MIRRORING AND THE THERAPEUTIC PROCES

Abstract

This paper is a commentary on the Psychosis Neurosis story written by a patient to his therapist in an email form. The clues in the text have led me towards the pathology of the self, i.e towards the developmental arrest due to the unsatisfied self-object needs. Since no additional information was available about the patient, save for the email, we can only speculate about the patient's diagnosis, the causes of his state, and the course and outcome of his therapy sessions. Due to the fact of me being led, associatively, towards self-psychology, in this work I focused on mirroring, narcissism and narcissistic personality disorders, the self, self-object needs, and therapeutic options for narcissistic personality disorders with special attention paid to the versions of transfer and the importance of empathy. I also mentioned some psychiatric disorders that often appear in comorbidity with narcissistic disorders.