Narcissistic abuse
Encyclopedia
Narcissistic abuse is a term that emerged in the late twentieth century, and became more prominent in the early 21st century. It originally referred to a specific form of emotional abuse by narcissistic parents
of their children - parents who 'require the child to give up his or her own wants and feelings in order to serve the parent's needs for esteem (narcissistic abuse)' - but has also come to be used more widely to refer to forms of abuse
in adult relationships on the part of the narcissist.
Self-help
culture currently takes for granted that 'if you were abused by narcissistic parenting as a child, you probably struggle with codependency' now; while if as an adult you 'are currently or have been in a relationship with a narcissist, you probably struggle with...not knowing what is "normal" in relationships'.
In his seminal paper "Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child", Ferenczi argued that 'a mother can make a lifelong nurse, in fact a substitute mother, out of the child by bewailing her suffering, totally disregarding the interests of the child'. Within such distorted patterns of parent/child interaction, 'Ferenczi believed the silence, lies, and hypocrisy of the caregivers were the most traumatic aspects of the abuse' - ultimately producing what he called 'narcissistic mortification
'.
Ferenczi also looked at such distortions in the therapist/patient relationship, 'accusing himself of sadistic (and, implicitly, narcissistic) abuse of his patients'.
's innovative pronouncement...[that] the age of "normal narcissism" and normal narcissistic entitlement had arrived' - the age, that is, of the normative parental provision of narcissistic supply
- the concept of its inverse appeared: narcissistic abuse. 'According to Kohut, maternal misrecognition amounts to a failure to perform the narcissistic selfobject functions of "mirroring"
...the cause of a narcissistic disturbance'. Paternal misrecognition could produce the same result: Kohut explored for example a son's 'transference reproaches directed at the nonmirroring father who was preoocupied with his own self-enhancement and thus refused to respond to his son's originality'.
Karen Horney
had already independently highlighted 'the character disorder - particularly the compulsive striving for love and power - resulting from the childhood hurts bred of parental narcissism and abuse. She thus heralded today's work in this area by Alice Miller
and others'.
'Alice Miller lays special emphasis on the process of reproduction of narcissistic abuse, the idea that love relations and relations to children are repetitions
' of previous narcissistic distortions. Miller's early work in particular was 'very much in line with Kohut's tale of deficits in empathy
and mirroring', with a stress on the way adults 'revisit and perpetuate the narcissistic wounds of their own early years' in an intergenerational cycle of narcissistic abuse. In Miller's view, when 'abused for the sake of adults' needs', children could develop 'an amazing ability to perceive and respond intuitively, that is, unconsciously, to this need of the mother, or of both parents, for him to take on the role that had unconsciously been assigned to him'.a
fantasy, in a sustained indictment of the moral and pedagogical underpinnings of the therapy industry'; and did so at a point when 'the keyword of the 1980s was invariably "abuse"'.
With the passing of time (and of the polemical edge), a more slimmed-down, pragmatic version of the concept of narcissistic abuse gradually came to permeate most of the wider culture of psychotherapy.
Only in the Freudian heartland of mainstream psychoanalysis
has the term retained a more restricted, pre-Ferenczi usage. Thus in a "comprehensive dictionary of psychoanalysis" of 2009, the only appearance of the term is in connection with misuse of the couch for narcissistic gain: 'The fact that it is seen by some patients and therapists as a "status symbol
" lends it to narcissistic abuse'.
If 'the core of narcissism is a hatred of the relational...one of the way that narcissism operates is to destroy separateness'. This lack of separateness enables the initial romantic gestures of what has been termed 'a particular type of male bastard', dominated by narcissistic needs; but 'those big romantic gestures that at first proved so alluring are in fact the whole deal, symptomatic of these men's needs to show off and be the centre of attention'.
In almost the same way, 'the great charm of narcissistic women has, however, its reverse side; a large part of the lover's dissatisfaction, of his doubts of the woman's love, of his complaints of her enigmatic nature, has its root' in the fact that 'strictly speaking, it is only themselves that such women love with an intensity comparable to that of the man's love for them'.
Crompton suggests that (rightly or wrongly) 'in Sam Vaknin
's terms...if he had been around today, Watson would be declaring to the world that he was the victim of narcissistic emotional abuse from Sherlock Holmes
'.
Narcissistic parents
"A narcissistic parent is typically exclusively and possessively close to his or her child... [and] may be especially envious of a child's growing independence."...
of their children - parents who 'require the child to give up his or her own wants and feelings in order to serve the parent's needs for esteem (narcissistic abuse)' - but has also come to be used more widely to refer to forms of abuse
Abuse
Abuse is the improper usage or treatment for a bad purpose, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, sexual assault, violation, rape, unjust practices; wrongful practice or custom; offense; crime, or otherwise...
in adult relationships on the part of the narcissist.
Self-help
Self-help
Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...
culture currently takes for granted that 'if you were abused by narcissistic parenting as a child, you probably struggle with codependency' now; while if as an adult you 'are currently or have been in a relationship with a narcissist, you probably struggle with...not knowing what is "normal" in relationships'.
Antecedents: Ferenczi
The roots of current concern with narcissistic abuse may be traced back to the late work of Sandor Ferenczi. 'In Ferenczi's fervid and restless and inchoate attempts to help people over whom other analysts had thrown up their hands in despair lie the seeds of all the modern psychoanalytic theories of "schizoid," "narcissistic," and "borderline" disorders'.In his seminal paper "Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child", Ferenczi argued that 'a mother can make a lifelong nurse, in fact a substitute mother, out of the child by bewailing her suffering, totally disregarding the interests of the child'. Within such distorted patterns of parent/child interaction, 'Ferenczi believed the silence, lies, and hypocrisy of the caregivers were the most traumatic aspects of the abuse' - ultimately producing what he called 'narcissistic mortification
Narcissistic mortification
Narcissistic mortification is a term first used by Sigmund Freud in his last book, Moses and Monotheism, with respect to early injuries to the ego/self...
'.
Ferenczi also looked at such distortions in the therapist/patient relationship, 'accusing himself of sadistic (and, implicitly, narcissistic) abuse of his patients'.
Kohut, Horney and Miller
A half-century later, in the wake of 'KohutHeinz Kohut
Heinz Kohut was an Austrian-born American psychoanalyst best known for his development of Self psychology, an influential school of thought within psychodynamic/psychoanalytic theory which helped transform the modern practice of analytic and dynamic treatment approaches.-Early life:Kohut was born...
's innovative pronouncement...[that] the age of "normal narcissism" and normal narcissistic entitlement had arrived' - the age, that is, of the normative parental provision of narcissistic supply
Narcissistic supply
Narcissistic supply is a concept in some psychoanalytic theories which describes a type of admiration, interpersonal support or sustenance drawn by an individual from his or her environment ....
- the concept of its inverse appeared: narcissistic abuse. 'According to Kohut, maternal misrecognition amounts to a failure to perform the narcissistic selfobject functions of "mirroring"
Mirroring (psychology)
Mirroring is the behaviour in which one person copies another person usually while in social interaction with them. It may include miming gestures, movements, body language, muscle tensions, expressions, tones, eye movements, breathing, tempo, accent, attitude, choice of words/metaphors and other...
...the cause of a narcissistic disturbance'. Paternal misrecognition could produce the same result: Kohut explored for example a son's 'transference reproaches directed at the nonmirroring father who was preoocupied with his own self-enhancement and thus refused to respond to his son's originality'.
Karen Horney
Karen Horney
Karen Horney born Danielsen was a German-American psychoanalyst. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views, particularly his theory of sexuality, as well as the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis and its genetic psychology...
had already independently highlighted 'the character disorder - particularly the compulsive striving for love and power - resulting from the childhood hurts bred of parental narcissism and abuse. She thus heralded today's work in this area by Alice Miller
Alice Miller (psychologist)
Alice Miller née Rostovski was a psychologist and world renowned author, who is noted for her books on child abuse by their own parents, translated in several languages...
and others'.
'Alice Miller lays special emphasis on the process of reproduction of narcissistic abuse, the idea that love relations and relations to children are repetitions
Repetition compulsion
Repetition compulsion is a psychological phenomenon in which a person repeats a traumatic event or its circumstances over and over again. This includes reenacting the event or putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to happen again...
' of previous narcissistic distortions. Miller's early work in particular was 'very much in line with Kohut's tale of deficits in empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
and mirroring', with a stress on the way adults 'revisit and perpetuate the narcissistic wounds of their own early years' in an intergenerational cycle of narcissistic abuse. In Miller's view, when 'abused for the sake of adults' needs', children could develop 'an amazing ability to perceive and respond intuitively, that is, unconsciously, to this need of the mother, or of both parents, for him to take on the role that had unconsciously been assigned to him'.a
Wider developments
Miller's work, in its emphasis on the real-life interaction of parent and child, 'challenged the orthodox Freudian account of OedipalOedipus
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
fantasy, in a sustained indictment of the moral and pedagogical underpinnings of the therapy industry'; and did so at a point when 'the keyword of the 1980s was invariably "abuse"'.
With the passing of time (and of the polemical edge), a more slimmed-down, pragmatic version of the concept of narcissistic abuse gradually came to permeate most of the wider culture of psychotherapy.
- C21st Transactional AnalysisTransactional analysisTransactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. It is described as integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and cognitive approaches...
has highlighted clients who 'suffered some narcissistic abuse as children (that is, an injury to their developing selves)', examining for instance the boy in an all-female household who only 'survived by developing powerful emotional antennae in order to respond to the emotional needs of his mother and sister'.
- Post-JungiansJungCarl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology.Jung may also refer to:* Jung * JUNG, Java Universal Network/Graph Framework-See also:...
have explored the after-effects of 'an intense narcissistic wound resulting from an oppressively unempathetic parent'. In particular, Polly Young-Eisendrath emphasises how 'the narcissistic longings of mothers (or fathers) to amass reflected glory through their children...can bring disastrous results for mother and child if both lose their capacity for autonomous development'.
- Object relations theoryObject relations theoryObject relations theory is a psychodynamic theory within psychoanalytic psychology. The theory describes the process of developing a mind as one grows in relation to others in the environment....
for its part stresses both that 'the most traumatizingTraumaTrauma can refer to:-In psychology and medicine:* Trauma , an often serious and body-altering physical injury, such as the removal of a limb...
experience of all is the absence of emotional giving from a mother or father', and that, in an intergenerational pattern, 'people who have been brought up by tyrannical authoritarian parents will often parent their children in the same way'. Adam PhillipsAdam PhillipsAdam Phillips may refer to:*Adam Phillips *Adam Phillips *Adam Phillips...
adds that 'the mother who colonizes her child and stifles gestures of autonomy and difference breeds in him or her...an often unconscious craving for the dead-end justice of revenge'.
- In another tradition, Julia KristevaJulia KristevaJulia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, psychoanalyst, sociologist, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She is now a Professor at the University Paris Diderot...
points out how a pairing of 'mothers and fathers, overprotective and uneasy, who have chosen the child as a narcissistic artificial limb and keep incorporating that child as a restoring element for the adult psyche intensifies the infant's tendency toward omnipotenceOmnipotenceOmnipotence is unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence to only the deity of whichever faith is being addressed...
'.
- M. Scott PeckM. Scott PeckMorgan Scott Peck was an American psychiatrist and best-selling author, best known for his first book, The Road Less Traveled, published in 1978.-Biography:...
looked at 'milder but nonetheless destructive common forms of parental narcissism', as well as 'the depth of confusion...produced by her mother's narcissism' in a more serious instance.
- The term has also appeared in connection with parental alienation syndromeParental alienation syndromeParental alienation syndrome is term coined by Richard A. Gardner in the early 1980s to refer to what he describes as a disorder in which a child, on an ongoing basis, belittles and insults one parent without justification, due to a combination of factors, including indoctrination by the other...
, in situations where 'by role reversal (parentification) the child, like a "living antidepressant" fills the alienating parent's emotional void': the result is that 'the parent clings to the child like a person who is drowning..."narcissistic abuse"'.
Only in the Freudian heartland of mainstream psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
has the term retained a more restricted, pre-Ferenczi usage. Thus in a "comprehensive dictionary of psychoanalysis" of 2009, the only appearance of the term is in connection with misuse of the couch for narcissistic gain: 'The fact that it is seen by some patients and therapists as a "status symbol
Status symbol
A status symbol is a perceived visible, external denotation of one's social position and perceived indicator of economic or social status. Many luxury goods are often considered status symbols...
" lends it to narcissistic abuse'.
Adult relationships
Narcissistic abuse may also occur in adult-to-adult relationships, where one or both partners are very narcissistic - the 'narcissistic couple'. As a typical rule, 'narcissistic people do not take responsibility for relationship difficulties', and their relationships can often be characterized by 'a period of intense involvement and idealization of the other, followed by devaluation, and rapid, sometimes explosive, severing of the relationship'.If 'the core of narcissism is a hatred of the relational...one of the way that narcissism operates is to destroy separateness'. This lack of separateness enables the initial romantic gestures of what has been termed 'a particular type of male bastard', dominated by narcissistic needs; but 'those big romantic gestures that at first proved so alluring are in fact the whole deal, symptomatic of these men's needs to show off and be the centre of attention'.
In almost the same way, 'the great charm of narcissistic women has, however, its reverse side; a large part of the lover's dissatisfaction, of his doubts of the woman's love, of his complaints of her enigmatic nature, has its root' in the fact that 'strictly speaking, it is only themselves that such women love with an intensity comparable to that of the man's love for them'.
Crompton suggests that (rightly or wrongly) 'in Sam Vaknin
Sam Vaknin
Shmuel Ben David "Sam" Vaknin is an Israeli writer. He is the author and publisher of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited , editor-in-chief of the website Global Politician, and runs a website about narcissistic personality disorder .Race, Tim. , The New York Times, July 29, 2002, p...
's terms...if he had been around today, Watson would be declaring to the world that he was the victim of narcissistic emotional abuse from Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
'.
See also
Further Reading
- Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child (1979)
- Steven Stosny, Treating Attachment Abuse (1995)
- Estela Welldon, Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of Motherhood (1988)