Book Description

"The New World of Self traces Heinz Kohut's transformation of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. His psychology of empathy introduced a new paradigm of self that provides an alternative to one based on the drives that Freud and ego psychology favored. The book closely examines Kohut's theoretical and clinical work in a series of chapters on empathy, the self, the selfobject, rage, self-state dreams, sexualization, the nature of healing in psychotherapy, the extension of self psychology to the humanities, and the spiritual dimension of Kohut's thinking. The book is the first such examination of all Kohut's work in the historical context of what preceded him and the approaches that have evolved in psychoanalysis as a direct result of his contributions. There are three objectives of the book worth noting. First, each thematic chapter stands alone and can be read separately to understand a given dimension of Kohut's thought. There is, however, a conceptual sequence in the book. The whole is larger than the sum of its parts. Kohut clarified for psychoanalysis the holistic nature of self, just as this book makes clear the totality of his theory. Second, the book relieves Kohut of his often dense language and makes him accessible to clinicians and scholars who have lost sight of his significance as the foundational thinker in psychoanalysis after Freud. Finally, all the clinical material illustrating Kohut's theories are from his own cases or of those he supervised. The book is the most complete, readable, and thorough introduction to Heinz Kohut available"--