The Psychoanalysis of Narcissism and the Inevitability of “Postmodern” Psychoanalysis

Abstract

In my exploration of postmodern psychoanalysis, I take as my starting point the complex issue of narcissism as developed by Freud. After pointing out some of the theoretical and clinical difficulties and complexities that arise in the analysis of narcissism, I discuss the diversity of the models and interpretations that then become possible; plurality in psychoanalysis is an inevitable consequence of this. The analysis of narcissism thus opens up many questions that lead me to explore some of the answers that both our forebears and present-day psychoanalysts have suggested.

Notes

¹ It is certainly not by mere chance that Freud, after debating in 1920 the question of the compulsion to repeat and the death drive, began Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego by acknowledging that “from the very first, individual psychology … is … social psychology as well” (1921a, p. 69), an aspect that has too often been ignored in psychoanalysis. It was via his acknowledgement of the importance of the other person that he introduced the concept of identification.

² In fact, they could never anyway be avoided, given that the analyst’s interventions are always taken in with reference to the transference and the role that, for the patient, this bestows on the analyst. It could be hoped, all the same, that transference interpretations might go some way to moderating that influence and enabling it to be kept under control.

³ And also in his exchange of correspondence, for example with Ferenczi.

⁴ Cf. Freud’s papers “Dreams and Telepathy” (1922a) and “Psycho-Analysis and Telepathy” (1921b).

⁵ “Where id was, there ego shall be” (Freud 1933, p. 80). J.-L. Donnet (1995) has emphasized the fact that the superego also must be subjectivized, so that the phrase could then be formulated as “Where id and superego were, there ego shall be.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

René Roussillon

René Roussillon is affiliated with the University of Lyon-II, Lyon/Rhone-Alpes Psychoanalytical Group, and Paris Psychoanalytical Society.