The Search for the Self: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut 1950-1978

“The re-issuing of the four volumes of Heinz Kohut’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 Kohut’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.” ―From the Foreword by Paul Ornstein

Volumes 1 and 2 of The Search for the Self encompass Heinz Kohut's selected writings and letters from 1950 to 1978. Volumes 3 and 4 continue with the further collection of his selected writings and letters (published as well as previously unpublished) from 1978 until his untimely death in 1981.