Keats's oral imagination: "'Tis not through envy"

This study of four of Keats's greatest poems explores a dynamic pattern in the poet's imagination: a relationship between the oral/fusional imagery and the romantic/oedipal themes. The poet's imagination seems to have been propelled backward from oedipal conflict to earlier narcissistic/oral unrest and pleasure. There is a layering of special psychic capabilities evident in Keats's imagination: an element of oedipal romance which stabilizes the process of sublimation, a sense of magical play and danger in the maternal/oral imagery, and powerful narcissistic longins organized through the desire to communicate and the gift for expression.     

On the connection between physical defects and the character type of the "exception"

A clinical and theoretical study is presented of the effects of physical defects on character structure, especially on its narcissistic aspects. The basic thesis of this paper is that there are two differentiable responses to awareness of a physical disability: various forms of denial, and a clinging to narcissistic overgratifications as a compensation for negative feelings about the self. The first response, of overusing denial, is universal, and of course leaves its mark on a person's character. However, only the second sort of response, of clinging to overgratifications, leads to the character type of the "exception" (Freud 1916). The distinction between moral ideals, embodied in the ego ideal narrowly defined, and nonmoral ideals, embodied especially in the wishful self-image, is presented as a useful tool in understanding various psychological effects of physical disabilities.     

I wish the hour were over: elements of a moral dilemma

In contrast to the viewpoint that sees conflict as deriving from defense against instinctual drives and thus as an intrapsychic phenomenon, this essay presents conflict as sometimes being an external opposition between disparate configurations of the self. These parallel sectors with different goals and ambitions can be seen in a continuum from the dramatic narcissistic behavior disorders to more subtle instances of moral dilemmas. A clinical illustration is offered to demonstrate its occurrence and management in psychoanalysis.     

Some limitations on therapeutic effectiveness: the "burnout syndrome" in psychoanalysts

Problems of maintaining psychoanalytic therapeutic effectiveness during a professional lifetime are discussed. Psychoanalysts are subject to paradoxical emotional and characterologic demands, uncompensated by the usual gratifications available in the healing professions. Problems arising from the analyst's character and the paucity of data in the field are discussed. "Burnout" syndromes are liable to occur in those working in a setting of great emotional intensity demanding high degrees of affective awareness and control, empathy and tolerance of uncertainty. Masochistic and narcissistic forms of "burnout" syndrome are described as they occur in psychoanalysts. The profession, as well as the individual, can help to prevent these syndromes.     

Narcissists as "Victims": the role of narcissism in the perception of transgressions

Narcissism is a set of traits that are motivated by the desire to establish and maintain a grandiose self-image. Consistent with this conceptualization, the authors hypothesized that narcissistic people perceive themselves to be the victims of other people's inter-personal transgressions more frequently than do less narcissistic people. In a 14-day diary study, the authors found that narcissism (particularly in its exploitiveness/entitlement dimension) was associated positively with the number and frequency of transgressions that respondents reported. The narcissism-victimization relationship appears to result, at least in part, from biased recall or self-presentation. The exploitiveness/entitlement dimension of narcissism may be particularly useful for explaining why narcissistic people report higher rates of interpersonal transgressions in their daily lives.     

Depression and grandiosity: Clinical and theoretical issues in the treatment of narcissistic disturbances

The literature on the interrelationship of grandiosity and depression is reviewed. A review of Alice Miller's theories here promotes the understanding of the narcissistic core of depression. Clinical vignettes serve to demonstrate the close links between grandiose ideation and melancholia in the form of masked grandiosity lurking behind the depressive manifest picture. Object loss, in line with the formulations suggested in this paper, is but one form of a narcissistic loss; recovery from a depressive episode, paradoxically, depends on the renovation of the narcissistic supplies and on the giving up, through the mourning process, of narcissistic elements.     

Dumb August. Freud's "dream interpretation" as a critique of traditional common sense]

Freud's profound scepticism about philosophy and its fondness for philosophical "systems" is well-known. From an early stage, the author of the "Interpretation of Dreams" was convinced that philosophy--like animism--was nothing other than a narcissistic attempt to explain the world systematically from one single point. That point is the ego, synthesising everything manifold, alien and threatening into an intelligible mould and subjecting it to the intellectual censorship of the cogito. Gekle shows that Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" undercuts and decentralizes the imperialist claims of the ego, thus opening up vistas on the areas where the ego is not sole and undisputed master. At the same time, however, it becomes apparent that the decentralizing work of dream interpretation is itself confronted by a paradox. The insights gained in the process cannot be presented in any other than a theoretical, systematic and hence ego-oriented form.     

The Suicide of Thomas Merton: Moral Narcissism,Contemplative Prayer,and the Religion of Humor

In this third and final of three successive essays, the author argues that Thomas Merton suffered from narcissistic personality disorder in conjunction with his melancholic condition. The author argues that contemplative prayer disabled Merton from working through his melancholic condition. Finally, the author argues that Merton’s melancholia, coupled with his heightened identity conflicts lead him to kill himself.     

Adolescent personality disorders and conflict with romantic partners during the transition to adulthood

Longitudinal data were used to investigate the association of adolescent personality disorders with conflict between romantic partners during the transition to adulthood (i.e., age 17 to 27). Findings indicated that adolescent personality disorders (PDs) assessed at mean age 16 were associated with subsequent elevated partner conflict. Cluster B PD was associated with sustained elevations in partner conflict throughout the transition to adulthood. Cluster A and C PDs were associated with elevated partner conflict before age 23. Paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, borderline, narcissistic, and obsessive-compulsive PD symptoms were independently associated with sustained elevations in partner conflict.     

On the development of depressive states from a psychodynamic viewpoint

The author analyzes the temporal dimension of depression by making reference to one of the clinical cases he treated and re-examining a clinical case analyzed by Edith Jacobson. According to the result of his observations, the developmental psychodynamics of a depressive state normally appears to take place in two distinct phases: a first narcissistic loss, which gives rise to an integrative conflict and to the formation of a certain identificatory structure, is later followed by a second narcissistic loss, which leads to the real depressive state. The two phases present a specific, intrinsic connection constituted by the implication of the same identificatory element of the self, recognition of which can favour a clinical work that more closely adheres to the deep dynamics of depression.     

Turning shame inside-out: "humiliated fury" in young adolescents

The term "humiliated fury" refers to the anger people can experience when they are shamed. In Study 1, participants were randomly exposed to a prototypical shameful event or control event, and their self-reported feelings of anger were measured. In Study 2, participants reported each school day, for 2 weeks, the shameful events they experienced. They also nominated classmates who got angry each day. Narcissism was treated as a potential moderator in both studies. As predicted, shameful events made children angry, especially more narcissistic children. Boys with high narcissism scores were especially likely to express their anger after being shamed. These results corroborate clinical theory holding that shameful events can initiate instances of humiliated fury.     

Zum Matching bei ambulanter Psychotherapie mit Psychosepatienten

In an outpatient setting the matching of patient and psychotherapist is essential as there is – in most cases – no protecting institutional frame. Because of the disturbance in his symbolic function the psychotic patient tends to act out his basic conflict between self- and object-related tendencies. As the patient strives for differentiation and separation, naturally, struggle is involved on various levels. The therapist must feel up to all aspects of this struggle including the more concrete ones. Also psychotic patients always induce an intricate interplay of narcissistic transference and countertransference. The psychotherapist should have the capacity to gain distance from his narcissistic countertransference, which as a rule should find support through supervision. It is necessary that in the patient there exist remnants of relatedness to his fellow-men and also a minimum amount of ego-strength and structure that enables him to cope with a cycle of more or less periodical appointments.     

A challenge to psychoanalysis: a review of the negative therapeutic reaction

In this paper, I have summarized the large body of literature on the N.T.R. and noted that the term has been broadened from Freud's original definition of deterioration following improvement or correct analytic work to include a negativistic, ongoing narcissistic reaction with failure to recover. Like Freud, Klein became very pessimistic about reversing this phenomenon. The N.T.R. is a multidetermined but not unitary clinical phenomenon that has generated much controversy. Its dynamics involve interpersonal and intrapsychic elements. Aggression, revenge, and oppositional reactions interfere with analytic progress and may range from temporary to a characteristic way of responding in the analysis. Aggression, the reaction to early frustration and deprivation, plays a large part in the narcissistic organization. Patients who experience N.T.Rs. are shown to have strong narcissistic features. Interpersonally, conflict between longings for fusion and the wish for separateness is central. The transference-countertransference is made difficult by projective identification. Envy and narcissism are critical in the N.T.R. patient's intrapsychic dynamics. Clinical material illustrated the difficult interpersonal and intrapsychic factors that prevailed in a severe N.T.R. patient. The N.T.R. is an insidious obstacle to analytic success and one that requires mastery of the interpersonal and intrapsychic dynamics of the patient and the treatment situation.     

Revisiting <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Depleted Self</Emphasis>

This article revisits Donald Capps’s book The Depleted Self (The depleted self: sin in a narcissistic age. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1993), which grew out of his 1990 Schaff Lectures at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. In these lectures Capps proposed that the theology of guilt had dominated much of post-Reformation discourse. But with the growing prevalence of the narcissistic personality in the late twentieth century, the theology of guilt no longer adequately expressed humanity’s sense of “wrongness” before God. Late twentieth-century persons sense this disjunction between God and self through shame dynamics. Narcissists are not “full” of themselves, as popular perspectives might indicate. Instead, they are empty, depleted selves. Psychologists suggest this stems from lack of emotional stimulation and the absence of mirroring in the early stages of life. The narcissist’s search for attention and affirmation takes craving, paranoid, manipulative, or phallic forms and is essentially a desperate attempt to fill the internal emptiness. Capps suggests that two narratives from the Gospels are helpful here: the story of the woman with the alabaster jar and the story of Jesus’s dialogue with Mary and John at Calvary. These stories provide us with clues as to how depleted selves experienced mirroring and the potential for internal peace in community with Jesus.     

Minderwertigkeitsgefühl und Machtstreben als Koproduktion?

At least analysts consider our own therapeutic approach as the preferable method, even if seen as very difficult. These difficulties are easier to understand from the viewpoint of intersubjectivity and interaction when looking at the origins of the problems as well as at the therapeutic process. Therapists seem with such patients to be more quickly tangled up in the field of the own ambivalence in relating, of omnipotence phantasies, illusions of independency and the striving for recognition as it is the case with other patients. Organising the practice along their own needs, the often devaluative diagnostics, the superior role of the therapist and the economic dependence of the analyst, even if covered up by the health care system, all that is a provocation for narcissistic patients, just as their seeming unrelatedness and lack of motivation, their pseudo-autonomy and the hardly bearable devaluations amount also to a provocation for the analyst. He/she is irritated about his/her usual role. From our theoretical point of view, we consider the narcissistic disturbance as a coproduction with the contribution of the therapist beyond his/her own idiosyncratic parts on the basis of the disawoed dimensions of grandiosity in our profession. Such narcissistic “interaction figures” are unavoidable and even necessary in practice. Relational experiences made in a presymbolic phase should become verbalizable through the entangled acting-out (unconscious communication) of both participants. The analysis of coproductions then, the recognition of the respective contributions, the patient‘s experience of equality and difference pave the way for developments in direction of more workable compromises in the narcissistic conflict area between being oneself and relating to others.     

The "psychosomatic family" model: an empirical and theoretical analysis

Evolution of the Family Systems Paradigm has been constrained by the dichotomy between theory building and empirical research. This article integrates these two domains by presenting a theoretical analysis of the "psychosomatic family" model as it informs and is informed by an empirical research project. Forty families of children with Crohn's disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC), and functional recurrent abdominal pain syndrome (RAP) were rated during standard, videotaped family interaction tasks, lunch, and interview. Laboratory scores of disease activity were associated with triangulation, marital dysfunction, and total "psychosomatic family" scores. Disease activity was not significantly correlated with enmeshment, overprotection, rigidity, conflict avoidance, or poor conflict resolution. Thus, the marital/triangulation and enmeshment/overprotection/conflict clusters may be subcomplexes of the "psychosomatic family" complex. CD, UC, and RAP groups differed in the relations among particular family patterns and disease activity. A heuristic family-psycho-somatic model is presented to facilitate future research.     

Critique ofThe Psychology of the Self:A Casebook

The book,Psychology of The Self (1978), and the movement of thePsychology of the Self are criticized as having degenerated into a kind of cult that basically rejects all former and contemporary psychoanalytic contributions. The end product is that many patients are incorrectly diagnosed as narcissistic character disorders and then treated by the same method, emphasizing the patient's need for an empathic self-object. Even the cures reported seem to put the patient in a schizoid and narcissistic position in which object relations that involve real attachments to another person are minimized. Instead of changing people from narcissistic to object-related, the reverse appears to occur. The Psychology of the Self: A Casebook was written with the collaboration of Heinz Kohut, M.D., edited by Arnold Goldberg, M.D.     

Social pressure and policy change in the "lens model" interpersonal conflict paradigm

Abstract.— The effects of conflict and policy inaccuracy on policy change in the "lens model" interpersonal conflict paradigm were investigated in an experiment which compared amount of policy change for subjects who were paired with a stooge who did not change his policy even though it was incorrect with the amount of policy change for subjects whose opponents changed their policies to reduce the inaccuracy of these policies. The amount of policy change was the same in both of these conditions, indicating that task adaptation is a more important goal to the subjects than conflict reduction in these experiments.