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The Self Of The Field And The Work Of Donnel Stern, Daniel Masler

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

No study has taken an updated and comprehensive review of Donnel Stern’s writings. An investigation of his philosophical assumptions, locating Stern’s work socioculturally and historically, along with an elucidation of Stern’s background in traditional psychoanalytic literature and clinical practice, brings out the meanings and enigmas present in his theories of dissociation, enactment, unformulated experience, multiple self-states, and reflection. Stern has offered one of the best-integrated theoretical models in relational psychoanalytic theory. An examination of his theories within the theoretical traditions to which he makes claim (psychoanalytic, interpersonal, hermeneutic, postmodern, and democratic) helps elucidate the challenge posed by relational psychoanalysis to …