The Search for the Self

Book excerpt: The re-issuing of the four volumes of the author's writings is a major publishing event for psychoanalysts who are interested in both the theoretical and the therapeutic aspects of psychoanalysis. These volumes contain the author's pre-self psychology essays as well as those he wrote in order to continue to expand on his groundbreaking ideas, which he presented in The Analysis of the Self; the Restoration of the Self; and in How Does Analysis Cure? These volumes of The Search for the Self permit the reader to understand not only the above three basic texts of psychoanalytic self psychology more profoundly, but also to appreciate Kohut's sustained openness to further changes - to dare to present his self psychology as in continued flux, influenced by newly emerging empirical data of actual clinical practice. The current re-issue of the four volumes of The Search for the Self would assure that the younger generation of psychoanalysts would be exposed to a clinical theory that could contribute greatly to solving the therapeutic dilemmas facing psychoanalysis today. This is volume four.