Narcissism

The inspiration for the modern concept of narcissism is the ancient Greek legend of Narcissus, a Thespian hero who, after rejecting the advances of the nymph Echo, fell in love with his own image, which he refused to accept as merely a reflection. He suffered fits of melancholia and mania until he died of starvation, turning into the flower that still bears his name. Essentially a cautionary tale warning of the fatal consequences of self-obsession and the denial of external reality, it also is featured in Christian discourse as an aspect of original sin and idolatry, what Martin Luther called incurvatus in se ipsum, or “the love that is bent towards itself” rather than extended outward to the external authority of God.

Contemporary definitions of the concept vary across the humanities and social sciences. In psychology, it means a personality that craves admiration as it overestimates itself and its abilities, while the psychoanalytical conception sticks closer to the original mythological meaning of an individual who has difficulty distinguishing the self from its reflection in external objects. It is recognized in some schools of psychiatry and psychology as a severe personality disorder, and in this vein, Otto Kernberg links “malignant narcissism” to hubris, megalomania, aggression, and gang leadership.

In the humanities and cultural studies, narcissism is recognized as a sociocultural phenomenon, a tendency among the self-styled elite to indulge in ostentatious displays of beauty and taste to distinguish themselves from the mundane “herd.” Across Western history, dandies, flaneurs, new romantics, and metrosexuals have all demonstrated their obsession with appearance and style. This is seen by some cultural theorists as subversive, transgressive, and even protopolitical but by others as antisocial and pathogenic. In his Gothic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, often accused of being a narcissistic dandy himself, criticized high modernity as an immature culture obsessed with eternal youth and beauty.

Sigmund Freud saw primary narcissism as a universal characteristic of early child development, where the baby's primary needs are satisfied by a mother who is loved as an external other yet who also seems to be an extension of the self. This sense of unity directs libidinal energy that had been initially cathected (turned outward toward an external object) back inward toward the ego, creating feelings of omnipotent self-appreciation and self-love, which combine with primary aggressive instincts to produce potentially destructive drives. Civilization is built from the renunciation of the gratification of these drives and the subsequent sublimation of these drives, which builds the superego but leaves us with a nagging discontent created by the superego's guilt. Secondary narcissism can appear as the position of primary narcissism is lost in the oedipal stage, where the self encounters social pressure and is expected to identify with external others. Difficulties can arise if the libido withdraws from these external objects and again directs its energies back toward the self, in which case the individual will see significance [Page 1024]only in the objects of her own immediate needs and desires or those seen exclusively as her own work and a reflection of her self. The secondary narcissist can experience difficulty in modifying her views as they are tested in reality and in empathizing with the needs and views of others who threaten her fragile identity and self-worth.

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