Introduction

As psychoanalytic self psychology has moved from infancy to toddlerhood, the annual self psychology conferences have fostered and borne witness to this developmental process. The papers and discussions from the early conferences were published under a variety of titles. Each of the volumes has also included work other than those presented at the highlighted conference. This volume is no exception to that tradition.

The first section comprises two papers describing the experience of being supervised by Heinz Kohut. It is of course most interesting to hear about the person whose genius it was that launched self psychology. These first-person accounts also offer specific clinical material presented personally to Kohut, enabling us to learn substantially more about how Kohut would handle particular clinical quandaries in a way not presented in any of his published work.

Section Two, Integration of Theories, is a treat for its readers. It presents the most current, “cutting-edge” contributions to psychoanalytic theoretical discourse. One could not find a more sophisticated presentation and discussion of the crucial theoretical issues facing contemporary psychoanalysis: Psychoanalysis has a long history of rejecting rather than attempting to integrate new ideas with its classical model. Dr. Stolorow and the Drs. Schane each break with this long