Article
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 Where Freud had described narcissism as libido withdrawn from objects onto the ego, Rosenfeld describes the omnipotent object relations of narcissistic patients.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.
Main ideas
- Narcissism is not a withdrawal from objects but an omnipotent relation to them.
- By omnipotent introjection the self appropriates the object's goodness; by omnipotent projection it lodges its unwanted parts in the object, which is devalued.
- The resulting grandiose self-idealization defends against the separateness of the good object and the dependence, envy and destructiveness it would arouse.
- Behind the defence lie anxieties of confusion, fragmentation and disintegration.
What it shows
Herbert Rosenfeld influenced Otto F. Kernberg
Kernberg named Rosenfeld's classical Kleinian technique with narcissistic personalities as one of the approaches he drew on, saying he had taken many aspects of it into his own treatment of pathological narcissism while differing on details; Rosenfeld's omnipotent narcissistic object relations are commonly read as a source of Kernberg's pathological grandiose self.
- 1964
Herbert Rosenfeld introduced Narcissistic object relations
Rosenfeld's 1964 paper described narcissism not as withdrawal from objects but as an omnipotent relation to them, in which the object's goodness is appropriated by introjection and the self's unwanted parts are projected into it, so that separateness, dependence and envy are denied.
- 1964
Herbert Rosenfeld reworked Narcissism
Where Freud saw narcissism as libido withdrawn from objects onto the ego, Rosenfeld recast it in Kleinian terms as an omnipotent object relation that defends against dependence and envy, with a libidinal and a destructive aspect.
- 1964
Narcissistic object relations derives from Projective identification
The omnipotent narcissistic object relation rests on projective and introjective identification: parts of the self are put into the object, and the object is taken in as if it were the self, so that no separate object is acknowledged.