The Drama of the Gifted Child (The Search for the True Self)

course of analysis it can then be seen how far this contempt
has protected him from his own feelings.
Sometimes contemptuous feelings toward the analyst will
show up very early in the analysis. But this can only be
worked through when the analysand has found the broader
basis for his whole world of feeling on which he can then
play out and work through his ambivalence. It is then decisive
that the analyst should not let himself be provoked
into demonstrating his own superiority to the patient. The
contempt that Kernberg describes as ubiquitous in grandiose,
successful people always includes contempt for their
own true selves. For their scorn implies: without these
qualities, which I have, a person is completely worthless.
That means further: without these achievements, these
gifts, I could never be loved, would never have been loved.
Thus the small, powerless child, who is helplessly dependent
on others, and also the awkward or difficult child will
have to suffer contempt. Grandiosity guarantees that the
illusion continues: I was loved.
Those whose grandiose, false self needs to act out this
certainty are often envied or admired by those whose narcissistic
disturbance has a primarily depressive structure,
whereas the grandiose will despise the depressives. Nevertheless,
this is no basis for a typology, since grandiosity
and depression express the same underlying problem.
Contempt as a rule will cease with the beginning of
mourning for the irreversible that cannot be changed. For
contempt, too, had in its own way served to deny the reality
of the past. It is, after all, less painful to think that the
others do not understand because they are too stupid. Then
one can make efforts to explain things to them. This is the
process, described by Kohut, that takes place when idealization
of the self-object fails and the grandiose self has to
be cathected. There seems to be a way out, in fantasy at
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