The Obstacle of Self-Hatred
It is fortunate when people learn about mimetic rivalry and are able to adjust their lives accordingly, but there are many who will not learn this and bound into every conflict, and these conflicts can start early in childhood and pathology can develop before they enter the workforce. Everything is just an empty search for approval from others for the objects that are chosen. When people look at work as only a means to an end, motivation saps and it becomes robotic. One of the best psychoanalysts that understood this problem well was Heinz Kohut who was in the lineage of Ego Psychology. Ideally employers provide boundaries to work within, but many people have grown up in families where everything is motivated by parents, and eventually authority figures in the world of work. To not be able to create personal goals to fulfill means no fulfillment. One just looks for cues from authority figures, and like a slave, one’s emotions are tied to the criticisms of others. Attention is an unreliable source of energy. “A rebuff, the absence of expected approval, the environment’s lack of interest in the patient, and the like, will soon again bring about the former state of depletion.” Heinz saw that prior methods of psychoanalysis did demonstrate incremental improvements in patients, but he noticed that some people improved better than others. Some improvements were short-lived and self-direction would disintegrate after a period of time. Narcissistic Woundings are those criticisms that keep us away from a self-appreciation that matches an ideal-self. That pain can lead to avoidances, aggressive reactivity found in Narcissistic Rage, and addictions. “The fantasies stood, of course, in opposition to meaningful insight and progress since they were in the service of pleasure gain and provided an escape route from narcissistic tensions.” The problem of course is that reality doesn’t always conform to our views of ourselves.
Due to our parenting, which may have included too much restriction, or abuse, and too much indulgence, which keeps one from important reality checks, one can be more or less connected with reality depending on how much of a need there is for repeated confirmations from others. “Many of the most severe and chronic work disturbances of our patients are in my experience due to the fact that the self is poorly [attached] with narcissistic [craving] and in chronic danger of fragmentation, with a secondary reduction of the efficacy of the ego. Such people are either chronically unable to work at all, or (since their self is not participating) they are able to work only in an automatic way (as the isolated activity of an autonomous ego, without the participation of a self in depth), i.e., passively, without pleasure and without initiative, simply responding to external cues and demands. Occasionally even the patient’s awareness of this rather frequent type of work disturbance in narcissistic personality disorders comes about only in the course of a successful analysis. The patient will one day report that his work has changed, that he is now enjoying it, that he now has the choice whether to work or not, that the work is now undertaken on his own initiative rather than as if by a passively obedient automaton, and, last but not least, that his approach has now some originality rather than being humdrum and routine.”
Part of developing a sense of self is to create one’s own goals, go into Flow states, and learn that one can create one’s own pleasure, much like in play. Yet play is not possible if there isn’t any feedback from the real world. Certainly a sports game is not going to be very much fun if one can’t tell if one is winning or not. Fantasizing that one is winning, when one clearly isn’t, is also not very much fun. For Kohut, the therapeutic environment is one that recreates the early childhood experience “in which the child attempts to save the originally all-embracing narcissism by concentrating perfection and power upon the self—here called the grandiose self—and by turning away disdainfully from an outside to which all imperfections have been assigned.” In that environment, everything is laid out neatly. In the real world, this manifests as a denial of realistic facts, avoidance of responsibility, and eventually a hostile aggression against any reality that may interfere with uninterrupted fantasy. This plays out in office politics with callousness, sabotage, and unethical short-cuts that are detrimental to organizations. It happens when there is an unconscious expanding of the Super-ego to take over boundaries of others and it relies on bridging weaknesses in skills with those surrounding the individual.
Narcissistic Supply – Freud and Beyond: https://rumble.com/v1gveop-narcissistic-supply-freud-and-beyond-wnaad.html
There is an importance in having that sense of omnipotence and all consuming passion, but it is mainly in the world of the infant. As development ideally improves, there’s a sense of autonomous control over choices in activities to conform to socially accepted rules. Boundaries between self and others develop, which helps to develop empathy. Daydreaming and manipulating others like toys to satisfy goals, as an extension of ownership and self-hood, leads to conflict with others as they fight to maintain their independence, but in healthy narcissism it allows for those boundaries, hobbies, interests, and an acceptance of realistic limitations and imperfections in others. When one doesn’t develop those passions and interests, and has no boundaries, then that parenting is echoed into the narcissist’s adult life, and colored by past imitation of parents and authority figures. “The specific goals and purposes which frequently determine the later major directions of one’s life are often derived from identifications with the very figures who originally had been experienced as extensions of the grandiose self.”
In therapy, one doesn’t eliminate all narcissism, but tries to aim it in better directions and partially complete the parenting that one didn’t receive. One can entertain fantasies, but also progressively tolerate how out of bounds it is from reality, or accept the amount of work and effort required to achieve those goals. Self-esteem based on a fantasy is turbulent, but self-esteem based on reality is stable. Smothering and spoiling remove one from reality, and excessive inhibition through abuse also disconnects one from the self-assertion needed to be able to self-satisfy and function in reality. One is confronted with reality and the pathological responses are avoidance, aggression, and denial. “Our ultimate goals and purposes and our self-esteem, also carry the earmark of the original narcissism which infuses into the central purposes of our life and into our healthy self-esteem that absoluteness of persistence and of conviction of the right to success which betrays that an unaltered piece of the old, limitless narcissism functions actively alongside with the new, tamed, and realistic structures. If the optimal development and integration of the grandiose self is interfered with, however, then this psychic structure may become split off from the reality ego and/or may become separated from it by repression. It is then no longer accessible to external influence but is retained in its archaic form.”
As one in therapy is able to tolerate reality, including bouts of shame, realization of the unreality of fantastical goals, and the requirements of skill development to achieve any realistic goal, a patient who isn’t severely narcissistic to the point of a permanent disorder, can learn to thaw out defenses and develop a more human self-esteem. “The gradual recognition of the realistic imperfections and limitations of the self, i.e., the gradual diminution of the domain and power of the grandiose fantasy, is in general a precondition for mental health in the narcissistic sector of the personality. But there are exceptions to this rule. A persistently active grandiose self with its delusional claims may severely incapacitate an ego of average endowment. A gifted person’s ego, however, may well be pushed to the use of its utmost capacities, and thus to a realistically outstanding performance, by the demands of the grandiose fantasies of a persistent, poorly modified grandiose self.” Magical thinking about skills that aren’t there can be a boon in one sense in that it becomes next to impossible to deny the lack of skill when there’s any attempt at making dreams reality. The therapy can move faster to knowing one’s weaknesses with less reactivity and to adjust with a learning attitude placed in the responsibility of the Ego and it’s interest in reality. Unfortunately, someone who is gifted may have enough justifications for their false self, because of their high skill level, that they may not get the therapy they need to improve their relationships. It’s usually a narcissist who had a big failure, or multiple failures, that seeks therapy or is pushed into therapy by significant others.
The Ego and the Id – Sigmund Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gvdo1-the-ego-and-the-id-sigmund-freud.html
Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: https://rumble.com/v1gtj2d-treatment-of-narcissistic-personality-disorder-narcissism-part-4-of-4.html
Buried in the successful narcissist’s problem of not being able to see the difference between a True Self that is self-satisfying and responding to the real world, and the False Self that is still too fantastical, is the value of reality. Reality can appear boring, frightening, essentially a threat. The patient who is recovering notices that “…his realism was paying off.” Real skills are nothing to be ashamed of and have to now find self-satisfaction in the real world. For those with only undeveloped potentials, then skills have to be planned for. “Gradually, the nature of the [identification process] changes: they are not gross and indiscriminate anymore, but become selective—increasingly focusing on features and qualities which are indeed compatible with the analysand’s personality and enhance (up to now dormant) talents of the patient himself…Ultimately the patient, may discover with calm but deep and genuine pleasure that he has acquired solid nuclei of autonomous function and initiative…All of a sudden, as if the sun were unexpectedly breaking through the clouds, the analyst will witness, to his great pleasure, how a genuine sense of humor expressed by the patient testifies to the fact that the ego can now see in realistic proportions the greatness aspirations of the infantile grandiose self or the former demands for the unlimited perfection and power of the idealized parent imago, and that the ego can now contemplate these old configurations with the amusement that is an expression of its freedom.”
Finding pleasure in realistic goals also means that the delay of gratification is shorter, which lightens narcissistic neuroses. “Unsolved intellectual and aesthetic problems, for example, create a narcissistic imbalance which in turn propels the individual toward a solution—be it now the completion of a crossword puzzle or the search for the perfect place for the new sofa in the living room. The solving of the intellectual or aesthetic problem, however, especially when the correct answer becomes apparent within a relatively short time span, always leads to a feeling of narcissistic pleasure, which is the emotional accompaniment of the suddenly restored narcissistic balance.” Seeing imperfections in oneself makes it easier to see imperfections in others. Empathy may increase if there’s a desire to avoid hypocrisy. Empathy connected with love and realistic relationship goals can also be informed by expectations of imperfection and a need for problem solving. Like with earlier episodes, Psychoanalysis wants people to be able to rely on themselves more and bring on an ever expanding Ego responsibility so that the Super-ego can take a backseat from micro-managing. “Creativeness, too, ranging from a new-found ability to perform a restricted range of tasks with zestful initiative to the emergence of brilliantly inventive artistic schemes or of penetrating scientific undertakings, may appear, seemingly spontaneously, in the course of many analyses of narcissistic personalities. Its appearance is again specifically related to the mobilization of formerly frozen narcissistic [attachments], in the area of both the grandiose self and the idealized parent Imago…If this objective is reached, the aggressions in the narcissistic sector of the personality will be employed in the service of the realistic ambitions and purposes of a securely established self and in the service of the cherished ideals and goals of a superego that has taken over the function of the archaic omnipotent object and has become independent from it.”
Empathy also allows a person to go into the shoes of another and feel a bit like their experiences were also experienced by oneself. A healthier Super-ego that can autonomously sample experiences of others without needing a leader’s perspective means it co-creates with the realistic Ego without needing others to bridge skill gaps and slavishly respond to demands. The enjoyment comes from the Super-ego seeing the Ego succeed based on personally chosen goals to modify the environment in some way, and then ideally to connect those aims with the world for a healthier connection with others. Maybe a person can enjoy more parts of their work or take on new hobbies that have the potential for long lasting interest. The difficulty for Kohut was making sure that these small improvements were of lasting value, not just a way of killing time only to be abandoned later. The self in this system involves looking at preferences and making changes to the environment to match those preferences in a self-satisfying way. Dangers with narcissistic patients could be that it was all done as an acting performance to get positive responses from the therapist. Making changes can’t be for the sake of rebellion or dogma. The persistence of a hobby, interest, or vocation has to have a sense of that daydreaming “it would be nice if…” but then a belief in oneself that one is capable of making those changes, and then providing some inertia by just starting something. With concentration and action, the feedback signaling progress creates natural zest. There maybe distractions from other people in any activity, but like in sports, those distractions can be included in the self-chosen list of goals, that one will ignore distractions from others with concentration and keep plugging away.
How to motivate yourself – Freud and Beyond: https://rumble.com/v1gv3zl-how-to-motivate-yourself-freud-and-beyond.html
Reality also has a benefit because it provides experiences and knowledge from others on what values are currently entertained by the culture. A sifting and comparing process gives the Super-Ego an opportunity to compare parental and cultural values so that one has meaning in life. During that search one can easily see how others have already been undergoing this process and now there’s an opportunity to catch up. Those priorities create a life for a person. “…The patient’s devotion to his values and ideals is not that of a fanatic but is accompanied by a sense of proportion which can be expressed through humor. The coexistence of idealism and humor demonstrates not only that the content and psychological locus of the narcissistic positions have changed but also that the narcissistic energies are now tamed and neutralized and that they are following an aim-inhibited course.”
These developments for Kohut were viewed as optimal frustrations, where the delay of gratification is not unreasonable, and if better parenting was encountered, then children would have learned self-soothing sooner, with more positive mental talk, and layers of conditioning would have developed so that the adult would tolerate frustration and stick with problem solving. There would be more acceptance of imperfections in the body, such as looks, and imperfect skills. Looks can be amended to a certain extent but much of how people look has to be accepted because the body is partly out of our control. There should be a solidarity between self-esteem and taking care of oneself. A reduction of self-consciousness. Skills can be developed or goals changed to more appropriate ones. There’s also no need to tolerate exploitative relationships where one is expected to simply react to demands from authority figures.
The sad reality is that many narcissistic types are not going to be cured and there’s no cure on the horizon. Most will not go into therapy so the chances of recovering these pathological relationships is next to nothing. This means separating from bad relationships and being very skeptical of miraculous cures. When these types have an agenda, the devastation for those in their path is life changing. Kohut calls this Narcissistic Rage. “…That the narcissistically vulnerable individual responds to actual (or anticipated) narcissistic injury either with shamefaced withdrawal (flight) or with narcissistic rage (fight)…Human aggression is most dangerous when it is attached to the two great absolutarian psychological constellations: the grandiose self and the archaic omnipotent object. And the most gruesome human destructiveness is encountered, not in the form of wild, regressive, and primitive behavior, but in the form of orderly and organized activities in which the perpetrators’ destructiveness is alloyed with absolute conviction about their greatness and with their devotion to archaic omnipotent figures…The need for revenge, for righting a wrong, for undoing a hurt by whatever means, and a deeply anchored, unrelenting compulsion in the pursuit of all these aims, which gives no rest to those who have suffered a narcissistic injury-these are the characteristic features of narcissistic rage in all its forms and which set it apart from other kinds of aggression.”
Kohut is similar with Freud in how sadism and revenge are connected. People see they can regain some power by using sadism to their advantage and then one can turn into the monster one was fighting before. “The desire to turn a passive experience into an active one, the mechanism of identification with the aggressor, the sadistic tensions retained by those who as children had been treated sadistically by their parents-all these factors help explain the readiness of the shame-prone individual to respond to a potentially shame-provoking situation by the employment of a simple remedy: the active (often anticipatory) inflicting on others of those narcissistic injuries which he is most afraid of suffering himself.” This is partly the reason why people attack others unconsciously for things they are guilty of, to take the spotlight off of themselves, and to know from personal experience that if it potentially hurts oneself, then it will probably hurt others just as effectively. People with shame identities are not going to meditate and treat the self as a sensation and let identities transform from particles to waves and wait for those strong affects to wane on their own. They reinforce the complexes and go into defensiveness as per Freud and Jung.
Beyond the Pleasure Principle – Freud & Beyond – War Pt. (2/3): https://rumble.com/v1gv855-beyond-the-pleasure-principle-freud-and-beyond-war-pt.-23.html
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life – Sigmund Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gtj2d-treatment-of-narcissistic-personality-disorder-narcissism-part-4-of-4.html
That fear of being in a weak position can motivate the powerful to find ever inventive ways of using sadism and destruction to control the rest of society. “Mr. P., for example, who was exceedingly shame-prone and narcissistically vulnerable, was a master of a specific form of social sadism.” Connecting with totalitarian movements of the 20th century, the danger of these types who are skilled at sadism is that their skills can inflict more damage than a general angry person who feels momentarily frustrated about something. “The irrationality of the vengeful attitude becomes even more frightening in view of the fact that—in narcissistic personalities as in the paranoiac—the reasoning capacity, while totally under the domination and in the service of the overriding emotion, is often not only intact but even sharpened. (This dangerous feature of individual psychopathology is the parallel of an equally malignant social phenomenon: the subordination of the rational class of technicians to a paranoid leader and the efficiency-and even brilliance-of their amoral cooperation in carrying out his purposes.)”
Otto Kernberg’s research also ties these etiologies of pathology into political systems where there’s “socialized dishonesty” as in the former Soviet Union, and paranoia has a quality that allows one to see more enemies than there actually are and it becomes easy to betray people with psychotic false narratives that support social dishonesty in the form of rationalizations and excuses. For Kernberg, Narcissists have a tilt in their psychology in his drive theory which leans out of control because the Super-ego conscience is not missing like in a theoretical pure psychopath, but it failed to integrate properly. Integration is learning from trial and error and then reacting appropriately to many different types of stimuli and impingements. A lack of integration becomes a problem because if left untreated those negative patterns can become rigid. Those individuals will have lifelong problems with relationships and be a path of wreckage for others. Imperfect policing functions in a society can also be coopted by these types and they can end up jailing and killing the healthy people in the population. No one wants painful treatment and certainly they don’t want to go to jail, so why not make the rest of the world a jail and preempt incarceration by incarcerating everyone else? This is an ever present worry because so many Cluster B types are not getting treatment and are acquiring powerful positions in society as a way to use leverage to force people into exchanges with them. “Once a pathological grandiose self infiltrated by aggression dominates psychic functioning in the absence of the moderating and maturing reliance on an integrated super-ego—can later psychosocial influences and, in particular, psychotherapeutic treatment help?”
Many people feel anger and negative emotions but they have quite a bit of control on them, sometimes too much control, but for personality disorders that tilt and lean towards aggression as a solution, there is much more acting out. “…Aggressive affect—and affective dysregulation related to inadequate cognitive control, on one hand, and the development of the syndrome of identity diffusion, on the other.” Identity diffusion is a “lack of integration of the concept of self and significant others, a predominance of primitive defensive operations centering around splitting, and loss of reality testing. The basic function of the defensive operations of splitting and its derivatives (projective identification, denial, primitive idealization, omnipotence, omnipotent control, devaluation) is to keep separate the idealized and persecutory internalized object relations in order to prevent the overwhelming control or destruction of ideal object relations by aggressively infiltrated ones and thus to protect the capacity to depend on good objects.” Essentially, the pathology of these defenses in identity diffusion is to protect the self from legitimate criticism, deny reality, and to prevent the feeling of shame or humiliation. If splitting is the source defense mechanism, that certain things are all good or all bad, the projective identification is to suggest to others that they do what is embarrassing for them as well as for the narcissist, to smear others as all bad to make one look like one is all good, because the false accusation is treated as a regular person pointing out what’s wrong. The general public doesn’t see it’s a defense. Denial has a hope that realistic consequences can be avoided by short-cuts and magical attitudes that consequences will just go away, or hopefully be forgotten. Idealization helps to move a narcissist closer to people who have the aura of success and to bask in their light. Omnipotence has a strange benefit in that it gets one motivated to work, but success without the appropriate skill can’t be defended by denial forever. Reality will set in eventually. Omnipotent control can work in the sense that would-be dictators can continually push the envelope with others, that is until the general public fights back to maintain their independence. Devaluation is a way to underrate something so as to make oneself rated better, but again, one can be overrated. Splitting is to make oneself into an object and to purify it’s reputation through these defenses because they are successful enough to fool people, but only in the short-term.
Identity diffusion helps to create these false narratives where the projections make predictions about people in persecutory and paranoid ways, and as stated before, projection is not just a prediction but there’s a self-interest in it which can distort it’s accuracy. “I want to make a prediction that makes me look better.” There’s also a lack of reality in these false narratives and there’s no attempt to get back in touch with it. We have to remember that Objects in the mind, which are memories of people, not the actual people, have emotional investment for us. We want them to be useful for us. “Reality testing refers to the capacity to differentiate self from non-self and intrapsychic from external stimuli, and to maintain empathy with ordinary social criteria of reality, all of which capacities are typically lost in the psychoses and are manifested particularly in hallucinations and delusions. The loss of reality testing reflects the lack of differentiation between self-representations and object representations under conditions of peak affect states, that is, a structural persistence of the symbiotic states of development.” Essentially there are strong impulses that motivate action and their strength after being triggered becomes difficult to control. In social relationships, these fears and threats lead to affect states that move into splitting, which is to look at people as not mixed with good and bad qualities but they are treated as all good or all bad. This connects with idealization when a person is seen as useful, resourceful, and a powerful ally, then turns into devaluation when a sense of threat or independence is demonstrated in the social environment. Control tactics are used until they don’t work and victims are ejected so that predatory behavior can find new targets who are amenable to the narcissist’s fantasies. This can be seen in cults where there’s precisely no reality to their promises and members eat their own as they fight off feelings of shame, if they are the types that feel shame. A reconstruction of the cult based on false narratives goes back to the same old behavior because one always has to be cocooned from reality to preserve the ideal. The only choice is to start again with new members and maybe new fantasies to organize projects around. Healthy organizations accept the reality and learn from it. Learning from reality and truth is a method to reduce shame when the capacity is there.
Cult Psychology: https://rumble.com/v1gvih9-cult-psychology.html
There can be a pathological loneliness in these organizations and relationships where the narcissist really can’t trust people because he or she doesn’t recognize another person’s independence, because that independence has a sense of truth and truth is threatening. The illusory fantasy has to be reconstructed to soothe the defensiveness. “The primitive defenses centering around splitting attempt to protect these patients from the chaos in all object relations that stems from their loss of ego boundaries in intense relationships with others.” Control mechanisms are highly aggressive at the outset so they intrude to the level of being intolerable and that’s when victimization, theft, and violence can manifest in society. “Hatred aims at the destruction of a source of frustration perceived as sadistically attacking the self; envy is a form of hatred of another who is perceived as sadistically or teasingly withholding something highly desirable.”
That feeling of teasing and withholding sounds a lot like pathological parenting. “These aspects of inborn dispositions toward the activation of aggression mediated by the activation of aggressive affect states complement the now well-established findings that structured aggressive behavior in infants may derive from early, severe, chronic physical pain and that habitual aggressive teasing interactions with the mother are followed by similar behaviors of infants.” Like in the drive theory, there has to be a connection to the biology and Kernberg believes that many of these individuals may not be autotelic as Csikszentmihalyi describes, to have an ability to self-satisfy with creative goals. “Inborn thresholds for the activation of positive (pleasurable, rewarding) and negative (painful, aggressive) affects represent, I believe, the most important bridge between biological and psychological determinants of the personality.” This partly increases the envy, and is the reason why many victims can be talented, beautiful, or just have the capacity for hobbies, interests, zest, pleasure and initiative. The disordered can sense that many people have a light they don’t have and resent them for it. In a way the envy is partly justified because if there’s a genetic predisposition, or at least a belief that this has happened, it feels like losing a lottery. It explains why pathological types tend to attack pleasure and want to flaunt their own pleasure and hypocrisy at you, because they hate your light, and the only soothing mechanism left for them is sadism and leveling, which is the activity of taking down perceived advantages in others to soothe low self-esteem.
Pathology stems from an inborn difficulty to soothe oneself, find interests in the world, and then the teasing and abuse solidifies the character in this direction of being almost like a villain. The patient is between a rock and a hard place because their desires are socially unacceptable, their genetic predisposition leads them to an inflexibility when it comes to having skills to self-soothe, and then when there’s teasing and criticism, including justifiable criticism for real behaviors, the affect and shame responses are so high that defense mechanisms become the only reliable avenues to pursue. These types know that the only way people can be resourceful to them in their lives is if they find leverage and power in society to make contrived relationships with others based on dependence, like a micro-dictatorship, which can morph into a macro one when the leverage tilts society enough in one direction. “You need me so you can’t reject me!”
What the healthy have that is different is an integrated Super-ego. “The normal personality is characterized, first of all, by an integrated concept of the self and an integrated concept of significant others. These structural characteristics, jointly called ego identity, are reflected in an internal sense and an external appearance of self-coherence and form a fundamental precondition for normal self-esteem, self-enjoyment, and zest for life. An integrated view of one’s self assures the capacity for a realization of one’s desires, capacities, and long-range commitments. An integrated view of significant others guarantees the capacity for an appropriate evaluation of others, empathy, and an emotional investment in others that implies a capacity for mature dependency while maintaining a consistent sense of autonomy. The second structural characteristic of the normal personality, largely derived from ego identity, is ego strength, particularly as reflected in a broad spectrum of affect dispositions, capacity for affect and impulse control, and capacity for sublimation in work and values (also contributed to in important ways by superego integration). Consistency, persistence, and creativity in work as well as in interpersonal relations are also largely derived from normal ego identity, as are the capacity for trust, reciprocity, and commitment to others, also codetermined in significant ways by superego functions. The third aspect of the normal personality is an integrated and mature superego, representing an internalization of value systems…reflected in a sense of personal responsibility, a capacity for realistic self-criticism, integrity as well as flexibility in dealing with the ethical aspects of decision-making, and a commitment to standards, values, and ideals, and it contributes to such aforementioned ego functions as reciprocity, trust, and investment in depth in relationships with others. The fourth aspect of the normal personality is an appropriate and satisfactory management of libidinal and aggressive impulses. This involves the capacity for a full expression of sensual and sexual needs integrated with tenderness and emotional commitment to a loved other and a normal degree of idealization of the other and the relationship. Freedom of sexual expression is integrated with ego identity and the ego ideal. A normal personality structure includes the capacity for sublimation of aggressive impulses in the form of self-assertion, for withstanding attacks without excessive reaction, and for reacting protectively and without turning aggression against the self. Again, ego and superego functions contribute to such an equilibrium.”
Part of the fear of engulfment is the lack of skill of boundaries to be able to be with people without turning into a complete hive mind and just imitating everything that is around. “An integrated superego, as we have seen, in turn strengthens the capacity for object relatedness as well as autonomy: An internalized value system makes the individual less dependent on external confirmation or behavior control while facilitating a deeper commitment to relationships with others. In short, autonomy and independence and a capacity for mature dependence go hand in hand.” Society needs you to cooperate but it also needs your individual abilities to point out new scientific knowledge, to push back to protect your boundaries, and it needs your individual talents and abilities to connect society because not everyone can be in the same place in the economy with bottlenecks and “weeding out” systems in employment, which would lead to the very problems we see described above with emotional insecurity. A healthy society needs varieties of personalities, strengths, specialties, products, and services to trade with one another. Power decentralizes and the need for authoritarian systems dwindle precisely because the public sees they don’t need dictators to scaffold their sense of self and they would prefer more autonomy.
Kohut also saw the need for healthy forms of aggression so that Narcissistic Rage has to give way to Ego assertion and anger can burn off into energy for assertiveness, especially in areas where there are actual rewards so that tilt of aggression can move towards positive emotions and various forms of satisfaction. “…Such rage must not be confused with mature aggression. Narcissistic rage enslaves the ego and allows it to function only as its tool and rationalizer. Mature aggression is under the control of the ego, and the degree of its neutralization is regulated by the ego in conformance with the purposes for which it is employed. The mobilization of narcissistic rage is therefore not an end point in analysis, but the beginning of a new phase—a phase of working through which is concluded when ego dominance in this sector of the personality has been established.” To control anger without false pretense or unhealthy suppression, the energy needs a target and that’s why for Kohut, the analysand has to find values to create realistic and achievable goals around for that assertiveness to find satisfaction. “The transformation of narcissistic rage is not achieved directly—e.g., via appeals to the ego to increase its control over the angry impulses—but is brought about indirectly, secondary to the gradual transformation of the matrix of narcissism from which the rage arose. The analysand’s archaic exhibitionism and grandiosity must be gradually transformed into aim-inhibited self-esteem and realistic ambitions; and his desire to merge into an archaic omnipotent self-object has to be replaced by attitudes that are under the control of the ego, e.g., by his enthusiasm for meaningful ideals and by his devotion to them.”
A decisive shift happens when grudges and resentments gradually turn into new zestful goals and plans. If political groups are running amok or one’s bosses or business leaders are getting lost, instead of harsh brutal attacks, one can focus on the reality of their mistakes and focus on realistic solutions so that humor and humanity is preserved in it’s imperfection. Kohut could see these gradual improvements in his patients and a weakening of the defense of splitting. “He continued to complain about the current stand-ins for the archaic idealized figure (his father who had disappointed him in his early life), but his attacks became less bitter and sarcastic, acquired an admixture of humor, and were more in tune with the real shortcomings of those whom he criticized. And there was another remarkable change: while he had formerly nourished his grudges in isolation (even in the analytic sessions his complaints were predominantly soliloquy, not message), he now banded together with his fellow workers and was able to savor, in enjoyable comradeship with them, the pleasure, of prolonged bull sessions in which the bosses were taken apart. In still later stages of his analysis when the patient had already mastered a large part of his psychological difficulties, some anger at idealized figures for withholding their approval continued to be in evidence—but now there was not only benign humor instead of sarcasm, and companionship instead of isolation, but also the ability to see some positive features in those he criticized, side by side with their defects.”
How Does Analysis Cure? – Heinz Kohut: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780226006000/
The Search For The Self – Heinz Kohut: Volume 1: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780367328702/ Volume 2: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781855758742/ Volume 3: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780367328733/ Volume 4: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780429907890/
Aggressivity, Narcissism, and Self-Destructiveness in the Psychotherapeutic Relationship – Otto Kernberg: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780300101805/
Psychology: https://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/