Preface

After Heinz Kohut died in October of 1981 and the shock of his departure had somewhat subsided, those of his colleagues who were interested in and part of the life and work of this remarkable man, had to consider at length what self psychology would be without him. I once said to him that there was no real creativity in self psychology apart from his work, and at that time he had felt it necessary to apologize for that situation. I now suspect that there could be no real creativity in the field as long as his presence and his own brilliant mind continued to impress and produce so much. In truth it has taken most of us years to understand and appreciate what he gave to psychoanalysis, and the time for new ideas was simply not right. With this book we hope that perhaps that moment is imminent.

There is little doubt in the minds of Kohut's friends and associates that the legacy most significant to him was his work, and his most fervent wish was to have his ideas promulgated and widely disseminated. There was more than one time of either dismay and bewilderment on his part when forced to defend and explain something that he had never written or said, or when asked to respond to a question that he had written upon extensively. But since I was among the naive and untutored questioners, I can only agree that the demon of forgetfulness and misunderstanding never seems to rest for long. We needed and will continue to need forums for discussion, places to exchange ideas and learn, and some vehicle to help new thoughts to grow. To those ends, our first decision was to have annual conferences.

We have held conferences on self psychology all over the country (and outside as well) that have ranged from single presentations to more complex three-day meetings with panels, workshops, and seminars. Most of the conferences have been collected in one volume or another and much of the material in this present book comes from the sixth annual conference held in Los Angeles in 1983. However