ABSTRACT
Jacoby’s aim is not to stress that many contemporary ideas in psychoanalysis concerning narcissism and self-psychology have been anticipated by Jungians. Rather, he is exploring similarities and differences between two major strands of theorizing. As he says, he is, if anything, looking at analytical psychology through the eyes of Kohutian selfpsychology.
A further interest of the author’s is to consider the implications for technique. It can be seen that Jacoby, a training analyst in Zürich, is quite clear that attention to transference-countertransference processes is a central feature of analysis. When first reading the paper, I was struck by the sensitive and self-aware way in which Jacoby dealt with his patient’s idealization—not in a manner that dismissed it as ‘defence’, but somehow managing to allow for growth inherent in such a transference (along the lines of Kohut’s model).
140Finally, what Jacoby says about the ‘Jungian self’ repays study.
A.S.
