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The Search for the Self, Volume 2: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut 1950-1978
'The re-issuing of the four volumes of Heinz Kohut's writings is a major publishing event for psychoanalysts who are interested in both the theoretical and the therapeutic aspects of psychoanalysis. These volumes contain Kohut's pre-self psychology essays as well as those he wrote in order to continue to expand on his groundbreaking ideas, which he presented in The Analysis of the Self; the Restoration of the Self; and in How Does Analysis Cure?These volumes of The Search for the Self permit the reader to understand not only the above three basic texts of psychoanalytic self psychology more profoundly, but also to appreciate Kohut's sustained openness to further changes - to dare to present his self psychology as in continued flux, influenced by newly emerging empirical data of actual clinical practice.The current re-issue of the four volumes of The Search for the Self would assure that the younger generation of psychoanalysts would be exposed to a clinical theory that could contribute greatly to solving the therapeutic dilemmas facing psychoanalysis today'- Paul Ornstein, EditorVolumes 1 and 2 of The Search for the Self encompass Heinz Kohut's selected writings and letters from 1950 to 1978. Volumes 3 and 4 continue with the further collection of his selected writings and letters (published as well as previously unpublished) from 1978 until his untimely death in 1981.
- GenresNonfiction
498 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Heinz Kohut
41 books80 followersHeinz Kohut was an Austrian-born American psychoanalyst best known for his development of Self psychology, an influential school of thought within psychodynamic /psychoanalytic theory which helped transform the modern practice of analytic and dynamic treatment approaches.
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December 14, 2021
This is one of Heinz Kohut's more socially aware works, and thus has potential applications in politics, group dynamics, history, and social psychology as much as it does in the clinician's office or on the couch. Whereas the first volume of "The Search for the Self" was a collection of slightly more general topics accessible to readers without advanced training in Self-Psychology, thus giving us some insight into the mind of the father of the field, the second volume shows a much more focused Kohut. Here, his conception of the development of the self and narcissistic personality is more solidified. With these theories, he dives beyond the liberation of the individual analysand from a vulnerable sense of self, repressed childhood needs for mirroring, and unhealthy relationships with self-objects. As a young science, can "depth psychology," as he calls it, be legitimized as having meaningful impact on nations and global systems for an overall better, more creative, more peaceful world?
I can certainly see the possibilities. I imagine we would have a much more friendly social environment if our nation's leaders had control over their grandiose selves. Like Ahab in "Moby Dick," whole cultures can be gripped by a need for revenge fueled by narcissistic rage. Germany, after their defeat in the first World War, was easily seduced by the Führer to acts that almost destroyed Western civilization. Kohut goes into further detail on the psychological characteristics of messianic and charismatic leaders, and how large groups idealize them in times of crisis.
If Kohut were alive today, he'd likely not fail to note the regression to the archaic self within his adopted country. The everyday American is as though suspended in a Kafkaesque world of cold indifference, a cockroach on trial by unreachable judges and governed by unreachable rulers in the high castle. Generation after generation reject the old ideals, and attempts to point out that even the poorest enjoy freedoms and a standard of living that far surpasses the rest of the world make no headway. They could plan to emigrate, as so many have done across the world, yet they do not have a need to move to a place that could give them more opportunities. They have a need to tear down. As Kohut says, yesterday's liberator can be today's oppressor. He asks why across history does national, social, and political liberation lead to renewed tyranny? The width of the divide between groups, whether it be the right and left or between racial lines, is only a reflection of how psychologically healthy we are as a nation group. Are we listening to each other quietly with empathy to understand where the other is coming from so that mutually satisfactory decisions and outcomes can be achieved together? Are our leaders and celebrities serving as models of mature behavior? As the attacks and labels fly across social media, political parties, and news agencies, the answer today seems to be in the negative.
Kohut does not mean to imply that things should never change. In fact, the ability to successfully change is a sign of mental health. What makes change so difficult is that our values and ideals retain an absoluteness of an idealized self-object, and to suggest change is to threaten an all-powerful part of ourselves. So how can we grow with change as individuals and as a group?
Well, there is a difference between narcissistic rage and mature aggression. How can we tell the difference? For example, depending on who you talk to, the protests of 2021 have been a righteous stand against systemic racism or an act of domestic terrorism. Kohut points out that people in the throws of narcissistic rage see others as objects and lack basic empathy towards what is perceived as the source of their injury. Putting political pressure to enact police reform, debunking racial stigmas through debate and education, and healing social divides through charm and empathy, even if in the face of resistance, are examples of mature aggression that can effect real change. Once we are no longer ambivalent to live by the standards of the new values, these values "disappear," now becoming part of our ego and requiring no effort to live by. On the other hand, burning down and looting businesses, lobbing racial slurs, and severely injuring or sometimes even killing innocent civilians, are acts of narcissistic rage and destructive exhibitionism that do not get us any closer to justice and do not win over or influence people. Aggression can be a function of solid self-structure and serves to liberate; rage enslaves and destroys. Kohut was all too aware of this growing up in Vienna, as he paints a moving picture of him as a child watching Freud abandon the homeland by train in 1938 due to Nazi occupation.
The term "narcissism" has taken on a rather pejorative term, ironically, in our culture. But we all need a healthy sense of narcissism to free our creativity, to give us confidence and resilience, and to preserve our sense of worth even when we make mistakes or when the going gets tough. What this book is talking about is regression to an infantile, primitive psychological state. A baby cries for milk. It doesn't care if mother is on the toilet, has a broken leg, or about any reasonable delays. As the child grows up, it starts to recognize it's own consistent awareness of it's body parts and bodily functions as self, and caregivers as self-objects. The child engages in narcissistic displays in order to integrate essential functions of the self. That's why a child will want to show you their scribbled drawings in the middle of you cooking dinner, or wants you to kiss their boo-boos when they get hurt. The former gets some sense of what they are good at and a feeling of accomplishment, which helps in forming their own identity, and the latter helps incorporate soothing internal structures. In other words, if a parent (self-object) reacts with just enough appropriate validation, affection, and mirroring, the child develops a sense of achievement and accomplishment and learns to soothe themselves.
But what about a child who has been neglected, abused, or overly spoiled? Then a process that should be completed in childhood remains stunted in the adult, and this is where narcissistic needs become pathologic. Now the adult denies their need for validation and attention while acting out rage against a world that has failed and fragmented them. They are unable to soothe themselves. Like a hungry infant who only recognizes that mom has yet failed to bring the milk, many of us grow up feeling empty, unsatisfied, unfulfilled and bored, and we assume it is because someone is to blame, especially, as Kohut warns, if you have leaders irresponsibly playing in to this human vulnerability. And so we seek merger with new self-objects to give us some sense of control and omnipotence, perhaps alcohol and drugs. Or like a child engaging in self-stimulation when it fails to get enough self-affirming responses and soothing from the environment, we may get addicted to porn or self-mutilation in order to retain some sort of cohesive sense of self. Sometimes humans form groups based off a sense of identity based off a shared omnipotent object that is an ideology. Information that challenges this ideology is like a personal injury to members of the group, and they may react as if to completely eradicate that injury. This is why there is little discourse on Twitter, and our presidential campaigns devolve into meaningless attacks on the opponent and the opponent's base rather than debates.
But would it help to achieve unity if those running for high corporate or public office or who wish to work for our news media should successfully complete their own analysis before service, producing nonidealogical and nonreactionary omnipotent self-objects upon which to model our behavior?
Kohut is eager to point to the value of analysis as a possible solution through "transmutating internalization," a concept I discuss in other reviews of Kohut's work. He says "neither a contemptuous attitude towards the powerful psychological forces that assert themselves... in human life nor the attempt at their total eradication will lead to genuine progress in man's self-control or social adaptation." Rather, through a psychology of the self, we can work to understand ourselves and each other. He suggests the psychological pathology of a society is really a manifestation of our attempts to evolve our psychic apparatus to social change and pressure. The insights from self psychology embraces this human need rather than represses it, uncovers barriers to growth, transforms our grandiosity and exhibitionism into realistic self-esteem and pleasure with ourselves and each other, making us into what he calls "l'homme engagé," a socially adaptive, joyful, and active participant in the affairs of our fellow humans. Kohut believes that empathy can be trained and employed with enough scientific rigor as to usher in a new form of humanitarianism--that of scientific empathy.
Now, Kohut would likely not suggest that all key societal figures undergo analysis, but based on his passionate address to the University of Cincinnati called "The Psychoanalyst in the Community of Scholars," also contained in the volume, he would certainly hope to see better training on the use of empathy--that ability to put yourself in the place of others--in all fields of study. Universities, once founded on Renaissance energy, engrained from the Age of Reason for preparing students for the conquest of nature, must adapt with the times to train the next generations on directing us to the next phase of our social evolution. Teaching and cultivating empathy is an essential, if not the most important, tool for health of our continued survival. If more of us practiced empathy, we would not be so quick to judgement, or adhere stubbornly to our points of view, or restrict ourselves to social networks of like-minded peers echoing thoughtlessly the opinions of our celebrities and cable news pundits. I can't help but feel that Kohut is spot on here. He is not saying that we should be tolerant of destructive behavior of fascist dictators or sociopaths with an "everything is subjective" attitude, but understanding each other is a powerful tool to avoiding the divides and dehuminization that leads only to further dangers.
But he is careful to add that for the science of psychoanalysis to attempt these grand ideals, it must be able to provide the empirical data necessary to define tangible goals necessary to improve society. The practitioners and students of analysis must unlock their own creativity and conduct more research into even the most central of it's theories. Kohut served as a consultant for the Ad Hoc Committee on Scientific Activities for the American Psychoanalytic Association, which by 1970 was concerned about the apparent paucity of original research in psychoanalysis. In this book, we read about his explorations into the nature of the very training that new analysts receive, scrutinizing areas that could potentially stifle interest in analytic research. I particularly liked his suggestion for scientific journals to allow a "section of ideas" which could be submitted by analysts in the trenches, sharing insights, experiences, and potential questions that could stimulate further investigation, all with the minimum of scientific rigor expected of a peer-reviewed publication. Kohut also looks into the issue of how the Association limits potential expansion of knowledge in psychoanalysis by restricting application to analytic training institutes to those only with medical degrees or training in psychology. This clearly must have been the kind of work that led to the eventual changes seen by my days of training at the New Orleans Psychoanalytic Institute, when everyone from teachers to historians to religious studies professors could and did serve as analysts. Just as Kohut predicted, the field of psychoanalysis had to go through it's own process of change, as we all must to our ever evolving sociocultural milieu.
Human beings go through critical periods in their development as individuals and as a society, and we are in one of those epochs. What a time to be alive! Kohut wrote most of this during the Vietnam era, a time very similar in sociocultural upheaval as today, so out of all Kohut's books, this one feels the most prescient, the most urgent, and the most passionate. Though not the entire focus of this volume, this is one of the few times you'll encounter the typically apolitical Kohut attempting to apply his theories and approach to group psychology and broader social issues. But like the rest of his work, I found it to be extremely engaging, beautiful, and awe-inspiring.
This volume goes for a pretty penny these days, but if you end up getting a copy, I hope you find this interesting and enlightening. And the next time you get angry about something you hear on the news, or over what a relative blurts out over the holiday roast, or even when you accidentally stub your toe, you may allow yourself pause and be inspired to take your own journey to a more harmonious and joyful relationship with your ever-changing world.
I can certainly see the possibilities. I imagine we would have a much more friendly social environment if our nation's leaders had control over their grandiose selves. Like Ahab in "Moby Dick," whole cultures can be gripped by a need for revenge fueled by narcissistic rage. Germany, after their defeat in the first World War, was easily seduced by the Führer to acts that almost destroyed Western civilization. Kohut goes into further detail on the psychological characteristics of messianic and charismatic leaders, and how large groups idealize them in times of crisis.
If Kohut were alive today, he'd likely not fail to note the regression to the archaic self within his adopted country. The everyday American is as though suspended in a Kafkaesque world of cold indifference, a cockroach on trial by unreachable judges and governed by unreachable rulers in the high castle. Generation after generation reject the old ideals, and attempts to point out that even the poorest enjoy freedoms and a standard of living that far surpasses the rest of the world make no headway. They could plan to emigrate, as so many have done across the world, yet they do not have a need to move to a place that could give them more opportunities. They have a need to tear down. As Kohut says, yesterday's liberator can be today's oppressor. He asks why across history does national, social, and political liberation lead to renewed tyranny? The width of the divide between groups, whether it be the right and left or between racial lines, is only a reflection of how psychologically healthy we are as a nation group. Are we listening to each other quietly with empathy to understand where the other is coming from so that mutually satisfactory decisions and outcomes can be achieved together? Are our leaders and celebrities serving as models of mature behavior? As the attacks and labels fly across social media, political parties, and news agencies, the answer today seems to be in the negative.
Kohut does not mean to imply that things should never change. In fact, the ability to successfully change is a sign of mental health. What makes change so difficult is that our values and ideals retain an absoluteness of an idealized self-object, and to suggest change is to threaten an all-powerful part of ourselves. So how can we grow with change as individuals and as a group?
Well, there is a difference between narcissistic rage and mature aggression. How can we tell the difference? For example, depending on who you talk to, the protests of 2021 have been a righteous stand against systemic racism or an act of domestic terrorism. Kohut points out that people in the throws of narcissistic rage see others as objects and lack basic empathy towards what is perceived as the source of their injury. Putting political pressure to enact police reform, debunking racial stigmas through debate and education, and healing social divides through charm and empathy, even if in the face of resistance, are examples of mature aggression that can effect real change. Once we are no longer ambivalent to live by the standards of the new values, these values "disappear," now becoming part of our ego and requiring no effort to live by. On the other hand, burning down and looting businesses, lobbing racial slurs, and severely injuring or sometimes even killing innocent civilians, are acts of narcissistic rage and destructive exhibitionism that do not get us any closer to justice and do not win over or influence people. Aggression can be a function of solid self-structure and serves to liberate; rage enslaves and destroys. Kohut was all too aware of this growing up in Vienna, as he paints a moving picture of him as a child watching Freud abandon the homeland by train in 1938 due to Nazi occupation.
The term "narcissism" has taken on a rather pejorative term, ironically, in our culture. But we all need a healthy sense of narcissism to free our creativity, to give us confidence and resilience, and to preserve our sense of worth even when we make mistakes or when the going gets tough. What this book is talking about is regression to an infantile, primitive psychological state. A baby cries for milk. It doesn't care if mother is on the toilet, has a broken leg, or about any reasonable delays. As the child grows up, it starts to recognize it's own consistent awareness of it's body parts and bodily functions as self, and caregivers as self-objects. The child engages in narcissistic displays in order to integrate essential functions of the self. That's why a child will want to show you their scribbled drawings in the middle of you cooking dinner, or wants you to kiss their boo-boos when they get hurt. The former gets some sense of what they are good at and a feeling of accomplishment, which helps in forming their own identity, and the latter helps incorporate soothing internal structures. In other words, if a parent (self-object) reacts with just enough appropriate validation, affection, and mirroring, the child develops a sense of achievement and accomplishment and learns to soothe themselves.
But what about a child who has been neglected, abused, or overly spoiled? Then a process that should be completed in childhood remains stunted in the adult, and this is where narcissistic needs become pathologic. Now the adult denies their need for validation and attention while acting out rage against a world that has failed and fragmented them. They are unable to soothe themselves. Like a hungry infant who only recognizes that mom has yet failed to bring the milk, many of us grow up feeling empty, unsatisfied, unfulfilled and bored, and we assume it is because someone is to blame, especially, as Kohut warns, if you have leaders irresponsibly playing in to this human vulnerability. And so we seek merger with new self-objects to give us some sense of control and omnipotence, perhaps alcohol and drugs. Or like a child engaging in self-stimulation when it fails to get enough self-affirming responses and soothing from the environment, we may get addicted to porn or self-mutilation in order to retain some sort of cohesive sense of self. Sometimes humans form groups based off a sense of identity based off a shared omnipotent object that is an ideology. Information that challenges this ideology is like a personal injury to members of the group, and they may react as if to completely eradicate that injury. This is why there is little discourse on Twitter, and our presidential campaigns devolve into meaningless attacks on the opponent and the opponent's base rather than debates.
But would it help to achieve unity if those running for high corporate or public office or who wish to work for our news media should successfully complete their own analysis before service, producing nonidealogical and nonreactionary omnipotent self-objects upon which to model our behavior?
Kohut is eager to point to the value of analysis as a possible solution through "transmutating internalization," a concept I discuss in other reviews of Kohut's work. He says "neither a contemptuous attitude towards the powerful psychological forces that assert themselves... in human life nor the attempt at their total eradication will lead to genuine progress in man's self-control or social adaptation." Rather, through a psychology of the self, we can work to understand ourselves and each other. He suggests the psychological pathology of a society is really a manifestation of our attempts to evolve our psychic apparatus to social change and pressure. The insights from self psychology embraces this human need rather than represses it, uncovers barriers to growth, transforms our grandiosity and exhibitionism into realistic self-esteem and pleasure with ourselves and each other, making us into what he calls "l'homme engagé," a socially adaptive, joyful, and active participant in the affairs of our fellow humans. Kohut believes that empathy can be trained and employed with enough scientific rigor as to usher in a new form of humanitarianism--that of scientific empathy.
Now, Kohut would likely not suggest that all key societal figures undergo analysis, but based on his passionate address to the University of Cincinnati called "The Psychoanalyst in the Community of Scholars," also contained in the volume, he would certainly hope to see better training on the use of empathy--that ability to put yourself in the place of others--in all fields of study. Universities, once founded on Renaissance energy, engrained from the Age of Reason for preparing students for the conquest of nature, must adapt with the times to train the next generations on directing us to the next phase of our social evolution. Teaching and cultivating empathy is an essential, if not the most important, tool for health of our continued survival. If more of us practiced empathy, we would not be so quick to judgement, or adhere stubbornly to our points of view, or restrict ourselves to social networks of like-minded peers echoing thoughtlessly the opinions of our celebrities and cable news pundits. I can't help but feel that Kohut is spot on here. He is not saying that we should be tolerant of destructive behavior of fascist dictators or sociopaths with an "everything is subjective" attitude, but understanding each other is a powerful tool to avoiding the divides and dehuminization that leads only to further dangers.
But he is careful to add that for the science of psychoanalysis to attempt these grand ideals, it must be able to provide the empirical data necessary to define tangible goals necessary to improve society. The practitioners and students of analysis must unlock their own creativity and conduct more research into even the most central of it's theories. Kohut served as a consultant for the Ad Hoc Committee on Scientific Activities for the American Psychoanalytic Association, which by 1970 was concerned about the apparent paucity of original research in psychoanalysis. In this book, we read about his explorations into the nature of the very training that new analysts receive, scrutinizing areas that could potentially stifle interest in analytic research. I particularly liked his suggestion for scientific journals to allow a "section of ideas" which could be submitted by analysts in the trenches, sharing insights, experiences, and potential questions that could stimulate further investigation, all with the minimum of scientific rigor expected of a peer-reviewed publication. Kohut also looks into the issue of how the Association limits potential expansion of knowledge in psychoanalysis by restricting application to analytic training institutes to those only with medical degrees or training in psychology. This clearly must have been the kind of work that led to the eventual changes seen by my days of training at the New Orleans Psychoanalytic Institute, when everyone from teachers to historians to religious studies professors could and did serve as analysts. Just as Kohut predicted, the field of psychoanalysis had to go through it's own process of change, as we all must to our ever evolving sociocultural milieu.
Human beings go through critical periods in their development as individuals and as a society, and we are in one of those epochs. What a time to be alive! Kohut wrote most of this during the Vietnam era, a time very similar in sociocultural upheaval as today, so out of all Kohut's books, this one feels the most prescient, the most urgent, and the most passionate. Though not the entire focus of this volume, this is one of the few times you'll encounter the typically apolitical Kohut attempting to apply his theories and approach to group psychology and broader social issues. But like the rest of his work, I found it to be extremely engaging, beautiful, and awe-inspiring.
This volume goes for a pretty penny these days, but if you end up getting a copy, I hope you find this interesting and enlightening. And the next time you get angry about something you hear on the news, or over what a relative blurts out over the holiday roast, or even when you accidentally stub your toe, you may allow yourself pause and be inspired to take your own journey to a more harmonious and joyful relationship with your ever-changing world.
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