Eidelberg discusses an aspect overlooked in his earlier reports on the narcissistic mortification. The phenomenon is due to the power of somebody else who thereby uses one against his will; and the 'somebody else' may be external or internal—that is, one part of the personality can 'force the total personality to do what it resents'.

Excerpts from a case history illustrate the problem of a male patient suffering from paranoid ideas. After he had given up his insistence that others hated him, he still believed that characterologically he must continue to suspect everybody of hating him. Slowly and painfully he then came to see his need to accept his conviction of the analyst's hatred of him and of his inability to do anything