ABSTRACT
Kohut (1982) posed an important question when he asked:
What stands in the way of the acceptance of our outlook, why can we not convince more of those who have espoused the traditional psychoanalytic outlook that intergenerational strife … refers not to the essence of man but, … [is a] deviation … from the normal, however frequently … [it] may occur? Why can’t we convince our colleagues that the normal state, however rare in pure form, is a joyfully experienced developmental forward move in childhood … [p. 402]?
Kohut was referring to a widespread resistance to self psychology: the unwillingness to accept a shift in certain fundamental premises about human nature and the nature of the relational world. We have set ourselves the task of examining this resistance. But we shall do so by using the concept of resistance as Kohut himself developed it: as containing an important kernel of subjective truth. Thus, we see this resistance to self psychology as more than an inability or unwillingness to accept its truths, but as a view that is likely to contain significant truths of its own. We find it appropriate–and at the deepest level consonant with the perspective of self psychology–to search for the inherent “kernel of truth” in the resistance to self psychology. There are common themes in the criticisms of self psychology. We shall attempt to show that the perspective of evolutionary biology can shed light on our biases and help us to acknowledge the underlying elements of truth in some of these critiques.