The Soul of Narcissism

Christian Fierens

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367132767
• eBook ISBN: 9780429655326
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The notion of narcissism introduced by Sigmund Freud has become a victim of its own success. On the one hand, with its emphasis on self-love and new forms of well-being, it can take the form of a celebration of the self. On the other, with its range of negatively associated character traits, it has given rise to a burgeoning field of narcissistic pathologies.

The Soul of Narcissism argues that both perspectives represent impoverished and superfluous forms of narcissism, obscuring the vibrant notion that Freud put in place in order to question the very heart of psychoanalytic practice. This book proceeds by examining Freud's introduction of narcissism in its historical context as a movement of reflexion on the clinical practice of psychoanalysis, putting forward a close reading of Freud's writings that led up to his seminal paper "On Narcissism: An Introduction". Against the trend of current perceptions, it re-establishes narcissism as a methodology of reflexion upon clinical practice and theory, whose very motor is the unconscious.

In this way narcissism is restored to its fundamental place in psychoanalysis, rich with all of the life of the drives. This reinvigorated notion of narcissism will be of interest not just to students and practitioners of psychoanalysis, but also to all those who draw upon Freud's study of narcissism.

1
Return to Freud

What is a return?

Any praxis would appear to be composed of a certain number of concepts and the enactment of this conceptualisation. Theory first and then practice. Science then applied science. Psychoanalysis does not appear to depart from this general rule. It seems constituted first as a body of doctrine—whose foundations were given by Freud, and which were revised by his successors—and second as a clinical practice, whose responsibility would then be devolved to the various psychoanalyst practitioners.

The conception of psychoanalysis, or even its birth, does not originate, however, in concepts, in a theoretical science, or in a pre-existing body of doctrine. It is located in the long interviews by an end of the nineteenth century doctor, Josef Breuer, with his patient Bertha Pappenheim, renamed Anna O. In those interviews transference is alive, as it is in all therapeutic practices.

There is nothing new in all of that. Psychoanalysis, in its specificity, only truly commences by a reflexive return, by a turning back on what has already occurred in practice.

The return to Freud

Breuer and Freud’s Studies on Hysteria (1895) constitute a first reflexion upon the encounters that took place with Anna O, as well as with others. It is upon the basis of this first reflexion, right at the beginnings of psychoanalysis, that Freud built his psychoanalytic practice. A practice of interpretation in which it is a question of tracking the meaning of the dream, the sense of the slips of the tongue and the bungled actions of everyday life, the meaning of the joke, the meaning of Dora’s hysteria, little Hans’ phobia, and the Rat Man’s obsession.

Freud’s voyage to the United States in 1909 was an invitation to turn back and explicitly reflect upon what he had been doing for the previous twenty years. The reflexive moment of Freud’s work becomes accentuated: a reflexion on “technique” in the short papers brought together under the title Writings on Technique (which, except for the first two, were all published between 1910 and 1919), a reflexion on the case histories of Schreber (1911b) and the Wolf Man (1918). These allow theoretical questions to be introduced more explicitly, a reflexion in the writings of self-presentation in 1910, 1913, and 1914, a reflexion upon general cultural problems like in Leonardo da Vinci and A Memory of His Childhood (1910b), Totem and Taboo (1912–1913), and The Moses of Michelangelo (1914a), a reflexion that leads to the attempt at theoretical systematisation that the Papers on Metapsychology from 1915 to 1917, and to a recapitulation of the reflexion in the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis from 1915 to 1917. Simply glancing through the contents of the Complete Works is sufficient to give an idea of the scale of the works of reflexion that are woven during the decade 1909–1919.

The latter follows the two decades of a work that appears more directly practical during 1889¹ to 1909, and it prepares the way for the two last decades of Freud’s life, which turn around the structural model of the psyche, a model of a more theoretical appearance during 1919 to 1939.

“On Narcissism: An Introduction” (1914b) constitutes the cornerstone of the second period. It is the reflexive paper par excellence. “On Narcissism: An Introduction” stands out as the scarlet thread that questions us about the return, about Freud’s omnipresent reflexion, and which is particularly marked in the second part of his opus. This text functions as an introduction to any elaboration of Freudian metapsychology, and, at the same time, it allows a passage from the first topographical model to the second structural model.

What does this return mean?

The return to Freud would only be of anecdotal or descriptive interest for general culture, or for Freudian studies, if psychoanalysis itself had not encountered its essential thread in this return. If we locate three moments—practice, reflexive, theoretical—in Freud’s work, it is in order to question the very proposition of psychoanalytic praxis in so far as it is centred upon the reflexive return, beginning from a practice that was already established, and having its sights set upon a more or less systematic theorisation whose end is incessantly put off until a later time. What we will call praxis is this complex movement that, starting from an already established practice, questions it in a reflexion, in order to relaunch it towards a theorisation that is never fixed.

From a purely theoretical point of view, narcissism thus seems to constitute the cornerstone of the whole edifice of Freudian doctrine. The post-Freudians, from a certain point of view, had a good understanding of this and took the ego as the major concept and the rationale for an entire psychoanalysis that was reconciled with the psychological enterprise. Since Lacan, we have understood, or so it seems, the function of misrecognition (méconnaissance) of this ego and of this psychology. Do we need to toss narcissism and the ego onto the scrapheap? Are they a stumbling block to be avoided in psychoanalysis, even if they map out the route? Theoretically yes. This theoretical, doctrinaire, and dogmatic point of view is not the most adequate to be able to return to psychoanalysis and to broach narcissism.

When, at the beginning of his seminar, Lacan undertook the examination of analytic practice, it might have seemed to be just a question of once again taking up Freud’s practice and the technical point of view in psychoanalysis. Lacan’s title Freud’s Papers on Technique (Lacan, 1953–1954) seems to indicate this. This first book of his Seminar, moreover, followed a series of seminars dedicated to practice, more precisely to Freud’s clinical cases. If we look more closely, this Seminar is nonetheless dedicated, not so much to the technical writings per se, but to a reading of Freud’s famous article on narcissism, very far from any directly technical preoccupation.

More than an examination of advice to the novice psychoanalyst, Lacan’s first Seminar as a whole is a reflexion upon psychoanalytic technique in so far as narcissism is implicated in it. The Seminar, as it develops, is an endeavour to make narcissism explicit through the schema of the two mirrors (Lacan, 1966, p. 564), as a reflexion of a reflexion. In making this explicit, Lacan shows us how psychoanalysis fundamentally differentiates itself from psychology, and how, in the treatment, speech is situated in the transference.

Summary of narcissism

How then can narcissism be understood? Is it a “concept”, properly speaking? Might it afford us a grasp upon a certain objective reality? In other words, does it correspond to an objective perception? Does this objective perception correspond to a certain number of specific and singular cases that can be clinically differentiated? That is, is narcissism able to be grasped in a clear and distinct intuition? The clinical answer, founded upon the evidence of the trait, turns out to be a farce in so far as in it we recognise the fundamental egoism of any human who nourishes himself with all possible camouflages, including that of altruism and the adoration of the big Other.

Is narcissism a concept, which, according to its etymological meaning of Begriff, grasps in its pincers a certain collection of traits that seem to be common to all humanity? Does this path not just lead to pure flights of fancy? Otherwise how can the implications of narcissism for psychoanalysis be specified? If we cannot clarify the function of narcissism in practice, reflexion and theory specific to psychoanalysis, then the concept of “narcissism” is only an empty concept, with no real substance. This is how it might appear after one hundred years of existence.

If, once again, we seriously take up Freud’s writing, we get a glimpse that narcissism is neither an intuition, nor, properly speaking, a concept. We can only clarify its status by a questioning and the movement of reflexion. And it is from the point of view of reflexion that Freud, in his second period (1909–1919), can serve us in order to gain a foothold. It is a question of taking the time, first to read Freud and to question ourselves regarding the why and wherefore of this introduction to narcissism. This is a reflexion upon a reflexion, which does not simply go around in a circle. It will be a question of demonstrating the fecundity, not just of Freud’s work of reflexion, but of the second infinite fecundity of any reflexion in as much as it is a return, in particular, of the reflexion that comes a long way along the path from Freud’s enquiry and the introduction of narcissism. Along the way, Lacan occupies a place of choice. All his work consists of a self-questioning and returning to what is at play in analytic practice. This is, no doubt, a reflexion in search of a systemisation, but a systemisation that is always deferred, since it exists only as a support of the questioning.

The approach to narcissism cannot follow an intuitive route that sets out from the so-called givens of clinical practice, nor can it follow a conceptual route that sets out from a corpus of theoretical doctrine preliminary to any practice. To consider narcissism as a specification of some clinical type or other—“moral narcissism”, “narcissistic personality”, “narcissistic perversion”, etc.—runs the risk of definitively short-circuiting the process of questioning and research that is specific to narcissism. It risks the privileging of a so-called answer that is already given in the facts, “in clinical practice”, as is often said from a position of knowledge that tries to be assured and reassuring. At this level, the qualifier “narcissistic” is always pejorative and pertains to the type of insult that haunts any diagnostic approach. But to consider narcissism as a fundamental concept, which serves to definitively establish an eternal doctrine of the psychical apparatus—“primary narcissism”, a “narcissistic stage”, or a “narcissistic agency”—is no better, since such a concept gags any questioning with a ready-made answer that serves as a confounding touchstone, buried in the foundations of a purely theoretical Tower of Babel, as arrogant as so-called “clinical practice”.

What was Freud aiming at in introducing narcissism—“On Narcissism: An Introduction” clearly indicates an intention or a purpose—was certainly his desire that he put into play in both clinical practice and theoretical systemisation. What Freud was aiming at was, and is still, only an aim. The point aimed at is never more than an imaginary place that keeps eluding us again and again. In other words, far from having a hold over clinical practice or over the conceptual apparatus, we remain indefinitely and infinitely powerless in clinical practice and in theory. Setting out from this lack, we can turn back upon ourselves: reflexion of the lack, setting out from the lack, with the lack as our only tool. This is the very meaning of the return: not the lack as one, but the return, the second turn, around the lack. The second turn is reflexion.

To introduce narcissism into psychoanalysis as Freud did in 1914, and as Lacan did again right from his first seminar, is always to begin from the lack. And this is not in order to find the missing piece and to definitively fill the accidental hole. The inexorable lack is reflected without any hope of being filled.

This is an ex nihilo creation that hinges, not upon a theology of omnipotence, but upon an atheology of the impossible.

Note

1Date of Frau Emmy von N’s analysis.

2
The beauty of a creation

Freud and Leonardo da Vinci

Every true question presupposes the persistent lack of any answer, and it is through this that it opens up a reflexion. First of all there is a question with its flaw, its lack, its enigma. This flaw is confirmed by the failure of any adequate answer. And beginning from this defeat, the question is posed, and once again reflected. Finally, reflexion can produce some effect.

The lack inherent in the question, the explanation of this lack in the attempt at an answer, the return back to the question and the production, characterise not just Leonardo da Vinci’s work and production, but at the same time the work of the inventor of psychoanalysis, and the production of his Leonardo da Vinci.

How can we explain Leonardo’s mysterious characteristics that were full of contrasts: on the one hand a self-confident universal genius, and on the other the eternally hesitant character, inhibited in the execution of his works of art? The question seems insoluble because of Leonardo’s own contradictions. The failure of any answer is confirmed through the lack of material of interest to the psychoanalyst. The only memory of childhood left by the great man was a pure fantasy: “the scene with the vulture would not be a memory of Leonardo’s but a phantasy [fantasm], which he formed at a later date and transposed to his childhood” (Freud, 1910b, p. 82).¹

Henceforth the only thing to be done is to return once again to the question, starting out from a small and apparently banal statement from Leonardo: “One has no right to love or hate anything if one has not acquired a thorough knowledge of its nature” (p. 73). Leonardo must have been well aware of the absurdity of this statement; he must have known that in general men love and hate impulsively, and for reasons that have nothing to do with knowledge. Leonardo’s statement was a production of his own reflexion, following upon a question with no answer. It was he himself who suffered from not being able to love or hate. He endeavoured to acquire a thorough knowledge of the nature of everything. He was caught in a drive to know, in a reflexion, which had hijacked all the other forces of the drive.

Such a reflexive stream is only possible under certain conditions: a questioning and the lack of an answer, the explicit noticing of this lack, and the reflexive return upon the question. And this reflexion leads to a certain symptomatic production. The reflexion that was Leonardo went back to his earliest childhood.

More than any other child and more than man in general, the young Leonardo was without any means in the face of the questions pertaining to the existence of a human being: how can a new human being emerge? In addition to lacking the elements of an answer, which is the case for each one of us, his particular biographical circumstances made the enigma of the birth of a human being even more cumbersome for him: the child, born out of wedlock to the notary Ser Piero da Vinci and a young peasant girl Catarina, lived alone with his mother, and, moreover, the legitimate wife of Ser Piero remained childless. Everything led him to believe that only unmarried women could have children. The inadequate information regarding sexuality must have pushed the young child, more than anyone else, to exercise his reflexion upon the conditions of his own existence and to produce his sexual theory or theories.

The Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality date from 1905. When, five years later, Freud tackles Leonardo, he does not content himself with a simple implementation of ready-to-apply theory. Rather, with further work he discovers the function of the lack of the elements of an answer required for any infantile sexual theory. The secret of the enigma of Leonardo’s character is, according to Freud, the necessary failure of the sexual researches of childhood and the inhibition consequent to this failure. In his correspondence with Jung, Freud recognises that he did not take the lack of elements seriously enough, which then had repercussions upon the inexorable failure that the child encounters in his reflexion upon sexuality.²

Lack, the failure of any answer, a return to the question: Freud’s schema of reflexion takes up (reflects) the schema of his analysand, Leonardo the resea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Prologue: Narcissism: Victim of its own success?
• 1 Return to Freud: What is a return?
• 2 The beauty of a creation: Freud and Leonardo da Vinci
• 3 The construction of a personality: Freud and Schreber
• 4 Why introduce narcissism? The sense of a return of reflexion
• 5 Narcissism and the duality of the drive: To and fro in a conflict of the drives
• 6 From the function of the organ to love: Reflexions on the libido
• 7 Estimation as development of the ego: The ego ideal in which the inside and the outside are articulated
• 8 The soul of narcissism
• Bibliography