The Theory and Practice of Self Psychology by Marjorie Taggart White and Marcella Bakur Weiner New York:  Brunner/Mazel, 1986,  xxx + 209 pp., $25.00

This book on the practical use of self-psychological concepts is written by a Ph.D. who teaches at the American Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and by an Ed.D. who is an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Social Service of Fordham University. Both are in private practice.

White and Wiener have immersed themselves in the self psychology of Heinz Kohut, beginning with his seminal “Forms and Transformations of Narcissism” (1966), which they designate as the official birthday of self psychology, and ending with his posthumously published book, How Does Analysis Cure? (1984). I personally felt that the real birth of self psychology was in 1957, when Dr. Kohut delivered his paper on “Introspection, Empathy and Psychoanalysis,” which was published two years later (Kohut, 1959). I was in the process of leaving the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis to take a position as an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati, and Dr. Kohut's presentation was the last I heard in Chicago. It was an unforgettable performance! Via his connection with Cincinnati to a number of us here,