Critical Reflections on the Theory of Self Psychology: An Inside View

In the opening paragraph of his book, Kohut (1984) characterized How Does Analysis Cure? as an effort to clarify and further elaborate ideas that he had set forth earlier in The Restoration of the Self (1977). His final book may be read as a kind of “progress report” on the current status of a new theoretical system still in an early phase of intensive development. It is this evolving framework that is the focus of my essay.

Since the publication of The Restoration of the Self, in which Kohut firmly demarcated his theoretical system from that of classical metapsychology, the psychoanalytic literature has abounded in critical reactions to self psychology from its opponents and, less frequently, rejoinders to these criticisms by its advocates. The present paper is, I believe, unique in that it offers a critical examination of self psychology's theoretical concepts by someone who uses this framework extensively in his own work. Thus, my purpose here is neither to repudiate nor to defend self psychology, but, by clarifying