ABSTRACT
Wilhelm Reich formulated narcissistic resistance as character armor and he maintained it was the task of the analyst to penetrate this narcissistic armor. The influence of Reich's teachings and writings on psychoanalytic theory and practice has waned. The analyst aims at psychic reintegration of the need by reconstructing the oedipal period when, as he knows, the need was phase-appropriate and growth-promoting. A particularly instructive kind of chronic narcissistic resistance is the complex psychic formation called schizoid personality. Higher forms of narcissism take shape; more precisely: the psyche acquires structures that transform the narcissistic needs. The symptoms of narcissistic personality disorders are the result of the defective condition of the narcissistic structures: they are manifestations of a disease of the self. The disease affects either the grandiose self or the archaic omnipotent self-object. The development of the other parts of the personality, for instance, intelligence or drives, may have progressed comparatively undisturbed.
