Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer 1986
The Cultural Psychology of Kohut's Self Psychology R O B E R T L. R A N D A L L ABSTRACT." Contrary to criticism, Heinz Kohut's self psychology does not support an absorption into self nor a morally neutral response to society. K o h u t ' s psychology of the self and narcissism aims toward an analysis of contemporary Western culture t h a t will restore it. In the process of assisting individuals and culture to recover from the vicissitudes of narcissism, Kohut has introduced a new type of cultural psychology, a "culture of empathy."
Although little has been written from the religious circle regarding Heinz Kohut's psychoanalytic psychology of the self, especially in the nature of critical analysis, there are religious commentators, along with sociologists and historians, who denounce all types of "self psychologies" for their presumed espousing and contribution to "cultural narcissism." Such self psychologies and psychologists supposedly support persons turning inward upon self needs, creating a "me-generation," rather than fostering an outward orientation toward responsible caring for others. In this form, psychology "has become more a sentiment than a science and is now part of the problem of modern life rather than part of its resolution." 1 Those commentators who make a full-scale criticism of "cultural narcissism," and who attribute its mobilization to the new self psychologies, fail to realize that Kohut's psychology of the self does not support an absorption into self nor even a morally neutral response to society. Kohut would consider an individual so self-absorbed and resistive to cultural commitment and responsibility as one suffering from some narcissistic disorder. The restoration of the self and of culture, Kohut holds, lies beyond a repudiation of narcissism. Restoration eventuates through the development of "higher forms of narcissism," in which there is a transformation of narcissism's primitive forms. His clinical suggestions for transformation of personal and cultural expressions of unmodified narcissism, and of the disintegration products that result, entail a return to our own inner self where, by the slow working-through process called "transmuting internalization," the self expands into creative, empathic, wisdom-endowed forms. Such a proposal, of course, elicits criticism of cultural neglect and insensitivity. Nothing could be further from the case. Kohut was convinced that wholesome psychological development via The Reverend Robert L. Randall, Ph.D., is Minister of Counseling Services at St. Peter's United Church of Christ in Elmhurst, Illinois. 137
~r~1986 Institutesof Religionand Health
138
Journal o f Religion and Health
mirrored ambitions, alter-ego support for skills, and merger with idealized greatness leads to actions that benefit the wider social environment. Semantically considered, when religious and social commentators apply the depth psychology word "narcissism" to broad social trends, this has the unfortunate effect of linking these two domains together in a confusing way. "Cultural narcissism" and "narcissitic dimensions of the self" are two separate entities, although they are related, inasmuch as the self is both individual and social. Regardless of its name, self psychology does not focus primarily upon the self. For Kohut, a self in isolation is an impossibility. The self emerges and exists always within an environment of responding "selfobjects." It is the process of the self's development in and through and by means of its involvement with its more or less empathically responding selfobjects, and the self's ability to fulfill itself by responding empathically to others, that constitutes the basic narcissistic structure of self psychology. In this sense, and with Kohut's relentless urging for broadened encompassing empathy for others as well as for self, Kohut's self psychology is quite "social" in nature. Yet while Kohut expresses concern for culture, his central psychological focus is on the object relations meaning of narcissism, the way in which others are experienced by and psychologically appropriated by the self in its efforts to maintain and restore its nuclear self-cohesion. The implications of his work contribute healthily to social consciousness and social responsibility, even though the specific direction of his clinical perspective aims at "narcissistic" relations instead o f " social" involvements. Applying the depth psychology word "narcissism" to social trends results in more than confusion. To speak of "cultural narcissism" encourages the tendency to respond without due seriousness to the narcissistic needs and tensions of the individual, for the term intimates that narcissistic disturbances are but the reflection of social "narcissistic" forces, which the various self psychologies have helped mobilize. At the same time, but in the opposite direction, using a term like "cultural narcissism" reinforces a stance that fails to give serious attention to reality-based social pressures and institutional evils, inasmuch as the term "narcissism" suggests that individual, psychological dynamics are the cause of certain dehumanizing activities which in reality are social in origin. Kohut's self psychology has instigated important reflections on the quality of life in contemporary Western culture, and in this sense his interpretative perspective does exert shaping power in society, as we noted earlier. Rather than a disservice, as has been the charge in general against self psychologies, Kohut's psychology of the self and narcissism aims toward an analysis of contemporary culture that will restore it. The cultural implications of Kohut's self psychology extend beyond its restorative function. In the process of assisting individuals and culture to recover from the vicissitudes of narcissism, Kohut has introduced a new type of "cultural psychology." Don Browning, in his book Pluralism and Personality: William James and Some Contemporary Cultures of Psychology, has described four basic cultures of psychology: the culture of detachment, represented by Freud; the culture of control, represented by Skinner; the
Robert L. Randall
139
culture of joy, represented in general by the humanistic movement, of which Maslow, Rogers, Perls, and Shutz are cited as examples; and the culture of care, in which Erik Erikson, Rollo May, Erich Fromm, and William J a m e s are preeminent. 2 Freud was interested in loosening the collar of the cultural superego. He helped found a vision of life as civil yet hedonic detachment, in which the control of life through the ordering power of "reason" was elevated as man's highest attainment. For Skinner and the culture of control, behavior cannot be controlled by rational insight. A new culture can emerge and remain consistent only b y the concise use of schedules of environmental "reinforcements." The culture of joy stresses that culture imposes too much control, and that joy would arise when the individual sought his or her own internal "self fulfillment." The culture of care sees human nature as capable of being oriented to the future in active care and concern, and develops an ethical vision of man as one who shows "responsibility" for both present and future generations. Kohut shares affinities with all of these cultures of psychology to some degree. With Freud, Kohut is aware that in man's total psychic life there are large-scale inner forces clashing with one another, and that the emergence of destructive inner forces must be controlled in order to maintain individual and cultural life. Similarities with the culture of control are present when Kohut stresses the need for consistency in the pattern of healthy selfobject responses, without which the self's nuclear core lacks cohesiveness. With regard to the culture of joy, Kohut also accents the fulfilling of the self's inner ambitions, talents, and ideals. And as with the culture of care, Kohut demonstrates marked concern for ethical living, for responsibility in this time and for future generations. As with those of the culture of care, a moral quality which calls for the support and nurturing of persons invades his work. Kohut's self psychology exceeds these four cultures of psychology, however, by introducing a new understanding of the essential foundation of individual and corporate life: "empathy." Defined broadly as the recognition of the self in the other, as "vicarious introspection," as the expansion of the self to include the other, empathy in its most technical form is the indispensable tool of observation for psychoanalysis. But it is more than an instrument of cognition. Kohut contends that empathy constitutes the whole field of depth psychology itself. Depth psychology's subject matter is that aspect of the world that is defined b y the empathic stance of the observer. Indeed, only through e m p a t h y is there psychological reflection at all. From such an understanding, Kohut's appreciation for the centrality of empathy in human life expands. E m p a t h y also constitutes, he finds, the most primary and crucial matrix for individual and social development. A person is born and survives physically and emotionally only via the environment of empathic responses of others. That psychological nutriment without which human life as we know it and cherish it could not be sustained is empathy. Empathy, therefore, is that power which, perhaps even more than love, perhaps more than the expansion of the rational ego, counteracts our destructiveness against one another, thus becoming a civilizing force, and counteracts our ten-
140
Journal of Religion and Health
dency toward seeing meaninglessness and feeling despair, thus becoming a healing power. To cultivate empathy, to work scientifically and ethically for this broadening of empathic understanding, should become humanity's highest ideal. While Freud himself relied upon the empathic method to enter into and explain his own self structure and that of others, his dictum that man's sexual and aggressive impulses must be controlled led him to elevate the ordering of life by means of the rational ego. "Scientific reason," thereby, became the source of instinctual control and the source of ethical decision making. In contrast to scientific reason's truth-and-reality morality, and its tool-and-method pride into which it tends to fall, Kohut encouraged the development and use of "scientific empathy," the employment of empathy as a clearly defined method of observation indispensable for entering into and understanding the inner life of a person. Without it, vast areas of the inner life, including individuals' behavior in the social field, remain unintelligible. Scientific empathy, Kohut affirmed, should become the guiding ideal of all the sciences, and scientists' commitment to it should take the place of the pride in their methodological and technological expertness which they have felt up to now. For what ultimate purpose? For the survival of human life, for it is through encompassing empathy rather than expansion of the rational ego that our destructive impulses toward our self and toward others are counteracted. In contrast to the culture of control, with its accent on a causal sequences "mechanical science," Kohut urges the employment of "empathic science," a science that takes the development of inner meanings and of subjective intentions as the essence of what it means to be human. Empathic science makes the data of the inner life gathered through empathic introspection the most crucial data upon which to work, rather than data gathered through classification of behavior or through quantitative methods. Unlike the culture of j oy, which implicitly assumes an internal, innate power within the self that, if unencumbered by culture, will reach "self-fulfillment," Kohut convincingly argues that the primary configuration of life is not the self and its actualizing tendencies, but the "empathic matrix of life." Empathy, the fundamental mode of human relatedness, is that crucible in which human biological, psychological, and cultural life emerges and from which a person is continually nourished. A self only fulfills its inner potential, only has inner potential, as it arises and flourishes in this empathic matrix. Furthermore, while the enriching and fulfilling of the self's inner life is crucial, for Kohut there is a clear axiomatic, ultimate value regarding that fulfillment and the self's consequent joy: " . . . man cannot fulfill his essential self in any better w a y than by giving emotionally nourishing support to man, i.e., to himself and to his life. ''3 Empathic nourishing of others brings to fruition a person's nuclear self, in which joy emerges as a byproduct rather than as the aimed-for objective. This would seem to place Kohut and self psychology within the culture of care's perspective. In part this is quite accurate. Nonetheless, instead of fostering an "ethics of responsibility," Kohut sponsors what can be called an
Robert L. Randall
141
"ethics of empathic responding," a responding based on an empathic sensitivity to self and to others. We can " c a r e " and be "responsible" for one another only based on an empathic awareness and sensitivity toward one another. Care without e m p a t h y tends to become patronage. Responsibility without e m p a t h y tends toward manipulation. In this world of "Tragic Man," as Kohut delineates our present culture, where lives are broken and enfeebled, e m p a t h y is t h a t " gl ue" t hat holds together the self-cohesion of individuals and the civilizing cohesion of groups. The broadening and strengthening of this empathic bridge toward other hum an beings becomes the highest ideal, a criterion as well as a basis for our ethical responding. For Kohut, this ethics of empathic responding can eventuate into a "new kind of humanitarianism, ''4 one based on a healthy idealization of empathy. K o h u t ' s self psychology represents more t han a new scientific paradigm. It goes beyond introducing " c u l t u r e " as the reality missing in other psychology and religion orientations. It presents itself as a new culture of psychology, the "culture of e m p a t h y . " Within this supraordinate framework, such hum an undertakings as religion and psychology receive their affirmation, transformation, and restoration. K ohut 's culture of e m p a t h y invites criticism by the nature of its premises and the form of its expansiveness, but there can be no doubt as to Kohut's c om m i t m ent to the maintenance and enhancement of our cultural as well as individual life.
References
1. Vitz, P. C., Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship. Grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977, p. 9. 2. Browning, D., Pluralism and Personality: William James and Some Contemporary Cultures of Psychology. Cranbury, New Jersey, Associated University Presses, Inc., 1980, pp. 36-42. 3. Kohut, H., The Search for the Self." Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950-1978. Vol. 2. New York, International Universities Press, Inc., 1978, pp. 714-715. 4. Ibid., p. 714.
The Cultural Psychology of Kohut's Self Psychology R O B E R T L. R A N D A L L ABSTRACT." Contrary to criticism, Heinz Kohut's self psychology does not support an absorption into self nor a morally neutral response to society. K o h u t ' s psychology of the self and narcissism aims toward an analysis of contemporary Western culture t h a t will restore it. In the process of assisting individuals and culture to recover from the vicissitudes of narcissism, Kohut has introduced a new type of cultural psychology, a "culture of empathy."
Although little has been written from the religious circle regarding Heinz Kohut's psychoanalytic psychology of the self, especially in the nature of critical analysis, there are religious commentators, along with sociologists and historians, who denounce all types of "self psychologies" for their presumed espousing and contribution to "cultural narcissism." Such self psychologies and psychologists supposedly support persons turning inward upon self needs, creating a "me-generation," rather than fostering an outward orientation toward responsible caring for others. In this form, psychology "has become more a sentiment than a science and is now part of the problem of modern life rather than part of its resolution." 1 Those commentators who make a full-scale criticism of "cultural narcissism," and who attribute its mobilization to the new self psychologies, fail to realize that Kohut's psychology of the self does not support an absorption into self nor even a morally neutral response to society. Kohut would consider an individual so self-absorbed and resistive to cultural commitment and responsibility as one suffering from some narcissistic disorder. The restoration of the self and of culture, Kohut holds, lies beyond a repudiation of narcissism. Restoration eventuates through the development of "higher forms of narcissism," in which there is a transformation of narcissism's primitive forms. His clinical suggestions for transformation of personal and cultural expressions of unmodified narcissism, and of the disintegration products that result, entail a return to our own inner self where, by the slow working-through process called "transmuting internalization," the self expands into creative, empathic, wisdom-endowed forms. Such a proposal, of course, elicits criticism of cultural neglect and insensitivity. Nothing could be further from the case. Kohut was convinced that wholesome psychological development via The Reverend Robert L. Randall, Ph.D., is Minister of Counseling Services at St. Peter's United Church of Christ in Elmhurst, Illinois. 137
~r~1986 Institutesof Religionand Health
138
Journal o f Religion and Health
mirrored ambitions, alter-ego support for skills, and merger with idealized greatness leads to actions that benefit the wider social environment. Semantically considered, when religious and social commentators apply the depth psychology word "narcissism" to broad social trends, this has the unfortunate effect of linking these two domains together in a confusing way. "Cultural narcissism" and "narcissitic dimensions of the self" are two separate entities, although they are related, inasmuch as the self is both individual and social. Regardless of its name, self psychology does not focus primarily upon the self. For Kohut, a self in isolation is an impossibility. The self emerges and exists always within an environment of responding "selfobjects." It is the process of the self's development in and through and by means of its involvement with its more or less empathically responding selfobjects, and the self's ability to fulfill itself by responding empathically to others, that constitutes the basic narcissistic structure of self psychology. In this sense, and with Kohut's relentless urging for broadened encompassing empathy for others as well as for self, Kohut's self psychology is quite "social" in nature. Yet while Kohut expresses concern for culture, his central psychological focus is on the object relations meaning of narcissism, the way in which others are experienced by and psychologically appropriated by the self in its efforts to maintain and restore its nuclear self-cohesion. The implications of his work contribute healthily to social consciousness and social responsibility, even though the specific direction of his clinical perspective aims at "narcissistic" relations instead o f " social" involvements. Applying the depth psychology word "narcissism" to social trends results in more than confusion. To speak of "cultural narcissism" encourages the tendency to respond without due seriousness to the narcissistic needs and tensions of the individual, for the term intimates that narcissistic disturbances are but the reflection of social "narcissistic" forces, which the various self psychologies have helped mobilize. At the same time, but in the opposite direction, using a term like "cultural narcissism" reinforces a stance that fails to give serious attention to reality-based social pressures and institutional evils, inasmuch as the term "narcissism" suggests that individual, psychological dynamics are the cause of certain dehumanizing activities which in reality are social in origin. Kohut's self psychology has instigated important reflections on the quality of life in contemporary Western culture, and in this sense his interpretative perspective does exert shaping power in society, as we noted earlier. Rather than a disservice, as has been the charge in general against self psychologies, Kohut's psychology of the self and narcissism aims toward an analysis of contemporary culture that will restore it. The cultural implications of Kohut's self psychology extend beyond its restorative function. In the process of assisting individuals and culture to recover from the vicissitudes of narcissism, Kohut has introduced a new type of "cultural psychology." Don Browning, in his book Pluralism and Personality: William James and Some Contemporary Cultures of Psychology, has described four basic cultures of psychology: the culture of detachment, represented by Freud; the culture of control, represented by Skinner; the
Robert L. Randall
139
culture of joy, represented in general by the humanistic movement, of which Maslow, Rogers, Perls, and Shutz are cited as examples; and the culture of care, in which Erik Erikson, Rollo May, Erich Fromm, and William J a m e s are preeminent. 2 Freud was interested in loosening the collar of the cultural superego. He helped found a vision of life as civil yet hedonic detachment, in which the control of life through the ordering power of "reason" was elevated as man's highest attainment. For Skinner and the culture of control, behavior cannot be controlled by rational insight. A new culture can emerge and remain consistent only b y the concise use of schedules of environmental "reinforcements." The culture of joy stresses that culture imposes too much control, and that joy would arise when the individual sought his or her own internal "self fulfillment." The culture of care sees human nature as capable of being oriented to the future in active care and concern, and develops an ethical vision of man as one who shows "responsibility" for both present and future generations. Kohut shares affinities with all of these cultures of psychology to some degree. With Freud, Kohut is aware that in man's total psychic life there are large-scale inner forces clashing with one another, and that the emergence of destructive inner forces must be controlled in order to maintain individual and cultural life. Similarities with the culture of control are present when Kohut stresses the need for consistency in the pattern of healthy selfobject responses, without which the self's nuclear core lacks cohesiveness. With regard to the culture of joy, Kohut also accents the fulfilling of the self's inner ambitions, talents, and ideals. And as with the culture of care, Kohut demonstrates marked concern for ethical living, for responsibility in this time and for future generations. As with those of the culture of care, a moral quality which calls for the support and nurturing of persons invades his work. Kohut's self psychology exceeds these four cultures of psychology, however, by introducing a new understanding of the essential foundation of individual and corporate life: "empathy." Defined broadly as the recognition of the self in the other, as "vicarious introspection," as the expansion of the self to include the other, empathy in its most technical form is the indispensable tool of observation for psychoanalysis. But it is more than an instrument of cognition. Kohut contends that empathy constitutes the whole field of depth psychology itself. Depth psychology's subject matter is that aspect of the world that is defined b y the empathic stance of the observer. Indeed, only through e m p a t h y is there psychological reflection at all. From such an understanding, Kohut's appreciation for the centrality of empathy in human life expands. E m p a t h y also constitutes, he finds, the most primary and crucial matrix for individual and social development. A person is born and survives physically and emotionally only via the environment of empathic responses of others. That psychological nutriment without which human life as we know it and cherish it could not be sustained is empathy. Empathy, therefore, is that power which, perhaps even more than love, perhaps more than the expansion of the rational ego, counteracts our destructiveness against one another, thus becoming a civilizing force, and counteracts our ten-
140
Journal of Religion and Health
dency toward seeing meaninglessness and feeling despair, thus becoming a healing power. To cultivate empathy, to work scientifically and ethically for this broadening of empathic understanding, should become humanity's highest ideal. While Freud himself relied upon the empathic method to enter into and explain his own self structure and that of others, his dictum that man's sexual and aggressive impulses must be controlled led him to elevate the ordering of life by means of the rational ego. "Scientific reason," thereby, became the source of instinctual control and the source of ethical decision making. In contrast to scientific reason's truth-and-reality morality, and its tool-and-method pride into which it tends to fall, Kohut encouraged the development and use of "scientific empathy," the employment of empathy as a clearly defined method of observation indispensable for entering into and understanding the inner life of a person. Without it, vast areas of the inner life, including individuals' behavior in the social field, remain unintelligible. Scientific empathy, Kohut affirmed, should become the guiding ideal of all the sciences, and scientists' commitment to it should take the place of the pride in their methodological and technological expertness which they have felt up to now. For what ultimate purpose? For the survival of human life, for it is through encompassing empathy rather than expansion of the rational ego that our destructive impulses toward our self and toward others are counteracted. In contrast to the culture of control, with its accent on a causal sequences "mechanical science," Kohut urges the employment of "empathic science," a science that takes the development of inner meanings and of subjective intentions as the essence of what it means to be human. Empathic science makes the data of the inner life gathered through empathic introspection the most crucial data upon which to work, rather than data gathered through classification of behavior or through quantitative methods. Unlike the culture of j oy, which implicitly assumes an internal, innate power within the self that, if unencumbered by culture, will reach "self-fulfillment," Kohut convincingly argues that the primary configuration of life is not the self and its actualizing tendencies, but the "empathic matrix of life." Empathy, the fundamental mode of human relatedness, is that crucible in which human biological, psychological, and cultural life emerges and from which a person is continually nourished. A self only fulfills its inner potential, only has inner potential, as it arises and flourishes in this empathic matrix. Furthermore, while the enriching and fulfilling of the self's inner life is crucial, for Kohut there is a clear axiomatic, ultimate value regarding that fulfillment and the self's consequent joy: " . . . man cannot fulfill his essential self in any better w a y than by giving emotionally nourishing support to man, i.e., to himself and to his life. ''3 Empathic nourishing of others brings to fruition a person's nuclear self, in which joy emerges as a byproduct rather than as the aimed-for objective. This would seem to place Kohut and self psychology within the culture of care's perspective. In part this is quite accurate. Nonetheless, instead of fostering an "ethics of responsibility," Kohut sponsors what can be called an
Robert L. Randall
141
"ethics of empathic responding," a responding based on an empathic sensitivity to self and to others. We can " c a r e " and be "responsible" for one another only based on an empathic awareness and sensitivity toward one another. Care without e m p a t h y tends to become patronage. Responsibility without e m p a t h y tends toward manipulation. In this world of "Tragic Man," as Kohut delineates our present culture, where lives are broken and enfeebled, e m p a t h y is t h a t " gl ue" t hat holds together the self-cohesion of individuals and the civilizing cohesion of groups. The broadening and strengthening of this empathic bridge toward other hum an beings becomes the highest ideal, a criterion as well as a basis for our ethical responding. For Kohut, this ethics of empathic responding can eventuate into a "new kind of humanitarianism, ''4 one based on a healthy idealization of empathy. K o h u t ' s self psychology represents more t han a new scientific paradigm. It goes beyond introducing " c u l t u r e " as the reality missing in other psychology and religion orientations. It presents itself as a new culture of psychology, the "culture of e m p a t h y . " Within this supraordinate framework, such hum an undertakings as religion and psychology receive their affirmation, transformation, and restoration. K ohut 's culture of e m p a t h y invites criticism by the nature of its premises and the form of its expansiveness, but there can be no doubt as to Kohut's c om m i t m ent to the maintenance and enhancement of our cultural as well as individual life.
References
1. Vitz, P. C., Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship. Grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977, p. 9. 2. Browning, D., Pluralism and Personality: William James and Some Contemporary Cultures of Psychology. Cranbury, New Jersey, Associated University Presses, Inc., 1980, pp. 36-42. 3. Kohut, H., The Search for the Self." Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950-1978. Vol. 2. New York, International Universities Press, Inc., 1978, pp. 714-715. 4. Ibid., p. 714.
