Book Review
Psychotherapy
The Private Self. Arnold H Modell. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press; 1993. 250 p. US$19.50.
Reviewer
rating*: Excellent
Review by: Paul Ian Steinberg, MD, FRCPC
Edmonton, Alberta
This is a dense work with a helpful comprehensive summary completing each chapter. In the chapter, “Thinking About the Self: Structure and Consciousness,” 2 central paradoxes organize an overview of various theories of the self. The first paradox is that the self provides continuity of being yet is coterminous with an ever-changing consciousness. The second paradox involves the problem of objectifying the subjective experience of self. Here, Modell reviews relevant work of Freud, Federn, Fairbourn, and William James.
“Public and Private Selves” deals with James’ tripartite notion of the self and Edelman’s neurophysiological model of the biological self. Observations of infants support Winnicott’s belief in twofold organization of the self: true self and false self. The idea of a private self is an ancient concept. In this context, Modell emphasizes attaining joy from within through mastery. Seeking efficacy is a primitive biological endowment as basic as the satisfactions accompanying feeding or sexual gratification. Such joys can be experienced in solitude when “the other” is absent or merely a silent presence.
In “The Private Self in a Public Space,” Modell suggests that periods of nonrelatedness
are as necessary and vital as states of relatedness. For individuals who must cope with dreadful environments, private space can be the place in which alternative worlds are created that guarantee psychic survival.
Some artists use their art to transform the miseries of childhood, preserving their private self. With regard to therapy, patients reestablish contact with their private selves when a state of noncommunication and nonrelatednes exists between therapist and patient. Thus, clinical improvement may occur without any specific interventions on the therapist’s part: the absence of intrusive interventions in itself facilitates therapeutic change.
In “The Dialectic of Self and Other,” Modell considers the self and the other as an intersubjective system with 2 major attributes: the extension of the self into the other and the asymmetry of the self and the other based on the inequality of need and desire. Merging with and idealizing the other are expressions of love, whereas reestablishing separateness may be an expression of hatred that is essential for preserving one’s autonomy. In “Solitude, Passionate Interests, and the Generative Aspects of the Self,” Modell observes that “one’s capacity to sustain the self in states of solitude appears to be related to self-generated passionate interests and moral commitments” as well as “a muse-like maternal presence who may be an actual or imaginary person.” In “Process and Experience: The Unconscious Structure of the Self,” Modell claims that unconscious structures of the self are organized around salient affective memories of interaction between individuals and their caretakers. He argues that the self likely employs a scanning function to determine the salience or meaning of current experience when matched with past categorical memories.
In “Private Meaning and the Agency of the Self,” Modell suggests that the process of psychoanalysis extends the agency of the self through the creation of new personal and private meanings. Through the creation of new meanings, the coherence of the self is examined. This requires that memories be recategorized. Identifying and naming the ideational content of affects also facilitates the sense of agency. Creating new meanings through recategorization affords individuals a certain degree of freedom from the domination of the past. In “Value, ‘Instinct,’ and the Emergent Motives of the Self,” Modell suggests that instinct theory is incongruent with contemporary notions of biology and that the psychology of the self encompasses emergent motivations of a very different conceptual order from that of instinct theory. He argues that Edelman’s neurobiological theory of evolutional value can substitute for the discredited concept of instinct. The homeostasis of the self, expressed as a need to maintain coherence and continuity, is a vital urge of no less importance than sexual desire or the need for attachment to others. In adult life, coherence and continuity of the self becomes less dependent on others because it is largely self-created through moral commitments, passions, or interests, as well as through the assimilation and construction of personal and social narratives.
This book offers useful and original ideas, presented clearly. Like Modell’s other works, it is rather dry and could be enlivened by more case examples. Reading this relatively short book is hard but rewarding work. As a modern approach to the psychology of the self, I recommend it highly to anyone interested in psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
*Reviewer
Rating Scale/ Échelle d’évaluation du réviseur
Excellent / Excellent
Very Good / Très bon
Good / Bon
Fair / Passable
Not recommended / Pas recommandé
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