Narcissism and the Self

Dynamics of Self-Preservation in Social Interaction, Personality Structure, Subjective Experience, and Psychopathology

R. Behrendt

• Editore: Palgrave Macmillan
• Anno: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137491480
• Argomento: Psychology
• Categoria: Personality in Psychology

The book examines how coevolved intraspecific aggression and appeasement gestures can give rise to complex social, cultural, and psychopathological phenomena. It argues that the individual's need regulate narcissistic supplies and maintain feelings of safety is the overriding determinant of human conduct and thought in mental health and illness.

1

Introduction

FREUD (1914) understood that the aim of narcissistic object choice is to be loved; the aim is to raise one’s self-regard. Narcissistic object relations serve to maintain self-regard or self-esteem. Self-esteem can be defined simply as “confident conviction of being lovable” (STORR, 1968, p. 77). Narcissism, in turn, can be defined as a need – indeed an automatic tendency that is expressed in behaviour and cognition – to maintain self-esteem, that is, to be loved and to be lovable, to be approved and to be approvable, and to be generally accepted by and thus to feel connected to one’s social surround. It is interesting to realize how much of human personality, social behaviour, social structure, and psychopathology are centred on this need to maintain self-esteem, even though the central importance of narcissism is often not immediately apparent. Narcissism, as a fundamental behavioural tendency, is often expressed in highly abstract forms; and much of the social complexity around us becomes translucent when considered in this way, as this book aims to show. ‘Narcissistic’ behaviour strategies unfolding in a particular social and cultural context not only aim to optimize the level of positive attention we can gather from fellow humans but also, more generally, to control self-referential patterns reflective of our acceptance by and safety within our social surround; and they do so on different levels of abstraction.

Healthy narcissism, that is, the set of adaptive behaviours and personality structures concerned with enhancing our acceptability and approvability in the eyes of others, is at work when we shape and define our self (and when we ‘defend’ our ego by repressing unacceptable instinctual wishes or expressing them egosyntonically), when we defend the social position and the system of rules and norms that define our self and identity (or even the beliefs and allegiances through which we define ourselves), and when we offensively aggress those who challenge our self or the means by which we define our self. Pathological narcissism refers to an excessive reliance on external (and concrete) ‘narcissistic supplies’ (displays of others’ love, approval, respect, recognition, or admiration directed towards ourselves), supplies that are solicited by way of inappropriate, maladaptive, and hence ultimately self-defeating behaviours in an attempt to maintain a precarious self-esteem. Pathological narcissism covers over and defends against a ‘basic anxiety’ (HORNEY) or ‘disintegration anxiety’ (a sense of self-fragmentation) (KOHUT) and thereby steers the individual away from the abyss of ‘annihilation’ (FENICHEL). Pathological narcissism is a special case that illustrates the broader principle of self-preservation (need for safety), which is deeply embedded in a whole spectrum of social and psychopathological phenomena.

The self is an aggregate of self-representations, which are the various ideas a person has about himself (SCHAFER, 1967). The self is inseparable from the social environment, inseparable from others, inseparable also from one’s representations of others (KERNBERG, 1982a). More particularly, the self is dependent on others’ attitudes towards oneself; and it is dynamically constituted by way of influencing these attitudes, whether in an external social situation or in internal imagery (conscious fantasy). Others’ attitudes that constitute the self, that provide the self with cohesion (KOHUT), are approving, respecting, accepting attitudes towards oneself; hence, the self can be said to be narcissistically cathected (HARTMANN, 1964; JACOBSON, 1964).¹ The self is not an agent but the core of a social monitoring mechanism (DANZIGER, 1997). Feedback control of social behaviour involves the perception of approving or acknowledging self-referential patterns in the social environment, patterns that are abstracted and integrated in form of a self-image or the sense of self or identity. Behaviour that regulates the sense of self with the aim of enhancing self-esteem (maintaining the narcissistic balance) is conveniently termed narcissistic. Narcissism automatically (and unconsciously) constitutes the self and thereby moves the individual from anxiety and insecurity to a feeling state of ‘safety’ (SANDLER), a feeling of self-worth or pride. In the absence of external approvals, the self disintegrates, especially when internal self-esteem regulating mechanisms are insufficiently developed (KOHUT). Self-experience and its regulation are explored in Chapter 6.

The need to maintain coherence of the self as a proxy for the individual’s approval, recognition, or acceptance by the social surround – by way of behaviours and psychological mechanisms that can be subsumed under the term ‘narcissism’ – has a precise evolutionary significance, as is argued in the book. The importance of intraspecific aggression in structuring interpersonal relations has been highlighted by ethologists (EIBL-EIBESFELDT, HASS, LORENZ, MOYNIHAN). Narcissism, it is proposed, is phylogenetically based on mutual appeasement of intraspecific aggression in group-living primates. Individuals acquire, in the course of their development, behaviours that ensure that they are accepted or recognized by others, which are behaviours that fundamentally have an appeasing function on others’ aggressive potential. These culturally evolved behaviour patterns are superimposed on phylogenetically evolved appeasement gestures (Chapter 2). By behaving in accordance with cultural norms (internalized in form of the ‘ego ideal’) and by thus presenting the self as compliant and approvable, the individual counters the risk, deeply embedded in primate evolution, of becoming the target of the group’s joint aggression (HASS) and of thus being annihilated. It is this risk that is signalled by social or paranoid anxiety (or ‘basic anxiety’ [HORNEY]); and it is to the extent that this risk has to be minimized (and related anxiety has to be reduced or prevented) that the ‘ego’ (in the sense of a structure) employs its defensive operations (‘mechanisms of defence’).

The context in which the infant is protected not only against interspecific (predatory) but also intraspecific aggression is the presence and devoted care of the mother. The mother’s love and caring attention also signals that the infant is protected against the mother’s own aggression. The self first emerges in the matrix of the mother’s appreciating and loving relation to the infant, which is why the self-representation is bound to a representation of the good (caring) mother. Unconsciously, the self remains bound to the internalized omnipotent object or superego, which is a derivative of the primary maternal object. The superego as the counterpart of the self (and of the ego in its ideal form) is discussed in Chapter 5. As the self develops, it remains dependent on external appreciation and approval, although internalized self-esteem regulating structures (KOHUT), the superego in particular, play an increasing role in the maintenance of narcissistic balance or safety feeling (SANDLER).

Culturally, self-definition and self-actualization have become prevalent concerns (and the self has become a matter for theorizing), inasmuch as social structure has become less stable and cohesive (Chapter 9). The self acts as a defensive structure whenever the individual is exposed to an uncertain social situation or included in a fluid social structure; and, to ensure the individual’s safety under these circumstances, the self has to be defined and actualized; the self has to be concerned with its own esteem or value. The self, as is argued in Chapter 9, contains (holds) the individual’s culturally imposed separateness and vulnerability, in the same way that the cohesive group contains its members. In primitive groups or groups that have a high degree of cohesiveness, the safety-procuring infant–mother duality is replaced with the relationship between the group member and the group as a whole or its leader (so that the group, too, can be regarded as a developmental derivative of the primary maternal object [SCHEIDLINGER]). The self can then be said to merge with the group or with the collective consciousness (DURKHEIM), much as the ego can fuse with the superego in states of mania or love (FREUD) (whereby in each case the state of primary narcissism would be approximated).

FREUD (1914) was aware of a fundamental connection of narcissism with self-preservation, that is, with the organism’s need to avoid danger and steer away from annihilation. Narcissistic mechanisms, while maintaining or restoring self-regard or self-esteem (a developmental derivative of the blissful state of primary narcissism, the state of union with the mother [FREUD, 1914]), ensure the organism’s safety. Character, according to WILHELM REICH (1928, 1929), is a ‘narcissistic protection mechanism’, a mechanism that protects against dangers emanating from an inherently dangerous outer world. Manoeuvres coordinated by one’s character (personality) take place along one axis: they overcome or decrease anxiety or psychic pain² and restore, more or less successfully, the narcissistic equilibrium, that is, the feeling of safety (Chapter 7). Defence mechanisms, in preserving the self (‘ego defences’), serve the same purpose, although movements from dangerousness to safety can be maladaptive and self-defeating, leading to conflicts and necessitating secondary defences. The ‘principle of self-preservation’, posited by self psychology as a fundamental principle of social behaviour (BRANDCHAFT, 1985), is likely to be an expression of a more fundamental tendency underpinning animal behaviour: the tendency to move from situations of danger to situations of safety. The organism’s behaviour is so organized that it tends to decrease dangerousness and increase safety; and it is shaped (in the process of learning) according to whether or not it has this effect. Crucially, in humans, safety is signalled by the receipt (or confident expectation) of accepting, acknowledging, approving, affirming, or praising signals from others. Safety is experienced by the individual in terms of these reflections of himself in others’ responses and attitudes, reflections that constitute or sustain the sense of self.

Object-relations theorists (KLEIN, BALINT, WINNICOTT, BION, FAIRBAIRN, KERNBERG) emphasized the importance of our dependence on objects, of our need for them. Object-relations theory does not explicitly address the question wherein this dependence on objects consists. Self psychology elucidates the nature of our dependence on objects and thereby brings into sharper relief many of the insights that have germinated on the fertile grounds of object-relations theory (BRANDCHAFT, 1986). Objects have different functions; they serve as targets for libidinal and aggressive impulses (‘drives’) and as sources of narcissistic supplies (GOODMAN, 2002). It is their role in maintaining the narcissistic balance (self-esteem), their ‘selfobject’ function (KOHUT), that is of greatest relevance to gaining a better understanding of personality development, psychopathology, and social processes, as this book aims to demonstrate (Chapters 4 to 9). Object-relations theorists speak of ‘depressive anxiety’, which relates to the infant’s insight into his dependence on the maternal object (and, correspondingly, the adult’s dependence on a derivative of the primary object, including the superego or omnipotent object internally). Failure to work through (resolve) the ‘depressive position’ in infanthood – that is, an inability to save and repair internal loved objects (who, in their external incarnation, are the targets of the infant’s hostility in the ‘paranoid-schizoid position’) – renders the individual vulnerable to psychological suffering later in life (KLEIN, 1940, 1946). Failure to securely establish good inner objects leaves the developing child with an inner insecurity that is coupled with heightened narcissistic needs vis-à-vis external objects. The critical insight is that the lack of secure internal objects, as conceptualized in object-relations theory, is equivalent to an insecure self (internal objects and self being inseparable [KERNBERG, 1982a; CASHDAN, 1988]). Individuals who lack secure internal objects and who hence have an insecure self are engaged in life-long attempts to overcome anxieties resulting from the loss of the primary object (‘depressive anxieties’).³

Lack of close and happy relationships confirms (perpetuates) ‘fears of annihilation’ from inside and fears of persecution from outside (whereby fears of persecution manifest a regression to the paranoid-schizoid position) (KLEIN, 1940). External reality under these circumstances cannot provide proof for the groundlessness of the individual’s insecurities and of his worries about his ‘internal world’. As KLEIN (1940) argued, insecurity constantly incites a need to observe the world of external objects. There is a deep evolutionary meaning to KLEIN’s paranoid-schizoid position. The danger to which primitive humans were exposed early on in their phylogenesis was that of persecution and annihilation by the primal group. The need therefore arose to be constantly watchful of others’ intentions and to guard against the possibility of persecution and annihilation by the group, and this had to be done by way of soliciting others’ good will (especially that of the leader), that is, by drawing on their selfobject function.⁴ It is for reasons of security and self-preservation that we depend on others’ approval and recognition. This dependence is particularly obvious in those with a ‘neurotic personality’ (HORNEY) or a ‘disorder of the self’ (KOHUT, WOLF), whose self-esteem is fragile (and who lack secure internal objects). Fragility of self-esteem is the origin of “the compulsive drive for worldly glory through success, power, and triumph” (HORNEY, 1950, p. 368). Compensating for ‘inferiority’ (inner insecurity, corresponding to week self-esteem), the neurotic person strives for power and ‘superiority’ (ADLER, 1965). Even those who have securely established good internal objects and who benefit from internal self-esteem-regulating structures pursue power, prestige, and possessions for the same reason, namely narcissistic gratification (Chapter 7), although they do so less compulsively.

In self psychology, we have a convergence of object-relational theories and theories that emphasize the central role of self-esteem (or safety) and of its regulation in social behaviour, personality, and psychopathology (ADLER, HORNEY, SANDLER). Both of these branches of psychoanalytic thinking – the one that is primarily concerned with object relations and the one that places self-esteem at the heart of its theoretical investigations – have sprung from ‘classical’ psychoanalysis (which, in itself, underwent further theoretical development in the form of ego psychology [HARTMANN]) (Figure 1.1). KOHUT (1977) suggested that self psychology and traditional psychoanalysis constitute alternative theoretical frameworks that should coexist. In fact, most of the statements of classical psychoanalysis can be translated into the language of self psychology. For instance, conflict between drives, as it is understood classically, is associated with intolerable feelings, which refer to the social unacceptability of certain impulses. Impulses are intolerable or inacceptable, and hence need to be repressed or otherwise defended against, if they risk eliciting disapproval from others and hence causing disruption of the subject’s narcissistic balance (which is maintained by others’ approval or the confident expectation thereof). Impulses or thoughts are egodystonic insofar as they are subjectively int...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Affective Expressions
• 3 Affective States
• 4 Development
• 5 Superego
• 6 Self-experience
• 7 Character Defences
• 8 Psychopathology
• 9 Interpersonal and Social Dynamics
• 10 Conclusion
• References
• Index