title: Kohut: a book review essay.
abstract: Kohut's homeostatic account of mental events in terms of their self-preservative function may be a compromise between a theory of affective markers of psychic differentiation and a theory of self-esteem drives. Similarly, an appreciative style of treatment, designed to keep the analyst available for the exercise of growth needs, is supplemented by the interpretive task of integrating incongruent tendencies. Kohut's work raises interesting questions about theoretical circularity, freedom from a single set of conceptual principles, the value of en bloc histories of affective constellations, and the consequences of a treatment at once exculpatory and judgmental.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D009289:Narcissism; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D012649:Self Concept