The expirity check seems working fine to me if merged in enable_shared_ptr2 and solves some problems. I can summarize other boost::python's problems in this example: class X : public boost::enable_shared_from_this2<X> { public: void test() { shared_ptr<X> me = shared_from_this(); BOOST_ASSERT(me); } }; void expose_x() { boost::python::class_<X>("X", boost::python::init<>()). def("test", &X::test); } ------------------------------------ C++ case 1 (works fine): shared_ptr<X> x(new X); x->test(); ------------------------------------ C++ case 2 (doesn't work because of the missing static/dynamic cast): X x; x.test(); ------------------------------------ Python case (doesn't work, same problem of C++ case 2) x = X() x.test()