from problem areas of the individual client that could interfere with the therapy progress. The contract also contains therapist responsibilities. The client and the therapist must agree to the content of the treatment contract before the therapy can proceed. Therapeutic process TFP consists of the following three-steps: (a) the diagnostic description of a particular internalized object relation in the transference (b) the diagnostic elaboration of the corresponding self and object representation in the transference, and of their enactment in the transference /countertransference and (c) the integration of the split-off self representations, leading to an integrated sense of self and others which resolves identity diffusion. During the first year of treatment, TFP focuses on a hierarchy of issues: the containment of suicidal and self-destructive behaviors the various ways of destroying the treatments the identification and recapitulation of dominant object relational patterns (from unintegrated and undifferentiated affects and representations of self and others to a more coherent whole). Mechanisms of change In TFP, hypothesized mechanisms of change derive from Kernberg's developmentally based theory of Borderline Personality Organisation, conceptualized in terms of unintegrated and undifferentiated affects and representations of self and other. Partial representations of self and other are paired and linked by an affect in mental units called object relation dyads. These dyads are elements of psychological structure. In borderline pathology, the lack of integration of the internal object relations dyads corresponds to a 'split' psychological structure in which totally negative representations are split off/segregated from idealized positive representations of self and other (seeing people as all good or all bad). The putative global mechanism of change in patients treated with TFP is the integration of these polarized affect states and representations of self and other into a more coherent whole. Theory on narcissism and the controversy with H. Kohut Otto Kernberg states that there are three types of narcissism: normal adult narcissism, normal infantile narcissism, and pathological narcissism. Pathological narcissism, defined as the libidinal investment in a pathological structure of the self, is further divided into three types (regression to the regulation of the infantile self-esteem, narcissistic choice of object, narcissistic personality disorder) with narcissistic personality disorder being the most severe of all. Still, narcissism has been a great source of disagreement between Otto Kernberg and Heinz Kohut. Although both focused on narcissistic, borderline, and psychotic patients, the focus and content of their theory and treatment has been considerably differentiated. Their