Self/object relations, self-narcissism and object-narcissism are clinical and metapsychological perspectives which can be usefully distinguished by psychoanalysts. Their interconnexions are examined using clinical material and developmental reconstructions. Current views of the developmental precursors of adult narcissistic disturbance are accepted and restated to illustrate the child's dilemma as to whether to maintain self/object relating at the cost of bearing a negative self-valuation, or whether to participate expediently, pleasurably and self-destructively in maternal object-narcissism. This manifests during psychoanalysis as instability of self/object relating with oscillations between self-narcissism and object-narcissism. Psychoanalytic material is presented to demonstrate characteristic alterations in the transference.