With the large awareness of Narcissism appearing on the internet, and on the global stage, I would like to delve into the subject in its early days. I want to see how the epistemology of self-love developed over time. One of the first psychologists to focus on Narcissism was Sigmund Freud. In his book On Narcissism: An Introduction, Freud struggles with the complex subject as he lays the foundation for further clinicians and researchers to follow. This was also a time when Freud was developing the Ego, Id, and Superego theories where the id is the location of sexual and aggressive impulses, and the superego, which involves the moral compass developed by conditioning from parents and society. The ego is the realistic part of the personality that is responsible for balancing the id and superego in socially acceptable ways.
Cathexis – Emotional Investment
Freud labeled the energy of our desires that comes from the id. Libido. This energy to Freud is mainly a sexual energy. Libido can Cathect on to people and objects, including oneself. Cathexis is a term he used to explain emotional investment in people and objects. One can have libido for the self, or libido for an object, where investment in either depletes the opposite. If I love myself too much then others can be treated more instrumentally, and if I love others too much I will deplete love for myself.
Object-libido
Health for Freud was object-libido. He says “what makes it necessary at all for a mental life to pass beyond the limits of narcissism is to attach libido to objects…we must begin to love in order to not fall ill, and we are bound to fall ill, if, in consequence of frustration, we are unable to love.” Of course we just stated that if we focus on others we can lose love for ourselves, but Freud expands by saying that “loving in itself, in so far as it involves longing and deprivation, lowers self-regard; whereas being loved, and having one’s love returned, and possessing the loved object, raises it once more.”
The ego-ideal
In narcissistic object choices it is about ourselves, even in regards to others. We can love someone who represents what we are, what we were, and what we would like to be. This is an anaclitic, or dependent attachment to others. We are loving an ego-ideal more than the person. The beginnings of something like a superego is appearing when Freud talks of an ego ideal. “Man is not willing to forego the narcissistic perfection of his childhood; and when, as he grows up, he is disturbed by the admonitions of others and by the awakening of his own critical judgement, so that he can no longer retain that perfection, he seeks to recover it in the new form of an ego ideal. What he projects before him, and his ideal is the substitute for the lost narcissism of his childhood, in which he was his own ideal.”
Myth of Narcissus
This is much like Narcissus chasing his best attributes reflected in the water. When this ego ideal is momentarily satisfied then self-love increases. Often this critical ideal was influenced by parents who also derive narcissistic pleasure from their children. “Parental love, which is so moving and at bottom so childish, is nothing but the parents narcissism born again, which, transformed into object-love, unmistakably reveals its former nature.”
Men and Women in the early 20th century
Another evocative example Freud gives of narcissism, is his description of men and women of his time, though this could apply to any individual today. In the time of early 1900’s, Freud viewed men as dependent in their love of the woman, and women dependent on enhancing their self-love and how they rate amongst men. “Women, especially if they grow up with good looks, develop a certain self-contentment which compensates them for the social restrictions that are imposed upon them in their choice of object. Strictly speaking, it is only themselves that such women love with an intensity comparable to that of the man’s love for them. Nor does their need lie in the direction of loving, but of being loved; and the man who fulfils this condition is the one who finds favour with them. The importance of this type of woman for the erotic life of mankind is to be rated very high. Such women have the greatest fascination for men, not only for aesthetic reasons, since as a rule they are the most beautiful, but also because of a combination of interesting psychological factors.”
What is charm?
Freud stumbles on the Godly quality of narcissism when he studies this charm that exists even beyond romantic partnerships. “The charm of the child lies to a great extent in his narcissism, his self-contentment and inaccessibility, just as does the charm of certain animals which seem not to concern themselves about us, such as cats and large beasts of prey. Indeed, even the great criminals and humorists…compel our interest by the narcissistic consistency with which they manage to keep away from their ego anything that would diminish it. It is as if we envied them for maintaining a blissful state of mind- an unassailable libidinal position which we ourselves have since abandoned.”
The danger of Narcissism
Then Freud zeros in on the danger of loving such a person. “The great charm of the narcissistic woman has, however, its reverse side; a large part of the lover’s dissatisfaction, of his doubts of the woman’s love, of his complaints of her enigmatic nature, has its root in this incongruity between the types of object-choice.” Here is pointing to someone giving object-love to a person who prefers self-love. In the typical example of co-dependency, is a frustration of giving without reciprocation. How a person must get attention from the narcissist is again to remind them of the ideal of what they are, the ideal of what they were, and the ideal what they would like to be. This way the boundaries of the people around the narcissist are violated because they become only a cue for the narcissist to love themselves, their ego-ideal. Like Echo in the tale from Ovid, they cannot become more than that. To give love to their admirer would be to let go of their emotional investment to love themselves and be vulnerable.
What is heaven?
The attractiveness of this ego-ideal is parsed out by the many contributions of Neo-Freudians in On Narcissism. It connects that feeling of omnipotence, and self-contained charm of the God-like individual, who seemingly always has their needs met. Béla Grünberger posits an intrauterine heaven where all of our needs were met. When we were born all our needs were now dependent on how responsive our environment was in meeting those needs. Paradise was lost. The Golden Age has passed. He compares all oceanic feelings created by religions as methods to regain this omnipotence of a state where time and space do not exist, recreating the fetal-state.
Give and take
The insights of On Narcissism are enormous, and this is mainly due to the contributions of later psychologists that I will undoubtedly feature in future columns. The main theme of this book is that as humans we cannot recreate the womb, but the closest we can do in a harmonious way with others, is to give and receive our appreciation, support and attention without being predatory. If we cut ourselves off from society because of abuse, we can emotionally starve like Echo. In the example of Narcissus, if we only pay attention to our ego-ideal we emotionally starve when we cannot give to those who are good to us, and lose opportunities of a mutual happiness. The real goal is loving ourselves and our significant others without feeling like we are being abandoned or depleted. Giving and receiving appreciation is what keeps us together.
On Narcissism – Sigmund Freud: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781780491080/
Metamorphoses: A New Translation 1st Edition, by Charles Martin: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780393326420/
Psychology: https://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/