Otto F. Kernberg - Kernberg Vs. Kohut

Kernberg Vs. Kohut

Otto Kernberg and Heinz Kohut can be considered to be the two theorists that have markedly influenced past and current psychoanalytic thinking. Both focused on the observation and treatment of patients that were otherwise thought to be unsuitable for analytic therapy. Their main work has been mostly related to individuals with narcissistic, borderline, and psychotic psychopathology. Still, their perspectives concerning the causes, psychic organization, and treatment of these disorders have been considerably different. Taken as a whole, Kohut is regarded as a self theorist who radically departed from Sigmund's Freud conjectural conceptualizations, focusing mostly on people's need for self-organization and self-expression. Kernberg in contrast, remained faithful to the Freudian metapsychology, concentrating more on people's struggle between love and aggression. Their main differences are summarized below.