Soteriological Dimensions in the Work of Heinz Kohut

Author(s): Robert L. Randall

Source: Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Summer, 1980), pp. 83-91
Published by: Springer
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 Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 19, No. 2, Summer 1980

Soteriological Dimensions in
the Work of Heinz Kohut

ROBERT L. RANDALL
ABSTRACT: A framework of theological inquiry is utilized to illuminate soteriological dimen
sions implicit in Heinz Kohut's psychology of the self as expressed in his most recent work, The
Restoration of the Self. Kohut's new formulations involve the unfolding of a saving approach that
through its broad application seeks to overcome "the psychological danger that puts the psycholog
ical survival of modern Western man into the greatest jeopardy." The theological inquiry em
ployed asks: What is the essential nature of man? How has man fallen away from his essential
self? By what means is he to be saved from his broken condition? Kohut's implicit and explicit
"answers" are summarized by dealing with four cardinal issues in his book: definitions of the self;
the relationship of a psychology of the self to other psychologies; theory concerning the selfs
structure, development, and restoration; and the centrality of the empathie response.

In a previous article published elsewhere, I summarized Heinz Kohut's impor

tant work on narcissistic personality disturbances, as developed primarily in
The Analysis of the Self, and employed his interpretative framework to illumi
nate narcissistic characteristics inherent in the religious ideation expressed by
a client in long-term therapy with me.1 In this present study the methodology
is basically reversed; that is, I attempt to utilize a framework of theological
inquiry to illuminate soteriological characteristics implicit in the narcissistic
ideation expressed by Kohut in his most recent book, The Restoration of the
Self. My effort at this point is not to bring a theological critique to bear on
Kohut's perspective, but rather 1) to provide again a general summary of his
most recent thinking and 2) while being faithful to his clinical perspective, yet
bring Kohut into a position where theological-psychological dialogue can occur
around specific issues.
Such an effort would not really have been appropriate with Kohut's earlier
work. In his early articles he began to sketch some of the selfs seminal narcis
sistic features. Then, in The Analysis of the Self, he highlighted with great
clinical detail the selfs psychological anatomy. In these works, narcissistic
disorders are particular clinical phenomena which are best treated by an in
formed psychoanalysis that understands the independent narcissistic line of
development, the vicissitudes of the narcissistic transference, and that avoids
interpreting the need for self-objects as libidinal strivings. While The Restora
tion of the Selfemploys an empirical-clinical approach for the most part, Kohut
goes beyond this. In his "Epilogue" he allows himself to relax and "to extract a
broader meaning," to "raise questions that cannot be answered by research

Dr. Robert L. Randall is minister of counseling at St. Peters United Church of Christ, Elmhurst,
Illinois.

0022-4197/80/1400-0083$00.95 83 ? 1980 Institutes of Religion and Health

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 84 Journal of Religion and Health

that limits itself to a clinical approach-"2 From reading the text, however, it
appears that Kohut has not circumscribed these "broader vistas" within his
last chapter, for they are implicitly present throughout. Kohut's new formula
tions on the psychology of the self embody a dimension of ultimacy that goes
beyond the diagnosis and analytic treatment of a particular pathological disor
der. Indeed, there seems to be an element of soteriological concern, i.e., the
unfolding of a saving approach that, through its broad application, seeks to
overcome "the psychological danger that puts the psychological survival of
modern Western man into the greatest jeopardy... ."3
Features of this soteriological dimension can be elicited through an organiz
ing framework of theological inquiry. An attempt to understand what man
needs to be restored involves ascertaining what man is and how he gets into his
existential predicaments. Therefore, these traditional theological formulations
are raised: What is the essential nature of man? How has man fallen away
from his essential self? By what means is he to be saved from his broken
condition? There are four cardinal issues in The Restoration of the Self that I
shall use to summarize Kohut's position as well as to illuminate the soteriolog
ical dimensions in his perspective. Those issues are: definitions of the self and
its condition; the importance of the psychology of the self in relation to other
psychologies (or ways of understanding man); clinical theory about the selfs
structure, development, and restoration; and the centrality of the empathie
response.

What is man's essential nature?

Definitions. There are two definitions of the "self," depending upon the
psychological framework within which the self is conceived. A psychology of
the self in the narrow sense of the term means the self as a specific structure in
the mental apparatus. A psychology of the self in the broad sense of the term
means the self as the center of its psychological universe. Kohut espouses this
latter psychology. It is a psychology that is experience-near, in which the self
can be reached and understood by the "empathic-introspective stance."4 Only
such a psychology of the self allows intensely personal lived experiences to be
legitimately investigated and encompassed within its boundaries.

Such issues as experiencing life as meaningless despite external success, experiencing

life as meaningful despite external failure, the sense of a triumphant death or of a
barren survival, are legitimate targets of scientific psychological investigation because
they are not nebulous abstract speculations, but the content of intense experiences that
can be observed, via empathy, inside and outside the clinical situation.5

There is a sanctity to the selfs experience that Kohut seems dedicated to save
and at times celebrate. It becomes clear even from beginning definitions that
the "self in the broad sense of the term constitutes for Kohut what we would
call the essential nature of man. The self is not a critical factor of the human

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Robert L. Randall 85

condition; the self determines the field of the human condition. The self is the
center that makes psychological life possible in the first place.
Principle of complementarity. Kohut employs this principle to stress that
any explanation of the psychological field requires at least two approaches.
Predominant, on the one hand, is Freud's classical psychology of drives,
wherein the human psyche is seen as a mental apparatus, in which conflicts
exist between various drive structures of the apparatus, most famously dis
played in the oedipal complex.6 On the other hand is Kohut's psychology of the
self. These two approaches do not have to be integrated. They can rest "side by
side," intact as units within themselves. They can be integrated, but this is
often detrimental to one or both.7 In spite of Kohut's insistence throughout
that this principle must be maintained, he himself does not consistently apply
it. The principle of complementarity gives way to a principle of primacy as well
as dominance. What is primary is the psychology of the self. "The primary
psychological configuration (of which the drive is only a constituent) is the
experience of the relation between the self and the empathie self-object";8 "...
the primary psychological configurations in the child's experiential world are
not drives"; the "drive experiences occur as disintegration products when the
self is unsupported."9 Even later Kohut states what the reader might have
been suspecting: "To state explicitly what has been implicit all along: the
presence of a firm self is a precondition for the experience of the Oedipus
complex."10
Now the primacy of one developmental event before another may not de
legitimize the principle of complementarity, but it becomes clear that Kohut's
psychology of the self is the dominant interpreting mode in which all else is
encompassed, as well as the primary psychological matrix out of which all else
develops. When Kohut does fit the self into the framework of the structural
model of the mind (psychology of drives), he says this is "tentative, probing,
provisional" work that "contains an element of playfulness."11 When he fits the
oedipal conflict and the related elements of the psychology of drives within the
framework of the psychology of the self, however, he does it with breadth and
decisive seriousness. The psychology of the self becomes primary in develop
mental terms and dominant in interpretative prominence. This methodological
inconsistency points up again the intensity with which Kohut espouses the
centrality of the self. Man's essential nature is not a drive nature: object
instinctual drives (aggressive drive, sexual drive) or ego drives (ego domi
nance, mastery) or superego drives (the controlling and channeling aspects of
the superego). Man's essential nature is the nuclear self as the center of its own
experienced psychological world. Only as one begins to understand this can one
truly understand the meaning of man's striving in life.
Nuclear bipolar self. During early psychic development a nuclear self is
formed, which Kohut sees as being bipolar. The archaic self includes the
"grandiose-exhibitionistic self," which seeks unfailing mirroring admiration
from self-objects, and the "idealized parent imago" aspect of the self, which
seeks narcissistic enhancement by merging with a powerful, idealized self
object. Ideally, or as man was essentially created to be, a self-object's mirroring

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86 Journal of Religion and Health

acceptance of the child's grandiose-exhibitionism leads to a gradual transfor

mation of this configuration into the selfs healthy ambitions and purposes,
realistic goals, and the selfs ability to regulate its narcissistic equilibrium.
The self-object's empathie ability to allow the child to appropriate it as an
idealized parent imago leads through steps to a transformation of this narcis
sistic structure into the self being guided by the leadership of its own values
and ideals. The healthy nuclear self, therefore, consists of ambitions and ideals
existing in a state of creative tension and interaction with one another. Essen
tial man is the self as an independent center of initiative and perception,
productively and joyfully enacting its most central ambitions and ideals. It is
man as an optimally firm, securely cohesive self, whose self-enactment of its
own ambitions and ideals supplies narcissistic sustenance.
Empathic-introspective stance. Since 1959 Kohut has been dedicated to the
empathic-introspective stance. For him empathy is not just an irreplaceable
tool in depth psychology; empathy defines the total field of depth psychology.
Defined as "vicarious introspection,"12 empathy delineates what we observe in
namely the inner life of man, as well as how we observe it,
depth psychology,
namely through a protracted empathie immersion of ourself into the self of
another. Empathy is the ability to understand other selves on the basis of a
bridge of alikeness.
Empathy, furthermore, is a distinguishing feature of a man's healthy, cohe
sive (essential) self. When there are defects in empathy, this creates narcissis
tic defects in the selves of others. Restoration comes about through reestab
lished contact with an empathie self-object. Empathie functioning is a mark of
a cured (saved) self. While empathy is not all of man for Kohut, it is certainly a
central dimension of the essential self he describes.

How has man fallen away from his essential self?

Definitions. It is inevitable that such an unfolding of man's essential nu

clear self will fail. It happens with everyone. That seems to be the existential
condition as Kohut sees it: "... narcissistic vulnerability is a aubiquitous bur
den of man, a part of the human condition from which no one is exempt_"13
In both The Analysis of the Self and The Restoration of the Self as well as in
interviews, Kohut is drawn to these words by Eugene O'Neill, which depict for
Kohut the substance of the selfs existential predicament: "Man is born broken.
He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue."14 Man's functioning aims
toward the fulfillment of his self, but "the undeniable fact that man's failures
overshadow his successes prompted me to designate this aspect of man nega
tively as Tragic Man rather than 'self-expressive' or 'creative man.' "15
Principle of complementarity. Kohut employs the term "Guilty Man" to
indicate man's functioning which is directed toward the expression of his
drives, in which superego conflict with regard to incestuous pleasure wishes is
the classic example. The psychology of Guilty Man, however, cannot illumi
nate the essence of fractured, enfeebled, discontinuous human existence. It

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 Robert L. Randall 87

cannot explain the struggles of a patient suffering from a narcissistic personal

ity disorder, or a person suffering guiltless despair.16 Once again the psychol
ogy of the self, of Tragic Man, is clearly dominant in Kohut's thinking. For him
the "psychological danger that puts the psychological survival of modern
Western man into the greatest jeopardy" is not the insolvable inner conflicts of
Guilty Man but the dissolution of the self of Tragic Man. And as we shall see,
the restoration of the self is effected through Kohut's psychology of the self
rather than from a psychology of drives and conflicts.
Defective nuclear self. Incomplete development of self-cohesiveness can
occur in two ways?by primary defect and by compensatory defect. Due to the
mother's empathie failures in optimally mirroring the grandiose-exhibition
istic aspects of the self, a primary defect in the psychological structure of the
self is formed. The result is a chronic enfeeblement of the self with tendencies
toward temporary fragmentation of the self. Attempts to cover this primary
defect, through perverse sexual fantasies and actions, for example, are called
"defensive structures."
In the face of mother's empathie failing vis-?-vis the grandiose self, the child
has yet a chance to develop narcissistic equilibrium. He can turn to the father
as the idealized self-object. If the father allows the child to attach himself to the
father in order to share the father's power, then a "compensatory structure" is
developed, which, rather than merely covering the primary defect in the self,
compensates for the defect. A functional rehabilitation of the self is effected by
making up for the weakness in one pole of the bipolar self through the
strengthening of the other pole. If, however, the idealized self-object fails the
child after the mirroring one has failed, the self suffers both a primary defect
and a compensatory defect.
Kohut is clear that the "failure" of the self to develop its nuclear ambitions
and ideals must not be taken in an absolute sense. There is the "more-or-less of
the self-object's failures in fulfilling the child's needs, the relative failure of
one as compared with the failure of the other," which determines the degree to
which the self falls ill to one type of self-pathology or another.17 Man's failures
so overshadow his successes, however, that Kohut is prompted by this realism
to adopt the negative terms "Guilty Man" and "Tragic Man" as symbols of our
existential condition. Of these, Tragic Man is primary and dominant.
Empathie failures. The fall or failure of man to realize fully his essential
self occurs as a result of shortcomings on the part of his central self-objects, i.e.,
his parents. These shortcomings exist on a wide spectrum. At one end are the
unavoidable shortcomings of maternal-paternal care that actually can serve to
implement the development of the child's own nuclear self, if, however, the
disturbances are minor and "optimally frustrating." At the other end are the
grossly inadequate empathie responses of the parents. The failures of Tragic
Man to realize his essential nuclear self are varied and relative, yet inevitable.
All men are Tragic Men, and Kohut is consistently clear as to where the
primary source of such tragedy resides: defects in the self of Tragic Man occur
mainly as the result of empathy failures from the side of the self-objects, the
parents.18 Kohut provides numerous examples here and elsewhere of this phe

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 88 Journal of Religion and Health

nomenon. He also offers a social critique of the present mode of Western par
enting, which is one of "understimulation," in which parents fail to provide
their children with the necessary narcissistic nutriments.19
How does such faulty empathy arise in parents? "The understimulation due
to parental remoteness that is a pathogenic factor in disorders of the self is a
manifestation of a disorder of the self in the parent."20 In short, the narcissistic
defect inherited from their parent now is passed on to the children. Such defect
transmission has always been part of the condition of Tragic Man. Because of
changing social factors, this condition has become more widespread. It is to this
perennial but ascending danger that Kohut marshalls the forces of the psy
chology of the self.

By what means is man saved from his broken condition?

Definitions. The term restoration in Kohut's work does not mean a return
to some original narcissistic bliss or to any "state" of being. His view of essen
tial man has to do with a cohesive, functioning self that is actively realizing its
own ambitions and being led by its own ideals. The "ultimate achievement of
Tragic Man" is the "realization through his actions of the blueprint for his life
that had been laid down in his nuclear self."21 That blueprint, however, is not
any type of mental, emotional, or spiritual "content"; rather, it is a type of
psychic action. "It may ultimately be, not the content of the nuclear self, but
the unchanging specificity of the self-expressive, creative tensions that point
toward the future?which tells us that our transient individuality also pos
sesses a significance that extends beyond the borders of our life."22 Im
mediately following this statement Kohut offers a literary illustration when he
quotes Goethe's angels as they carry the core of Faust upward from earth to
heaven: "Who always striving efforts makes, for him there is salvation." For
Kohut, therefore, "salvation" or "restoration" comes not from unchanging am
bitions or abiding ideals held by an individual (not from righteous perfor
mance, faith, or right knowledge, for example); restoration comes through
exercising a cohesive mode of one's self-ambitions and self-ideals, whatever
they may be (within the context, it must be added, of being a healthily em
pathie individual). The self fulfills itself most fully when its self-realization
becomes its aim, and that self-realization is the self operating in conformity
with its own self-generated patterns of initiative (ambitions) and its own inner
guidance (ideals). When a self is "functionally rehabilitated," Kohut's key term
for the process of restoration, a fully effective and joyful functioning of the self
is what "provides a central purpose to his personality and gives a sense of
meaning to his life."23
Principle of complementarity. A psychology of drives (Guilty Man) and a
psychology of self (Tragic Man) permit two different but presumably com
plementary definitions of restoration or "cure." Cure for Guilty Man occurs
when there has been conflict resolution through the expansion of the individu
al's consciousness. Consequently, there is the disappearance or amelioration of

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Robert L. Randall 89

the person's neurotic symptoms and inhibitions, on the one hand, and his
comparative freedom from neurotic anxiety and guilt, on the other. Cure for
Tragic Man means the healing of a formerly fragmented self. Concretely, there
will be the disappearance or amelioration of the person's hypochondria, lack of
initiative, empty depression, self-stimulation through sexualized activities, on
the one hand, and a comparative freedom from excessive narcissistic vulnera
bility, on the other. In general, cure is achieved for Tragic Man when he is able
to experience the joy of existence more keenly, so that even in the absence of
pleasure he will consider his life worthwhile.
Once again, however, the primacy and dominance of the psychology of the
self manifest themselves. For example, Kohut states that the therapeutic
orientation and central value of Freud's psychoanalysis, representative par
excellence of the psychology of drives, were directed not at "cure" but at "know
ing." Freud's supreme value of bravely facing the truth, "courageous realism,"
was not primarily a health value. Psychoanalysis along this line attempts to
bring wholesome effects by the process of knowledge expansion, the making
conscious of the unconscious. For Kohut this orientation has definite limita
tions. Instead of "courageous realism" as a way of facing psychological illness,
Kohut to bring about
seeks "cure." Instead of psychological assistance via
knowledge accretion, Kohut focuses on the healing of fragmented selves
through the aid of reestablished empathie closeness with a responsive self
object.
Second, the oedipal complex with its castration anxiety is not evaluated by
Kohut as being on a par with "the greatest terror" that exists psychologically
for man at this time. What is more, at any time the oedipal conflicts are not as
serious a condition as the lack of a cohesive self, for as we have seen, the
oedipal constellation can only arise after a certain consolidation of the self has
been formed. Indeed, to an individual suffering from narcissistic fragmenta
tion, the developmental emergence of the oedipal phase is accompanied by a
"warm glow of joy." "Any person afflicted with serious threats to the con
tinuity, the consolidation, the firmness of the self will experience the oedipus
complex, despite its anxieties and conflicts, as a joyfully accepted reality_"24
It is clear again that the psychology of Tragic Man is primary, dominant, and
more serious than the psychology of Guilty Man. The necessary "cure" needed
by man, consequently, is that directed toward the healing of the fragmented
self.
Restored nuclear self "Psychoanalytic cure" comes about by either a filling
in of the primary defect at the core of the self through self-object transference
and transmuting internalizations in the analytic situation or, as is more often
the case, through the rehabilitation of the compensatory structures. Kohut
stresses that all defects do not have to be completely filled in, nor all functions
completely rehabilitated. The key criterion is when the functions that have
been rehabilitated allow the person to enjoy the functioning of the self, of his
nuclear ambitions and ideals. Cure is brought about when one sector of the
bipolar self is restored, through which an uninterrupted flow of self-strivings
can proceed toward creative expression. Cure is measured by evaluating the

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 90 Journal of Religion and Health

cohesion and firmness of the self and by deciding if the self is continuous from
one pole to the other.
Empathie restoration. Within the analytic situation, self-cohesion is
achieved through the aid of a reestablished empathie closeness to a responding
self-object, i.e., the analyst. Much of Kohut's work describes the process by
which cure of narcissistic personality disorders occurs. It is evident, however,
that Kohut intends his insights to be applied in much broader sectors of Tragic
Man's life. Indeed, the psychological survival of modern man makes this an
imperative.
The narcissistic personality disorders are a prime example of the fragmenta
tion of the self, but they are just one type of self-fragmentation that exists
along a wide spectrum. It is that general human condition to experience frag
mentation in some form that Kohut catches up in the phrase "Tragic Man."
Empathic-introspective psychoanalysis is the unequaled method for treating
narcissistic personality disorders, Kohut believes. Beyond this, however, he
strongly suggests that the insights and principles of a psychology of the self
offer an unequaled basis for treating the fragmentation of Tragic Man along
the whole spectrum. Although Kohut has not yet spelled out fully how the
psychology of the self can be utilized in these broader sectors, his intent is to
say that the psychology of the self is more than helpful; it is crucial. Through
out his text Kohut speaks of "the important practical consequences" that the
psychology of the self has for therapists, educators, historians, and social ac
tivists.25 In addition are indications that detrimental effects can ensue, both in
the clinical setting and outside, if helping professions work from a framework
that does not empathically understand the dynamics of the self and its frag
mentations. Psychological or sociological accounts that dissolve selfhood into
fragmented transactions and roles can be seen in the light of Kohut's work to
be testimonies, to the psychological fragmentation in our present culture, rep
resentatives, in part, of the "psychological danger" of our time. In themselves
they do little justice to human potential, provide inadequate guidance for the
selfs development, and may actually be dangerous.
Kohut's address, then, is broad. It is to all those who are concerned with the
psychological survival of Tragic Man. In this sense, his psychology of the self is
no mere description of a theory or technique; it is a purposed prescription for
"salvation"?individually and culturally. Whether he has fully intended it or
not, Kohut has woven an image of man's essential nature, of the brokenness of
his essential self, and of the essential way in which he is to be restored.

References

1. Randall, R. L., "Religious Ideation of a Narcissistically Disturbed Individual," J. Pastoral

Care, 1976, 30, 35-45.
2. Kohut, H., The Restoration of the Self. New York, International University Press, 1977,
p. 267.
3. Ibid., p. 269.
4. Ibid., p. xiii.
5. Ibid., p. 242.

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Robert L. Randall 91

6. A psychology of the self in the narrow sense of the term could be encompassed within and
expressed by this orientation.
7. Kohut, op. cit., p. 206.
8. Ibid., p. 122.
9. Ibid., p. 171.
10. Ibid., p. 227.
11. Ibid., p. 226.
12. Ibid., p. 306.
13. Ibid., p. 292.
14. Ibid., p. 287. See also Moss, D. M., "Narcissism, Empathy and the Fragmentation of Self: An
Interview with Heinz Kohut," Pilgrimage, Summer, 1976.
15. Kohut, op. cit., p. 133.
16. Ibid., p. 238.
17. Ibid., pp. 190-191.
18. Ibid., p. 87.
19. Ibid., p. 271.
20. Ibid., p. 274.
21. Ibid., p. 133, fn 15.
22. Ibid., p. 182.
23. Ibid., p. 139.
24. Ibid., p. 229.
25. Ibid., pp. 129-131.

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