Psyche, 25, Nos. 4–12, 1971: ALICE MILLER (CH8008 Zürich, Zollikerstr. 27, Switzerland). Zur Behandlungstechnik bei sogenannten narzisstischen Neurosen (On therapeutic technique in the narcissistic neuroses)

The therapeutic significance of Kohut's conception of narcissism is discussed with special reference

to the development of infantile aggression, the consolidation of a stable regulatory system for narcissism and the problem of idealization. Four case histories demonstrate that children of narcissistically disturbed mothers are frequently blocked from normal access to their own aggression and from the neutralization of aggression. A simple conceptulization based on a drive frustration theory does not afford the therapeutically decisive insight into object relations, for it is not merely the mother's disturbance which is pathogenic, but rather the child's response to the mother's disturbance. Out of consideration for the disturbed mother, the child undertakes a regressive flight from separation anxiety and ambivalence. This regression is revived in the analytic situation in the form of avoidance strategies, clinging or distancing. The analyst, in his double function as transference and identification object, has the task of enabling the patient to face the conflicts he has circumvented in the mother–child relationship. In this manner the construction of a stabler self-representation can be approached.