Kohut and Freud Models

For Sigmund Freud, personality is based on mental structures, famously termed the ‘id-ego-superego’, driven by libidinal energy or psychic energy produced by the ego, with the self identified with the ego (mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious). Kohut rejected this as for him the self was a process involving the experiencing of sensations, perceptions, feelings, and importantly for psychoanalysis of ‘thoughts and attitudes towards oneself and the world’. He argued that the caregiver needs of a child, normally provided by a parent, are those of mirroring (the requirement to be admired for one’s attainments and qualities, values and contributions); idealising (the requirement to possess an idealised image of someone who one wishes to emulate in order to internalise goals and ideals for guidance); and twinning (the requirement to achieve harmonious relations with social groups). Narcissism arises as a consequence of an individual searching for a means to replace the failure of a caregiver to provide mirroring, idealisation, and twinning during childhood. If a cohesive and independent self is established in childhood, then the mature self will be able to tolerate the vicissitudes of life’s defeats and successes, of despair and joy, without destabilising the nuclear self which otherwise fragments under the pressure of extreme events. The Kohut model holds up under objective assessment, with the mental health needs following the stress and trauma experienced during the pandemic accounted for by this model.