The Crowded Mirror: Heinz Kohut and the Myth of Adult-Infant Love

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.