ABSTRACT
Various organizing principles, based on the work of Mahlerian developmental psychoanalysis, serve as the foundation for the developmental self and object relations approach to the disorders of self. Masterson's extensive research found that due to maternal libidinal unavailability, the disorder of self analysand wards of an underlying abandonment depression, characterized by affects such as hopelessness, helplessness, panic, void, suicidal despair, and rage, as the Real Self was not supported. Given the latter, the disorder of self analysand relies on a False Self to ward off the abandonment depression. With its inherent emphasis on neutrality, psychoanalytic therapy is expected to re-evoke the underlying abandonment depression with the aim that it could be worked through.
