ABSTRACT
Psychotherapy with the “narcissistic neuroses” has required a recasting of both classical theory and technique. This chapter outlines a progression of therapeutic interventions based upon the Masterson Approach, which utilizes Margaret Mahler's developmental theory (as well as other sources). It is a conceptualization that relies dynamically on the idea of developmental sequence, and arrest of that sequence. Mahler primarily offers a model of healthy emotional development, whereas Masterson describes the pathological “shadow” of healthy development: how the patient's inner world remains arrested as a frozen replica of the time when the mother-infant interaction failed to support psychic growth (the emerging self), and how this “moment” is repetitiously projected and reimposed on current significant relationships, effectively turning the present into the past. Masterson emphasized that this approach is designed for the personality disorders and is not appropriate for the schizophrenic. However, in describing how technique must shift in order to meet the maturational needs of the patient's developing ego and object relatedness, I shall borrow some aspects of the Masterson approach to apply to the schizophrenic patient.
