Is there anything new to say about narcissism? Do we need yet another course on the social evils of narcissism, on avoiding the dangers of the narcissist, or the difficulties of the narcissistic psychoanalytic patient, or on a critique of the narcissistic age we live in?
I believe the answer is yes, and this course aims to redeem Narcissus. In doing so, we will use the tools that Jung developed and rely on his deep understanding of the core dynamic of narcissism. We will see that Narcissus’ story is not merely a tale of bad behavior, of morality transgressed, or of “I told you so.” Rather it represents a universal psychological dynamic the aim of which is to develop an examined life and in so doing, to become more oneself.
Narcissism is perhaps the least understood category in the mental health world today. In deploying this label, we typically point to someone else in horror. We do not ask about their suffering, explore their inner dynamic, or even more radically, look at ourselves as players in the dynamic. In doing so we forget Jung’s adage that “Projections change the world into the replica of one’s own unknown face.” (Aion)
The paradox is that self-regard is mixed with other-regard, and the other is both “others out there” and the other, or unknown face, of our own unconscious material. To make matters worse, the myth of Narcissus points to curses from the gods! How do we understand that in modern terms? Furthermore, the modern clinical understanding is that narcissism is untreatable, and yet narcissism was recently almost removed from the DSM as a diagnosis. What gives?
This course will combine a personal and experiential standpoint with a more general approach – we will examine the field, ourselves, and clinical practice. After looking at the colloquial and DSM perspectives, we will review the history of the term and the work of Freud, Kohut, Kernberg and others in defining the topic.
We will then pivot and take a Jungian view of narcissism as an image. We will consider the type of suffering involved and the dynamics of the eponymous myth. At this point we can explore Jung’s beautiful and far-reaching understanding of narcissism; that it is the result of an unprojected soul-image. This opens an understanding of the subject, the field of relationship, our own path of self-regard, and provides a whole new approach to treatment options.
