Chapter 3  
Self Psychology in Search of the Optimal: A Consideration of Optimal Responsiveness, Optimal Provision, Optimal Gratification, and Optimal Restraint in the Clinical Situation
Morton Shane Estelle Shane

 

Eleven years ago Howard Bacal presented a paper at the Sixth Annual Conference on the Psychology of the Self that proved to be seminal for self psychology and was entitled “Optimal Responsiveness and the Therapeutic Process” (1985). With this paper, and the introduction of a new concept, optimal responsiveness, as well as a new way of viewing the analyst's participation in the therapeutic process, a conversation was begun among us that is still going on. Charles Spezzano (1993) has written, based upon his own application ...

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