New Perspectives on Narcissism [Number 13]

This is a scholarly book comprised of six sections, written by different experts in the field. The first section contains some of the most interesting material in the book. It is a summary of the major theories on narcissistic personality disorder. There has been considerable divergence of opinion among the experts on narcissism, and this section gives an excellent overview. I have highlighted many passages in this section, mostly regarding the ideas of Melanie Klein and Otto Kernberg. "When a good object becomes bad because frustrating, it is totally devalued, rage and contempt are justified, and one is entitled to attack and destroy them without feeling concern, sorrow, or guilt, because the good qualities are split off and denied. There is no grief associated with the loss of the now bad object..." This is just the understanding the victim (object) of a narcissist feels compelled to comprehend. How could this person value me as the best, smartest, most beautiful person in the world one day, and then, somehow, devalue me, attack, and degrade me the next? Further: "Envy's aim is to be as good as a good object. If this is felt to be impossible, then envy's aim is to spoil the goodness of the good object in order to remove the painfully envious feelings." When the secretive, destructive, lying and cheating behavior of the narcissist is discovered, even in part, the narcissist retaliates by agressively devaluing the person who has learned his secrets. "Thus, beneath a facade of smooth, effective, and often charming social functioning, these individuals are revealed to be deeply distrustful, suspicious, anxious, and vulnerable people driven by a constant search for gratification of strivings for brilliance, wealth, power, and beauty. They relate to others on a need-gratifying, split, part-object relationship basis and are often only interested in others who gratify their narcissistic needs. Those who do are temporarily perceived as all good and are inordinately idealized. The narcissistic individual appears to value and depend on them. However, if this other fails to meet their narcissistic needs, extreme rage and contempt emerge, with ruthless demandingness and scathingly depreciatory attacks. The ease of the shift from total idealization to total devaluation is an especially important characteristic of individuals with narcissistic personality disorder...These individuals have virtually no interest, affection, love, concern, or empathy for others and can end relationships when they cease to be gratifying without remorse, regret, or guilt...they respond to loss with either anger, resentment, and wishes for revenge, or indifference. In either case, the narcissistic individual ordinarily simply moves on to relate to a new need-gratifying object who is, in turn, subject to cycles of alternating idealization and devaluation." I haven't gained this much understanding from reading a dozen pop-psyche books. Section two examines differe