ABSTRACT
In a previous chapter (Chapter 2), we introduce the general outline of our self-psychological typology of addiction. From our self-psychological perspective, we refer to six subtypes of addict ranging from unipolar to bipolar. We also discuss our general thinking about a self-psychological approach to psychoanalytic psychotherapy with an addicted patient (see Chapters 2 and 3). We trace the evolution of our psychotherapeutic approach to working with this especially difficult to treat patient population. This evolution entails adding to our original ideas about intersubjective absorption and the transference-countertransference neurosis with notions of the transitional selfobject transference, dissociative anesthesia (or what we now term addictive metamorphosis or phantasmagorical transmogrification), as well as intersubjective fantasies as shared unconsciously between patient and psychotherapist alike.
