Introduction: Self Psychology Searches for Its Self

Self psychology is no longer a unity. Like other revolutions in thought, self psychology's essence was at first embodied in the person of its creator. For long periods, metaphysics remained Aristotelian, physics Newtonian, Communism Marxist, evolution Darwinian, and psychoanalysis, Freudian. In other fields, no matter how well based the deviation or consistent with the founder's teaching, deviation from the received image of the master's theory meant leaving the discipline. This does not seem to be self psychology's fate, at least up to the present. As this volume illustrates, Kohut's death did not halt the development of self psychology. Instead, self psychologists have created diverse points of view that amplify, extend, and correct Kohut's work.

Some of the reasons for this rapid evolution are apparent. First, Kohut's ideas were not thoroughly worked through and were clearly changing when he died, so they entreat further development rather than dogmatic adherence. Second, as Wolf demonstrates, Kohut's thinking is part of a new, increasingly egalitarian world view in which received truth can never play the central role. Third, Kohut and many of those he attracted to himself were iconoclasts whose creativity involved the reaction against venerated points of view; orthodoxy would never satisfy them. Finally, self psychology's contribution to understanding idealization means that many self psychologists have thought about and, to varying extents, worked through the meaning of idealization of a leader, and so these self psychologists are more