ABSTRACT
The classification of the transferencelike structures mobilized during the analysis of narcissistic personalities is based on previous conceptualizations. If the child, however, suffers severe narcissistic traumata, then the grandiose self does not merge into the relevant ego content, but is retained in its unaltered form and strives for the fulfillment of its archaic aims. The relative stability of this narcissistic transference-amalgamation is the prerequisite for the performance of the analytic task in the pathogenic narcissistic areas of the personality. The idealizing transference is the therapeutic revival of the early state in which the psyche saves a part of the lost experience of global narcissistic perfection by assigning it to an archaic object, the idealized parent imago. Idealization, whether it is directed at a dimly perceived archaic mother-breast or at the clearly recognized oedipal parent, must genetically and dynamically be understood as a narcissistic phenomenon.
