ON NEED, NECESSITY, AND THE SOURCE OF NARCISSISM

British Journal of Psychotherapy, 1988

The author reviews Freud's (1914) seminal paper 'On narcissism: an introduction'. Freud's paper is briefly set in the historical context of the evolution of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theories, and Freud's metapsychology up to the publication of his Narcissism paper is outlined. A detailed and comprehensive description of the content of the paper is given, accompanied by commentary on, and critical analysis of, Freud's ideas. Freud's applications of his ideas about narcissism in relation to homosexuality, hypochondria and psychosis are elucidated and discussed. The author concludes by considering some of the influences of Freud's ideas about narcissism on Kleinian and post-Kleinian developments in psychoanalytic theory.

In this article, our goal is to present some elements relatives to the history of appropriation of the myth of Narcissus by medical-psychiatric tradition, so trying to draw the origins of this important psychoanalytic concept. From a psychopathological point of view, the narcissistic phenomenon, defined initially as a particular form of fetish, began to be considered as a medical problem at the end of nineteenth century. The psychoanalytic appropriation of this notion was made in 1905, by Freud, with the introduction of the concept of autoerotism. The first psychoanalytical definition of narcissism itself, suggested by the Viennese psychoanalyst Isidor Sadger, was given in 1908.

(a) VIII: 2 • 2011VIII: 2 • -2012 As the DSM IV contained ten personality disorders, the draft version of the DMS V retained (and redefined) only five: the schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, avoidant and obsessive-compulsive Personality Disorders. The DSM IV-disorders not retained (the narcissistic, paranoid, schizoid, histrionic and dependent personality disorders) were supposed to be accounted for in the broad category of "Personality Disorder Trait Specified" (PDTS). 3 In the reactions to the draft version of the DSM V the removal of The Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) was especially strongly contested. The result of this broad critique and protest was that, after re-evaluation, only NPD made its way back to the specific personality disorder types. The DSM V website hence stated:

British Journal of Psychotherapy, 1986

Kohut's exploration of narcissistic phenomena has had enormous impact on psychoanalytic thinking in the USA. Controversial though`Self Psychology' is, it has stimulated creative debate and a rethinking of many basic assumptions regarding development, the origins of pathology and the mode of action of psychoanalysis. Kohut's influence in Britain, by comparison, is almost negligible. Perhaps this is partly because Kohut -who died in 1981 -was writing against a background of classical analysis, Freudian and ego-psychological, which is rather different to that prevailing in Britain.

The Self as Muse: Narcissism and Creativity in the German Imagination, 2011

Abstract: Loving yourself is not a sin, but being obsessed with one‟s own happiness and letting others to suffer is „Narcissism‟. This disease is unique as the one who is suffering from narcissism may not realize that he is a „Narcissist‟ and in some cases a narcissist fails to cure his disease as he refuses to understand the suffering caused by him to others. A narcissist is dangerous to himself and the society. He can be cured if he discovers of what he is suffering with and realizes that only he can heal himself .i.e. „Narcissists are the cure to their own poison‟. Keywords: Character disorder, ego-strengthening, Ego State Therapy, false self, hypnosis, hypnotic age progression, narcissism, personality

Psychoanalytic Psychology - PSYCHOANAL PSYCHOL, 1990

Of the many concepts that Freud bequeathed us, few have proved as elusive as narcissism. In his first systematic exposition of this concept, Freud (1914) stated, that the term narcissism was coined to refer to a paraphilia in which one takes one's own body, rather than another person, as a sexual object. He proceeded, however, to redefine narcissism not as a disorder of sexual object choice but as a normal process, "the libidinal complement to the egoism of the instinct of self-preservation, a measure of which may justifiably be attributed to every living creature" (pp. 73-74). This formulation usually has been rendered as the libidinal cathexis of the ego or, as modified by Hartmann (1950), the libidinal cathexis of the self. Narcissism, according to this essentially economic definition, means self-love and self-esteem. In this framework, narcissism is depleted by libidinal investment in another and is reacquired when one receives love from another or approval from one's ego ideal, itself in turn rooted in narcissism (Freud, 1914).

Normal narcissistic functioning has to do with the regulation of a coherent set of metarepresentations of the acting agent. That set of meta-representations has its own interior architecture and dynamics. Normal narcissistic functioning is an adaptive form of interpsychic processing which can be given a general account by integrating views of it drawn from the clinical traditions of psychoanalysis, empirical psychology, and contemporary cognitive and neurosciences. This is not to be confused with any form of organized psychopathology, though pathological forms of narcissism are relevant to understanding normal narcissism. Neural correlates of normal narcissism, as also the characteristic emotions and pleasures/displeasures that accompany its operations, are also explored. It is proposed that this allostatic regulatory system plays a prominent role in a wide range of human behaviors. It also closes the gap between social norms governing such behaviors and the minds of the agents performing them. This integrative interpretation of the scientific material is offered as an exercise in "philosophy in cognitive science" and belongs to the tradition of naturalistic philosophical accounts of the human mind.