Decathexis of the Object and Hypercathexis of the Self in the Narcissistic Process

All individuals are narcissistic, and this is frequently characterized as a bad thing from an analytic perspective and otherwise. I understand that narcissism can be perceived as related to the self and its relation with the world and represents the needed balance between the sense of self and the way the self relates to the external world. Narcissism is necessary. Without it, we would not face and satisfactorily fulfil society's demands without the detriment of self-perception and respect. The critical point is that narcissism obtains its destructive aspect when it is thwarted at a pre-oedipal level.

The Hypercathected Self

When an infant does not experience an early process of interaction with a nurturing object at a pre-oedipal level but instead has an experience that is filled with frustration and un-discharged aggression, that child may be less able to distinguish a difference between his existence and "the other" ( the mother ) since the aim of the "self" is relational. Its fulfilment has to do with its connection to others (Margolis, 1994, p. 153 ). Indeed, if this connection to others is fully not present, then a certain kind of "death occurs" ( Spotnitz, 1976, p. 97). This self continues being contained and dominated by primary narcissism.

It is established that there are many developmental states; I would call the original stage of being "the pure self" ( that primal state in which the baby is not experiencing differentiation with reality and is also overloaded with sensations). This "pure self" who does not know the difference between its own impulses and the pleasure given by external reality becomes demanding because it cannot be entirely and continuously satisfied. At this point, the baby begins to understand that the external reality cannot be controlled and gives frustration and arouses tension by not maintaining the pleasurable state that was first known. As a consequence of recognizing a frustrating reality, a hypercathected self emerges because the baby does not reach his relational aim, and the discharge of libido does not occur flawlessly. This hypercathexis is a consequence of arrested development at a pre-oedipal level, and the individual struggles when the process of separation-individuation occurs. In other words, this self struggles in attempts to maintain the state of having to relate to " objects" that represent a pleasurable source and at the same time can be frustrating to it.

Since the normal development failed, the self continuously attempts to recreate this lost balance by reaching control over its impulses and not always giving in to the id's demands. However, this individuation process must be proportionally met by satisfying the object; otherwise, the self will start to deplete its psychic energy as an effort to make up for the external reality that is not available while it constructs its resources to survive as an individual entity.

The under- or overly-satisfied self has, either way, to survive the demands that are presented. This self may be lucky and somehow develops feeling adequately nurtured and secure, or it may develop feeling that it has not received enough to survive as an entity and then, in turn, will encapsulate the infant inside him or herself, because the connection with the primary object did not take place. Thus the infant will lack a point of reference to integrate the sense of their existence and their demands acknowledging the other. With this failure to integrate the other, the developing self may begin to deviate from its connection with reality while attempting to become himself the source for all his needs and maintain the hypercathexis.

Self-Encapsulation: How it Manifests and Why.

The non-differentiated, hypercathected self will encapsulate its own libido without discharge and will not have an external object to cathect its impulses. When this happens, the inner tension will always remain at its highest peak, overstimulating the individual and laying down the foundation for the narcissistic character.

Suppose the early self fails in developing attachments with the external reality. In that case, the individual will continue building his psychic structure over a basis of non-properly differentiated self, which will eventually "get stuck." All possible interactions with objects will be incomplete since this self is incapable of going beyond the internal models built to survive and sustain itself in the past, and which at the same time are incomplete; therefore, the "narcissistic" self will never have discharge through its relational aim.

An individual who goes through this altered process of self-differentiation through to adulthood will not have the capacity to construct interaction with further objects. With this element present, all possible exchanges will also lack adequate psychosexual development and will leave the individual without the capacity to develop something more than just infatuation relations with all possible objects in their world, and will therefore continue moving throughout the network of interactions with a lack of a natural process to build sustainable and mature connections.

Now, the conflict experienced by this narcissistic self is represented in all the patterns of disruptive, superficial, and non-fulfilling relationships with the objects in a consistent narcissistic transference state because the self never learned to understand the differentiation between the inner satisfaction of its needs and what can be satisfied by the external reality. The narcissistic self never learned it because it did not experience it at a pre-oedipal level. To survive, the self became the object of cathexis in itself to preserve its existence, when it did not have any choice for discharge either because the object was not there or because this object did not allow the needed discharge of the experience of the internal tension by the individual. Let us go back to the infant/mother experience: the first bridge of connection between the baby and the mother we can say is the breast. The breast satisfies the deep need for survival and the tenuous aim that the self presents for a relational experience. Now, if for a variety of reasons this connection is not present, whether because the object ( the mother, or the breast itself, say ) is not present or available in a sufficient manner to satisfy this very first sense of safety, and also to start integrating the sense of the other in his psychic structure, a sense of deprivation ensues.

The narcissistic individual who learns his first experience of living in deprivation and remains at this self-perception and object relations level may never truly establish the transference process. Thus, when this connection is not present initially, the individual turns inward upon himself. However, at this moment, the movement in the psychic apparatus will also lead the aggressive impulse to come back inward, and since all discharge of libidinal energy represents, also, an amount of aggressive force, this too become encapsulated, never really expressed and communicated, taking on the self-destructive shades of the narcissistic behaviour.

The individual that did not develop differentiation between the self and the object will continue re-enacting, as Freud called it, the "polymorphously perverse" experience of the infant ( this means it takes pleasure from the stimulation of any part of its body). This stage of psychosexual development is not only all over the self but also will be perverse because it never left the first stage ( the baby) of differentiation between the self and the object ( Freud, 1905, p. 158 ).

This ongoing reenactment of the infantile experience will define the characteristics, continuity, quality, and intensity of all interactions in the individual's life. In this process, the narcissistic individual has difficulty leaving a foundation in the emotional intra-psychic experience, since in himself, the emotional intra-psychic experience was severed when no connections were developed to create and sustain a differentiation.

Transference Developed by Narcissistic Individuals

Difficulties presented in the transference by narcissistic patients are notorious in the analytic setting. Such individuals seem to be not truly connected. The individuals see others as an extension of their hypercathected selves. Their particularities of reenactment may move in the treatment towards efforts to sustain what, since early years, was perceived as the lack of nurturance provided by the object, which forced them to secure themselves by not opening but instead, continuously re-experiencing in themselves what they could not achieve with the object. Their heightened defences only have one aim; to protect themselves or the objects against an experience they see as destructive. By remaining at this level, their only gain is the inadequate decrease of tension by maladaptive behaviours that extend to the total lack of connections with others.

The self, which is not maturely discharging, will continue its compulsion to gain satisfaction and will never reach that point of full discharge since the core conflict has not been and is not being resolved by such behaviours ( Freud, 1920, p. 158-159 ). Such individuals remain trapped in a closed circuit of self-erotic fantasies that refer to their first choices (Yorke, 1991, p. 39 ). Moreover, Appignanesi and Zarate (1979) note:

Let us say narcissism is a normal stage of infancy. In building its ego ( the "I"), the infant searches for its mirror self. Typically the infantile narcissistic libido is transferred to objects, that is, to people … there is some self-love in all normal adult life … but when the libido is withdrawn from the world and directed back on the self, an erotic attachment to the ego occurs, and this regression to infantile narcissism can lead to severe psychotic illnesses. (p. 131-133)

These narcissistic individuals cannot be approached through external erotic attachments. Nevertheless, it is here that the development of a transference process may help them to overcome this obstacle and finally attach to the object.

Bibliography

Yorke, C. (1991), Freud's "On Narcissism": a teaching text. Pp. 35 – 53

Spotnitz, H. (1976), the myths of Narcissus. Psychotherapy of Preoedipal conditions. New York: Jason Aronson.pp.93-100

Spotnitz, H. (1985), Narcissistic Transference. Modern Psychoanalysis of the Schizophrenic Patient 2nd Ed. New York: Human Sciences Press. Pp. 186 – 217.

Freud, S. (1905), three essays on the theory of sexuality. Standard Edition. London: Hogarth Press, 7: 135-169

Appignanesi, R. & O. Zarate (1979), Normal Narcissism & Abnormal Narcissism. Freud for Beginners. New York: Pantheon Books. pp. 131 – 134

PDM Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (2006) Alliance of Psychoanalytic Organizations

Margolis, B. (1994) Modern Psychoanalysis 19 (2): 149 – 159. Narcissistic Transference: Further Considerations