Heinz Kohut died in Chicago on October 8, 1981. He had just returned from the third Conference on the Self in Berkeley, where, despite his mortal illness, he gave a thirty-minute address.
Heinz was born in Vienna on May 3, 1913, attended the Doblinger Gymnasium, and received his M.D. from the University of Vienna in 1938. He came to the United States in 1940 and in 1941 to the University of Chicago, where he trained in neurology, then psychiatry. He retained a warm tie to the University for the rest of his life, living in the neighborhood, and serving in later years as Professorial Lecturer.
In 1948 he married Elizabeth Meyer, and their son Thomas August was born in 1950. In that same year Heinz graduated from the Chicago Institute, where his outstanding abilities were immediately recognized and soon utilized on the staff and as training analyst. He taught the core theory sequence for many years and remained a strategic member of the Institute until the end. (At the time of his death he had completed a paper—his last—to be given at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Chicago Society and Institute, a month later.) He was a superb teacher and exerted immeasurable influence on colleagues and especially on the candidates for whom he was an inspiration.
Heinz's career brought many duties and honors, including President of the American Psychoanalytic Association (1964-65), Vice President of the International Psycho-Analytical Association (1965-73), Brill Lecturer, and recipient of the Hartmann Prize of the New York Psychoanalytic Society in 1971, Honorary Doctor of Science, University of Cincinnati in 1973, and Honor Cross for Science and Art, awarded by the Austrian Government, in 1977. In 1979 he became a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Science.
His brilliant and innovative scientific work earned international renown not only among analysts but in academia, and even in popular media. His publications in applied analysis, introspection and empathy, and especially the studies on narcissism led ultimately to the promulgation of the psychology of the self, which has become the nexus of a growing movement. These ideas have stimulated probably the strongest ferment and debate in the psychoanalysis of our time. History will record the outcome. For us in Chicago, his colleagues, students, and patients, Heinz was a great teacher and analyst, a man of noble generosity, who gave of his rich resources with a lavishness limited only by the frailty of his health. We mark his passing with great sorrow, but mitigated by the heritage of his contribution and the knowledge that he died peacefully, after a life fulfilled in every important respect.
Charles Kligerman, M.D.
Chicago