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This collection of papers was originally gathered for presentation at a Festchrift honouring Kohut on his seventieth birthday. His untimely death in October 1981, turned the event into a memorial, and the editor, in his brief preface, speaks of these contributions as being 'addressed to a man whose vigor and vitality as an intellectual leader in psychoanalysis was unmatched'. He feels that it is too soon for 'a proper' memorial volume although these papers constitute a tribute to the importance of Kohut's work.
The collection ranges from all-out enthusiastic papers about Kohut's total oeuvre (e.g. by A. Cooper, B. Brandchaft, E. Wolf, the Tolpins, and A. Ornstein) to the instance of a thoughtful, critical assessment and attempt at integration by Robert Wallerstein. There are no vigorous dissenters represented here, with the exception of Meissner, who in his review of his own and others' points of view about narcissism and the concept of self, does fault Kohut for seeming to pre-empt these areas for his own self psychology and for his failure to articulate his ideas sufficiently with others. There are also a number of articles whose ideas and concepts are only tangentially or inferentially related to Kohut's work per se, like those by Michels, Kanzer, the Litowitzs, and Knapp. The stand of these latter authors as to Kohut's contribution is either unclear, inferential, or not relevant to their material.
The editor has divided the volume into five Parts or sections, which frequently overlap, but which offer some structure to guide the reader as to the main focus of a particular author. The divisions are: Clinical Critique of Self Psychology; Theory; Dreams, Technique and Clinical Theory; Development; and Applied Psychoanalysis. There is some merit in reading the volume in toto since it does represent a potpourri of views and critiques that both extend, reflect and occasionally dissent from Kohut's work. It is worth noting also that many of the papers appear to s