The Search for the Self: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut, 1950-1978: Edited by Paul H. Ornstein. New York: International Universities Press, 1978, 2 vols., 968 pp., $55.00.

We are in Paul Ornstein's debt for gathering together all the writings of Heinz Kohut (excepting his monographs of 1971)(and 1977). Not only do these two volumes bring together Kohut's work in a convenient form, allowing easier access to the developing oeuvre, but they are preceded by Ornstein's excellent introduction. In truly Pauline fashion, as proponent and explicator of a new and controversial viewpoint, Ornstein has delineated the several lines of development of Kohut's ideas, detected certain early trends that adumbrate the later conceptualizations, and attempted a synthesis of Kohut's theories, which he feels warrant the status of a "new paradigm" of psychoanalysis. While there are cogent reasons to question this latter claim and various aspects of the clinical and theoretical assumptions involved, there can be no question about the value of these volumes in helping the open-minded analyst decide for himself the place of self psychology within psychoanalysis or, alternatively, its relationship to psychoanalysis. At the very least, he may get some concept of a current of thought which is arousing enthusiasm and controversy both within and without psychoanalytic circles.

In his Introduction, Ornstein points out the advantage of reading this collection over reading the individual papers in isolation. One is clearly better able to discern the evolution of Kohut's ideas over time, and the editor guides the reader in several helpful ways. For example, he not only organizes the content and contributions of the various writings into several phases, marked off by those papers which represent nodal points, but he also comments on certain implicit changes in meaning which occur even when Kohut uses the language of classical psychoanalysis. This reviewer found it useful to read the Introduction again after completing the two volumes, since it allowed a comparison of the overview gained thereby with that presented by the editor (who is the uniformly enthusiastic pr