On the Introduction of Narcissism Part. 2
If there is any special difficulty in studying narcissism, it seems to lie in the method of directly studying narcissism. The main way we approach narcissism is probably possible through the analysis of abnormal mental states. Just as we were able to trace libidinal instinctual impulses (Triebregung) through the analysis of transference neuroses, through dementia praecox or paranoia we can gain insight into ego psychology (Ichpsychologie). To understand what seems so simple in normal phenomena, once again we have no choice but to lean on the field of pathology, riddled with distortion and exaggeration. At the same time, there are other approaches through which we can gain a better understanding of narcissism. Here I wish to discuss all of these in the order of the study of organic illness, the study of hypochondria, and the observation of the love life of men and women.
To examine the influence that organic illness has on the distribution of libido, I wish to follow the suggestion put forward orally by Ferenczi. It is a well-known fact, which we too take for granted, that a person suffering from pain and discomfort in the internal organs of the body gives up interest in the objects of the external world insofar as those objects have nothing to do with his suffering. Through closer observation, we have found that such a person also withdraws interest from the object he loves. While suffering, he ceases to love. A person suffering from illness concentrates his libido upon the ego, then, upon recovering from the illness, again releases that libido outward. The poet Wilhelm Busch, who suffered from a toothache, once said, <In the narrow hole of the molar my soul is concentrated>. These words show that his libido and his interest in the ego share the same fate, and are once again in a state that cannot be distinguished from each other.
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→ For now, Freud is, in his own way, giving a definition of this narcissism. If you read on, you'll see how he defines narcissism. Well, personally, the conclusion at the end was shocking..
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The process whereby, no matter how strong the feeling of love, when the body falls ill that feeling vanishes and indifference and coldness take its place, is also a psychological flow that comedy writers utilize as a major theme at an appropriate level.
In this respect, the state of sleep too closely resembles illness. Sleep also shows the manifestation of narcissistic libido that retreats the libido to the ego, or more precisely, draws it into the desire to sleep. The egoism of dreams fits well into this context. At any rate, in both cases we see examples in which a change in the ego also produces a change in the distribution of libido.
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→ I don't blindly believe the conclusion that it resembles the state of sleep. For one, it doesn't convince me. That said, I'm not entirely opposed to Freud's view. Because Freud thinks the whereabouts of libido will certainly be an important key to resolving narcissism.
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I will simply mention that, from the perspective discussed above, one can conjecture that the relationship between hypochondria and abnormal mental states is similar to the relationship between other <actual> neuroses, such as neurasthenia or anxiety neurosis, and hysteria or obsessional neurosis. That is to say, just as other neuroses depend on object-libido, hypochondria depends on ego-libido, and one can conjecture that the anxiety due to hypochondria, which arises from ego-libido, is relative to the anxiety due to neurosis. Furthermore, accustomed as we are to the idea that the mechanism by which one falls ill and symptoms appear in transference neuroses - the process leading from introversion to regression - is related to the inhibition of object-libido, we can also approach closely the concept of the inhibition of ego-libido, and can also connect that concept to the phenomena of hypochondria or abnormal mental states.
Here we may naturally raise the question of why such an inhibition of libido within the ego is felt as unpleasant. As an answer to this question, I will be content to explain that an unpleasant feeling is the expression of a higher-than-usual degree of tension, in other words, that here too, as in other cases, a certain quantity of physical phenomena has been converted into the psychic quality of unpleasure. However, what plays the decisive role in the occurrence of unpleasure may not be the absolute magnitude (quantity) of the physical phenomenon (event), but some specific function that absolute magnitude possesses. Here we can enter into the question of what is needed for our mental life to direct libido toward some object beyond the limits of narcissism. The clue to problem-solving we have obtained from this line of thought can lead us into the question of what is needed to direct libido toward another object when the concentration of libido on the ego exceeds a certain level. The clue to problem-solving we have obtained from this line of thought is that, when the concentration of libido on the ego exceeds a certain level, the necessity arises to direct libido toward another object. Strong egoism can be a protective shield that prevents one from falling ill. But in order not to fall ill, one must in the end love. If one cannot love due to some frustration, one has no choice but to fall ill. This also appears in the following verse, in which Heine (H. Heine) mentioned the psychological genesis of world-creation.
Illness is the ultimate ground
of all creative urges.
In creating, my illness was healed,
and in creating, I grew healthy.
We have realized that our mental apparatus is the supreme device made to overcome stimuli or excitement that may be felt as unpleasant and may also be the cause of illness. In the case of one with an abnormal mental state, the reason a similar internal processing of the libido that has turned back to the ego occurs is megalomania. And it is precisely when that megalomania collapses that the inhibition of libido within the ego becomes the cause of illness and at the same time gives us the impression of having fallen ill, making us go through the process of recovery.
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→ The brain is the organ that controls all our senses. Therefore, when the brain is in a hallucinatory state, we may or may not know it. For example, if the brain thinks it is now exercising, the body responds in the same way. Even if the body doesn't actually move, it draws out physiological phenomena such as hormone secretion. So-called mind training (also called image training) can be seen as a case that exploits this 'foolish nature' of the brain; while imagining a certain image, you train by applying the way the body follows along with that situation.
The dictionary definition of image training is 'a practice method of picturing that movement or motion in one's head in order to acquire correct skills and the like.' It's magical training where an athlete who has been imagining winning has a higher probability of actually winning.^^
Isn't there even Professor 'Song Hyun-seok,' who said he isn't sure whether our nervous activity actually arises in our 'mind' or is manifested through hormones and the nervous system originating in the brain, and that the boundary between psychology and brain medicine is becoming increasingly blurred?
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......In fact, even in the case of narcissistic women who show a cold attitude toward men, the path toward complete object-love is not closed. When they give birth to a baby, a part of their own body is regarded as an unfamiliar external object, and therefore, starting from their own narcissism, they can pour out complete object-love onto the baby they bore. Of course, there are also women who, before bearing a child, take the step of developing from (secondary) narcissism into object-love. They feel masculinity before reaching puberty, and to some extent mature following the male developmental stages. Although such pursuit of masculinity ceases as they mature into women, they still retain a longing for the male ideal type - this ideal type is the boyish disposition they once held, surviving intact. The following is a brief overview of the paths leading to object-choice, synthesizing what I have mentioned implicitly until now.
A person's love-object may appear as follows.
(1) In the case of the narcissistic type
(a) What one is now (oneself).
(b) What one was in the past.
(c) What one wishes to be in the future.
(d) A person who was once a part of oneself.
(2) In the case of the anaclitic (parent-dependent) type
(a) The woman who feeds one milk or food.
(b) The man who protects one.
And the various people who take the place of the role of (a) or (b).
The primordial narcissism of young children, one of the premises of our libido theory, is easier to understand through inference from another perspective than through direct observation. When we look at the affectionate attitude of parents toward their children, we cannot but acknowledge the fact that such an attitude of the parents is an act of reviving and reproducing their own narcissism, which they had long since given up. This clearly shows that the part we have already acknowledged as a sign of narcissism in connection with the problem of object-choice - namely, trust in the object through overvaluation - dominates the emotional attitude of those parents. Thus, those parents become seized by the impulse to regard their own children as utterly perfect beings - unable to observe their children coolly - and naturally come to conceal all their children's faults and erase them from memory. Moreover, such parents, standing on their children's side, suspend even for their children the acquisition of traditional culture that they themselves had had no choice but to respect, even while suppressing their own narcissistic attitude, and tend to want to confer again upon their children all the privileges they themselves had long since given up. In other words, the child should enjoy a better era than the parents, and although there may be many things the parents consider very important in life, the child should not be bound by them. Illness or death must not befall the children, and there must be nothing that prevents them from playing happily or that crushes their spirit. And for the sake of the child, even the application of the laws of nature or the laws of society must be boldly given up. Truly, once again, the child should enjoy the position of <His Majesty the Baby>, the position we ourselves once joyfully enjoyed, and the child should become the center and core of all existence. And the child should fulfill the dreams the parents failed to achieve. All of this is nothing but the parents' narcissism, whose immortality of the ego is threatened under the severe pressure of reality, seeking refuge in the child to maintain a stable position. Parental love, so deeply moving yet fundamentally childish in nature, is in the end nothing but the parents' narcissism transformed into object-love, showing its past nature intact. Because the parents' narcissism revived - this is precisely parental love.
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→ A shocking conclusion. It means 'parental love = a byproduct of narcissism'...I don't particularly intend to refute it, but some things I could accept when thinking in line with Freud's position, and a few raised questions for me.
Yujin-nuna says she heard somewhere that parental love is a part of narcissism..(ㅡㅡ;;) Really amazing... and here I only just found out. I understand how most psychoanalysis books are, in the end, saying that one creates an image of 'oneself' in order to love 'oneself.'
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