The role of pathological selfobjects in the development of a form of defensive self.

This paper focuses on the kind of patient whose self functioning is based on meeting the needs of others. I suggest that the childhood history of such patients is characterized by a specific form of pathological interaction. In this interaction the parents support and facilitate only those aspects of the child that meet the parents' own narcissistic needs. In the psychotherapy of these patients this aspect of the parent-child relationship is expressed as a specific form of transference.