Rudolf G
Z Psychosom Med Psychoanal. 1976 Apr-Jun;22(2):135-49.
Progress of psychotherapy and of related behaviour sciences makes evident the importance of a better understanding of human relations. But psychoanalysis finds it hard to describe interpersonal processes without transference. In order to remain within the conceptional frame of metapsychology it has to see interaction between individuals as the oral, aggressive or sexual cathexis of an object or as satisfaction or denial of the subject by the object. The structure of the "ego", which--in analogy to medical thinking--is conceived as an organ with its functions, is considered to have no interpersonal activities. The "ego" of the classic psychoanalytic theory is chiefly occupied with itself. It has to care for its egoistical interests and to guarantee its self-preservation. As an auxiliary and meanwhile popular concept the "self" has been introduced to describe object-relations. This concept is not sharply defined. Due to its metapsychological implications it produces additional theoretical difficulties. Linguistic studies show that every inventory of words implies a certain insight into reality. For this reason the metapsychological machine-like concept of psychic structures does not permit new ideas about interpersonal relations. If we leave metapsychology and base on colloquial speech we see that the experience of "I" is much more related to persons than the rather autistic concept of the "ego" shows. Further we learn that self-preservation cannot be an egoistical interest; it depends on the attachment to others. All feelings of self-esteem depend much more on interpersonal relations than on "narcissistic regulations". From these experiences three conclusions are derived: a) One of the main qualities of the ego is the relatedness to persons. b) The concept of narcissistic regulation as a successor of primary narcissism is no longer useful. Narcissistic traits develop as the secundary compensations if the individual failed to build up satisfactory interpersonal relations. c) The revision of (a) ego-psychology and (b) theory of narcissism asks for modifications of the therapeutic technique, where now the interest is especially concentrated on interpersonal problems instead on the pathology of the ego.
心理治疗及相关行为科学的进展凸显了更好地理解人际关系的重要性。但精神分析发现，若不借助移情，就很难描述人际过程。为了保持在元心理学的概念框架内，它不得不将个体间的互动视为对某个客体的口欲、攻击性或性贯注，或者视为客体对主体的满足或拒绝。“自我”的结构——类似于医学思维，被构想为一个具有其功能的器官——被认为没有人际活动。经典精神分析理论中的“自我”主要关注自身。它必须照顾自身的利己利益并确保自我保存。作为一个辅助且同时流行的概念，“自体”已被引入以描述客体关系。这个概念没有明确的定义。由于其元心理学含义，它产生了额外的理论难题。语言学研究表明，每一组词汇都蕴含着对现实的某种洞察。因此，精神结构的元心理学式机械概念不允许产生关于人际关系的新观念。如果我们抛开元心理学，基于日常语言来看，我们会发现“我”的体验与他人的关联远比“自我”那种相当自闭的概念所显示的要多。此外，我们了解到自我保存并非利己利益；它取决于与他人的依恋。所有自尊感更多地取决于人际关系而非“自恋调节”。从这些体验中可以得出三个结论：a）自我的主要特质之一是与他人的关联性。b）作为原发性自恋继承者的自恋调节概念已不再有用。如果个体未能建立起令人满意的人际关系，自恋特质会作为继发性补偿而发展。c）对（a）自我心理学和（b）自恋理论的修正要求对治疗技术进行调整，现在治疗兴趣尤其集中在人际问题而非自我病理学上。
