Paper Session A

2. The Analyst’s Own Analysis:
From Freud to Kohut

Self Psychology Page | 23rd Conference Program

Overview

This paper argues that the position influential thinkers within psychoanalysis take towards the field largely derives from their most intimate experiences with psychoanalysis, particularly their own analyses. Freud created psychoanalysis n tandem with his self-analysis. Helen Deutsch, after a positive experience of analysis with Freud, became a fierce defender of psychoanalysis. Henry A. Murray had a disappointing analysis. He then became a critic of psychoanalysis and developed his own theory of personality as an alternative to psychoanalysis. Heinz Kohut had a mixed experience in his training analysis. He remained within the psychoanalytic movement but developed a theory, self psychology, which can be described as the approach that he felt would have helped him, and would have explained his personal psychopathology, more successfully that his training analysis had.

Self Psychology Page | 23rd Conference Program