Self Psychology 

Key Figure: Heinz Kohut 

Key Concepts: Importance of Shame & Self Esteem / Ambitions & Ideals / Self & Self Objects / Grandiose Self / Mirroring & the Mirror Transference / Idealized Parent & Idealizing Transference / Vertical & Horizontal Splits / Primary & Secondary Ambition

When Adler and Freud split from one another, they polarized each other's theories, Adler's ideas emphasized shame and Freud's guilt.  Sullivan continued the development of shame psychology, but it was Kohut beginning in the sixties, at a time when shame was becoming more prominent among analytic patients, who developed a theory that took both into account.  He also tried to do for narcissism what Freud had done for sex, establish it as a basic force in human nature that is neither good nor bad.  Unfortunately, that effort has failed but he did succeed in starting a movement that directed our attention to the importance of empathy, two person rather than one person understanding of the therapeutic process and the interpersonal construction of reality.

Instructor Robert Bergman, MD has been a therapist and analyst for more than fifty years.  He spent a decade working with Native Americans as part of the Indian Health Service, served as psychiatry residency director at the University of New Mexico, and since 1982 has been associated with the psychiatry department of UW, SPSI and NCP and has been in private practice.

Click here for more info on Roots and Branches Foundational Course offerings.  

Any questions?  Contact Mason Judy at b.masonjudy@gmail.com and (802) 952-0367 or Nicola Mucci at nmucci@antioch.edu. 

**Program content has been submitted for approval for 4.0 CEUs per lecture for Licensed Social Workers, Mental Health Counselors, and Marriage and Family Therapists by the Washington State Society for Clinical Social Work.