KOHUT, HEINZ (1913–1981)
The psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut was born in Vienna on May 13, 1913, and died in Chicago on October 8, 1981. Kohut was an only child. His father, Felix Kohut, a businessman, was a soldier on the Russian front during the First World War. Kohut was very close to his mother, Else Lampl, and his maternal grandfather. Kohut’s parents were Jewish, but his mother had been baptized a Christian and had taken her first communion. Kohut’s childhood was filled with sadness and solitude. The family climate was cold and distant, and his parents were often busy. He had a personal tutor for studying the classics. His teachers, especially a teacher of history and geography, often served as role models. He dedicated his bookAnalyse et Gue′rison(Analysis and cure) to his tutor and to his history teacher. At the age of nineteen he began studying medicine. In 1936 he spent a year in Paris and in 1938 became a doctor of medicine.
Kohut was analyzed by Walter Marseilles, then by August Aichhorn, whose openness and skill he praised. Known to offer delinquents a magnified image of their ego ideal, Aichhorn had his own ideas about narcissism. With the rise of the Nazis, Kohut was forced to go into hiding and left Vienna shortly after Sigmund Freud.