The Difficult Superego - the Work of Harold Searles
One of the most challenging aspects of our work is a pervasive perfectionism that can so dominate our own minds as therapists and greatly inhibit the emotional growth of our patients. The pressure to get it right and have the answers can undermine therapeutic work with both participants. One of the psychoanalytic writers who has most directly addressed these problems is Harold Searles, an American psychoanalyst greatly influenced both by the British object relations tradition, especially Bion, and the American interpersonal tradition.