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During the more than 20 years that I have worked as a psychoanalyst, a realization of the importance of narcissistic problems for the understanding of human psychopathology has enrichened my psychoanalytic thinking the most. Freud's brilliant discovery of the importance of the oedipal conflict for the understanding of the human mind is the cornerstone of psychoanalytic thinking. The oedipal conflict and the “dissolution” of the same, as well as all traces left in human behaviour by the oedipal conflict, also make up the main theme of the psychoanalytic process. Furthermore, different kinds of narcissistic traumata leave their special mark on the human psyche.
I do not want to limit the definition of narcissistic problems to include only early pre-oedipal disturbances. Later traumatic events, such as object losses, illness or other fateful events, in my opinion also cause narcissistic disturbances in the developing child's psyche. Thus the appearance of narcissistic problems is possible as long as the child is developing.
The principal critical periods of human development, the oedipal period and puberty, are especially sensitive to different kinds of external influences. The oedipal period and puberty indeed have always been at the centre of interest of psychoanalytic research. They constitute intrapsychic periods of crises in the child's development, when the child's psyche is restructured and growing. Latency has traditionally been considered – intrapsychically viewed – as a period free from crises in the development of the child. The very name latency expresses this fact. Since Freud's definition of the latency period in Three Essays on the