ABSTRACT
The notion of self involves the whole personality, to psychic functioning as a whole, to the bodily self as well as to better defined elements, such as the representation of oneself. It can also be associated with the love of the ego, with all the semantic ambiguity that the term “ego” takes on, designating as much the psychical agency as the whole person. The expression “narcissistic transference” involves a certain type of transference in which the ego's needs are reactualised and repeated, because hitherto they have remained suspended during the course of psychic development. More than a reproduction of object relations transferred onto the person of the analyst, the transference relationship takes on a particularly striking narcissistic colouring. In the idealising transference, the ego idealises a narcissistic object in order to appropriate it. In the mirror transference, the ego develops its own sense of value under the gaze of the narcissistic object while awaiting its confirmation.
