Article
The Dual Orientation of Narcissism
Narzißmus als Doppelrichtung
An essay in four parts that reads narcissism as running in two directions at once: toward the assertion of a bounded self, and back toward an undivided state in which self and world are not yet separate. Narcissism is thus not a stage that is left behind but a lasting accompaniment of all libidinal life, at work in object love, in sublimation, in art and in religious feeling. Published in English as “The Dual Orientation of Narcissism” (Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 1962).
What it shows
- 1921
Lou Andreas-Salomé introduced Dual orientation of narcissism
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.
Dual orientation of narcissism 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the ego, the state Freud called primary narcissism; Andreas-Salomé makes that origin a permanent current rather than a superseded stage.
- 1921
Lou Andreas-Salomé reworked Narcissism
Taking up Freud’s ‘On Narcissism’ (1914), Andreas-Salomé treated narcissism not as a phase to be left behind or as mere self-love but as a lasting accompaniment of every libidinal investment, at once self-assertion and a dissolving of the self back into what is not yet bounded.