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relating to objects rather than to the term's other uses. This probably
reflects the current influence of object relations theory in psychoana–
lytic thought in general. Second, contemporary theorists distinguish
between people with narcissistic problems and conflicts (which all
patients in every diagnostic category have to one degree or another),
and those who have narcissistic personality disorders. This type of
disorder is characterized by the formation of relationships in which
what seems to
be
a relationship between self and object is actually
between one aspect of the self and another. The primitive, grandiose
self is projected onto objects and then identified with. Narcissism,
therefore, is not necessarily being unrelated to an object. Rather, the
issue is whether the object is a self-object (i.e., part of the ego) or a part
of the external world. Thus, while narcissism originally referred
to
an
absence of, or a withdrawal from object relations, it no longer refers to
the individual's
behavior
toward objects in the external world, but
rather to internal object representations.
Considering the specificity and variety of meanings that narcis–
sism has in psychoanalytic circles, it is perplexing that popular writers
have unhesitatingly adopted the term. Richard Sennett and Chris–
topher Lasch, for example, refer
to
the work of Heinz Kohut and Otto
Kernberg despite the fact that the social phenomena they discuss are
not related to the psychoanalytic meanings of the term
narcissism.
Ironically, Sennett and Lasch point to the psychological perspective
pervasive
in
our society as one of the reflections of its narcissism. Yet,
by using the term
narcissism,
these writers are themselves guilty of the
same sin which they bemoan in the rest of society: they are explaining a
social phenomenon in psychological terms, and by doing so they are
obscuring both the concept of narcissism and the social phenomenon
they hope to explain.·
Perhaps more important, the popular notion that narcissism
involves concern with feelings, health, sex, or a retreat from the public
sector bears no resemblance to the narcissistic character disorders
described by Kernberg and Kohut. The point is not so much
what
objects or activities one is involved with, but
how
one relates to these
• Sennelt and Lasch claim thal jusl as hysleria was the prevailing form o f neurosis in lhe
nineleenth cenlury, so narcissism is the prevalent form of disorder now . T his is a
slarLiing claim since the NIMH reporlS thal the mOSl commonly diagnosed condilions in
all psychiatric facililies in the Uniled Slales are depressive disorders in women and
alcoholism in men.
