Special characteristics of the analysis of a narcissistic character neurosis threw into relief a synergy between the process of fatherhood and the process of psychoanalytic therapy. The central role of the father's empathy for the child as an agent of normal paternal personality change was discussed, wherein paternal empathy for the child was seen to be compelled by the father's libidinal object cathexis of the child.

A homologous parallel was drawn between the libidinal tie of the father to the child functioning as a motor for the further integration of recathected registrations of infantile experience of the father, on the one hand, and the libidinal tie of the analysand to the analyst in the basic transference serving as an incentive to relinquish defense against derivatives of infantile mental life on the other.