ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Brandchaft takes as his point of departure the historic importance of Kohut’s introduction of the principle of co-determination in psychoanalysis, noting that this advance opened the investigation of the patient’s defenses and resistances to include the analyst’s role in helping to shape their emergence. Nonetheless, Brandchaft observes that this valuable new focus on the analyst as an immanent participant in the therapeutic process potentially can tend to divert attention from the investigation of certain aspects of the patient’s psychological organization that help codetermine resistances against change. Among the psychological structures that often remain obscure are those that develop from the internalization of certain infant-caregiver relationship patterns (Emde, 1988a&b). These structures are referred to here, for the very first time, as “structures of accommodation.”
