This book is a must-read for any serious student of self psychology and psychoanalysis. Strozier and his colleagues have penetrated the often obscure and difficult prose of Heinz Kohut to present a clear and compelling text that spells out the essence of self psychology and the implications of it as additional paradigm for understanding human psychology. Kohut located self psychology clearly in the context of both classical psychoanalytic theory and the other schools of psychoanalytic thought. As the biographer of Kohut, Strozier is a singularly qualified guide for this task, and he has executed it masterfully.