Customer Reviews
Kohut and Jung - By: Sam Vaknin, 22 Apr 2004 
No other concept in depth psychology provoked so much controversy andspawned so many schools of thought as the Self. This book is a magnificenttour d'horizon, spanning the crucial decades from Freud to Jung andtherefrom to Kohut.
The book demonstrates that, in a way, Heinz Kohutmerely took Jung a step further & invented a new vocabulary to rephrasesome of Jung's insights. He said that pathological narcissism is not theresult of excessive narcissism, libido or aggression.
It is the result of defective, deformed or incomplete narcissistic (self)structures. Kohut postulated the existence of core constructs which henamed: the Grandiose Exhibitionistic Self & the Idealized Parent Imago(see below). Children entertain notions of greatness (primitive or naivegrandiosity) mingled with magical thinking, feelings of omnipotence andomniscience & a belief in their immunity to the consequences of theiractions. These elements & the child's feelings regarding its parents(which are also painted by it with a brush of omnipotence & grandiosity)- coagulate & form these constructs.
The child's feelings towards its parents are reactions to their responses(affirmation, buffering, modulation or disapproval, punisment, evenabuse).
These responses help maintain the self-structures. Without the appropriateresponses, grandiosity, for instance, cannot be transformed into adultambitions & ideals.
To Kohut, grandiosity & idealization were positive childhood developmentmechanisms. Even their reappearance in transference should not beconsidered a pathological narcissistic regression. am Vaknin, author of"Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".
