On narcissistic perversion

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

1. This text, published in Le génie des origines [The spirit of the origins] (Paris: Payot, 1992, pp. 284–98), was assembled by Racamier from two sources: the first part reproduces his pioneering paper on narcissistic perversion presented at the second International Psychoanalytic Family Therapy Congress in 1985 and published in the journal Gruppo (1987, pp. 11–27), while the second part, on perverse thought, comprises the text of a lecture delivered in 1991 to the eighth International Psychoanalytic Family Therapy Congress.

2. Translated by Philip Slotkin MA Cantab. MITI.

Notes

1. This text, published in Le génie des origines [The spirit of the origins] (Paris: Payot, 1992, pp. 284–98), was assembled by Racamier from two sources: the first part reproduces his pioneering paper on narcissistic perversion presented at the second International Psychoanalytic Family Therapy Congress in 1985 and published in the journal Gruppo (1987, pp. 11–27), while the second part, on perverse thought, comprises the text of a lecture delivered in 1991 to the eighth International Psychoanalytic Family Therapy Congress.

2. Translated by Philip Slotkin MA Cantab. MITI.

3. Editor's note: It is also a “matter of dosage,” Racamier writes. “Every narcissistic perversion rests simultaneously on an assertion and a disavowal: assertion of oneself and disavowal of the other by disavowal of a part of oneself. However, both the proportions and their product are variable. As long as narcissistic perversion is based primarily on an emphatic assertion (‘I am better than you’), it is merely annoying. It becomes harmful when its basis is principally that of disavowal (‘You are good for nothing but my garbage’).”

4. Editor's note: Perversion is defined as follows by Francis Pasche (1910–96): “Perversion is an activity of an autoerotic kind conditional on disavowal of the status of a subject in the partner, who thereby becomes a quasi‐thing which the subject manipulates at will and imbues with positive or negative qualities based on the subject's own wishes. This of course fundamentally distinguishes perversion from object love” (Revue française de psychanalyse 67:400, 1983).

5. Editor's note: ‘Phalloid’ means ‘resembling a phallus’; the adjective denotes an extremely dangerous, poisonous fungus, the death cap (Amanita phalloides). Racamier is invoking the latter sense, implying that a phalloid woman is both phallic and poisonous.

6. Editor's note: At this point we include a short note by Racamier explaining the difference between the ‘overweening subject’ and the ‘phalloid subject’, from “I wonder if &” to “& and castrates elsewhere.”

7. Editor's note: Racamier uses the suffix ‘–pathic’ (as, for example, in ‘neuropathic’) as an adjective in the sense of ‘causing suffering’. The neologism ‘exopathic’, which he uses subsequently, means that it is others who suffer from this eviction from the subject's inner life.

8. Editor's note: Racamier is here referring to another chapter of the book from which this text is taken. He uses the term ‘nucleus’ to denote collusion, in a family or group, between two or more individuals who flout the usual rules and the very principle of truth in other to act out a phantasy of omnipotence.

9. Editor's note: At this point we insert a long note by Racamier. The term ‘perverse characterosis’ clearly distinguishes Racamier's conception from J. A. Arlow's ‘character perversions’, which denote behaviour connected with ‘perverse’ sexual temptations, for instance, of a voyeuristic type.

10. Editor's subheading.

11. Editor's note: Racamier's printed version has ‘fantastique’ [fantastic]; we think this may be a typographic error for ‘fantasmatique’ [phantasy], although what is meant could be a fantastic dearth of phantasy.

12. Editor's note: Racamier was thoroughly familiar with the work of the Palo Alto school.

13. Editor's note: The unsuspecting victim of a swindle.

14. Editor's note: Racamier's coinage is ustensilitaire [here translated as ‘toolitarian’], a condensation of utilitaire (having the sole purpose of utility) and ustensile (a common tool, such as a kitchen implement).

15. Is there an aesthetics of fetishism? Given that I see the sexual perversions as the outcome of a transfer of what was originally object cathexis on to scenarios, I cannot agree with Edward Glover, or indeed with Janine Chasseguet‐Smirgel, that the objects (tools) used by a fetishistic or sadistic pervert (shoes, underwear, or a whip) must, in order to give pleasure, satisfy certain aesthetic criteria (relating to appearance, shape and texture). Extremely precise criteria admittedly apply – as precise as all fetish objects must be. But are they aesthetic? In my opinion, not at all. They may be aesthetically mediocre. At most, they have to do with aesthesia and erogenicity – and, fundamentally, with staging – that is, with scenarios, as I have just said. In order to write, a writer too needs certain locations, pens, pencils, paper, and so on; but, you see, it is not his pencils that are aesthetic, but his writings; it would be utterly short‐sighted to confuse the two.

16. Editor's note: At this point in his book Racamier includes a table, which, however, is beyond the scope of his study of narcissistic perversion.

17. Editor's note: Since the work of Pierre Marty and Michel de M'Uzan, ‘operational thought’ has been associated by the French psychoanalysts with the onset of psychosomatic pathology.

18. Editor's note: ‘Mal‐pense’ in French: another of Racamier's ‘acrobatic’ neologisms. If formed in the usual way, the coinage would be ‘mal‐pensée’, meaning an ill‐thought thought or false thought.