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Kohut (1982) posed an important question when he asked:
What stands in the way of the acceptance of our outlook, why can we not convince more of those who have espoused the traditional psychoanalytic outlook that intergenerational strife … refers not to the essence of man but, … [is a] deviation … from the normal, however frequently … [it] may occur? Why can't we convince our colleagues that the normal state, however rare in pure form, is a joyfully experienced developmental forward move in childhood … [p. 402]?
Kohut was referring to a widespread resistance to self psychology: the unwillingness to accept a shift in certain fundamental premises about human nature and the nature of the relational world. We have set ourselves the task of examining this resistance. But we shall do so by using the concept of resistance as Kohut himself developed it: as