Abstract
This discussion of Charles B. Strozier's “Heinz Kohut and the Meanings of Identity” amplifies Strozier's work by underscoring the history of Austrian anti-Semitism that constitutes the background of Kohut's biography and by relating this history to Kohut's self-psychological analysis of religious experience. Kohut's central contribution, the study of narcissism, may be understood as having its origins in Kohut's deep feelings of shame and self-hatred regarding his Jewishness and the vertical splitting and dissociation of this aspect of his religious identity. What made Kohut a great psychoanalytic theorist was his ability to transform his own psychological struggles into a theory and treatment approach that transcended the limitations of his own life and that continues to shed light on the tragic and heroic dimensions of all human experience.
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