ABSTRACT
The patient, a 42-year-old married homemaker with three adolescent children, had a closet narcissistic personality disorder. In the past year, she had obtained a full-time job that she loved, but the long hours required much time away from home. The patient projects her impaired self on the therapist and coerces him to identify with it by devaluing him. The therapist massively identifies with the projection because it hits the center of the target of his own unresolved feelings of inadequacy about himself. In order to relieve his feelings about himself, he countertrans- ferentially becomes directive and caretaking with the patient, which evokes further resistance. When he identifies the intrapsychic source of his countertransference, he is better able to control it, stop the directiveness, and make appropriate mirroring interpretations of narcissistic vulnerability. The patient responds by taking back the projection and by beginning to reflect on her impaired self.
