The Wikipedia article does a good job, I think:

Self psychology - Wikipedia

I don't think you have to understand Kohut's theory in the depth that he wrote about -- I don't think I do --to get the basic gist of his concepts and ideas.

I guess the main thing that's hard is understanding that I have this sense of self -- or lack it -- where the "sense", and what it does for me, is more than just the cognitive ideas I have about myself. There's something energizing about feeling "grand" or confident in the present of a more powerful other I can depend on, or twinned with someone else I can work with to do things in the world.

If/when internalized, there's an internal sense, the poles of the self, maybe, that doesn't require the presence anymore of any of the actual people who functioned in my internal world as self-objects. But it still feels "good" to have people who do that around. People who see something good in me, whom I admire and can count on or ideals that guide my life. And "twins" -- friends, co-workers , fellow citizens, etc.

I think the people who served as my early self-objects (for grandiosity and idealization) failed me, and then somehow the twinship thing didn't get generated, and then -- when I was 13 and puberty was going on and my adult ego was trying to get in gear, my uncle -- my aunt's husband molested me. And I can remember, how I thought and felt as the whole thing shut down . . .

So, let's say therapy helped me uncover the damage, the trauma to the grandiosity and idealization poles, and become more conscious of that so I realize when I'm feeling too grandiose about myself and to realize, some, when I'm idealizing something too much -- the next step would be the "healing", or something, of the twinship function.

Which my support group and not being rejected here have definitely helped with.

Not sure any of this makes sense to anyone else but It's how I use the theory to try to make sense of what happened to me, or maybe in me.

My late husband was a support for me in all 3 poles, too -- but it wasn't internalized because . . .well, I can speculate but that's all it would be. When he died -- I had no sense of who I was. I knew that, too, but it didn't help to develop anything else. Unfortunately, therapy didn't either, much. Although it did help me dig down to the trauma -- but therapy needs to do more than that, I think. At least for anyone who has the damage I did.