ABSTRACT
I have known Joe Lichtenberg since the first annual Self Psychology meeting in Chicago in 1978. I know this because I still possess the notes from the workshop he gave at that conference: “Transmuting Internalization and Developmental Change.” I was a newcomer to Self Psychology, as were most who attended that meeting. I was near the end of my psychoanalytic training in Toronto and had been introduced to Kohut’s ideas by Howard Bacal, who had stealthily included them in his seminars on British Object Relations Theory (which was radical enough in those days). The controversy aroused by these ideas was nowhere more apparent than in my class at the Institute where Otto Kernberg reigned supreme over the world of narcissism. Those of us who had been swayed by these new heresies were vigorously criticized by our classmates and vice versa. Our learning became alive with curiosity inspired by the novelty of controversy.
