Narcissism: A New Theory

"The title "Narcissism - a new theory" is promising, but Symington doesn't quite succeed in challenging the old theories (which he criticizes harshly). He introduces a new psychic object: the "life-giver" which is a hypostatized energy-source which, allegedly, the narcissist has turned away from, in early infancy. Accordingly, the narcissist developes a false and shallow attitude towards life. In Symington's view narcissism is a habitual attitude which can be reversed. To my mind, it's not much of a theory. It's rather a way of describing the phenomenology of the illness. Symington draws largely upon myths and the novel Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, when analysing the problem. But I am sceptical of this method. Characters from myth and fiction cannot do justice to a psychic etiology because such characters are more of abstractions than true persons. Real case histories are preferable when describing pathological traits. Thus, Symington's book is not convincing, although I cannot argue that he is altogether wrong. Certain of his postulates are noteworthy, for instance, that the psyche is composed of relatively independent parts or complexes. This is an important conception, which other theorists do not deliberate.
/Mats W"
~ Written on 2002-01-25