The mind as a complex internal object: inner estrangement

The psyche is not a passive container (of emotions, memories, representations, objects, structures, drives, defenses, etc.), and not just an object-seeking organism; it acts on itself as the object of its own scrutiny, which can take many forms. Emphasis on the role of interpersonal object relations has sometimes tended to reduce our working model of the psyche to its internalizations and how these shape personality. This essay uses illustrative clinical vignettes and metapsychological reasoning to explore the mind's relationship to itself and its capacity to act upon itself, arguing that attention to this aspect of clinical material is vital to the psychoanalytic process, fostering what might be described as the growth of internal intersubjectivity.