In developmental terms, specifically, the therapist and patient do not need to revert to the earliest experiences and developmental stages as the site of the damage. Mitchell argues that damage can occur at all ages. The therapeutic experience, then, does not need to focus on infancy or childhood, necessarily—but in the patient’s relational history and present-day relational matrix.

Freudian notions considered the self to be defined by impulses and drives, and objects (other people) were the targets, the means by which people exercised/exorcized themselves. Mitchell contests the passivity and insignificance of the object in this scenario.

Mitchell’s ideas redefine what it is to be human, because he says that other people make us most ourselves. We develop by experiencing the self and we can only experience our true selves if we can find meaningfulness and authenticity with others.