The Therapist as Self-Object

This study investigates a modus operandi for doing therapy with the sedative hypnotic/opiate drug abuser with borderline or narcissistic tendencies. Definitions of the latter are based on the work by Kernberg and Kohut respectively.In order to wean the drug abuser off his/her drug, it is proposed that, initially, the therapist needs to take over the function of the drug which is a substitute for psychic structure. The therapist becomes a self-object for the drug abuser, providing a matrix, until such time as he/she is sufficiently structuralised and relatively free of the compulsion to drug. The nature of the self-object transference and the therapist's role therein are explored in this study.