ABSTRACT
Kohut and Jung take quite different approaches to dreams. In 1971, Kohut made an abrupt break from Freudian dream theory in identifying what he called "self-state" dreams. Against Freud, he suggested that there are dreams that do not benefit from trying to uncover latent content. Both Jung and Kohut believed that the primary drive or impulse in the human psyche is to strive toward the full realization of a self that is already determined as a nucleus within the infant. Both Jung and Kohut recognize the power of idealization to generate affect and bring about transformation. Empathy, for Kohut, is a means to reach the deepest and most fragile parts of the psyche and to offer the possibility of establishing a coherent self. For Jung, "This bond is often of such intensity that we could almost speak of it as a 'combination'.
