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Self Psychology: An Introduction is a comprehensive guide to the work of Kohut and other self-psychologists. In this book, Peter A. Lessem describes how the primary ideas of self-psychology came to Kohut, how he developed them, and how other self-psychologists followed his path. In the preface of the book, the author notes that:
“… Unfortunately, understanding self psychology has not been easy for those new to the field. Most find Kohut difficult to read and understand … I have tried to write a comprehensive, introductory text that will make the concepts of self psychology more accessible, especially for those students and clinicians making their first attempt to learn self psychology.”(p. 1)
The author discusses in great depth how Kohut derived his ideas and his influences from the fields of history, physics, philosophy, and psychology, and explains how he departed from Freudian classical psychoanalysis toward a new school of thought. Lessem comprehensively explores the basic differences between Kohut's and Freud's ideas and the reasons why Kohut would disagree with Freud in some areas. This gives the reader an opportunity to understand the context and background of Kohut's formulations and how the main ideas of self-psychology evolved in his mind.
After describing the evolution of each concept of self psychology starting with Kohut, the author explains how the other self psychologists, specially Bacal, Beebe, Foshage, and Storolow developed Kohut's formulations in an attempt to make them fit the needs of clinical psychoanalytic practice. For example, in chapter 3, in pages 44 through 46, Lessem explains how the concept of vertical split was introduced by Kohut, and then he discusses the evolution of this concept since Kohut