Self-criticism and unconscious grandiosity: transference-countertransference dimensions

The problems posed in understanding and working through the patient's layers of self-criticism are challenging for both patient and analyst. In particular, this paper explores some countertransference phenomena related to underlying grandiosity embedded in self-criticism. For patients who are self-critical, analyzing grandiose elements may create further grounds for self-reproach or open up new modes of self-experience and freedom. The paper tries to focus on how the analyst's experience of the patient's self-criticism often shifts over the course of analytic work. It is important for the analyst to not be crippled by a fear of considering the relevance of underlying grandiosity in relation to self-reproach. Understanding this dimension of self-reproach can help elucidate why it is so durable and refractory to interpretation. The patient has a stake in holding on to this self-punishment because it perpetuates self-regulatory fantasies. These fantasies sometimes relate to the feeling that the patient will be more successful or better loved by holding on to aspects of self-reproach. Sometimes these fantasies are based in competitive or dominant strategies related to winning out or retaliating over parents or siblings.     

Tyrannical omnipotence in the archetypal father

This paper sets the archetypal relationship between the tyrannical, devouring father and his sons in the context of a disjunction in the parental couple (syzygy) whereby the role of the maternal feminine is eclipsed and excluded. This is shown to originate in an omnipotent defence against infantile dependence on the mother. Successful liberation from the father's tyranny requires the restoration of mutuality between the internal couple. Although the main focus is on the internal world (and a detailed clinical illustration is given, showing the working out of this process in the analytical relationship), reference is also made to political tyranny, attitudes to the control of Nature by technological means and patriarchal forms of masculinity. The Chronos myth is amplified through the use of two modern variants in the films The Terminator and Star Wars.     

Self-regulatory and narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability: Common and discriminant relations

In three studies we examined the unique relations of narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability with the self-regulatory factors of promotion, prevention, assessment, and locomotion. We found that grandiosity has unique positive relations with promotion, assessment, and locomotion but is unrelated to prevention (Study 1). We also found that vulnerability has a unique positive relation with assessment, a unique negative one with promotion, and is unrelated to locomotion and prevention (Study 2). Study 3 replicated these findings and demonstrated that they do not derive from the self-regulatory factors’ or grandiosity and vulnerability’s associations with self-esteem. The results indicate that grandiosity and vulnerability have self-regulatory underpinnings and provide evidence of their specific discriminant nature. Further, they indicate that the critical evaluations associated with strong assessment concerns are a significant vulnerability for both narcissism presentations.