|
Page 12 of 22
At first, the child idealizes his parents. As he grows, he begins to notice their shortcomings and vices. He withdraws part of the idealizing libido from the images of the parents. This withdrawal is conducive to the natural development of the Superego. The narcissistic sector in the child's psyche remains vulnerable throughout its development. This is largely true until the child re-internalizes the ideal parent image.
The very construction of the mental apparatus can be tampered with by traumatic deficiencies and by object losses right through the Oedipal period (and even in latency and in adolescence). Traumatic disappointments by objects have the same effect.
Disturbances leading to the formation of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) can be thus grouped thus:
1. Very early disturbances in the relationship with an ideal object
These lead to a structural weakness of the personality which develops a deficient and/or dysfunctional stimuli filtering mechanism. The ability of the individual to maintain a basic narcissistic homeostasis of the personality is damaged. Such a person suffers from diffusive narcissistic vulnerability.
2. A disturbance occurring later in life - but still pre-Oedipally
Affects the pre-Oedipal formation of the mechanisms of control, channeling and neutralizing of drives and urges. The nature of the disturbance has to be a traumatic encounter with the ideal object (such as a major disappointment). The symptomatic manifestation of this structural defect is the propensity to re - sexualize drive derivatives and internal and external conflicts either in the form of fantasies or in the form of deviant acts.
3. A disturbance formed in the Oedipal or even in the early latent phases
Inhibits the completion of the Superego idealization. This is especially true of a disappointment related to an ideal object of the late Pre-Oedipal and the Oedipal stages, where the partly idealized external parallel of the newly internalized object is traumatically destroyed.
Such a person possesses a set of values and standards but is on a constant lookout for ideal external figures from whom he can derive the affirmation and the leadership that his insufficiently idealized Superego cannot supply.
Everyone agrees that a loss (real or perceived) at a critical junction in the psychological development of the child - forces it to refer to himself for nurturing and for gratification. The Child ceases to trust others and his ability to develop object love or to idealize is hampered. He firmly "believes" that only he can satisfy his emotional needs.
The narcissist is born into a dysfunctional family. It is characterized by massive denials, both internal ("you do not have a real problem, you are only pretending") and external ("you must never tell the secrets of the family to anyone"). The whole family unit suffers from an affective dysfunction. It leads to affective and other personality disorders displayed by all the members of the family and ranging from obsessive-compulsive disorders to hypochondriasis and depression.
Such families are reclusive and autarkic. They actively reject and encourage the rejection of social contacts. This inevitably leads to defective or partial socialization and differentiation and to problems with sexual identity. This phobic attitude is sometimes applied even to other members of the extended family. The nuclear family feels emotionally or financially deprived or threatened. It reacts with envy, rejection, self-isolation and rage.
Constant aggression and violence are permanent features of such families. The violence can be verbal and psychological (degradation, humiliation), physical, or sexual. Trying to rationalize, intellectualize, and justify its unique position and values, the family adopts a transactional approach based on cold logic, cost effectiveness, and calculations of feasibility. Such families extol knowledge as an expression of superiority and an adaptive advantage.
These families encourage excellence - mainly cerebral and academic - but only as means to an end. The end is usually highly narcissistic (to become famous, wealthy, powerful, etc.). Some narcissists react by creatively escaping into rich, imagined worlds in which they exercise total physical and emotional control over their environment. But all of them react by diverting libido, which should have been object-oriented, to their own Self.
The source of all the narcissist's problems is the foreboding sensation that human relationships invariably end in humiliation, betrayal, and abandonment. This belief is embedded in them during their very early childhood by their parents and by their experiences with peers.
But the Narcissist always generalizes. To him, any emotional interaction and any interaction with an emotional component is bound to end this way. Getting attached to a place, a job, an asset, an idea, an initiative, a business, or a pleasure is bound to end as badly as getting attached to a human being. This is why the Narcissist avoids intimacy, real friendships, love, other emotions, commitment, attachment, dedication, perseverance, planning, emotional, or other investments. Narcissists are unable to empathize and are amoral (have no conscience). They never develop a sense of security, or pleasure.
The narcissist emotionally invests in the only thing which he feels that he is in full, unmitigated control of - himself.
The first to seriously consider the similarity between narcissistic and schizoid pathologies was Melanie Klein. She broke with Freud in that she believed that we are born with a fragile, easily fragmentable, weak and unintegrated ego. The most primordial human fear is the fear of disintegration (death), according to Klein.
Thus, the infant is forced to employ primitive defence mechanisms such as splitting, projection and introjection to cope with this fear (actually, with the results of aggression generated by the ego). The ego splits and projects both the threatening parts (death, disintegration, aggression) and the life-related, constructive, integrative parts. The upshot of all these dynamics is to view the world as either "good" (satisfying, complying, responding, gratifying) - or bad (frustrating).
|
