When viewing people as all bad, the individual employs devaluation: attributing exaggeratedly negative qualities to the self or others.
During the childhood development stage, individuals become capable of perceiving others as complex structures, containing both good and bad components.
Freud's vision was that all human infants pass through a phase of primary narcissism in which they assume they are the centre of their universe.
[4] An extension of Freud's theory of narcissism came when Heinz Kohut presented the so-called "self-object transferences" of idealization and mirroring.
[5][6] Kohut stated that, with narcissistic patients, idealization of the self and the therapist should be allowed during therapy and then very gradually will diminish as a result of unavoidable optimal frustration.