Scope and Content Note
The papers of Heinz Kohut span the years 1923-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1960 to 1981. The papers are in English and German with some in French and are arranged alphabetically by type of file or material and thereunder arranged largely as received. Excisions of information from some of the documents in the collection were carried out before their arrival at the Library of Congress.
The alphabetical file comprises the largest part of collection and spans the years 1923-1990. It may have served as a central file for Kohut. Contents include correspondence, memoranda, speeches, writings, an interview, photographs, clippings, professional appointments, itineraries, newsletters, minutes, drafts, contracts, invoices, and royalty statements. The correspondence consists of personal and professional correspondence to and from both Kohut and his wife Elizabeth ("Betty") Kohut. Although Kohut's outgoing correspondence consists mostly of carbon copies and photocopies, some exist only in his style of shorthand. His letters to Siegmund Levarie appear to be the signed originals. Topics discussed throughout the correspondence include the writings of Kohut and others, self psychology and narcissism, psychoanalysis, patients, the scheduling of meetings and conferences, requests for Kohut to review manuscripts, the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, and everyday information. Correspondents include August Aichhorn, Michael Franz Basch, K. R. Eissler, Ruth Selke Eissler, Anna Freud, John E. Gedo, Arnold Goldberg, Siegmund Levarie, Alexander Mitscherlich, Tilmann Moser, Paul H. Ornstein, Jacques Palaci, George H. Pollock, Lutz Rosenkötter, and Charles B. Strozier. In Kohut's alphabetical arrangement, the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis is filed under "Institute for Psychoanalysis" and some items related to the University of Cincinnati under are filed under "C" miscellaneous.
Kohut's speeches and writings consist mostly of published articles and book reviews and span the years 1934-1983. Topics include neurology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis and music, and self psychology. Other speeches and writings by Kohut are found in the alphabetical file. The scrapbooks cover events in Kohut's career. The first scrapbook contains material and photographs related to Kohut's appearance as the laudator at the awarding of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to Alexander Mitscherlich in 1969, Kohut's receipt of the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, First Class, in 1977, and the reading of Kohut's "Introspection, Empathy, and Semi-Circle of Mental Health" by his son, Thomas Kohut, at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute in Chicago, Illinois. The second scrapbook is devoted to the Symposium on History and Psychoanalysis that was held in Kohut's honor in 1973.
Of interest in the miscellany is correspondence between Geoffrey Cocks and Elizabeth and Thomas Kohut for Cocks's book Curve of Life: Correspondence of Heinz Kohut, 1923-1981 and a finding aid to the Heinz Kohut Papers housed at the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis. Rounding out the papers are the annotated books consisting of published volumes on psychiatry and psychoanalysis with marginalia and underlinings by Kohut.