Introducton

Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisit
by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

THE SOUL OF A NARCISSIST
THE STATE OF THE ART

The Essay and some of the chapters contain professional terms.

We all love ourselves. That seems to be such an instinctively true statement that we do not bother to examine it more thoroughly. In our daily lives — in love, in business, in other areas of life — we act on this premise. Yet, upon closer inspection, it looks shakier.

Some people explicitly state that they do not love themselves at all. Others confine their lack of self-love to certain traits, to their personal history, or to some of their behaviour patterns. Yet others feel content with who they are and with what they are doing.

But one group of people seems distinct in its mental constitution — narcissists.

According to the legend of Narcissus, this Greek boy fell in love with his own reflection in a pond. Presumably, this amply sums up the nature of his namesakes: narcissists. The mythological Narcissus was rejected by the nymph Echo and was punished by Nemesis, Consigned to pine away as he fell in love with his own reflection. How apt. Narcissists are punished by echoes and reflections of their problematic personalities up to this very day.

They are said to be in love with themselves.

But this is a fallacy. Narcissus is not in love with HIMSELF. He is in love with his REFLECTION.

There is a major difference between True Self and reflected-self.

Loving your True Self is a healthy, adaptive and functional quality.

Loving a reflection has two major drawbacks. One is the dependence on the very existence and availability of a reflection to produce the emotion of self-love.

The other is the absence of a "compass", an "objective and realistic yardstick", by which to judge the authenticity of the reflection and to measure its isomorphic attributes. In other words, it is impossible to tell whether the reflection is true to reality — and, if so, to what extent.

The popular misconception is that narcissists love themselves. In reality, they direct their love to second hand impressions of themselves in the eyes of beholders. He who loves only impressions is not acquainted with the emotion of loving humans and is, therefore, incapable of loving them, or himself.

But the narcissist does possess the in-bred desire to love and to be loved. If he cannot love himself — he has to love his reflection. But to love his reflection — it must be loveable. Thus, driven by the insatiable urge to love (which we all possess), the narcissist is grossly preoccupied with projecting a loveable image of himself unto others. This image has to be compatible with his self-image (the way he "sees" himself).

It is maintained through the investment of a reasonable proportion of the resources and energy of the narcissist. An image, which would take most of the narcissist's time and energy to preserve, would be highly ineffective because it would render him vulnerable to external threats.

But the most important characteristic of such an image is its lovability.

To a narcissist, love is interchangeable with other emotions, such as awe, respect, admiration, or even mere attention. An image, which provokes these reactions in others — is both "loveable and loved", as far as the narcissist is concerned. It satisfies his basic requirement: that it should give him something to love which would feel like self-love.

The more successful this image (or series of successive images) — the more the narcissist becomes divorced from his True Self and married to the image.

I am not saying that the narcissist does not have this central nucleus of a "self". All I am saying is that he prefers his image — with which he identifies himself unreservedly — to his self. A hierarchy is formed. The self becomes serf to the Image.

This is exactly the opposite of the common notions concerning narcissists. The narcissist is not selfish — his self is paralysed.

He is not tuned exclusively to his needs. On the contrary: he ignores them because many of them conflict with his omnipotent and omniscient image. He does not put himself first — he puts his self last. He caters to the needs and wishes of everyone around him — because he craves their love and admiration. It is through their reactions that he acquires a sense of distinct self. In many ways he annuls himself — only to re-invent himself through the look of others. He is the person most insensitive to his true needs.

The narcissist consumes his mental energy incessantly in this process. He drains himself. This is why he has no energy left to dedicate to others. This fact as well as his inability to love human beings in their many dimensions and facets — transform him into a mental recluse. His soul is fortified and in the solace of this fortification he guards its territory jealously and fiercely. He protects what he perceives to constitute his independence.

Why should people indulge the narcissist? And what is the "evolutionary", survival value of preferring one kind of love (directed at a symbol, an image) to another (directed at one's self)?

These questions torment the narcissist. His convoluted mind comes up with the most elaborate contraptions in lieu of answers.

Why should people indulge the narcissist, divert time and energy, give him attention, love and adulation? The narcissist's answer is simple: because he is entitled to it. The narcissist has an inflated sense of entitlement. He feels that he deserves whatever he succeeds to extract from others and much more. Actually, he feels betrayed, discriminated against and underprivileged because he always believes that he is not getting enough, that he should get more than he does. There is a discrepancy between his infinite certainty that his is a special status worthy of eternally recurrent praise and adoration, replete with special benefits and prerogatives — and the actual state of his affairs. This is the prima causa of the psychodynamics of the narcissist's mind. To the narcissist, this status of uniqueness is bestowed upon him not by virtue of his achievements, but merely because he exists. His mere existence is sufficiently unique to warrant the kind of treatment that he expects to get from the world. Herein lies a paradox, which haunts the narcissist: he derives his sense of uniqueness from the very fact that he exists and he derives his sense of existence from his belief that he is unique.

Clinical data show that there is rarely any realistic basis for this notion of greatness and uniqueness.

Narcissists do hold high positions and, at times, are achievers with proven track records. Some of them are respected members of their communities, some of them even leaders. Mostly, they are dynamic and successful. Still, one thing separates them from persons of similar circumstance: the pomp.

They are ridiculously pompous and inflated personalities, bordering on the farcical and provoking resentment.

The narcissist is forced to use other people in order to feel that he exists. It is trough their eyes and through their behaviour that he obtains proof of his uniqueness and grandeur. He is a habitual "people-junkie". With time, he comes to regard those around him as mere instruments for his satisfaction, as two-dimensional cartoon figures with negligible lines in the script of his magnificent life. He becomes unscrupulous and suppresses all the discomfort that he might have felt in the past concerning his conduct. He seems never to be bothered by the constant use he makes of his milieu. He seems not to mind the consequences of his acts: the damage and the pain that he inflicts on others and even the social condemnation and sanctions that he often has to endure.

When a person persists in a dysfunctional, maladaptive or plain useless behaviour despite grave repercussions to himself and to his surroundings — we say that his acts are compulsive.

It would, indeed, be safe to say that the narcissist is compulsive in his behaviour. This linkage between narcissism and obsessive-compulsive disorders sheds light on the mechanisms of the narcissistic psyche.

The narcissist does not suffer from a faulty sense of causation. He is able to accurately predict the outcomes of his actions and he knows that he might be forced to pay a dear price for his deeds. But he doesn't care.

A personality whose very existence is a derivative of its reflection in other people's minds — is perilously dependent on these people's perceptions. They are the source of its Narcissistic Supply (NS). Every shred of criticism and disapproval is interpreted as a withholding of this supply and as a direct threat to the very mental existence of the narcissist. The narcissist lives in a world of all or nothing, of a constant "to be or not be". Every discussion that he holds, every glance of every passer-by reaffirms his existence or casts doubt upon it. This is why the reactions of the narcissist seem so disproportionate: he reacts to what he perceives to be threats to the very cohesion of his self. Thus, a minor disagreement is transformed in his harried mind into an ominous sign that he is going to remain devoid of his sources of self-definition.

About the Author

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited. His Web site " is an Open Directory Cool Site and a Psych-UK recommended Site. Sam is not a mental health professional though he is certified in