ABSTRACT
The question arises as to whether specific methods or techniques exist that are particularly successful in the treatment of narcissistic personality disorders. As we have said, both Jung and Kohut consider the psychic disturbances that are now generally called narcissistic personality disorders to result from a blockage in selfrealization. The therapeutic approach would then concentrate on encouraging, as much as possible, the impulses towards individuation originating from the self (Jung) or the maturational processes of the self (Kohut). In contrast, Kernberg, who sees the defensive aspect in pathological narcissism, uses a method centring around techniques designed to facilitate the therapeutic modification of narcissistic resistances (Kernberg, 1975). In the course of his experience, Kohut had come to the conclusion that certain psychoanalytical hypotheses, related both to the theory and to the technique, would have to be modified if the problems found in narcissistic personality disorders were to be treated effectively. He presented the first results of his efforts in his book, The Analysis of the Self (Kohut, 1971). Further developments of this approach and the elaboration of new techniques for the treatment of narcissistic personality disorders led him to the formulation of a different psychoanalytical theory, which is now called ‘self psychology’ (Kohut, 1977). As the main ideas of Kohut’s self psychology have come so close to the Jungian approach, a comparison between the psychotherapeutic methods of the two schools could be interesting enough for the practitioner.
