PSYCHOANALYSIS OF SHAME-GUILT CONFLICTS

Wurmser summarizes in this paper the basic experiences he has gathered during many years of working psychoanalytically with severe, yet non- psychotic forms of psychopathology. In contrast to their conceptualiza tion as 'borderline' pathology as well as to self-psychology, he under stands these disturbances as severe neuroses, focusses on their confli ct analysis, stressing particularly the analysis of shame-guilt confli cts and the conjunction of masochism with narcissism. He sketches a ge netic layering of masochism useful for the understanding of the analyt ic process.