A Clinical Approach to the Psychoanalytic Theory of the Life and Death Instincts: An Investigation into the Aggressive Aspects of Narcissism

An invited contribution to the 27th Congress of the International Psycho-Analytical Association in Vienna in 1971, in which Rosenfeld approaches the theory of the life and death instincts through clinical work with narcissistic patients. He distinguishes the libidinal aspects of narcissism, in which the self is idealized through the omnipotent possession of good objects, from its destructive aspects, in which the omnipotent destructive parts of the self are themselves idealized. In destructive narcissism these parts turn against any loving dependence on an object, the analyst included, and against the parts of the self that want it. Rosenfeld likens the narcissistic organization to a gang, run like the mafia, that holds the dependent self captive and punishes any move toward help. The paper introduced the term destructive narcissism; it was reprinted in Melanie Klein Today (1988) and was later taken up by André Green and Otto Kernberg.