A change in the self: the development and transformation of an idealizing transference

This is a case study of Louisa A, a divorced women in her early 40's who was in analysis for five years. She sought treatment for recurrent depressive states, insomnia, overuse of sleeping medication, and occasional kleptomania. However, her most painful problem was a love affair with an older man who could not bring himself to marry her. The paper is divided into four sections: Introduction; The Case; The Analytic Work; and Review of the Analytic Work and Discussion of the Transference. Detailed examples of daily analytic work along self psychological lines are presented. The gradual development of a deepening selfobject transference and its movement toward resolution are described. Highlighted in the case material are several recurring transference themes. Two examples of these are: (1) An early dream is followed as an initially empty, marble chair is transformed into a comfortable chair in which patient and father-analyst, with 'enough time', sit close together reading. (2) The gradual alteration of the use of a late Beethoven quartet. A substitute for the idealized analyst, his voice, comments and presence, is described. Changes in the self in connexion with the analyst of an idealizing transference are discussed. The significance of the idealization in multiply determined, telescoped meanings of the transference are explained. The main point emphasized concerns the patient's transference needs for psychologically nourishing selfobjects because of structural deficits which were the basis for the inadequate formation of her cohesive, nuclear self. Finally, the fate of the idealizing transference by way of working through is demonstrated as Louisa A became increasingly able to make reliable her own sense of worth, relatively independent of formerly needed selfobjects.