"Just when we had girded ourselves against the sociopath next door, Burgo alerts us to the narcissist across the street. What a neighborhood!" - The New York Times Book Review
Bipolar and borderline clients who feel hopeless about their capacity for meaningful change often idealize their therapists and unconsciously try to merge with them; this fantasy of merger represents an escape from the damaged self into an alternative ideal self embodied by the therapist, a sort of personal growth by annexation.