This latest volume by Dr. Masterson completes his 30 years of clinical research linking normal separation-individuation with object relations theory and developmental psychopathology. It focuses on the core problem...the lack of a concept of the self integrated with object relations theory. By adding a theory of the self to object relations theory, the author both enlarges and more acutely focuses the therapeutic perspective, thereby enhancing work with patients. He also further enables therapists to clarify their own real selves.
This theory of the real self enables a shift of the focus in both development and disorder from the object (object relations) to the self; we can think of the self with its objects and ego. The work of a therapist revolves around a person with a self, not a collection of objects and ego.
Part I reviews the psychoanalytic theories of the ego and the emerging real self; its structure, function, development, and its psychopathology and treatment. Part II explores the relationship between maternal libidinal acknowledgment and the development of the real self by a cross-cultural comparison of a child raising in Japan, Israel, and the United States. It then describes the influence of social and cultural factors on the functioning of the real self in the United States. Part III on Creativity and the Real Self draws upon fairy tales, John Paul Sartre, Edvard Munch, and the life and work of the novelist Thomas Wolfe to show how for some artists creativity becomes a crucial vehicle in their search to establish a real self. This section illuminates the nature of personal and artistic creativity and describes how a professional interest in the functioning of the real self leads inevitably to an interest in the ultimate of self-expression... creativity.
This theory of the real self enables a shift of the focus in both development and disorder from the object (object relations) to the self; we can think of the self with its objects and ego. The work of a therapist revolves around a person with a self, not a collection of objects and ego.
Part I reviews the psychoanalytic theories of the ego and the emerging real self; its structure, function, development, and its psychopathology and treatment. Part II explores the relationship between maternal libidinal acknowledgment and the development of the real self by a cross-cultural comparison of a child raising in Japan, Israel, and the United States. It then describes the influence of social and cultural factors on the functioning of the real self in the United States. Part III on Creativity and the Real Self draws upon fairy tales, John Paul Sartre, Edvard Munch, and the life and work of the novelist Thomas Wolfe to show how for some artists creativity becomes a crucial vehicle in their search to establish a real self. This section illuminates the nature of personal and artistic creativity and describes how a professional interest in the functioning of the real self leads inevitably to an interest in the ultimate of self-expression... creativity.
