The term narcissism was originally a clinical term, first adopted by Naik in 1899, referring to a type of person who treats his own body as if he were a sexual partner. He can experience a sexual pleasure by watching, stroking, and playing with his body until he reaches complete satisfaction. When narcissism develops to this extent, it has the meaning of perverseity, it absorbs the whole sexual life of the subject, so when we deal with it, we can imagine encountering similar phenomena seen when studying all the perversions.
To the surprise of those engaged in psychoanalytic observation, the isolated characteristics of narcissistic attitudes can be seen in many people with other abnormal behaviors, such as what Sadeg calls homosexuality. In short, narcissism has a characteristic of the sexual instinct that can be considered on a broader scale. It also occupies a certain place in the normal process of human sexual development, in this sense, narcissism is not a perverse mistake, but a supplement to the egoistic self-preservation instinct of a sexual impulse, which can be said to be a means possessed by every living thing.
When we try to make our knowledge about schizophrenia conform to the underlying hypothesis of the theory of the sexual instinct, there is a pressure that compels us to admit that narcissism is primitive and normal. Delusional dementia patients have two basic characteristics: exaggeration and loss of interest in the outside world (people and things), and a patient with hysteria or obsessive-compulsive neurosis will abandon contact with reality as soon as the disease occurs. But the analysis shows that he did not sever his sexual connection with people or things. He still maintains this connection in his fantasies, that is, on the one hand he finds in his memory an imaginary object in place of the actual one, or a mixture of the two; on the other hand, he no longer takes action to make himself in relation to the actual object. Only under these conditions is it reasonable for us to adopt the term "introversion of the sexual instinct", otherwise we should use the term delusional dementia. Jung used it indiscriminately. The patient actually seems to withdraw sexual impulses from the outside world without replacing them with something else in the fantasy. This process seems to have a secondary process of redirecting the sexual impulse to an object, part of the effort being to restore the original object.
A new question arises: In schizophrenia, what is the fate of the sexual desire instinct after it leaves the external object? The exaggerated nature of these cases provides a clue. Exaggeration undoubtedly consumes the object of sexual impulses. The instinct of sexual desire to leave the external world and point to the self leads to a narcissistic state. Exaggeration is not new in itself; on the contrary, as we know, it is exaggeration and complaint about pre-existing situations.
This development of the theory of the instinct of sexual desire seems to me to be justified, and it is supported by a third aspect, namely, our observation and formation of the concept of the mental activity of primitive peoples and children. The characteristics we find in primitive peoples, if they appear in isolation, are similar to those of exaggeration, namely, the overestimation of the power of desires and mental processes, the belief that "thought is omnipotent," the belief in the miraculous power of language, and the logical application of the method of dealing with the external world, the "magic"-like skill.
When there is simply no theory of instinct that can help us discern the direction, we can or can only propose a hypothesis and then deny or affirm it according to its logical conclusions. The hypothesis that there is a fundamental difference between sexual instinct and other instincts, i.e., the ego instinct, in addition to being extremely useful in the analysis of empathetic neuroses, is supported in a number of places. First of all, I admit that if only the former is considered, this hypothesis has no decisive significance, for it is entirely possible that the same energies work in the psyche, which are transformed into sexual impulses only through the venting of the object. But the difference between these two concepts corresponds first and foremost to the distinction between hunger and love, which is so great. Second, this view is also supported from a biological point of view. The individual is actually a dual being: on the one hand he obeys his own ends, and on the other hand he is chained to a chain, completely against his own will, or has no will at all. The individual sees sexual desire as one of the ends, but from another point of view, he is dependent on the cytoplasm, and he gives energy for it, and the reward is happiness. It is a car of life that is driven by non-living things, like the heir to the inheritance, who temporarily owns a fortune to maintain his own survival. The distinction between sexual instinct and self-instinct only reflects the dual function of the individual. Again, we must review all the temporary ideas in psychology that will one day be based on organic structures. It is possible that special substances and chemical processes control the role of sexual desire and allow individual life to continue. When we replace special chemicals with special abilities of the mind, we think of this possibility.
Since I want to free psychology from things that are strictly speaking other fields, such as biological things, I want to show here that the hypothesis of separating the self-instinct from the sexual instinct (i.e., the theory of the sexual desire instinct) has no psychological basis, but is essentially supported by biological facts. If the work of psychoanalysis can come up with more valuable hypotheses about instinct, then I can completely abandon the present hypothesis. Unfortunately, nothing like this has happened so far. As we delve deeper and deeper, it is possible to find that sexual energy, that is, sexual impulses, is only the product of the general energy differentiation that acts on the mind. But this statement makes little sense. What it deals with is so far removed from the problem we are examining and does not provide useful knowledge that it is useless to oppose it or affirm it. We have no interest in analyzing this primitive identity, as the original kinship of the race is as irrelevant as the proof of kinship required by the probate court. All of these speculations lead to little conclusion, because we cannot wait for other sciences to provide us with ready-made theories about instincts. If we want to gain insight into this fundamental problem of biology through a comprehensive examination of psychological phenomena, we are still far from this goal. Let us be fully aware of the possibility of making mistakes, but not be intimidated by the logical conclusions of the hypothesis that our initial self-instinct is opposed to our sexual instincts (analysis of empathetic neuroses forces us to draw this hypothesis), but rather to see if it is consistent and gives useful results, and whether it can also be applied to other diseases, such as schizophrenia.
Directly studying the way narcissism is done seems to have some particular difficulties. Perhaps our primary means of understanding this situation remains an analysis of delusional dementia. Just as the instinctive impulses of sexual desire can be traced through empathy neurosis, we can gain insight into our own psychology through schizophrenia and paranoia, and it is very simple. In order to figure out again what is normal, we should obviously study its pathology according to its modifications and exaggerations. At the same time, we can also get knowledge about narcissism from other sources. I'm going to talk about these sources in turn, they are the study of the body's disease conjecture and love between the sexes.
In estimating the effects of the sexual desire instinct on the body's disease, I followed Ferenci's advice, which he had proposed in his conversation with me. It is well known that when a person suffers physical pain and discomfort, he loses interest in external things until he no longer cares about his own suffering. More nuanced observation tells us that he also withdrew his sexual impulses towards the object of his love. As long as he is suffering, he stops loving. The clichés about this fact do not stop us from interpreting it in the terminology of the theory of the instinct of sexual desire. We can say this: the sick person withdraws the venting of the sexual impulse to the self, recovers his health and then sends it out... This way of loving, no matter how intense, disappears from the physical pain and is suddenly replaced by a completely different emotion, a subject that comedy writers write vividly.
The condition of sleep, like illness, means withdrawing the sexual impulse to the subject in a narcissistic manner, or rather, simply satisfying the desire to sleep. Dream egoism is very much in tune with this. For both states, we have some examples of changes in the distribution of sexual impulses, which are the result of self-alteration.
Paranoia, like diseases of the body, manifests itself as painful sensations in the flesh and also affects the distribution of sexual impulses. Hypocrisy simultaneously withdraws interest in the outside world and the urge to libido (the latter is particularly pronounced), concentrating both on the organs that attract the patient's attention. The difference between paranoia and disease is also obvious: the painful sensations in the latter come from provable changes in the body, while the former does not. However, if we think that paranoia should be consistent with the general concept of neurotic processes, it will also undergo organic changes. So where did this change take place?
We can look back on our own experiences, and in other neuroses there is physical pain that can be compared to fantasia. I once said that I tend to classify fantasia and neurasthenia and anxiety neuroses as the third type of "true neurosis." Maybe it doesn't have to go that far, and there are also a few symptoms of fantasia in other general neuroses. Perhaps we can find the best example of anxiety neurosis and its attached hysteria. This is the archetype of an organ that we are familiar with that is sensitive to pain, which can undergo certain changes, but not be sick, and this is the genitals in a state of excitement. It is congested, swollen, secreted, and is a multi-sensory organism. We call activities that transmit stimuli of sexual excitement to parts of the body of the brain sexy activity. Given the long-accustomed conclusions about the theory of sexual desire, we take a step forward at the thought that certain parts of the body, namely the erogenous zone, can replace the genitals to produce similar behavior. We can think of sensual activity as a property that all organs have, so that it can be said that any part of the body is affected by this property to varying degrees. Changes in the erogenous belts in the organs may parallel to changes in the ego's libido impulses. These examples may contain a definitive explanation for paranoia and how it affects the distribution of sexual impulses in the same way as real organ diseases.
Here I would like to further explore the mechanisms of delusional dementia and summarize the concepts that seem worth considering. In my opinion, the difference between delusional dementia and empathetic neurosis is the environment. The former, due to setbacks, makes the sexual desire instinct no longer attached to the object of the fantasy, but returns to the self, and the exaggeration is the control of this large number of sexual desire instincts, which is equivalent to the inclination created by the fantasy, which can be seen in the empathy neurosis. The paranoia of delusional dementia, similar to the anxiety of empathetic neurosis, is caused by the failure of this effort by the mental organs. We know that neurotic anxiety can be relieved by psychological "functional transformations", such as transforming reactionary formation and defense formation (phobia). The corresponding process in delusional dementia is an effort to recover, and the most obvious features of the disease arise from this. Delusional dementia is also often accompanied by the detachment of some sexual impulses, although not necessarily. Therefore, we can distinguish between three groups of phenomena in the clinic:
1 Phenomena representing normal state or neurotic remnants (remnant phenomena)
2 Represents a pathological process (sexual impulses detached from the object, further exaggerated, imaginative, affective disorders, and every degeneration)
3 Represents the effort to recover, in the third group of phenomena, the sexual impulse after hysteria (schizophrenia or delusional dementia) or obsessive-compulsive neurosis (delusional madness) again attaches to the object, and under different levels and conditions than the original, generates new sexual impulses to vent. The difference between empathy neurosis in this way and the corresponding normal self-formation gives us the deepest insight into the structure of the mental organs.
The third way to study narcissism is to observe people's very different behaviors when they are in love. Mostly, this is the case: the object of the sexual impulse is first hidden behind the sexual impulse of the self, so that when considering the object selection of the child (as well as adults), we notice first that he chooses his own sexual object from the experience of satisfaction. The spontaneous sexual satisfaction first experienced is associated with the life function of serving the self. This sex can be supported by the instincts of the self, but only later it is not dependent on them. Even then, we can see from this that the original dependency relationship, in which the person who raises, cares for and protects the child becomes his initial sexual object. That is, his initial sexual object was his mother or someone who replaced him. We call this type and the root of object selection dependent, and there is a second type alongside it, and although we do not envisage its existence, psychoanalytic research reveals it. We found that, especially those who have been hindered in the development of the sexual desire instinct, like inversion and homosexuality, can use themselves instead of their own mothers as models when choosing the object of their love. They explicitly pursue themselves as the object of love, and this type of object of choice can be called narcissism.
This does not mean that people can be divided into two very different categories depending on whether their choice of object is dependent or narcissistic. We prefer to assume that both types exist in everyone, albeit somewhat heavily. We believe that man originally had two sexual objects: himself and the woman who cared for him, so we argue that everyone has a primitive narcissism. It can influence a person's object selection for a long time.
Further compare men and women. There are fundamental differences between men and women in terms of the types of objects chosen, although these differences are less common. Completely dependent object love is characteristic of men, and it manifests itself as sexual worship. This undoubtedly stemmed from the primitive narcissism of childhood, and now it has shifted to the object of sexual love. This sexual cult is the root of the particular state of love, a suggestive state of neural compulsion that can be traced back to the exhaustion of the sexual instincts that the self pours into the object of love.
The most common types of women have different processes, which are perhaps purely real types of women. With the development of puberty, the female organ matures (until then it has been in a latent state), causing the intensification of primitive narcissism, which is not conducive to the development of true object love and its accompanying materialistic worship. A certain amount of self-confidence is developed in a woman (especially when it comes to becoming pretty), compensating for her social limitations in choosing objects. Strictly speaking, the degree to which women love themselves can be compared to the degree to which men love them. They don't need to develop in the direction of loving others, they just need to be loved. The man's devotion satisfies this condition. It must be admitted that this type of woman is very important for human sex. Such women are extremely attractive to men, not only because of beauty (they are generally very beautiful), but also because of some interesting psychological factor.
It seems very obvious that the great charm of narcissistic women also has a negative impact, the dissatisfaction of lovers, the doubts about women's love. The charm of a child is largely due to his narcissism, self-confidence, and inaccessibility, as if the charm of some animals lies in their indifference to us, such as cats and large petted animals. Indeed, in literature, even repeat offenders and humorists arouse our interest because of their narcissism. They think they are omnipotent, and this diminishes the importance of their ego. It's like we're jealous of them because they have the ability to maintain a blessed state of mind, and we've abandoned this unassailable position of sexual instinct. But the great charisma of the narcissistic woman also has a negative impact, the dissatisfaction of the lover, the suspicion of the woman's love, and the complaint about her unpredictable personality, a large part of which is rooted in this inconsistency between the types of object choice.