On the Psychopathology of Narcissism: A Clinical Approach

Rosenfeld's first paper on narcissism, in which he recasts it in Kleinian terms. Where Freud had described narcissism as libido withdrawn from objects onto the ego, Rosenfeld describes the omnipotent object relations of narcissistic patients. Through omnipotent introjection the self claims the good qualities of the object as its own; through omnipotent projection it lodges its unwanted parts in the object, which is then kept devalued. The result is a grandiose idealization of the self. This structure defends against recognizing the separateness of the good object, which would arouse dependence, envy and destructive impulses, and anxieties of confusion, fragmentation and disintegration. In analysis it appears as a transference that discounts the value of the analyst's help. The paper was reprinted in Psychotic States (1965) and Rosenfeld in Retrospect (2008), and Otto Kernberg later named Rosenfeld's approach among those he drew on.