The omnipotent self, a study in self-deception and self-cure

by Paul Bousfield

Let us now see where this Narcissistic identification may come out later in life.

First of all, it is this which enables us to enjoy novels, just as we enjoyed fairy-tales as children. We identify ourselves with the hero or heroine of the book, and in phantasy perform their various wonderful feats. Thus we satisfy our Narcissistic desire to be great and powerful. If we lack cleverness, and the hero is clever, by identification and imputation we may attain the pleasures of feeling clever and superior. If the heroine is beautiful and everyone falls in love with her, we may by proxy be the same. If the hero is a sailor, and we have always desired to sail, yet have never been on the sea, our ambition is now attained—and see how easily attained—in a truly omnipotent fashion, without effort on our part, just by reading about it. Exactly the same thing takes place at theatres, where the Narcissist identifies himself with the actors on the stage. So far so good; if a person can content himself with an occasional theatre or occasional novel, wherewith to take a restful regression to an infantile outlet of energy, no harm is done. There are times when we must rest, and there are times when we must sleep, which also appears to be Narcissistic regression to a condition somewhat resembling our pre-birth state. But there are many who cannot control their identification in this way, who cannot confine it to the stage and the novel, who bring it into the affairs of life continuously. They may unconsciously identify themselves with their father or mother, their relations or friends, or even their enemies, and perhaps, in turn, with everyone with whom they come into contact. Like a looking-glass, they reflect everything that goes on around them. They feel the pleasures of their friends, they also feel their pains. They are called sympathetic, they are often ultra-sympathetic—they are a nuisance.

I remember on one occasion I had asked a woman of strong Narcissistic temperament to take a fly out of the corner of my eye. She absolutely refused to do so under any consideration, as she was sure she would hurt me too much. Inquiry showed that Narcissism had exaggerated her own feelings, so that a speck of dust in her own eye was torture. Yet her eye was so tender and important to herself that she could not bear anyone to touch it even in order to get something out. And she could not imagine that anybody else could have feelings that differed from hers; and since she identified herself so much with other people, I have no doubt it would have been a real agony to her, had she attempted to extract the fly from my eye.

Such people are by no means uncommon. We all know the person who cannot bear to hurt us, even for our good. For instance, some cannot bear to bandage a wound for us since they cannot bear to see pain in any form. They state that it is almost as if they felt it themselves, and they call themselves “sympathetic.” But in spite of popular belief to the contrary, such sympathy is not a virtue, there is nothing altruistic about it; it is an inconvenient fault of an entirely selfish kind. In order to help one’s friend, one does not need to feel his feelings and suffer his pains, one wants to understand them; the more one enters into his feelings, the more one’s judgment is biased, and the less one is able, as a rule, to be of assistance. Worse still, in connection with these people, they not only pour out sympathy in this way, but attribute it to themselves as a virtue, and they cannot bring themselves to believe their friends to be really good, unless their friends also can react in a similar way towards them. They call a normal person unsympathetic, perhaps exaggerate the term and call him brutal, wishing indeed that their friends who have climbed higher from Narcissism should regress to their lower stand-point.

I have given here but one type of Narcissistic identification with other persons; it seems to me unnecessary to carry it further since any reader who chooses to think the matter out for himself will find endless modifications of such identifications. We all possess it in part, and on the whole women are more Narcissistic than men. Let it not be thought, however, that this is a reflection on women; it is a reflection on the way they have been brought up, for from the earliest times environment impresses them with the idea that “little boys are made of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails, and little girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice!” And hence on such lines as these, their Narcissism is encouraged, and their capabilities of facing fact and reality discouraged from the very outset, until differences of temperament are produced in the adults of the two sexes, which in no way belong to Nature, but purely to our conventional and somewhat barbaric stand-point.

There are yet more important results of Narcissistic identification than those already mentioned; Narcissism leads, in many instances, to the choice of a particular love-object. Narcissism is, of course, by no means the only or chief factor in the choice of love-objects, as anyone who has studied psycho-analysis will at once realise. It is, however, the only one I intend to touch on in this particular work.

Just as the mythical Narcissus himself fell in love with his reflection, so does his prototype of to-day. An infant is not only the omnipotent centre of all, he is also the only interesting portion of the universe in his early days. His interests are entirely self-centred, and his joys and pleasures belong to himself alone; and as he grows older, everything that is like him is identified with himself. In the worst form of Narcissism in the adult, the individual remains entirely selfish, and is incapable of loving anybody outside himself at all.

By identification, however, he can love in a sense those attributes of his own personality which he sees in other persons. Thus, he may love somebody for a facial similarity, for a voice which is like his, or for tastes which are like his own, but most commonly he loves them for a body like his own. And from this we see that he may fall in love with somebody of his own sex. Hence, homo-sexuality,[5] as it is called, is frequently one of the distressing results of an early Narcissistic upbringing. But it need not be necessary for such homo-sexuality to be of a grossly erotic type; such desires may be for the most part repressed in the unconscious, or appear only in minor ways such as the desire to kiss, fondle or touch favoured persons of the same sex. On the other hand, frequently the early education and environment of the Narcissistic person has been such as to leave him quite incapable of complete repression; and we then have expressed more or less open erotic desires and actions for persons of the same sex. Such persons, however, should not be treated as criminals in this particular matter; they are by this time as hopelessly incompetent to deal with themselves, as is the kleptomaniac or a person having any other form of so-called degenerate mentality. Here again, we see the reason why homo-sexuality is so much more rife amongst women than amongst men. The minor details of their early environment tend so much more to confirm them in Narcissism. It is partially repressed and partially displaced homo-sexuality which causes some women to kiss one another, to call one another by affectionate names and so forth, to delight in taking hold of one another’s hands on occasion; actions which normally, between persons of opposite sex, would at once be taken to indicate some sort of erotic affection, but which we are so used to seeing amongst women that we do not realise their repressed and unconscious significance.

Let it not be thought, however, that this subject of homo-sexuality is based on this one simple problem; there are many other early infantile fixations, which play a very large part in causing persons to become homo-sexual. I only mention this one Narcissistic complex as being another example of how identification takes place as one of the chief results of the Narcissistic temperament, and to what lengths such identification may, on occasion, lead. Of course, all degrees of such identifications may be met with, and it is quite common to find persons who can love hetero-sexually as well as homo-sexually; that is to say, who can love persons of the opposite sex in the usual way, as well as persons of their own sex. But such people, even in their hetero-sexual love, tend to choose a love-object which resembles themselves in some manner or the other. However, a certain amount of Narcissism (which fortunately everyone still possesses), may be of value in this way, for it is certainly good for a man and woman to have similar interests when they marry; it is excessive Narcissism, excessive identification, excessive sympathy, which is deleterious, just as in other manifestations of Narcissism, with which we are going to deal shortly, it is excessive impatience, excessive anger, excessive tears which are really harmful, and lead to the greatest unhappiness. Although perhaps in these latter instances, to be without impatience, anger, or tears would be better still.

Thirdly, there is yet another method of Narcissistic identification. Just as a child identifies itself with its living surroundings, so does it identify itself with its inanimate surroundings. As its mother and nurse are treated as part of it in the early stages, so also are its rubber teat, feeding bottle and toys treated. If you take away the baby’s rattle, it will cry or stamp or weep with as much vigour and display of emotion as if you had caused it bodily pain by means of rigorous physical punishment. You have in fact taken away part of itself from the little omnipotent person. In later stages in his career, if his Narcissism has been allowed to remain, the adult will still identify himself with his belongings. He will be absurdly upset at the breaking of a tea-cup which belongs to him, at the theft of some jewelry, at damage done to his clothing or property in some way, however trifling. He cannot realise that these things which belong to him are more or less unimportant trifles, which can be replaced, or if they cannot be replaced, can be equally well done without, if he has attained that philosophical attitude of mind which belongs to the person who has thrown off this uncomfortable spirit of Narcissistic identification. Moreover, the Narcissist who thinks himself to be the best and most important of beings, will attach similar importance to his property. If he drives an inferior motor-car, which breaks down on every journey he makes, he will excuse it in all sorts of irrational ways, he will praise it on every possible occasion as “the best car on the market,” and what seems more absurd still, he will very likely think it the best car on the market. It is the same with his house, his books, with his relations, with everything that is even distantly connected with him. He will speak in high praise of them all, and be anxious, at all times, to show them off, and to uphold their virtues to all comers. The Narcissist, indeed, rationalises about things in general considerably more than most people. The fuller meaning of rationalization and its methods of working, however, we shall leave till later on.