ABSTRACT
In discussing this chapter, I will limit myself to a few points and resist the temptation to address the larger issues of competing paradigms. I prefer, where I can, to integrate new views within the ever-widening mainstream of psychoanalytic theory and technique. The chapter under discussion serves as a case in point. Kohut brings to the subject of defense and resistance his particular frame of reference and thereby contributes to my understanding of this important sector of psychoanalysis. For example, although we all shun the surgical metaphor that did, in part, inform Freud's early thinking, Kohut reminds us effectively that we as analysts are particularly vulnerable to falling into this way of thinking when dealing with ideas of resistance and defense. Thus, while it is now commonplace in all psychoanalytic teaching that one respects the defenses of the patient and not run roughshod over them, or, to retain the surgical metaphor, not penetrate the patient's defenses in hot pursuit of the content that is defended against, Kohut reminds us of the reason for this caution: there is a motive for all defenses. In self psychological terms, that motive is the principle of self-preservation.
