[image by ~Rensvind]
The idea of the narcissistic wound comes from Freud's original idea of narcissistic injury. Freud thought that narcissism was symptomatic of an arrested infantile state in which the child experiences itself as the center of all things.
In Self Psychology, Heinz Kohut redefined narcissism as a healthy stage of normal development in children - and for him, talking about narcissism is essentially talking about the development of the self - this idea was developed more clearly by Otto Kernberg.
I am primarily interested in Kohut's idea of primary narcissism and narcissistic injury/rage. Here is a Wikipedia summary of his views on primary narcissism:
Kohut (and also Kernberg to an extent) were among the few theorists to see the positive aspects of narcissism, or to redefine it as a normal stage of development. From them we get the notion of "healthy narcissism" as opposed to pathological narcissism, which what is what most of us think about when he hear the term.
Heinz Kohut explored further the implications of Freud's perception of narcissism. He maintained that a child will tend to fantasize about having a grandioseself and ideal parents. He claimed that deep down, all people retain a belief in their own perfection and the perfection of anything they are part of. As a person matures, grandiosity gives way to self-esteem, and the idealization of the parent becomes the framework for core values. It is when psychological traumadisrupts this process that the most primitive and narcissistic version of the self remains unchanged. Kohut called such conditions narcissistic personality disorder, 'in which the merging with and detaching from an archaic self-object play the central role...narcissistic union with the idealized self-object'.[22]Kohut suggested narcissism as part of a stage in normal development, in which caregivers provide a strong and protective presence with which the child can identify that reinforces the child's growing sense of self by mirroring his good qualities. If the caregivers fail to provide adequately for their child, the child grows up with a brittle and flawed sense of self.[23] 'Kohut's innovative pronouncement...became a veritable manifesto in the United States....The age of "normal narcissism" had arrived'[24]Kohut also saw beyond the negative and pathological aspects of narcissism, believing it is a component in the development of resilience, ideals and ambition once it has been transformed by life experiences or analysis[25] - though critics objected that his theory of how 'we become attached to ideals and values, instead of to our own archaic selves...fits the individual who escapes from bad inner negativity into idealized objects outside'.[26]
This is from Wikipedia on the idea of healthy narcissism:
A required element within normal developmentFor the child to develop past grandiose narcissism, Kohut felt that the child needs a certain amount of experience in having its needs or wants frustrated. When the parent repairs the rupture, child learns that (1) it is not the most important object in its universe, and (2) it can survive an empathic failure and that the parental selfobject will still meets its needs.
Healthy narcissism might exist in all individuals. Freud says that this is an original state from which the individual develops the love object. He argues that healthy narcissism is an essential part of normal development.[3] According to Freud the love of the parents for their child and their attitude toward their child could be seen as a revival and reproduction of their own narcissism.[3] The child has an omnipotence of thought; the parents stimulate that feeling because in their child they see the things that they have never reached themselves. Compared to neutral observations, the parents tend to overvalue the qualities of their child. When parents act in an extreme opposite style and the child is rejected or inconsistently reinforced depending on the mood of the parent, the self-needs of the child are not met.[citation needed]
Healthy narcissism has to do with a strong feeling of "own love" protecting the human being against illness. Eventually, however, the individual must love the other, "the object love to not become ill". The individual becomes ill as a result of the frustration created when he is unable to love the object.[6] In pathological narcissism such as the narcissistic personality disorder and schizophrenia, the person’s libido has been withdrawn from objects in the world and produces megalomania. The clinical theorists Kernberg, Kohut and Millon all see pathological narcissism as a possible outcome in response to unempathic and inconsistent early childhood interactions. They suggested that narcissists try to compensate in adult relationships.[7] The pathological condition of narcissism is, as Freud suggested, a magnified, extreme manifestation of healthy narcissism.
In relation to the pathological condition
With regard to the condition of healthy narcissism, it is suggested that this is correlated with good psychological health. Self-esteem works as a mediator between narcissism and psychological health. Therefore, because of their elevated self-esteem, deriving from self-perceptions of competence and likability, high narcissists are relatively free of worry and gloom.[8] Other researchers suggested that healthy narcissism cannot be seen as ‘good’ or ‘bad’; however, it depends on the contexts and outcomes being measured. In certain social contexts such as initiating social relationships, and with certain outcome variables, such as feeling good about oneself, healthy narcissism can be helpful. In other contexts, such as maintaining long-term relationships and with other outcome variables, such as accurate self-knowledge, healthy narcissism can be unhelpful.[9]
When children are not provided with mirroring or with repairing of frustrations, and are neglected or abused, the self is wounded and the individual suffers a narcissistic wound or injury. It's unclear how and why a child activates one form of defense rather than another, but one response is to form an unhealthy narcissism - essentially, to compensate for unmet needs by constructing a false inflated sense of self to cover the fragmented and wounded self (see below for more on this).
The International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis offers a brief overview of narcissistic injury:
The concept of narcissistic injury does not appear as such in Freud. Since Freud, the theoretical elaboration of narcissism and the development of new entities of psychopathology (narcissistic personalities, borderline states) has led to the creation of this concept to describe the consequences, on the narcissistic level, of a trauma to the psychic apparatus arising from internal or external factors.When the narcissistic injury gets triggered, for example when someone is insulted or has their sense of entitlement challenged, the wound is opened and the response is often some form of narcissistic rage. The following is the entire entry on this subject from Wikipedia - it offers a wider picture, but the perspective offered by Kohut is probably (in my opinion) the most useful.
It should be remarked, however, that the introduction of the concept of narcissism (Freud, 1914c) prepared the way in metapsychology for the notion of narcissistic injury, if one also takes into account the Freudian propositions concerning the development of the ego in relation to the exigencies of the reality principle (Freud, 1911b), and his ideas about infantile helplessness (Hilflosigkeit). On the one hand, conflicting drives, and, on the other, the object and its vicissitudes inflict a series of traumas on narcissism, whereby the anguish linked to loss and/or separation becomes structural. Thereby, birth, weaning, anality, the castration complex, and the fear of death are all prototypical phenomena that give rise to narcissistic injuries.
Further reflection on narcissism, and the post-Freudian clinic, have led to theories in which the notion of narcissistic injury occupies a central place, as well as to developments and modifications in psychoanalytic technique. In the United Sates, the "Self Psychology" of Heinz Kohut and the description of borderline states and narcissistic personalities by Otto Kernberg have made this category central, allowing the evaluation of psychic organization and serving as transference-countertransference guide in the course of the analysis. Heinz Kohut particularly has stressed the significance of "narcissistic rage" as a reaction to narcissistic injury: faced with the failure of the self-object, narcissistic rage would be the aggressive result of shame.
In France, Béla Grunberger considered that narcissistic injury, inflicted on the ego by the vicissitudes of a disappointed ego-ideal, is an integral part of narcissism; accordingly, this theory made narcissistic injury a pivotal notion, since the impotence inherent in the human condition constitutes, in itself and from the outset, a narcissistic injury, one that is preponderant subsequently in the dialectic between narcissism and the drives, as well as being the source of ethics and civilization. Andre Green, stressing the role of the object, speaks of object trauma, whose very existence is the cause of injury, calling for never-completed reparation.
The notion of narcissistic injury is useful in accounting for the rapports between narcissism, the drives, and the object. However, as critics of Kohut point out, its excessively univocal development risks de-emphasizing sexuality.
By PANOS ALOUPIS
Finally, again from the International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, here is their entry in narcissistic rage, a reaction that takes a variety of forms, from all out violent rage to passive aggression to mumbling under one's breath.
Narcissistic rage is a reaction to narcissistic injury, a perceived threat to a narcissist’s self-esteem or self-worth. Narcissistic rage is a term first coined by Heinz Kohut in 1972. Narcissistic injury is a phrase used by Sigmund Freud in 1923.[1]These concepts have (like self psychology itself) deep roots in the previous half-century of psychoanalytic exploration.Narcissistic wound, narcissistic blow and narcissistic scar are similar concepts to narcissistic injury and are sometimes used interchangeably. Narcissistic scar is a phrase first used by Sigmund Freud in 1920.[2]It is believed that narcissists have two layers of rage. The first layer of rage can be thought of as a constant anger (towards someone else), and the second layer being a self-aimed wrath.[citation needed]Narcissistic rage occurs on a continuum from instances of aloofness, and expression of mild irritation or annoyance, to serious outbursts, including violent attacks.[3] Narcissistic rage reactions are not limited to personality disorders and may be also seen in catatonic, paranoid delusion and depressive episodes.[3]Types of narcissistic rage
Perfectionism
Narcissism can be considered as a self-perceived form of perfectionism - "an insistence on perfection in the idealized self-object and the limitless power of the grandiose self. These are rooted in traumatic injuries to the grandiose self."[4]Narcissists are often pseudo-perfectionists and require being the center of attention and create situations where they will receive attention.[citation needed] This attempt at being perfect is cohesive with the narcissist's grandiose self-image. If a perceived state of perfection is not reached it can lead to guilt, shame, anger or anxiety because he/she believes that he/she will lose the imagined love and admiration from other people if he/she is not perfect.[5]Freud and narcissism: wounds, blows, injuries and scars
In his 1914 case study of the "Wolfman", Freud identified the cause of his adult neurosis as the moment when "he was forced to realise that his gonorrheal infection constituted a serious injury to his body. The blow to his narcissism was too much for him and he went to pieces."[6] Freud was careful to stress that thereby "he was repeating a mechanism that he had already brought into play once before... when he found himself faced by the fact that such a thing as castration was possible."[7] A few years later, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, looking at the close of "the early efflorescence of infantile sexual life", Freud maintained that "loss of love and failure leave behind them a permanent injury to self-regard in the form of a narcissistic scar... reflecting the full extent to which he has been 'scorned'."[8] In 1923 he added that "a child gets the idea of a narcissistic injury through a bodily loss from the experience of losing his mother's breast after sucking, & from the daily surrender of his faeces," but insisted that "one ought not to speak of a castration complex until this idea of a loss has been connected with the male genitals."[9] In "Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes" (1925) he famously (or infamously) stated re penis envy that "after a woman has become aware of the wound to her narcissism, she develops, like a scar, a sense of inferiority."[10] Finally, in his very last book, Freud would write of 'early injuries to the self (injuries to narcissism)'.[11]Further psychoanalytic developments
Freud's concept of narcissistic injury was subsequently extended by a wide variety of psychoanalysts. Karl Abraham saw the key to depression in "a severe injury to infantile narcissism through a combination of disappointments in love" experienced as a "loss of essential narcissistic supplies."[12] Otto Fenichel confirmed the importance of "the decisive narcissistic shocks... narcissistic injuries,"[13] and, building on Freud's concept of a "narcissistic frustration,"[14] expanded such analyses to "borderline cases... Their narcissistic regression is a reaction to narcissistic injuries; if they are shown this fact and given time to face the real injuries and to develop other types of reaction, they may be helped enormously."[15]Edmund Bergler took a different approach. Bergler assumed that "the preservation of infantile megalomania or infantile omnipotence (we today would say narcissism) is of prime importance... The infant responds with fury to [any] offense to his omnipotent self."[16] Thus for Bergler, "as Freud and Sandor Ferenczi have shown, the child lives in a sort of megalomania for a long period... confronted with some refusal... regardless of its justifications, the refusal automatically provokes fury, since it offends his sense of omnipotence."[17]In another line of development, we find Lacanians "linking Freud's stress on the narcissistic wound to Lacan's theory of the narcissistic mirror stage,"[18] while in yet another perspective object relations theory highlights "patients who have suffered narcissistic injury, having been made to feel bad about themselves in relations to their primary object(s)...the narcissistic shell;" as well as "rage... against failures in the early holding environment"[19] when childhood omnipotence is challenged too abruptly. If instead "the mother gives time for her infant to acquire all sorts of ways of dealing with the shock of recognising a world that is outside his or her magical control... then the child becomes able to be destructive... instead of magically annihilating that world. In this way actual aggression is seen to be an achievement, as compared with magical destruction."[20]Kohut and self psychology
"Kohut's (1972) 'Thoughts on Narcissism and Narcissistic Rage" has long been considered one of his most brilliant contributions.[21] In it "Kohut constructed a whole spectrum of rage experiences... Kohut viewed narcissistic rage as just one specific band in this whole spectrum, but... he designated the entire spectrum narcissistic rage. This has created some ambiguity."[22] However "Kohut properly contrasted narcissistic rage with mature aggression."[23]Such narcissistic rage "cannot progress to self-assertiveness because it is the self structure that is enfeebled and vulnerable."[24] Weakness in the self structure leads to the "development of anarcissistic vulnerability: increased sensitivity to disappointments and extreme difficulty in dealing with real or imagined slights and failures. Narcissistic injury follows such experiences and culminates in narcissistic rage."[25]Self psychology and narcissistic rage
Kohut's explanation of narcissistic rage and depression stated, "depressions are interrupted by rages because things are not going their way, because responses are not forthcoming in the way they expected and needed." He went further to say that narcissists may even search for conflict to find a way to alleviate pain or suffering in his book The Analysis of the Self.[26]Narcissistic rage is related to narcissist's need for total control of their environment; according to Kohut includes "the need for revenge, for righting a wrong, for undoing a hurt by whatever means".[27] It is an attempt by the narcissist to turn from a passive sense of victimization to an active role in giving pain to others, while at the same time attempting to rebuild their own (actually false) sense of self-worth. It may also involve self-protection and preservation, with rage serving to restore a sense of safety and power by destroying that which had threatened the narcissist.[27]Alternatively, according to Kohut, rages can be seen as a result of the shame at being faced with failure.[28] Narcissistic rage is the uncontrollable and unexpected anger that results from a narcissistic injury - a threat to a narcissist's self-esteem or worth. Rage comes in many forms, but all pertain to the same important thing, revenge. Narcissistic rages are based on fear and will endure even after the threat is gone.[29]To the narcissist, the rage is directed towards the person that they feel has slighted them; to other people, the rage is incoherent and unjust. This rage impairs their cognition, therefore impairing theirjudgment. During the rage they are prone to shouting, fact distortion and making groundless accusations.[29]Criticism
Wide dissemination of Kohut's concepts may at times have led to their trivialization. "You will often hear people say, 'Oh, I'm very narcissistic,' or, 'It was a wound to my narcissism.' Such comments are not a true recognition of the condition; they are throw-away lines. Really to recognise narcissism in oneself is profoundly distressing."[30]
Kohut believed that "the narcissistically vulnerable individual responds to actual (or anticipated) narcissistic injury either with shamefaced withdrawal or with narcissistic rage" (Brian W. Shaffer, The Blinding Torch, 1993, p. 151).
As a descriptive term, narcissistic rage was first employed by Heinz Kohut and became a significant concept in psychoanalysis about 1972, with publication of his The Analysis of the Self. Derived from analyses of narcissistic personalities, the term also reflected Kohut's broader interests in literature, culture, and civilization.Narcissistic rage can include phenomena as different as slight annoyance, paranoiac rancor, and catatonic fury. Linked to loss of control, it signals the existence of some unresolved psychic injury of an archaic, narcissistic character. Such rage aims to repair an injustice, a narcissistic wound unrelieved so long as shame persists and the witness to it is not destroyed. Thus, the need for revenge in the face of ridicule, disdain or contempt, represents an expression of narcissistic rage. Destructiveness is a linked to this kind of narcissistic defect, not a reaction to a primary instinct.Aggression toward another person (or mental representation of one) should be distinguished from narcissistic rage directed at a self-object, Kohut's term for an archaic object that must not be experienced as a disappointing or failing. Although aggressivity ceases when the obstacle is lifted, narcissistic rage cannot be quelled.As a descriptive term, the concept of narcissistic rage gained considerable acceptance in psychoanalysis. Kohut's broader view of narcissism as a separate line of development, however, though much discussed, won less support.AGNÈS OPPENHEIMER
These are important ideas that will play a role in my follow-up to Sexual Exploitation - Do You Know the Signs? (Part One, the Victims), which will focus on perpetrators/predators. There is generally some form of narcissistic injury that results in one of several forms of narcissistic compensation.
One variation is Wilhelm Reich's phallic narcissism (think of this as a developmental stage approximate to ages 3-6 years):
Likewise, there is also the notion of sexual narcissism:
Wilhelm Reich first identified the phallic narcissistic personality type, with excessively inflated self-image. The individual is elitist, a "social climber", admiration seeking, self-promoting, bragging and empowered by social success.According to Otto Fenichel, 'Phallic characters are persons whose behavior is reckless, resolute and self-assured - traits, however, that have a reactive character: they reflect a fixation at the phallic level, with overvaluation of the penis and confusion of the penis with the whole body'.[37] Fenichel stressed that 'an intense vanity and sensitiveness reveals that these narcissistic patients still have their narcissistic needs...for which they overcompensate'.[38]Others would add that 'the phallic character conceives of sexual behaviour as a display of potency, in contrast to the genital character, who conceives of it as participation in a relationship'.[39]
Sexual narcissism has been described as an egocentric pattern of sexual behavior that involves an inflated sense of sexual ability and sexual entitlement. In addition, sexual narcissism is the erotic preoccupation with oneself as a superb lover through a desire to merge sexually with a mirror image of oneself. Sexual narcissism is an intimacy dysfunction in which sexual exploits are pursued, generally in the form of extramarital affairs, to overcompensate for low self-esteem and an inability to experience true intimacy.[42] This behavioral pattern is believed to be more common in men than in women and has been tied to domestic violence in men and sexual coercion in couples.[43][44] Hurlbert argues that sex is a natural biological given and therefore cannot be deemed as an addiction. He and his colleagues assert that any sexual addiction is nothing more than a misnomer for what is actually sexual narcissism or sexual compulsivity.[45]Both of these forms of narcissism are simply defenses against a fragmented sense of self. In Kohut's conception of the bipolar self, when a child's need for parental mirror and recognition are chronically not met, the immature "grandiose self" is transformed into a false, inflated sense of self that outwardly appears grandiose and incapable of considering the needs and feelings of others.
It can also go underground and remain unconscious or in shadow unless (or until) triggered by rejection, insult, abandonment or some other feeling connected to the initial wounding. Likewise, it can show up in a selfobject transference in therapy ("narcissistic therapeutic transference") that reveals the primitive narcissistic injury and wounding.
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