑ Otto F. Kernberg: Serious personality disorders . Textbook Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 978-3-608-94828-8 , p. 270 .
  9. ↑ Otto F. Kernberg: Serious personality disorders . Textbook Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 978-3-608-94828-8 , p. 270 .
  10. ↑ Otto F. Kernberg: Serious personality disorders . Textbook Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 978-3-608-94828-8 , p. 272 .
  11. ↑ Otto F. Kernberg: Serious personality disorders . Textbook Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 978-3-608-94828-8 , p. 273 .
  12. ↑ Otto F. Kernberg: Serious personality disorders . Klett-Cotta, Germany 1985, ISBN 978-3-608-94828-8 , pp. 265-275 .
  13. ↑ Annegret Boll-Klatt, Mathias Kohrs: Practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Basics - models - concepts . 1st edition. Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7945-2899-8 , pp. 76 .
  14. ↑ Annegret Boll-Klatt, Mathias Kohrs: Practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Basics - models - concepts . 1st edition. Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7945-2899-8 , pp. 76 .
  15. ↑ Annegret Boll-Klatt, Mathias Kohrs: Practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Basics - models - concepts . 1st edition. Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7945-2899-8 , pp. 76 .