Between Imposing One’s Will and Protecting Oneself. Narcissism and the Meaning of Life among Dutch Pastors

In contemporary culture, narcissism is an important and common personality trait. This trait is very significant for the meaning people experience in their lives. This article deals with an inquiry into the relationship between narcissism and the meaning of life among pastors. Narcissism is further specified into several dimensions (centripetal narcissism, centrifugal narcissism, isolation and self-satisfaction) and the significance of these dimensions is examined for two central dimensions of the attribution of meaning (frame of reference and fulfilment). The article discusses the significance of the relationship between narcissism and meaning for the professional performance of pastors. Hessel J. Zondag is lecturer in the psychology of religion at the Theologische Faculteit Tilburg in the Netherlands. His teachings and research interests are psychology of religion, cultural psychology, and pastoral psychology. Currently he conducts research to the functions of narcissism in contemporary culture, especially the effects of narcissism on functioning of pastors. Recent publications have appeared in Pastoral Psychology, Journal of Psychology & Theology, and Review of Religious Research.     

显性自恋与隐性自恋:自恋人格的心理学探析

自恋是一种形式多样化的综合性人格构造,它具有两种不同的形式,即显性自恋和隐性自恋。本研究在文献综述、开放式问卷调查和个别访谈的基础上,编制了自恋人格问卷。经对大学生被试进行测查,结果表明：（1）自编的自恋人格问卷具有较好的信度和效度。（2）因素分析得出显性自恋的四个维度是：权欲、优越感、特权感和自我钦羡;隐性自恋的三个维度是：易感质、特权感和自我钦羡。（3）显性自恋和隐性自恋与心理健康有着不同的关联：前者与心理异常症状不存在显著相关,而后者存在显著正相关。     

Narcissistic configurations: Violence and its absence in treatment

'On narcissism: An introduction' constitutes a turning point in psychoanalysis. Although narcissism is a concept which has not been explicitly referred to by many important thinkers for decades, it could be said that there is no paper written in psychoanalysis since Freud that does not implicitly take into account the modifi cations in thinking that the work brought about. In this paper, the author contrasts two types of narcissistic confi gurations: in the fi rst, the intolerance of the other is dealt with by expulsion and violence; in the second, by withdrawal. The author contrasts patients who express manifest violent behaviour with patients for whom the violent behaviour is absent but who, nevertheless, present similar background histories, which might have led to a prediction of violence. They are also profoundly different in terms of what they provoke in the countertransference. In addition, this paper argues that the treatment of narcissistic personalities has allowed in recent years the understanding of a modality of depression. Following Green, the author argues that, instead of a fruitless debate that involves evolutionary issues around the concept of narcissism, it is necessary to distinguish the narcissistic aspect in any analytic relationship, to identify the narcissistic transference in different types of psychopathologies.     

Incorporation of an invasive object

The author discusses the experience of 'being invaded' that is sometimes communicated by certain severely disturbed patients. The complaint can sometimes be couched in terms of bodily suffering and such patients may state that they have the experience of a 'foreign body' inside. It is suggested that these patients have suffered severe early failure of containment of their projections, while at the same time they have incorporated primitive characteristics of the object that have been powerfully projected into them. An object that invades in this way, it is suggested, experiences a compulsive need to expel unbearable states of mind using others as a repository. The infant incorporates these violent projections as part of his own mental representational system, and normal identifi cation processes are disrupted. There follows impairment of the development of the sense of self. Clinical examples of how the invasive experience manifests itself in the analytic setting and in the transference and countertransference are presented. It is argued that this highly complex form of early subject-object interaction (prior to the differentiation of psyche-soma) is more likely to be found in severely narcissistically disturbed individuals. Some refl ections on the origins of invasive phenomena are given.     

大学生自恋与心理适应的关系研究

西方心理学界对自恋已有大量的实证研究,文章在依托前人研究的基础上,对大学生自恋与心理适应性的关系进行实证研究,结果表明,（1）男女生在自恋方面无差异显著性,在心理适应性方面存在差异显著性。男生的心理适应性均分高于女生。（2）不同系不同专业的学生,自恋方面无差异显著性,心理适应性方面呈差异显著性。（3）自恋与心理适应性的4个因子的关系研究显示,自恋与心理自控力、自信心有关系。     

The Metallic Womb

This study of malevolent narcissism examines the relationship between the Washington Snipers, Muhammad and Malvo, from the perspectives of attachment theory and Kleinian theory. Muhammad embodied a perverted understanding of manliness. Malvo was desperate for the love of a father, and fused with the omnipotent destructiveness of John Muhammad. Together they embarked on a failed Quest, recreating the original infant/caregiver scenario, which in their experience was about destruction and death, rather than gratitude and life. Malvo and Muhammad were perfect together, merged into one unit devoted to murder. Their victims were random and multiple, like their early caregivers.     

The role of pre‐oedipal and oedipal factors in psychic life1

The Oedipus complex, a basic concept in Freudian theory, is an essential factor in the constitution of the human subject. It plays a key role in the structuring of the personality and in the orientation of desire. It is the oedipal triangular structure that precedes the pre‐oedipal situation (in a logical, not chronological, order), and not vice versa. The oedipal structure exists before the infant's biological birth. It is present in the parents' desires and identifi cations, which inexorably fall upon each subject. That is why the author believes that it is necessary to leave behind a solipsistic reading of the nuclear complex of neuroses‐a reading that is based solely on Oedipus's drive nucleus‐and take a joint and comprehensive view of Laius's and Jocasta's histories and traumatic experiences, which were invested in their son. Among these three vertices, a dynamic set of forces emerges whereby a basic, original unconscious fi eld phantasy is created that bears a unique narrative and an invisible and hermetic web made of passions and beliefs, scandals and secrets. This phantasy gives shape to an unrepeatable oedipal structure in each subject, a structure that articulates with the effects of the narcissistic and fraternal dynamic and may determine the subject's fate. This paper develops the following issues: 1) Oedipus, victimizer or victim? 2) the generational confrontation as dynamic fi eld; and 3) neuroses with a preponderance of dualistic relationships.     

Narcissistic mortification of ageing men

The development of a male gender identity involves the task of relinquishing the identification with the female primary object. If this separation is experienced as loss or expulsion, and responded to by the development and libidinous cathexis of phallic-narcissistic characteristics, a specifically male narcissistic vulnerability emerges, which can, particularly in ageing men, escalate to critical proportions. However, phallic-narcissistic crises in the ageing process also contain opportunities for development, provided the losses of age can be faced with mourning. The author sets out the statements on the subject of old age in the myth of Narcissus and makes use of the concepts of developmental psychology. He outlines clinical examples illustrating this problem. Finally, he brings to mind the narcissistic plight of the aged Oedipus.     

中学生自恋的年龄特征及其与社会适应的关系:自尊的中介作用

对459名初一到高二学生施测自恋、自尊以及社会适应问卷,以探讨中学生自恋的年龄特征及其与社会适应的关系。结果表明:(1)中学生的自恋不存在性别差异,但是年级差异显著,初三学生的自恋水平要显著低于高一学生。由于年级差异的效应值很小(G²=0.025),要谨慎分析该年级差异。(2)自恋与中学生自我报告的社会适应良好呈显著正相关。(3)自尊在自恋与社会适应的关系间起到了中介作用。     

Being seen or being watched? A psychoanalytic perspective on body dysmorphia

The focus of this paper is on individuals who present as excessively preoccupied with their body, perceiving some aspect(s) to be 'ugly' such that they feel compelled to alter and/or conceal this 'ugly' body part. These difficulties are understood as symptoms of an underlying narcissistic disturbance. The author suggests that the relative pervasiveness of an identification with a 'super'-ego accounts for the degree of severity of the disturbance (increasing the compulsion to alter and/or conceal the hated body part) and that it has implications for the patient's accessibility in analytic treatment. Understanding the vicissitudes of the development of the body–self in the context of the earliest relationship with the 'object of desire' is core to helping these patients because of the quality of the identifications that ensue and that are then enacted the transference.