Through his experience-near empathic mode of observation during psychoanalysis, Kohut traced the development of the self not as a concept or representation of the mind as in object relations theory but as a "supraordinate" construct that comprises the entire psychic structure, that is, an inner experience that has continuity in time and space.
The particular patients he observed, such as the previously described Ms. F., were termed narcissistic personality disorders - later referring to them as self disorders - who presented with a clearly defined syndrome.
Characterized by unusually labile moods and extreme sensitivity to failures, disappointments, and slights, these patients are ultimately diagnosed not so much b much by the symptoms as by the emergence in treatment of certain unresolved needs he termed selfobject transferences.
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