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We call ourselves self psychologists, but none of us treats a self, any more than ego psychologists treat or see egos, or id psychologists deal with the id. What we really do is best illustrated by the paradigm case of self psychology, Miss F, described by Kohut in The Analysis of the Self (1971).
Kohut tells us that, after repeated efforts to help Miss F to understand the meaning of what she was saying in terms of the theoretical framework that he brought to the analytic situation, and failing as often to overcome the patient's resistance, he one day realized that the patient was speaking two languages simultaneously. Behind Miss F's nagging, complaining, insistent, demanding whine, which is so typical of certain patients with narcissistic personality disorders, he heard the voice of a misunderstood child desperately trying to hold herself together. And when he taught himself how to speak to that child, he started to feel much better and eventually so did the patient—the rest is history.
In this sense Freud was the first self psychologist. He was able to hear behind the bizarre complaints, the irrational fears, and the