Concept
Dual orientation of narcissism
Lou Andreas-Salomé’s view, set out in 1921, that narcissism runs in two directions at once: toward the assertion of a separate, bounded self, and back toward an original state in which self and world were not yet divided. On this view narcissism is not a stage that is outgrown but a lasting undercurrent of all libidinal life: object love seeks to restore the lost oneness, sublimation, art and religious feeling draw on the same source, and illness regresses into it.
- Broader concept
- Narcissism
- Introduced by
- Lou Andreas-Salomé
- Key works
- 1
- Related
- Primary narcissism
introduced by
- Lou Andreas-Salomé 1921 In ‘Narzißmus als Doppelrichtung’ (Imago, 1921) Andreas-Salomé argues that narcissism moves at once toward the self-assertion of a bounded ego and back toward an undivided unity with the whole, and follows this double movement through object love, art, religion, ethics and illness.
derives from
- Primary narcissism The backward pull of the dual orientation is toward the undivided subject–object unity that precedes the ego, the state Freud called primary narcissism; Andreas-Salomé makes that origin a permanent current rather than a superseded stage.