Abstract
Heinz Kohut was born in Vienna on May 3, 1913 to Felix and Else Kohut, who were of Jewish decent. His father had prepared himself for a career as a concert pianist but was forced to go into business by World War I. Some details of Kohut’s childhood are clouded by controversy because of the uncertainty about their origin. In 1977, at the age of 64, he wrote the Two analyses of Mr. Z. to fulfill an obligation to a publisher. Kohut published it 2 years later (Kohut, 1979/1991) . The paper purports to deal with a patient whom Kohut analyzed at two different points in his professional career. At the first point, Kohut was a committed classical analyst who applied principles of drive theory to the treatment of the man. Five years later, Kohut reported that the man returned for a second analysis, during which Kohut applied his newly formulated theory of self-psychology. The first analysis left major elements in the man’s psychopathology unresolved, whereas the second analysis was concluded successfully having dealt with the man’s narcissistic character traits that were incompletely understood through drive theory.
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Wolf, E. S. 1988. Treating the self: Elements of clinical self psychology. New York: The Guilford Press.
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Palombo, J., Koch, B.J., Bendicsen, H.K. (2009). Heinz Kohut (1913–1981). In: Guide to Psychoanalytic Developmental Theories. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-88455-4_14
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