An infant's experience as a selfobject

Exploration of the clinic al literature shows an awareness that an infant's experience as a selfobject often is traumatic, but if there is an experien ce of mutuality, the trauma might be avoided. Where such mutuality does not occur, an infant's experience of constantly repairing a depressed parent, or of being blamed, abused ou having an identity imposed by a parent, leads to exhaustion and/or traumatization. Kohut's paradigmatic case of Mr. Z is presented as an example of the distressful effects of being a selfobject ( of idealization) for a mother Patients who were traumatized as infants by f unctioning as a selfobject for a parent often present for psychotherapy see king an archaic form of twinship that recreates the infant-parent traumatiz ing relationship by imposing on the therapist the function that had been im posed on them as infants. Until this archaic twinship is empathically, unde rstood accepted and explored with the patient, the lasting effects of the t raumatization are not resolved.