ABSTRACT
The power of the selfobject theory of motivation has exceeded the hopes of even its originator. Kohut was confident that his contribution had widened the scope of psychoanalysis to include narcissistic personality disorders, but he believed that neither borderline nor psychotic disorders could be analytically treated (Kohut, 1971). Those disorders reflected a basic lack of cohesion of the self and were therefore considered to be beyond the pale of psychoanalysis.
