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Article: A Fundamental Polarity in Psychoanalysis: Implications for Personality Development, Psychopathology, and the Therapeutic Process
- Article from:
- Psychoanalytic Inquiry
- Article date:
- September 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Analytic Press Sep/Oct 2006. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Interpersonal relatedness (attachment) and self-definition (separation) are fundamental psychological dimensions that are central to psychoanalytic thought, beginning with Freud, as well as in a wide range of nonpsychoanalytic formulations. These constructs provide a theoretical matrix that facil
itates identifying continuities among personality development, variations in normal personality or character formation, concepts of psychopathology, and mechanisms of therapeutic action. The identification of these continuities enables us to consider many forms of psychopathology, not as diseases with assumed but as yet undocumented biological origins, but as distortions that derive from variations ...