Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited

THE EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT
PREVENTIVE MEASURES

Chapter 8

page 1

The narcissist is born into a dysfunctional family. It is characterised by massive denials, both internal ("You do not have a real problem, you are only pretending") and external ("You must never tell the family's secrets to anyone"). The whole family unit suffers from an emotional dysfunction. It leads to affective and other personality disorders exhibited by all the members of the family and ranging from obsessive-compulsive disorders to hypochondriasis and depression.

Such families are reclusive and autarkic. They actively reject and encourage the rejection of social contacts.

This inevitably leads to defective or partial socialisation and differentiation and to problems with sexual identity.

This attitude is sometimes applied even to members of the extended family. Other members of the nuclear family feel emotionally or financially deprived or threatened by them. They react with envy, rejection, self-isolation and rage.

Constant aggression and violence are permanent features of such families. The violence can be from verbal (degradation, humiliation) and up to severe cases of psychological, physical and sexual abuse.

Trying to rationalise and intellectualise its unique position and to justify it, the family resorts to emphasising logic, cost effectiveness, and feasibility. It is a transactional approach to life and it regards certain traits (e.g., intelligence) as an expression of superiority and as an advantage. These families encourage excellence – mainly cerebral and academic – but only as means to an end. The end is usually highly narcissistic (to be famous/rich/to live well, etc.).

Some narcissists react by creatively escaping into rich, imagined worlds in which they exercise total physical and emotional control over their environment. But all of them divert libido, which should have been object-oriented, to their own self.

The source of all the narcissist's problems is the foreboding sensation that human relationships invariably end in humiliation, betrayal, pain and abandonment. This belief is embedded in them during their very early childhood by their parents, peers, or role models.

But the narcissist always generalises. To him, any emotional interaction and any interaction with an emotional component is bound to end this way. Getting attached to a place, a job, an asset, an idea, an initiative, a business, or a pleasure is bound to end as badly as getting attached to a human being. This is why the narcissist avoids intimacy, real friendships, love, other emotions, commitment, attachment, dedication, perseverance, planning, emotional or other investment, morale or conscience (which are only meaningful if one believes in a future), developing a sense of security, or pleasure.

The narcissist emotionally invests only in things he feels that he is in full, unmitigated control of: himself and, at times, not even that.

But the narcissist cannot ignore the fact (vaguely felt by him) that there is emotional content and residual affect even in the most basic activities. To protect himself from these remnants of emotions, these remote threats, he constructs a False Self, grandiose, and fantastic.

This False Self is used in all interactions, "tainted" by an emotion. When even this fails the narcissist has a more powerful weapon in his arsenal: the Wunderkind (wonder-boy) mask.

The narcissist creates two masks, which serve to hide him from the world – and to extract from the world his needs and desires.

The first mask is the old, worn-out False Self.

The False Self is a special type of Ego. It is grandiose (and, in this sense, imaginary), invulnerable, omnipotent, omniscient, and "unaffiliated" (=has no sense of belonging). This kind of Ego prefers adulation to love. It is through being reflected by other people that this Ego learns about its boundaries and its true image.

But the second mask is as important. This is the mask of the Wunderkind.

The narcissist, using this mask, broadcasts to the world that he is both a child (and therefore vulnerable, susceptible, and subject to adult protection) – and a genius (and therefore worthy of special treatment and of admiration).

Inwardly this mask makes the narcissist less emotionally vulnerable. A child does not fully comprehend and grasp what is going on around him, does not commit himself emotionally, waltzes through life, and does not have to deal with emotionally charged problems or situations such as sex or child rearing.

As a child, the narcissist is exempt from assuming responsibility and develops a sense of immunity and security. No one is likely to hurt a child or to severely punish him. The narcissist is a dangerous adventurer because – like a child – he feels that his possibilities are unlimited, all is allowed without the risk of paying the commensurate price.

The narcissist hates adults and is repelled by them. In his mind, he is forever innocent and loveable.

Being a child, he feels no need to acquire adult skills or adult qualifications. Many a narcissist do not complete their studies, or even do not have a driving license. They feel that people should adore them as they are and could and should supply them with all the needs that they, as children, cannot themselves secure.

It is precisely because of this built-in contradiction between his (mental) age and his knowledge and intelligence that the narcissist is able to sustain a grandiose self at all! Only a child with this kind of intelligence and with this kind of biography and with this kind of knowledge is entitled to feel superior and grandiose. The narcissist must remain a child if he wants to feel superior and grandiose.

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