ABSTRACT
Emphasizing the social nature of consciousness and in keeping with the claims of postmodernism, much recent psychoanalytic theorizing has seemingly been concerned to challenge the legitimacy of a Kantian notion. Fairfield makes the significant observation that while the numerous recent psychoanalytic approaches to the nature of the self reflect a range of perceptions, the differences between them are in large measure a question of rhetorical emphasis rather than reflecting a substantive differing of opinion. An emphasis on the body tends to manifest in an image of selfhood considered to be universally valid, while the relational dimension tends to emphasize the nature of selfhood as dependent on context. For Sullivan's psychology to be clinically applicable it is necessary that he recognize the conceptual legitimacy of what he terms the "self-system", for without such a notion there appears to be no basis for treatment.
