"Perhaps the acid test for any book on psychoanalytic theory is the light it sheds on the complex problems that a therapist faces. This book passes that test with flying colors. I now see my patients in a different light and I have changed my approach with beneficial results." —Samuel L. Bradshaw, Jr. The Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic A Jason Aronson Book

'Perhaps the acid test for any book on psychoanalytic theory is the light it sheds on the complex problems that a therapist faces. This book passes that test with flying colors. I now see my patients in a different light and I have changed my approach with beneficial results.' --Samuel L. Bradshaw, Jr. The Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic A Jason Aronson Book

Self and Others is addressed to students and practitioners of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Its 19 chapters are divided into five evenly balanced parts. The first rubric, "Self, Others, and Ego," introduces us to the units of the intersubjective constitution we have come to know as object relations theory. The second rubric, "Developing Object Relations," is a confluence of lessons derived from infant studies and the psychotherapeutic process, specifically from the work of Mahler and Kernberg. Third, Hamilton integrates into an "Object Relations Continuum" Mahler's developmental stages and organizational series with nosological entities and levels of personality organization. Under the penultimate rubric, "Treatment," levels of object relatedness and types of psychopathology are grounded in considerations of technique in treatment, and generous clinical vignettes are provided to illustrate the technical issues cited. Last, the rubric of "Broader Contexts" takes object relations theory out of the consulting room into application areas that include folklore, myth, and transformative themes on the self, small and large groups, applications of object relations theory outside psychoanalysis, and the evolutionary history and politics of object relations theory. This volume thus presents an integrative theory of object relations that links theory with practice. But, more than that, Hamilton accomplishes his objective of delineating an integrative theory that is quite free of rivalry between schools of thought. An indispensable contribution to beginning psychoanalytic candidates and other practitioners as well as those who wish to see the application of object relations theories to fields outside of psychoanalysis. —Psychoanalytic Books: A Quarterly Journal of Reviews A Jason Aronson Book

"Glickauf-Hughes and Wells present a clear and well-organized review of personality development according to object relations theorists. They offer an explanation and critique of each major theorist, note issues on which there is disagreement (along with areas of investigation not fully explored), and present implications for treatment. Concepts are well defined, and one gets the sense of a cohesive body of knowledge (possibly more cohesive than it actually is). Those unfamiliar with object-relations theory will have a good outline; those who know enough to be confused will find some clarification." —Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research

Object relations theory has caused a fundamental reorientation of psychodynamic thought. In Object Relations Theory and Practice, Dr. David E. Scharff acclimates readers to the language and culture of this therapeutic perspective and provides carefully selected excerpts from seminal theorists as well as explanations of their thinking and clinical experience. He offers readers an unparalleled resource for understanding object relations psychotherapy and theory and applying it to the practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. The book's sequence establishes the centrality of relationships in this theory: the internalization of experience with parents, splitting, projective identification, the role of the relationship between mother and young child in development, and transference and countertransference in the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. This book will introduce students to the basics, to the widening scope of object relations theory, and to its application to psychoanalysis and individual, group, and family psychotherapy.