ABSTRACT
Self psychology does not use object relations theory; it transforms object relations theory into more radically relational theory. This chapter proposes that 'bad feelings' are very often produced by something that is happening, in one way or another, between the client and other people. A person's psychology, or sense of self, is produced by at least three different kinds of systems interacting at the same time. First, there is what is happening right now between that person and another person. Second, each person brings self-experience to the interaction-his sense of power in the relationship, his memories of previous contact, his desires, fears, and feelings of the moment. Third is the person's interpersonal process memory. Incorporating object relations theory into an interpersonalist mode of therapy allows a psychoanalyst to move back and forth between the intrapsychic and the intersubjective, between inside and outside.
