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Nowhere in Kohut's writings is his effort to point out the limitations of classical psychoanalysis as compared to self-psychological treatment more clearly stated than in his famous case study “The Two Analyses of Mr. Z” (1979). That Kohut attached great importance to the reception accorded this work is evidenced by his defense of it in subsequent papers and letters (e.g., Kohut, 1980, 1981a). In How Does Analysis Cure? (1984) he refuted the accusation that he had deliberately misrepresented his application of classical treatment methods in an attempt to propagandize for his new ideas. However, Kohut (1979) observed that when he analyzed Mr. Z for the first time, “I stood at the threshold of finally telling myself openly that psychoanalysis needed a decisive shift in emphasis in both theory and practice” (p. 87). Not yet having summoned all the courage required to cross that momentous threshold, Kohut admitted rejecting the manifestations of his patient's narcissism “with an attitude of harshness” and incorporating a liberal dose of “reality principle morality” into his communications.
By the time of Mr. Z's second analysis, Kohut no longer strained to adhere to the precepts of traditional psychoanalysis. In fact, Mr. Z benefited from all of the major theoretical and clinical discoveries about self-experience that were soon to be published in The Analysis of the Self (Kohut, 1971).
Since my very first reading of the case I have been deeply interested in it, possibly because the pleasure it provides me has always been mingled with perplexity. Much as I have greatly enjoyed my vicarious