Prologue

The Prologue to Part 1 of this issue opened with a bowl of spaghetti and sauce. This issue opens closer to the bone, with a band of cannibals. They are enjoying a meal; the entrée is a member of another tribe.

Paulo de Andrade, the Brazilian modernist artist, quoted by Ricardo Bernardi in this issue, proposed that a community responds to the challenge of “outside” products by “cannibalizing” the products of other cultures along with the products of its own past. As Bernardi writes: “Which morsels of Kohut did I cannibalize and which did I let pass?” In the 21st century, psychoanalytic tribes, or communities, differ over era, geography, and core beliefs. Part 2 reflects the extent to which Heinz Kohut's body (body of work, that is) has been served up or left behind.

Paul Ornstein is the editor of The Search for the Self, Kohut's collected papers, which includes his comprehensive discussions (Ornstein, 1978, 1990) of Kohut's evolution from ego psychology to a psychoanalytic psychology of the self. His résumé presents a thriving list of publications, many of which are collaborations with his wife, Anna.

Ornstein begins by reminding the reader of Kohut's initial statement of the centrality of empathy to psychoanalysis: Empathy not only permits a prolonged, sustained “entry” into the inner world of the patient, it also designates the boundaries of psychoanalysis as a “pure psychology.” But Ornstein seeks to go further, addressing, through a clinical illustration, “the question we have raised about the function of empathy in the treatment process.”

Ricardo Bernardi's article describes how, during his control analysis of “Pablo,” the integration of Kohut's concepts of empathy and a mirroring selfobject transference allowed the analysis to move beyond a two-year stalemate into an ultimately successful treatment. The narrative of this clinical passage vibrates with scenes of color, shape, and emotion that reflect the literary ambience of the Río de la Plata, shared by Pa