Self-Psychology: Its Application to Understanding Patients With Alzheimer’s Disease

Although the essence of one's identity—one's self-esteem—is eroded and devastated by Alzheimer's disease, little attention has been paid to the regression and dissolution of the self experienced by patients with this disease. Investigations into the psychology of the self by psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut and others have provided new ways of understanding a demented patient's attempts to maintain some semblance of self-esteem and identity in the wake of progressive cognitive decline.