The ego as a construct in humanistic and transpersonal psychology has a turbulent history. Early efforts to distinguish transpersonal theories from the reductionism of Freudian drive psychology tended to eschew psychoanalytic views altogether, including theories on the development of the ego as an intrapsychic structure. In the last decade, transpersonal theorists have began to recognize and integrate the important contributions of American ego psychology and object relations theory toward an understanding of prestructural or "prepersonal" difficulties. In this article, updating the view from psychoanalysis, the seminal contribution of Heinz Kohut's self psychology is placed in the context of this expanded spectrum of development. The fundamental quest of the grandiose aspect of self for affirmative mirroring is examined in both its progressive and regressive dimensions; similarly, idealization is examined with respect to the archaic, mature, and-potentially-transcendent functions it may serve. Finally, while recognizing the complex interweave of prepersonal, personal, and transpersonal dimensions of narcissism, the usefulness of various meditation practices adapted to the client's structural organization is examined. Comprehensive approaches to development that simultaneously support the effective organization of self-experience while enhancing individual tolerance for experiences of insubstantiality and impermanence seem to offer the most promising synthesis of perspectives on human nature across many rich traditions.

This paper consists of a discussion of Neil Altman's ‘Psychoanalysis and war’, which was conducted online through PsyBC in the fall of 2006. Discussants were a group of psychoanalytically oriented thinkers chosen by the author and Nancy Hollander, the author of the other paper included in the discussion. The paper represents the full discussion with only minor edits to correct typographical errors and improve clarity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Following upon Chassay's concerns about the viability of sensory communication in claustrum states, I elaborate on her distinction between sensations that serve as fuel for claustrum states and those that serve the meaning-making "containment" function. I suggest that a proto-symbolic registering of incipient meaning may germinate within sense experience itself, prior to the constellation of specific affects and symbolic meaning, as a form of intersomatic subjectivity. I argue that the interpellative aspects of social reality-"the psyche-in-the-body-in-the-social"-create a "somatic delinking" that forecloses this mutually enlivening, aesthetic exchange. endeavored in spasmodic fits and starts to expand and revise my initial response to her paper. 1 Throughout those 20 months, Susanne and I walked together, along with a few other very dear friends, as the news of her illness grew worse. Any respite she would begin to feel, any fresh arrival of hope, was soon slammed down by new symptoms, new levels of pain, and more rounds of difficult treatment. Although this journey through serious illness is such a common one, it has been especially poignant for me as the revisions to this manuscript lay waiting, most often fallow, within me.The few occasions during her illness when I had been able to pick it up and enjoy a rare breath of spaciousness and creativity had been quickly followed by the sad weight of likelihood that she and I would not see this through to completion together. Walking alongside her, holding her physically, emotionally, spiritually, and discovering greater depths of beauty in the unshuttered heart together, has altered what lies within me wanting to be spoken. It has also made more 1 I am very grateful to Stephen Hartman, who generously welcomed us to submit our respective papers to Studies in Gender and Sexuality for possible publication.Correspondence should be sent to Karen Peoples, Ph.D.,