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The Annual of Psychoanalysis, Volume XII–XIII, dedicated to Heinz Kohut, M.D. begins with two moving tributes to Kohut that set the tone and pace for the selected papers to follow. The book is divided into sections labelled Theoretical Studies, Clinical Studies and Applied Psychoanalysis.
The section on Theoretical Studies consists of 12 papers of various topics with the unifying theme being that of self psychology as the basic metapsychological focus. The leading article entitled 'Transference: The future of an illusion' by Robert Stolorow & Frank Lachmann attempts to trace the history of the understanding of transference from Freud's early views to more recent concepts of transference as 'organizing activity'. Transference is seen as a 'microcosm of the patient's total psychological life', rather than a regression or displacement from the past. The authors note their position to be heavily influenced by Kohut's formulation of the 'self object transference' in which 'the patient attempts to reestablish idealizing and mirroring ties ruptured during the formative years'. It is their hope that transference be seen as 'an expression of the universal psychological stirring to organize experience and create meanings'.
Lotte Kohler's paper 'On self object countertransference' attempts to differentiate familar countertransference phenomena from 'self object countertransference in which the analyst experiences the patient as part of his self'. She uses as support of her thesis 'understanding of the dynamics of the infant-caregiver relationship'. Note is made of the use of the child by the mother as a 'mirroring self object' or 'idealized self object to make up for deficiencies in themselves'. Analytic countertransferences are seen similarly as representative of self object phenomena which may represent idealization or mirroring of the analysand.
'Self psychology and the neuroses' by Ernest Wolf, using the analogy of a 'psychomicroscope' to make the hidden visible, tra