“…The appearance that everything is ok should be and can be maintained by precisely those traits and characteristics that scholars like Christopher Lasch (1979), and psychotherapists like Heinz Kohut (1966Kohut ( , 1971Kohut ( , 1977cf. Siegel 1996) and Otto Kernberg (1975Kernberg ( , 1989Kernberg ( , 1994 and others describe as narcissistic: to annul the pain of disappointed love their patients, that is, most of us, are facile at managing the impression they give to others, are ravenous for admiration but contemptuous of those that are manipulated in providing it, are unappeasingly hungry for emotional experiences with which to fill an inner void, and are terrified of ageing and death (cf. Ronningstam 2000Ronningstam , 2005.…”