The Mirror and the Mask—On Narcissism and Psychoanalytic Growth

TRYING TO EXTRACT SOME COHERENT view of narcissism from the ongoing controversy in the current psychoanalytic literature is somewhat like trying to chill Russian vodka by adding ice cubes; it is possible to do it, but the soul of the experience is diluted. Levenson's (1978, p. 16) suggestion that "it may not be the truth arrived at as much as the manner of arriving at the truth which is the essence of therapy", leads me to wonder if it may likewise be said that it is not the definition of narcissism arrived at as much as the struggle to arrive at one, which is the essence of recent progress in psychoanalytic thought. The struggle contains within it, an emerging shift in perspective that has begun to influence our conceptions of clinical diagnosis, the nature of human development, psychoanalytic metatheory, and the parameters of psychoanalytic treatment itself.