ABSTRACT
Although he is very much a theorist in the object relations tradition, Khan was chiefly preoccupied with the notion of self and of finding a satisfactory way of conceptualizing it. Unlike Klein, who stressed the object, Khan was concerned with how the self expresses itself and the fact that the experience of self requires an other there in order to achieve it. The concept of self is an increasingly important one in psychoanalytic thought and seems to go hand in hand with a growing emphasis on the environment in Independent Group thinking. Khan’s theory is based on a combination of classical psychoanalytic theory and the object-relations theories of Fairbaim and Winnicott. It should be pointed out that classical theory is about drives—impulse, anxiety, and defence—and all psychoanalytic theories are based on this. Today, clinicians see an increasing number of patients who fall into an altogether different category from those who have, more traditionally, been considered suitable for psychoanalysis.
