On the eve of World War II, the Chicago Institute, like many psychoanalytic centers in the United States, was enriched by the influx of Central European emigrès fleeing Hitler, a group that included both eminent analysts and unknown students. One of the latter, Heinz Kohut, was destined to emerge as the Chicago Institute's most distinguished graduate and to create a whole new field within psychoanalysis, the psychology of the self.
Born in Vienna in 1913, Kohut earned his M.D. at the university there in 1938, spent a miserable year in England, including time in a camp for enemy aliens, and arrived impecunious in Chicago in March 1940 to begin an internship at South Shore Hospital. Progressing to a neurology residency at the University of Chicago, he then moved on to psychiatry, and by 1941 had become an assistant professor. In one form or another, the academic tie to the University of Chicago lasted throughout his career.
In November 1942 Kohut applied to the Institute for psychoanalytic training. He had always intended to become an analyst and had already undergone a year of analysis in Vienna with August Aichhorn, who, not coincidentally, was famous for his empathic approach to adolescents. Kohut's candidacy began at a time when the local psychoanalytic scene was polarized between the adherents of the forceful Institute director, Franz Alexander, and the so-called Blitzsten group, who rallied around the charismatic Lionel Blitzsten, a verbally brilliant clinician who published virtually nothing. There were both scientific and emotional/ideological factors in this feud too complex to explore here, but some of the differences were that Alexander viewed psychoanalysis in a more medical-biological light and engaged in radical experimentation in the brief psychoanalytic approach that, in the name of flexibility, altered the number of psychoanalytic hours and their spacing to a level far below what The American regarded as appropriate. His view that this form of treatment was still psychoanalysis, rather than psychoanalytic therapy, outraged many in the analytic community. The Blitzsten group were more puristically psychological, placing much greater emphasis on pregenital factors and on the subtleties of narcissistic issues. They deplored the reduction in frequency and intensity of psychoanalytic sessions. Many who gravitated toward Blitzsten were recent Viennese immigrants like Kurt and Ruth Eissler, Elisabeth Goldner, and Paul and Maria Kramer; they were joined by such important American analysts as Max Gitelson and Joan Fleming.
The deep and acrimonious tension between the groups never resulted in an outright split, due largely to personal friendships that bridged the gap, and the formation of a monthly seminar for training analysts. Heavily attended by both sides, this seminar maintained an ongoing dialogue on “training issues,” in spite of icy stares across the room. While the situation posed a painful situation for candidates, who at times were torn between loyalty to their training analysts and to supervisors who often enough disagreed among themselves, there was remarkably little polemical discourse in the classrooms.
Kohut had from the first developed close ties with the Blitzsten group, but his superior abilities were quickly recognized and soon he was being wooed by both sides. Even during his student days, Kohut, who had devoured practically all of Freud's works while still in Vienna, was regarded almost as a senior analyst by his fellow candidates. In 1948 he married Elizabeth Meyer, the head social worker at the Institute, and in 1953 he was appointed to the faculty.
At about that time, in the face of considerable criticism by The American of Alexander's technical experimentation and great pressure to return to a more traditional form of training, the Institute staff, many of whom were already questioning the Alexander approach, yielded to this pressure and set up a committee of three to revise and formalize the entire curriculum. It is a sign of the regard in which Kohut was held by many that he was appointed to this committee along with Joan Fleming and Lou Shapiro. Together they formulated a core curriculum which, with certain modifications, remains to this day.
Kohut was given responsibility for the curriculum's theoretical section, which begins with Freud's thought and then traces its historical development to the ego psychology of Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein, who at that time reigned supreme in American psychoanalysis. In addition to his reverential attitude toward Freud, Kohut harbored a strong idealization of Hartmann, intellectual leader of the New York Institute, and was strongly influenced as well by Aichhorn, Edward Glover, and Anna Freud. Clinically, he was greatly influenced by members of the Blitzsten group, particularly by Paul Kramer in regard to narcissistic issues and empathic listening.
His teaching of the theoretical sequence became almost legendary. His brilliant lectures were always delivered extemporaneously, with great variation and a wealth of clinical examples. To the very last, he was a magnificent teacher and lecturer, entrancing students who flocked to him in such large numbers that eventually enrollment in his courses had to be restricted. Nor were his individual teaching and clinical supervision any less captivating. If his style had any weak point it was in his handling of discussion. Questions would be answered, but in general he did not encourage open classroom discussion, believing full well that his students' time was better spent on all that he had to give. A few resented this, viewing him as an arbitrary and condescending Teutonic professor, but the majority of candidates seemed to rejoice in what they received.
As a dispenser of Hartmannian ego psychology, Kohut in those days was often referred to as Mister Psychoanalysis. Thus, many were taken aback by the seemingly sudden advent of self psychology, which seemed the very antithesis of ego psychology. A careful study of his work, however, reveals this turn as a natural development.
The first adumbration of the new approach occurred in the seminal paper, “Introspection, Empathy, and Psychoanalysis,” first presented in 1957 on the occasion of the Chicago Institute's twenty-fifth anniversary. There Kohut insisted that valid psychoanalytic knowledge can be obtained only from introspection and its vicarious counterpart, empathy, and that these alone provide the data base for any scientific approach to psychoanalysis.
Indeed, he argued, they define the very method and boundaries of the field. This position, elaborated and developed over the next decade, was to culminate in the watershed The Analysis of the Self , a work that established the field of self psychology and changed the face of the psychoanalytic world.
The 1957 address met considerable antagonism in The American and, perhaps to a lesser degree, within the Institute. Alexander is quoted as having said, “In this talk, Kohut has destroyed psychoanalysis.” Such criticisms notwithstanding, the experiential approach to the self as opposed to a mechanistic approach to the ego; his understanding of narcissism as a normal development of infantile grandiosity and idealization, unless exposed to unhealthy selfobject experiences, whereupon shame and humiliation would ensue, with an outcome of narcissistic rage rather than instinctual destructive drive; and his related emphasis on developmental deficit in the self rather than impairment due to conflict, and on prevalence of self-esteem issues rather than guilt—all these ideas were fresh and new, and seemed much closer to clinical reality than did classical psychodynamics. These ideas, enormously appealing to perceptive students, brought them flocking to Kohut from all over the world, some flying in regularly from foreign countries for supervision.
In the meantime, Alexander had left shortly after the confrontation with The American, first for a year at a Palo Alto think tank and then finally for Los Angeles, where he was eagerly courted by the Southern California group, which named their institute after him. He was succeeded as director in Chicago by Gerhart Piers, who was succeeded in turn by George H. Pollock. Although both leaders were somewhat perturbed by the turmoil around Kohut, both had deep respect for his creativity and were supportive of his work, at times providing financial assistance for his publications.
Kohut was always a member of the Institute staff, and later the Council, except for a brief period. He played a major role in many committees and on the teaching faculty, until gradually he withdrew from these activities to devote himself to theoretical work. Nonetheless, his was always a very potent voice in the Council. The students who flocked to him undoubtedly included many of the best and brightest, and eventually constituted a formidable group of “Kohutians.” Initially an informal association of enthusiastic adherents, eventually the group developed into a highly organized self psychology workshop that met regularly at the Institute but remained independent. This was the nucleus of the self psychology movement that would later expand nationally and internationally. This is not the place to document the antagonisms and struggles that raged within mainstream psychoanalysis during the seventies and eighties with regard to self psychology, but time has attenuated the divisions, and a current emphasis on “common ground” has allowed the full acceptance of self psychology as a valid branch of psychoanalysis.
At the Chicago Institute itself, there was much division on this issue. Most of the older analysts, conservative in outlook, maintained considerable reserve—and even hostility—vis-à-vis self psychology, while the more militant among Kohut's followers believed that the new field had completely replaced traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, and that the Institute should reflect the “new order.” In fact, the curriculum committee did include courses and workshops in self psychology, and recruited teachers from the self psychology group to teach them, but the courses were given at an advanced level, while the traditional curriculum continued to adhere to standards approved by The American. The zealots demanded that the self psychological approach be taught ab initio and that the Institute adopt this official stance, in effect becoming an institute of self psychology. This position evoked understandable resistance, and as tension grew so did the threat of a split. Although this demand probably exceeded Kohut's own desires, he was reluctant to curb too sharply the enthusiasm of his adherents. Kohut himself had always considered self psychology the logical outgrowth of ego psychology, and a new stage in the evolution of a great tradition. This position he stated very clearly in his final book, the posthumous How Does Analysis Cure?
The ongoing acrimony led to a great deal of behind-the-scenes political maneuvering and to a very sad event: for the first time, Kohut failed to be reelected to the Council, the ruling body of the Institute. This was a great shock to Kohut, and indeed to everyone else, including his opponents, producing a mood akin to the remorse of the primal horde. In any event, he was reinstated at the following election and remained on the Council until his death. In time tempers cooled, and everyone took a more mature view of the situation. In characteristic Chicago style, a split was averted and plans for a new Institute were abandoned.
With the departure of George Pollock as director, though not as its result, the Institute was reorganized by a faculty that included many self psychologist members. The new director, Arnold Goldberg, was himself one of the pillars of the self psychology movement. Nevertheless, the Institute continued as a traditional school, however strongly influenced by Kohut's ideas. In this regard, three aspects of his influence, at times overlooked, deserve special attention. (1) An extraordinarily cultivated man, Kohut had a passionate interest in applied analysis. His earliest papers were on music and on Thomas Mann, and these were followed by many later essays on similar topics. This was a source of inspiration to younger analysts who wished to try their hand in this field, and Kohut was always ready to critique their work in a helpful way. (2) He had a similarly strong interest in scientific research. As a teacher he encouraged young analysts to engage creatively in research, and as President of The American he instituted a standing committee on research that has played an important role. (3) Like Freud, Kohut supported lay analysis, holding that psychoanalysis is a general psychology and that organized psychoanalysis should not close its doors to gifted people without medical training. To this end, he paid a great deal of attention to the candidate selection process and its criteria. Those who came to training from fields other than medicine often found themselves befriended and supported by Kohut.
Following his death in October 1981, a Kohut Memorial Committee was formed consisting of his widow Elizabeth, his son Thomas, Ernest Wolf, and Charles Kligerman. The committee has raised funds to assist gifted nonmedical candidates from the humanities and the arts in their psychoanalytic education, and in helping them publish psychoanalytic papers. The committee has also financed the establishment of the Kohut Archives at the Institute, which houses Kohut's manuscripts and memorabilia. This is the only explicit memorial to Kohut to be found at the Institute, but more important is his ubiquitous presence among all who came into contact with this extraordinary man.