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into a woman. There are good reasons for thinking that in primitive times this hostile reaction was more prominent than it is now, when it has been largely counterbalanced by the enhanced importance of psychical love, and it is to the desirability of avoiding this hostility that Freud ascribes the curious taboo of virginity among savage tribes, including the ceremony of having defloration performed by someone other than the husband.

NARCISSISM.

We now come to what I consider to be the two most important advances in psycho-analysis made in recent years, those relating to narcissism and metapsychology respectively. It will be remembered that the conception of narcissism formed no part of Freud's earlier theory of sex, in which auto-erotism and object-love were contrasted with the non-sexual impulses of the personality-grouped together under the name of 'ego-impulses.' It was only the psycho-analytic investigation of paraphrenia (dementia praecox) that led him to interpolate in his scheme of sexual development the stage to which he gave the name of narcissistic,' borrowing this term from the perversion which Havelock Ellis had thus christened. He regards this stage as an intermediate one between the earlier auto-erotic one and the later one of object-love, partaking as it does of the qualities of both; in it the first love-object is found, namely, the self (16). A distinction is thus made between the libidinous and the egoistic aspects of the self, and on the basis of this distinction the libido theory has been carried much farther than at first seemed possible, and has led to investigations which have thrown much light on the psychology of the ego itself; indeed, Freud sets such hopes on the results to be achieved by future researches in this direction that he anticipates they will make our present psycho-analytic knowledge seem small in comparison.

What has been learned about narcissism has been derived mainly from three sources, from the study of two sexual aberrations, homosexual inversion and the perversion called narcissism, of the mental characteristics of children and savages, and, most important of all, that of the paraphrenias; further knowledge has been gained also from the observation of hypochondria, the mental state in organic disease, and the psychology of love. These sources will now be considered in this order.

The existence of the perversion called narcissism would probably not have in itself led to any wide conception of this aspect of sexuality,

though its occurrence in a pure form is of considerable interest. It was soon found that prominent features of the same tendency towards love and admiration of the self are characteristic of other conditions, notably homosexual inversion. This is, it is true, more striking in certain forms of inversion, particularly in that generally called the passive or feminine type, but the fact itself is easily observed in all forms and has often been illustrated in literature, for example, in Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray. In all analyses bearing on the subject it is found that narcissism and homosexuality are extraordinarily closely related, and the conclusion was finally reached that the relationship must be of a genetic order. By that is meant that love of one's own sex stands nearer to the primary auto-erotism and narcissism than does love of the opposite sex, and that the former stage has first to be traversed in the course of development before the latter, adult stage is reached. Homosexuality thus represents, in of course a very modified form, the undue persistence of an early phase in sexual development, one which normally is rapidly passed through in infantile life and again, on another plane, during the years of adolescence. In this connexion I may remind you of the essential part that repressed homosexuality has been found to play in the causation of chronic alcoholism, of drug habits, and of paranoia, but as the work on these subjects is no longer recent and may even be described as fairly well known I shall not dwell on it here.

In children and among primitive people are to be observed a number of traits which, if they were met with among educated adults, would remind one of the megalomaniac delusions of certain forms of insanity (17). These are especially the sense of self-importance, the egocentric attitude towards the world, and evidences of the curious belief in the power of thought and wishes with which we first became familiar in the obsessional neurosis in the symptom known as belief in the "omnipotence of thought." This is doubtless the key that leads to the understanding of magic, the belief in the magical power of words, and so on. Such observations confirm the conclusions arrived at elsewhere that narcissism represents a primitive stage in development.

It was, however, the study of paraphrenia that has thrown the most light on the subject. The first point was one made by Abraham, as long ago as 1908 (18), who concluded that the withdrawal of libido from the objects of the outer world was of central importance in paraphrenia (dementia praecox), and attributed the characteristic megalomania and egocentricity of the disease to the return of this libido to the self. Attention may be called to the use of the word 'return' in this connexion.

It indicates the view that all libido externally directed emanates originally from self-love, is, so to speak, an outpouring from this central source, and that it can be later withdrawn from the external attachment. It is considered, further, that within rough limits there is a mutual reciprocity between the amount of libido which remains attached to the self and the amount finding external expression. In the course of a person's life libido frequently oscillates between internal and external expression according to the opportunity for external attachment and other circumstances. A certain freedom of movement of the libido in both directions is requisite for mental health, though this of course varies to some extent in different people. The characteristic of paraphrenia, on the other hand, seems to be a curious adhesiveness of the libido which makes it difficult or impossible for it to flow externally again after it has once been withdrawn to the self. Paraphrenia differs from the psychoneuroses in that the object-libido is re-converted into egolibido, whereas in the latter, although it is similarly withdrawn from the objects of the outer world, it remains attached to phantasies of them, as we are aware from our studies of the unconscious mental life of neurotics. When the ego can absorb this quantity of dammed up libido there results the familiar megalomania, which corresponds with the introversion of the neuroses; when it fails to do so there results hypochondriacal anxiety, which is homologous to the morbid anxiety of the neuroses. Constant efforts are made to get the libido to move once more outwards, and it is these efforts which produce most of the startling symptoms of paraphrenia described in the text-books; it is interesting. to note that these usually described symptoms are really not at all symptoms of the disease itself, but of healing processes, the spontaneous efforts towards recovery. It may be said that a given case of paraphrenia presents three groups of manifestations: (1) those of the normality that still remains; (2) those of the disease process, such as the withdrawal of love and interest from the outer world, the megalomania, regressions, and hypochondria; (3) those of recovery, including the delusions, hallucinations, and most of the striking changes in conduct, all due to anomalous attempts to effect a fresh contact with external reality. After this introduction we shall leave the topic of paraphrenia for the moment, returning to it later in connexion with that of the structure of the unconscious.

Ferenczi (19) has called attention to the significance of the banal observation that the subject of organic disease, especially of a painful one, commonly withdraws his love and interest from the outer world,

the former more strikingly than the latter. In terms of the libido theory one would say that he has withdrawn, more or less, his libido from its attachment to external objects and concentrated it on himself, to let it once more flow outwards when he recovers. With a chronic disease this process may lead to local regressions and the formation of hysterical symptoms-an example being a nervous cough as a sequela to whoopingcough—a condition to which Ferenczi would give the name of 'pathohysteria'; it differs from the rather closely allied 'fixation-hysteria' in that the libido disturbance is secondary to the organic disease instead of being primary to it, as it is in the latter condition. These pathoneuroses are to be distinguished from hypochondria, which has in common with them the association of bodily pain with narcissistic regression, by the fact that in this latter condition no organic changes are known to occur in the organs concerned; but Freud surmises that though this is so there may nevertheless be functional changes in these organs. He draws a comparison between such a painful and tender organ, which is somehow changed from its normal state and yet is not diseased in the ordinary sense, and the state of erection, in which an organ is swollen, congested, and the seat of manifold sensations. It has long been recognised that various parts of the body have an erotogenic capacity, that is, a capacity for having erotic sensations aroused in them and of behaving more or less like genital organs, and Freud thinks there is reason to believe that erotogenicity may be a function of still more parts of the body than we had assumed, including many internal organs. If that is so, it may prove that the meaning of hypochondria is to be found in disturbances of the local distribution of the libido, or in changes in local erotogenicity, changes in the organs which would then produce results not dissimilar from what we see in many cases of organic disease, namely narcissistic regression.

A sphere in which the importance of narcissism is clearly to be discerned is that of love. As is well known, infantile experiences and relationships commonly exert an influence on the later choice of a mate, particularly, for example, in the impulse to seek someone to whom one can look up, as a child admires and looks up to his parent; the attitude may of course go on to the further stage of desire for a partner who will protect, sustain, and support one. In many analyses, however, particularly in those of homosexuals, it has been found that the love choice proceeds quite otherwise, it being dictated not by the characteristics of the parent, but by those of the person himself; this may therefore be called the narcissistic type of choice of object. The two types are rarely

pure, most people showing the capacity to choose in either direction or in a mixture of both. There are interesting differences between the two sexes in respect to these two types of choice, though one should add that such generalisations are rough ones, subject to many modifications and exceptions. On the whole, however, it may be said that the first-mentioned type is more characteristic of the man and the second of the woman. The man more often attains the highest degree of object-love in which honour, respect, or even adoration is shown for the woman to whom he looks up. This 'sexual overestimation' of the object doubtless originates in the child's narcissism, which is transferred first to the parent and later to the mate. In the early stages of love so much libido flows outwards towards the object that the ego is relatively depleted, and a sense of personal inferiority and unworthiness results, the extreme forms of which, the lover's doubts and moans, have often been depicted by poets. It is only when the love is answered that a state of equilibrium in the personality is restored and the ego again becomes rich. The most typical form of love among women, on the other hand, is not so much the desire to love as the desire to be loved, and they become attached to the man who best fulfils this condition; this is especially true of beautiful women. A successfully carried out narcissism exerts a peculiarly strong attraction on many men, particularly on those of the most manly type. The appeal of the child to our affection is of a similar nature. It is as though one envied those who have been able to retain that happy mental state which the realities of life have forced one to give up oneself. There are nevertheless various ways in which the woman can also attain to full object-love. The most obvious is through her child, by means of which the narcissism gets transferred on to an external object, which was originally part of herself. Another way is that she may form a masculine ideal somewhat on the lines of the masculine traits of her own childhood, which have been suppressed as the result of the changes. accompanying puberty.

To sum up the influence of narcissism on the choice of a loved object: the narcissistic type may fall in love with

(a) What one is oneself (or, indeed, actually with oneself).

(b) With what one once was.

(c) With what one would like to be, one's ideal.

(d) With what was once a part of oneself, the child.

It may be added in connexion with the last-mentioned example that the narcissism of either parent may easily become transferred in excess to the child, to the great detriment of the latter. Many parents, in their

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