As Kohut saw it, the pathologization of narcissism and correlated ideas about the move from narcissism to object love were part of “a supraordinated moral system in scientific disguise” and, “verbal disclaimers to the contrary, that the actual practice of analysis is burdened by an admixture of hidden moral and educational goals” (1984, 208). this paper examines the assumptions of Kohut's developmental paradigm by putting it in conversation with Jean Laplanche's “general theory of seduction.” Whereas Kohut describes a mother who idealizes her baby, lavishing a sense of “perfection” on him that he will eventually grow to internalize, Laplanche proposes a model of mother-infant relationality that is “parasited” by the complex dynamics of “enlarged” sexuality. Rather than entirely discounting the possibility of maternal idealization, Laplanche's theory of seduction complicates the romance of “absolute perfection” by helping us see that the mother is always a sexual being, and therefore whatever attunement or admiration she feels is necessarily and inevitably compromised by her own sexuality. The clinical implications of these findings will be explored through a case example of the “mirror-hungry personality” (Kohut & Wolf, 1978).