Kohut: Self Psychology

I have opened five grand-high Kahunas of professional psychology,

1.  John Bowlby: attachment
2.  Savador Minuchin: family systems therapy
3.  Aaron Beck: CBT & personality disorders
4.  Bessel van der Kolk: complex trauma
5.  Edward Tronick: child development

I am now going to open a sixth, Heinz Kohut: Psychoanalytic school; Self Psychology, Object Relations.

Heinz Kohut’s Self Psychology: An Overview

As the article notes, Kohut was twice named by peer nomination and accolade to the list of prominent accomplishment in the field .

Heinz Kohut is a psychoanalyst.  The psychoanalytic school is one of the four primary schools of psychotherapy

• Psychoanalytic
• Humanistic-Existential
• Cognitive-Behavioral
• Family Systems

The psychoanalytic school was formed and grounded by Freud, extended in different directions by Klien, Mahler, Erikson, Jung, and others, through personality disorders and Kernberg, and object relations to Winnicott and Bowlby.

And then into Kohut.  Heinz Kohut is the current state of the psychoanalytic school; Kohut, elaborated by Stolorow, extended into Bowlby, Stern and Tronick.  This is the current psychoanalytic school, and this is the sixth grand-high Kahuna of professional psychology I am calling.

Heinz Kohut.  Self Psychology; Object Relations.

Key Constructs?

• Modulated “optimal frustration”
• Self-objects
• Transference relationships
• Transmuting internalizations
• Parental failure of empathy

I’ve known Kohut all along.  Forensic psychology is dumb as a rock.  I wanted to lay foundation – Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck – then context – van der Kolk, Tronick .

Only once we are free of the pathogen, will I reach Heinz Kohut and Self Psychology.

The parents are free now, they have Minuchin, the ICD-10, and the APA ethics code.  They have surrounding support in attachment, complex trauma, and the breach-and-repair sequence.

They have the assessment protocol (Assessment of Attachment-Related Pathology Surrounding Divorce), and they have alternative options (ABAB Single-Case Assessment and Remedy; the Contingent Visitation Schedule).

Parents have the Escher Paradox of the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting to identify allies of the pathogen, they have the Parenting Practices Rating Scale to document their parenting and protect themselves from false allegations.  Everyone has the Parent-Child Relationship Rating Scale as the outcome measure for the pathology.

If there is any concern about the child’s recovery, Dorcy Pruter is available and recommended; Conscious Co-Parenting Institute.

Everyone has everything they need.  It’s just a matter of do you want a solution or not?  If you want to argue and fight, and fight, and fight, you will. When you want a solution… do it.

I am free now of my obligations.

Now, we’ve reached Heinz Kohut: Self Psychology; Object Relations

• John Bowly is attachment
• Aaron Beck is CBT
• B.F. Sinner is behavioral psychology
• Salvador Minuchin is family systems therapy
• Heinz Kohut is psychoanalysis

The top-tier of grand-high Kahunas in the pantheon of professional psychology, sculpt a mountain.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857