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Freud formulated drive theory and the oedipus complex to treat symptom neurotics. Kohut felt this was inadequate to help narcissistic character disorders. He developed empathy-centered self psychology to treat these patients who suffer from labile self-esteem resulting from a "weakened or defective self." The selfobject is his pivotal concept. Selfobjects are not objects but "self-evoking functions performed by the objects." They result from caretaking input to the "infant [that creates] the experience of selfhood." Memory traces of selfobject experiences combine to produce "the self." The self may be experienced on a continuum from whole to fragmented and empty. To Kohut, the various selves are "not-further-reducible psychological units." Castration anxiety and repression are not considered a normal outcome of oedipal resolution. They are "symptoms caused by the breakdown of the cohesive self." This can be prevented by appropriate mirroring and idealizing input from both parents that supports certain oedipal desires without being overly seductive, stimulating, or prohibitive. This is said to produce an oedipal resolution free of castration anxiety and repression. When this is not done, the consequent anxiety is defined as a disintegration anxiety, rather than castration anxiety, a result of a less cohesive self. Expressions of drives appear only as a consequence of damage to the self.