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Self Psychology Psychoanalysis Heinz Kohut in America Kohut departed from Vienna a few months later. He settled in England for a time and then emigrated to America in 1940. He took his specialty training in neurology at the University of Chicago and was widely recognized as one who would have an impact on his field. However, he soon shifted interests and professional pursuits from neurology to psychoanalysis. He received his analytic training at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, and upon graduation was appointed faculty member and training analyst. This was indeed an honour for one so relatively inexperienced. He was trained in the classical tradition of psychoanalysis, modified by the clinical and theoretical advances of the American ego psychology school of Hartmann, Kris, and Lowenstein. This tradition was grounded in the two basic Freudian principles of
Kohut became an advocate of these theories in his teaching, lecturing, and writing, and soon developed the reputation of being a conservative Freudian theorist. His views brought him the public admiration of such psychoanalytic luminaries as Anna Freud, Kurt Eissler, and Heinz Hartmann. In 1964 he was elected President of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Following this he was elected Vice President of the International Psychoanalytic Association and retained the position for nine years. This period earned him among his colleagues the affectionate title of "Mr. Psychoanalysis." It was, therefore, surprising when Kohut shifted his clinical views. Many of his colleagues, who had given him so much recognition just a short time before, now rejected him. His writing of the mid to late sixties questioned many of the psychoanalytic principles he had previously defended. But what had occurred to turn him around? What made him question the previously unquestioned? What made him reconsider the very theories of psychoanalysis that had so long guided his thinking and his clinical practice?
Kohut's clinical and theoretical perspective was considerably broadened by the case of Miss F. (Kohut 1968, 1971), which opened his eyes to significantly different psychic perceptions. Briefly, Miss F., a 25-year-old woman, had insisted that Kohut be nearly perfectly attuned to what she was saying. |