Narcissistic Pathology

Abstract

The search for reunion, however illusory it may be, is linked to the narcissistic experience of emptiness in relationships and, more brutally, in the self. Thus, it is in part a response to the partially glimpsed reality of psychological impoverishment in contemporary culture; it may be an imaginary world to which we strive to return, but this world does at least mark out a sphere of difference — of potential ‘betterness’ — against which the barrenness of narcissism can be calibrated. In short, there is an element of healthy longing in the desire for return, even if the solution is a false one — denial rather than working through. The ego ideal, slippery and unrealistic though it may be, has its starting point in the internalisation of a loved lost object, a sense of what is possible, of what true connectedness might be.