ABSTRACT
Self psychology is the most recent of the four main schools of psychodynamic thought that emerged from Freud’s pioneering psychoanalysis, the other three being drive theory, ego psychology, and object relations. Since the early 1970s, most psychodynamic theorists have worked primarily in analytic institutes. Consequently, most therapisteducators in academia today, even those who regularly teach the theories of Freud and Erik Erikson, know relatively little about signicant developments in psychodynamics (McWilliams, 1994). Nevertheless, in at least one major study, mental health professionals most often named psychodynamic theories as their exclusive or primary guiding theories (Jensen, Bergin, & Greaves, 1990). For this reason and others that we will discuss in this chapter, it is tting that counselors be knowledgeable about psychodynamic theories. In this chapter, we present a very brief overview of the rst three schools and a more in-depth introduction to Heinz Kohut’s self psychology. Since the historical foundation of self psychology is relatively richer than that of other theories, this section will be somewhat longer than comparable sections in other chapters of this text.
