ABSTRACT
Freud was pessimistic about the psycho-analytic approach to the narcissistic neuroses. He felt that people suffering from these diseases had no capacity for transference, or only insuf®cient remnants of one. He described the resistance of these patients as a stone wall which cannot be got over, and said that they turn from the physician not in hostility but in indifference. Many analysts have tried to develop methods of analysis which would deal with narcissistic patients ± I am thinking of Waelder (1925), Clark (1933), and later Fromm-Reichmann (1943), (1947), Bion (1962), Rosenfeld, and others. The majority of analysts who have treated narcissistic patients have disagreed with Freud's view that there was no transference. As the transference is the main vehicle for any analytic investigation, it seems essential for the understanding of narcissism that the behaviour of the narcissist in the analytic transference situation should be minutely observed.
