 The second major development was the groundbreaking work of Heinz Kohut, who developed his very own ideas about the central role of empathy as defining the field of psychoanalysis - a position he staked out in 1959.Kohut had observed the intense reactions that would occur when patients were engaged with others who had not functioned as a needed part of themselves and hence caused injury to that most vital part of their being.But it was this being-part-of that had deep implications for the understanding of both development and treatment.