The author enlarges on the psychoanalytic attempts to understand this genius and his enigmatic and troubled life. Kernberg and Kohut are frequently quoted. Beethoven's ability to create a masterpiece after becoming deaf fascinates Ciardiello, who concludes that Beethoven became psychotic (or a fragmented self) because he was so narcissistically fragmented, fragile, and invested in his music that the only way open to him to re-establish his "self" was to compose.