yeah. to start with i struggled to see the difference between mirroring and twinship. i think i get it now... my t attempts to meet my twinship needs by talking about other clients. not disclosing identifying information about them but by saying 'some of my clients have said that xxx' or 'quite a few of my clients have said that they found that xxx' or whatever. i was a little freaked about that to start with but i think i've figured that that is what he is trying to do with that. lol. i do think he is making up stories half the time with that lol. but i guess i get my twinship needs met on boards :-)

yes it is okay to need attention. everybody needs attention. and different people have different needs for attention. everybody needs more attention when they are feeling distressed. some people are more distressed than others, however. some peoples parents were good with respect to the idealising function too and they often soothed and expressed caring when the person needed that. as such the person is able to soothe and express caring for themself when they need it. that can help them feel less intensely distressed so they are better able to seek and receive soothing from other people irl. for people who never really soothed or given much attention as kids... people who never really had that idealising function met... people who were more distressed than usual due to abuse or whatever... the distress can be very intense and the person isn't able to soothe themself. instead they turn to the environment in such an intense state that... they need to turn to therapy in order to have the idealising function met adequately enough for them to internalise.

yes, this is very very very very very similar to Linehan's take. she uses a different langauge, however. she talks about 'skills' that people learn (she doesn't divide up the three different needs). some of the skills are related to emotion regulation (self soothing etc). she talks about how when we are little our parents teach us these skills and then once we have those skills practice with them makes them automatic. it is a similar idea i guess. Kohut thinks people develop the skills so long as the therapist can be empathetic and can accept the transferences, however, while Linehan thinks people develop the skills by way of attending skills training and being explicitly taught the skills and being cheerleaded into practicing them.

very similar in the sense that they focus on inadequate environments. very similar in their advocating the utility of a non-judgemental stance.