In the parent–child relationship, many of the factors that determine a child’s psychic development are never articulated as rules. They are organized primarily around the relational climate: the way the parent looks, the way they endure, the way they approach, the way they withdraw, the way they become disappointed. There, silently, something more fundamental than behavior is regulated: the child’s sense of worth. Not as an idea, but as the lived experience of “I fit as I am.” Parental narcissism is rarely recognized as such, because it does not necessarily appear as imposition or egocentrism. It often appears as anxiety, as overprotection, as a need for closeness that presents itself as care. The parent, inevitably, draws something from the child: meaning, continuity, confirmation that “I made it” or that “I am worthy as a parent.” This, in itself, is not pathological. It becomes critical, however, when the parent’s self-worth begins to depend excessively on the child—on the child’s success, on the child’s behavior, or on the image the child projects outwardly.
Dimitris Seferiadis (Wed,) studied this question.