1st Edition
Self Psychology and Diagnostic Assessment Identifying Selfobject Functions Through Psychological Testing
The self psychology of Heinz Kohut has been an important force in contemporary psychoanalytic thought and its ramifications for therapy have been extensively explored. Now, Marshall Silverstein offers the first analysis of the application of self psychology to projective diagnostic assessment. Differentiating the self psychological approach from an ego psychological interpretation of classical drive theory, he clearly outlines the principal contributions of Kohut, including the concepts of selfobject functions, empathy, transmuting internalization, and compensatory structure. Providing numerous clinical examples, he shows how the major selfobject functions of mirroring, idealization, and twinship can be identified on projective tests. Silverstein then demonstrates how conventional assessment approaches to grandiosity, self-esteem, and idealization can be reconceptualized within the framework of self psychology, and he also contrasts ego psychological interpretations with self psychological interpretations.
This book makes a strong case for the importance of the clinical identification of self states. It will help practitioners understand their patients' varied attempts to repair an injury to the self to restore self-esteem (compensatory structure) and the clinical consequences of self-disorders, including disintegration products such as narcissistic rage and affect states characterized by empty depression, chronic boredom, and lack of zest.
Biography
Marshall L. Silverstein
"...the cutting edge contribution of this book to contemporary psychoanalytic thought and personality assessment is undoubtedly clear. The book adds sophistication and intellectual challenge to the assessment enterprise and a strong claim to examine psychoanalytic theory through projective tests." Shira Tibon, Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University in Division of Psychology, APA.
"...Readers for whom the question of what the patient really needs resonates, and readers who may want to search for answers through projective tests, should consider Silverstein's book a 'must read'. It is one of the most absorbing and articulate statements of the current status of personality assessment to date. This superb new volume deserves a wide readership, and I strongly recommend the book to experienced clinicians and to students." Shira Tibon, Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University in Division of Psychology, APA.
"Silverstein has undertaken the daunting task of blending complex personality theory with clinical practice in a way that will be of practical use to pyschological assessment clinicians and most important, to their clients. He does so in a novel way by first engaging the reader with a conceptually rich theoretical discussion of core concepts of Kohut's self pyschology and later by offering a systematic way to assess these concepts through real-life psychological assessment practice." Barton Evans III in Contemporary Psychology, Vol. 48, No.4.
"Silverstein interlaces his descriptions of responses to projective tests with concepts from self-theory with a richness that reveals his deep compassion for the human being giving the response. Silverstein brings alive the clinical judgment process through his own empathic attunement to the testing interactions as way of elucidating an understanding of the suffering of individuals." Barton Evans III in Contemporary Psychology, Vol. 48, No.4.
"Rarely do we see such a fine integration of psychoanalytic theory and assessment practice. Keeping company with Schachtel and Schafer, this is one of the great theoretical texts in psychoanalytic psychodiagnosis. Clearly, this book is idealizable. This book will inspire and awe the reader. It will serve as an example for the psychoanalytic clinician to emulate, much as a child looks to a worthy parent for direction. At long last psychoanalytic psychodiagnosis has another point of view." Charles A. Peterson in Journal of Personality Assessment, Vol. 30, No. 3.
