ABSTRACT
Contemporary psychoanalysis seems to have understood the usefulness of distinguishing, both dynamically and developmentally, the processes of constitution and growth of human beings, also (but not only) in the light of the development of their narcissistic order and equilibrium. For example, in clinical practice it has become quite natural for all analysts to distinguish accurately between healthy and unhealthy narcissism in order to choose from among the various treatment strategies available. There is also a growing tendency in contemporary psychoanalysis to take up a relational and interpsychic stance in the treatment of narcissistic problems, without however losing sight of the carefully refined descriptions given by authors examining such problems from an intrapsychic viewpoint. The author believes that the vignette briefly presented above reveals a possible point of connection between narcissistic cathexis and libidinal cathexis as regards aspects of the self.
