This contribution evaluates Kohut's model of adult-infant relationality, linking it to clinical implications and self-love understanding.
Outlining the history of transformations of narcissism and through the clinical material, this contribution puts in dialogue Heinz Kohut's understanding of adult-infant relationality with that of Jean Laplanche. In an effort to evaluate the merits of Kohut's developmental model in meta-psychological terms, the author is guided by two aims: to explore the clinical implications of different views on adult-infant relationality, especially as they manifest in the "mirror-hungry personality," and to formulate a psychoanalytic conceptualization of self-love that can effectively challenge the narrow-minded mantras so popular today.
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Gila Ashtor (2025) studied this question.
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