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Best known for his development of Self Psychology, a school of thought within psychodynamic/psychoanalytic theory, psychiatrist Heinz Kohut's contributions transformed the modern practice of analytic and dynamic treatment approaches.
Early life
Kohut was born on May 3, 1913 to an assimilated Jewish family and received his MD in neurology at the University of Vienna. Like many Jews, including Freud, Kohut fled Nazi occupation of his native Vienna, Austria in 1939 and settled in Chicago, where he became such a prominent member of the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis that he jokingly called himself "Mr. Psychoanalysis."*
Development of Self Psychology
In the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust, Freudian analysis was too focused on individual guilt and failed to reflect the new zeitgeist (the emotional interests and needs of people at the time). * Though he initially viewed the self as separate but coexistant to the ego, Kohut later rejected Freud's structural theory of the id, ego, and superego and developed his ideas around what he called the tripartite (three-part) self. Flanagan, L.M. (1996). The theory of self psychology. In (Eds.) Berzoff, J., Flanagan, L.M., & Hertz, P. Inside out and outside in, New Jersey:Jason Aronson Inc.)
According to Kohut, this three-part self can only develop when the needs of one's "self states," including one's sense of worth and well-being, are met. Kohut was thus the first dynamic theorist to emphasize the importance of relationships.
Historical Context
Kohut expanded on his theory during the 1970s and 1980s, a time in which aggressive individuality, overindulgence, greed, and restlessness left many people feeling empty, fragile, and fragmented.
Perhaps because of its positive, open, and empathic stance on human nature as a whole as well as the individual, self psychology is considered one of the "four psychologies" (the others being Drive Theory, ego psychology, and object relations); that is, one of the primary theories on which modern dynamic therapists and theorists rely. According to biographer Charles Strozier, "Kohut...may well have saved psychoanalysis from itself."* Without his focus on empathic relationships, dynamic theory might well have faded in comparison to one of the other major psychology orientations (which include humanism and cognitive behavior) that were being developed around the same time.
Also according to Strozier, Kohut's book The Analysis of the Self: A Systematic Analysis of the Treatment of the Narcissistic Personality Disorders * "had a significant impact on the field by extending Freud's theory of narcissism and introducing what Kohut called the 'self-object transferences' of mirroring and idealization." In other words, children need to idealize and emotionally "sink into" the competence of empathic, caregiving others; this allows them to thereby learn the self-soothing and other skills that are necessary for a healthy sense of self.
Though dynamic theory tends to place emphasis on childhood development, Kohut believed that the need for positive relationships does not end at childhood but continues throughout all stages of a person's life. Elson, Miriam. (1986). Self Psychology in Clinical Social Work
In the final week of his life, knowing that his time was at an end, Kohut spent as much time as he could with his family and friends. He fell into a coma on the evening of October 7, 1981, and died of cancer on the morning of October 8.
References
External Links
- Self Psychology Bibliography
- Bibliography of Kohut's work
- Brief Biography by Charles Strozier
- Preface to Charles Strozier's biography of Kohut
- Final chapter of Charles Stroizer's biography of Kohut
"Heinz Kohut"