Current clinical approaches to narcissism
in light of North American authors
(Part II)
Jean-Jacques Tyszler
Herbert Rosenfeld has
written a lot about psychotic states and transference. He underlines the aggressive aspects of
narcissism in its relationship to the dis-intricating drives. Beyond Hartmann, Rosenfeld refers to Karl
Abraham as well as Reich. But it is Melanie Klein’s conception of envy that guides him especially:
“It seems that envy
represents an almost completely disunited destructive energy which is particularly unbearable
for the infantile self and which, early in life, starts
being split and warded off from the rest
of the self[1].”
Rosenfled describes
patients who deny any importance to the Other - whether the parental
Other or the Other as analyst, or the “small” others in the family and social circle: “It
is their professional successes
and personal relationships that these
patient ruins with these self destructive acting-outs. Some
patients become suicidal and their desire to die, to disappear into oblivion,
is openly expressed since death is idealized as a solution to any
problem.” It is a contribution to
our modern depression. “A patient dreams about a small boy in a coma who
dies after being poisoned. He lied on a
bed in the courtyard and was threatened by the hot midday sun which was reaching him. The patient was standing near the boy but
wasn’t doing anything to move or protect him.
He only felt critical about the doctor who was treating the boy, felt
superior to him, because it was up to him to see that the child should be moved
into the shade.”
Naturally, the
interpretation is conducted in terms of meaning but Rosenfeld rightfully underlines the choice of agonizing
rather than accepting the yoke of transference. “In these types of cases,
there’s a very determined
chronic resistance to analysis and only a very detailed unveiling of the system
allows the analyst to make any progress.” In his own way, Rosenfeld convokes the
analyst’s desire and his/her way of putting his/her share of reality into the balance.
Drifting subjects,
subjects dying of envy… The clinical
approach to narcissism describes constellations that regularly leave the
practitioner up against a wall. The privilege given to self identifications
to the detriment of grasping the object of fantasy, object a, sometimes
provokes a surge of enthusiasm in reading through the lens of narcissism. Thus,
Clifford Scott, also speaks of auto-envy,
envy oriented onto one’s self.
But it is Bela
Grunberger, the French author of
Hungarian origin, who, over the course of 15 years starting in the
1950’s endowed the notion of narcissism
as a separate psychic instance, an instance
thus not ruled by the
drives, with its fullest scope. This radical position found supporters but was also criticized by some
post-Freudians, in particular by André Green.
It is worth (re)reading the studies published
under the title Le narcissisme. Essai
de psychanalyse. (published by Petite Bibliothèque Payot) but also the very rich Narcissisme, Christianisme, Anti-sémitisme, written in collaboration
with his student Pierre Dessuant, who also wrote the Que Sais-je edition on Narcissism.
We cannot adhere to Bela
Grunberger’s idea of a pure narcissism as the persistent trace of a
certain prenatal coenesthesia.
Fetal science has become the inkwell of psychoanalysis. However, the clinical examples are often
audacious, like this passage among some children’s “treasures” – heterogeneous,
used, truncated and mismatched objects – and the systematic avoidance of
oedipal rivalry for adolescents.
According to Grunberger, this phenomenon which marks our contemporary
civilization culminates in places where young people live
completely isolated: “They isolate themselves in a narcissistic world where
they live with those who are like them, meaning with their own images,
including in their language and clothing and in a state of sexual lack of
differentiation.” A brand new clinical approach written dating back to 1966! For those who wish to read it that way, at least.
The authors quoted
(during the same period as Grunberger) are far from Lacan’s elaboration of the self as a fundamentally
paranoid instance. Still, they leave us with
wise questions and observations: the post-Freudian subject, the subject of a
globalized economy, is more monopolized by narcissistic gratifications than by
object relations.
The proliferation of
merchandise-objects, of technical gadgets, is indeed linked to this closed-circuit libidinal economy. And this jouissance aligns with the complaint of an unbearable narcissistic wound as
soon as the subject is no longer complimented and encouraged. The envy of what the other has or desires
is constitutive of the self in and of itself, according to the image of
he who is like him. The radical
character of the impasse “it’s me or the other” is
underlined by these authors; and perhaps we should
see in auto-envy, the envy of the body proper rather than the self, the
royal entrance to all addictions. “I
self enjoy” (“Je me jouis”).
Analytical discourse is
another kettle of fish.
The discourse on
narcissistic deficiencies pervades far beyond the field of pediatric psychiatry and what the tenants of ego psychology don’t
quite notice l is that they also
manufacture this solitary hero seen in Hollywood films with their obligatory
replication sequels (War #1, #2, #3, etc…).
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Lacanian analysis has its
word to say about the displacement underlined in clinical observations. It should also avoid that the discipline
itself – psychoanalysis – be put to the service of the “grandiose” or the “free
as a bird”. In his article of 1914,
Freud warns us of the narcissistic woman’s irresistible charm.It will not be an
easy task…. We must refer to the July 2003 edition
of the Revue Française de Psychanalyse dedicated to “narcissistic
perversion”. This excellent edition gives its full scope to the term narcissistic perversion,
inspired by the words of P-C Racamier.
It’s not always easy to decline (in the
grammatical sense) the wide variety of certain psychic strongholds or manipulations that manifest themselves in individual clinical
treatments, institutions or even in the business world. The destructive aspect of the narcissist is
well analyzed insofar as non-sexual jouissance is concerned. And these authors ask some crucial questions,
like for instance: “What elements actually
give the speech of narcissistic perverts its tremendous efficiency?”
A question well worth pondering
nowadays…
