Disorders of Self in Self Psychology

Choi, Young Min

Abstract

Self psychology holds that the essence of psychopathology is the defective self, and that pathological condition of the self is caused by disturbances of the self-selfobject relationships early in life. Depending on the quality of the interactions between the self and its selfobjects during childhood, the self emerges either as a firm and healthy structure or as a more a less seriously damaged one. Disorders of the self could result from significant failure to achieve cohesion and harmony, or a significant loss of these qualities after they had been established. Kohut subdivided the disturbances of the self into two groups: primary and secondary disturbance. The secondary disturbances of the self constitute the acute and chronic reactions of a consolidated, firmly established self, leading to the vicissitudes of the experiences of life. More important is the primary disturbances of the self. The primary disturbances of the self means that the self has been injured by the self-object before forming cohesion in the self. The primary disturbances of the self can be divided into several subgroups depending on the extent, severity, and nature of the disturbances. Throughout his theological writings, Kohut concluded that there are three categories of psychopathology in the primary disturbances of the self: the psychosis, narcissistic personality and behaviour disorder, and the structural-conflict neuroses. The self of psychotics is arrested prior to the awareness of selfobjects, that is, prior to psychological life, and fails to achieve a cohesive nuclear self. In the narcissistic personality and behaviour disturbances, in contrast to the psychoses, the outlines of a specific nuclear self is established in early development. The structuralization of the self remains incomplete, however, with the result that the self reacts to narcissistic injuries with temporary break-up, enfeeblements, or disharmony. In the structural-conflict neuroses, a nuclear self is more or less firmly established in early childhood but the self is ultimately unable to realize its creative-productive potentials because its energies are absorbed by the conflicts to which it became exposed in later childhood. Kohut also presented four types of syndromes of the self-pathology: the understimulated self; the fragmenting self; the overstimulated self; the overburdened self. Finally, he outlined some frequently encountered behaviour patterns of the narcissistic injured self.