ABSTRACT
During the final fifteen years of his life, from 1966 to 1981, Kohut proposed some major additions to and revisions of psychoanalytic theory and therapy—changes dealing with the subjects of narcissism and the psychology of the self. Some writers (e.g., Ornstein, 1978c, p. 105) have referred to Kohut’s concepts as a “new paradigm” for psychoanalysis, but Kohut (1980b) disliked the term paradigm and took the position that self psychology represents “an unbroken continuum with traditional psychoanalytic theory” (1978b, p. 937; see also Kohut, 1980b, pp. 501, 505, 514–515, 520; and Ferguson, 1981). He wrote in his 1971 monograph:
This book is a continuation and expansion of a series of studies, published in 1959, 1963 (with Seitz), 1966, 1968. The case material and the conclusions drawn from it, and the conceptualizations contained in these papers, have been used freely throughout the ensuing pages. This monograph constitutes the rounding out and completion of the investigation of the libidinal aspects of narcissism which had been initiated in these earlier essays [pp. xv–xvi].
