ABSTRACT
Dr. Candace Orcutt, a senior colleague of Masterson, creatively applied both Mahler and Masterson's analytic thinking on the developmental self to analysands experiencing symbiotic-psychotic difficulty. For Orcutt and Masterson, the symbiotic-psychotic defense may be a reactive restitution wherein a beleaguered ego attempts to move to earlier experiences and resources wherein a oneness with the object may be possible. That is, symbiotic-psychotic object relationships are “restitutional attempts of a rudimentary or fragmented ego which serve the purpose of survival…as no human being can live in an objectless state” (Mahler & Furer, 1960, p. 192). Orcutt sensitively maps the various anxieties and adaptations the symbiotic-psychotic analysand faces and integrates Spotnitz's joining and mirroring techniques to further the separation-individuation process.
