Abstract

This study undertakes a systematic critical assessment of the concept of the self within the psychoanalytic tradition. It begins by observing that the concept, though not directly engaged, is implied in the very nature of the psychoanalytic inquiry itself. A schematic recounting of the symptom picture presented in the founding case of Anna O. illustrates the latent concern with the self. The discussion pursues the emergence and evolution of the concept in the literature associated with the American ego psychologists, the French psychoanalysts, and the British object relations theorists. Among those whose work is appraised are Heinz Hartmann, Paul Federn, Leo Spiegel, Otto Kernberg, Jacques Lacan, Didier Anzieu, Melanie Klein, Michael Balint, Harry Guntrip, and Christopher Bollas. One of the principle outcomes of this evaluative reading suggests that there are two distinct epistemologies which differentially organize the three schools of thought, characterized as the self of presence and the self of absence. ;The former, associated with the American ego psychologists and, to a lesser extent the British object relations theorists, formulates the self as a psychological experience subject to presentation, or copy; as the notion of the internal image or object constancy suggests. The latter, principally affiliated with the work of J. Lacan, conceives of a self which is most authentically realized in the experience of anticipation, or desire, for what is absent. The project concludes by proposing a dialectical modification of the self concept such that the thesis of presence and the antithesis of absence produce the idea of an allusive self, a concept which expresses the dual nature of the self as the present trace of the absent. The introduction of the supplemental object is designed to underscore the dual role of the internalized object as the agent of psychic presencing and the persistent indicator of desire. This work observes that the self as it has been elaborated within psychoanalysis stands as a particularly illustrative instance of the post-Cartesian pursuit of the split subject, asserting that at least since Freud's exposition on The Unconscious theorists have sought to reconcile the knowing subject with the absent unconscious