Transcript

No animal perhaps can hate itself, except, of course, a human being. It's one of the strangest and most regrettable flaws in our condition. This tendency to self hatred is not only destructive of our spirit, it constantly undermines our efforts to establish workable relationships for it is logically impossible to allow anyone else to love us insofar as we remain obsessed by the thought of our own loathsome natures.

Why let another think better of us than we think of ourselves. If anyone did step forward and tried to be kind to us, we would have to despise them with the intensity owed to all false flatterers. It therefore turns out that one of the central requirements of a good relationship is surprisingly, a degree of affection for our own natures built up over the years, largely in childhood, we need a legacy of feeling very deserving of love in order not to respond obtuse ly and erratically to the affections granted to us by adult partners.