Panel IV
Forms and Transformations of Narcissism

Nancy VanDerHeide, Psy.D.

Carlo Strenger and Frank Lachmann, respectively, provided us with macrocosmic and microcosmic views of the forms and transformations of narcissism. Strenger took us out of the consulting room and into the network society of the global village to emphasize the novel challenges to identity formation and self esteem generated by a radically new world. He brought his wide-ranging philosophical and pluralistic psychoanalytic deliberations to bear on new generations of patients.

Lachmann took us deep into the interpersonal world and led us on a multi-modal, multi-media journey highlighting the processes of transforming affect into mature forms of narcissism. Both panelists, each in his own unique way, embodied the "New Directions" promised by the conference theme. Estelle Shane expertly and humorously moderated the panel, contextualizing the presentations in light of the backgrounds of the panelists.

A significant outcome of today's radically changed global, socio-cultural milieu is the appearance of what Strenger designates the "Designed Self." The combination of easy access to Internet information and the relative disappearance of the father (or the cultural authority for which the father has until recently been the primary symbol), presents people now in their early 20's and 30's with new parameters within which to form an identity. Having been deprived of identity-forming cultural information that was traditionally transmitted vertically from generation to generation, these individuals in particular find themselves needing to create their own identities through the application of their individual talents, predispositions, inclinations and temperament to a wildly unprecedented array of potential roles, professions, and goals. They import their cultural information horizontally from media-inspired icons and the network society.

For those individuals possessing the aptitude for their chosen endeavors, a kind of financial and status-oriented success exists that surpasses anything possible until the 1980's. It is far more possible now than ever before for people to shape an identity that deeply suits their temperament. At its best, this is an exhilarating and motivating challenge. Consider the rise to superstardom of Madonna, a determined young woman from a blue-collar background with big aspirations, or Bill Gates, a nerdy techie who dropped out of college in his junior year to start his own company. Unfortunately, however, this mode of identity formation has given rise to the myth that anyone can become anything he or she desires, a myth that has become normative among the post-Baby Boom cohorts known as Generations X and Y. Contradicting this myth, Strenger points to research indicating that it is actually much more difficult now to achieve upward social mobility than was the case in the 1950's. But for the vast majority of Gen-Xers the attainment of anything short of the highest success is experienced as abject failure. This is failure attributed mainly to shortcomings within the self and accounts for deeply entrenched crises of self-esteem.

This, of course, is the exact provenance of psychoanalytic self psychology, especially given the absence of idealizing selfobject experiences that would put children in touch with their own guiding sets of values and goals. However, as Strenger indicates, psychoanalysis is a highly canonic culture. In other words, we revere or reference the works of our forebears in ways that are completely at odds with the nearly a-historic culture of most Gen-X and Y'ers.

For people trying to locate themselves in the vast panorama of the global community, the past, their own and that of society at large, holds little interest and seems largely irrelevant to their current difficulties. Rather than disputing that position, Strenger maintains that it is our job to co-create with our clients new narratives that take into account the realities of the present day. This does not require the relinquishment of the cherished ideal of a "deep self" within which resides the potential for the countless and varied meanings that contribute to a fulfilling life.

Rather, Strenger speaks to our need to engage our beings as fully as possible with our clients in ways that both empathize with their self-experience and acknowledge the realities of a global urban lifestyle in order to enjoin them in a dialectic between the deep and designed selves. Pointing to the successful and growing field of life coaching, he emphasizes adopting a role of mentorship to our clients that combines practical knowledge of how the world works as well as a focus on each individual's unique configuration of talent and desires in assisting them in a creative act of self-synthesis. It is important to keep in mind that the designed self is not a fantasy; it is, rather, the result of the vastly increased options available to those with the talents that fit them. Unfortunately, the increased pressure for enormous levels of success that accompanies these new realities often collapses the potential space required for its realization, and one of our jobs is to help restore that transitional area.

Frank Lachmann moved the discussion from Strenger's globally-contextualized arena to that which occurs within the intersubjective world of the dyad. Picking up where Kohut left off in 1966, Lachmann engaged the audience in multiple experiences of the process of narcissistic transformation as it occurs in the consulting room, as well as in the myriad of transactions occurring across one's lifetime that also contribute to the emergence within the sense of self of empathy, humor, creativity, tolerance of a sense of transience, and wisdom—the mature forms of narcissism.

In keeping with Strenger's emphasis on relational interaction, Lachmann stressed the co-created, bi-directional nature of the process of transformation. Drawing on his work with Beatrice Beebe a propos the organization of experience, he demonstrated the ways in which their "Three Principles of Salience" (2002) influence the transformation of archaic narcissism, or more precisely, affect, which then impacts the patient's, and analyst's, sense of self.

The first principle involves the ongoing self and mutual regulations within a dyad which create transient alterations of affect states in both participants. By increasing or decreasing vigilance, the individual regulates his or her states of affect and arousal. By reciprocally influencing one another, degrees of closeness and intimacy are regulated.

Lachmann used the always painful "still face" experiment conducted by Edward Tronick to illustrate the second principle, disruption and repair of the expected, ongoing interaction. We in the audience engaged in our own patterns of affective self-regulation as we watched the infant move from an exuberant state of joy, to bewildered distress, intolerable anger and finally withdrawal from the unexpected and terribly wounding rejection by the mother. The infant expects ongoing affective responsivity, in other words, empathy. Its lloss and re-establishment are elemental in undermining or restoring the affective tie and, subsequently, self-cohesion.

An incident involving the third principle of salience, heightened affective moments, occured in the clinical material taken from Lachmann's work with "Sally." The self-experiences of both Frank and Sally are transformed in a moment of surprise leading to the kind of strongly emotional exchange that organizes self-experience for prolonged periods of time. The self esteem of both members of the dyad was enhanced, the result of the transformation of prior affect states to the more mature manifestations of narcissism, in particular, increased empathy.

Lachmann's work assumes, along the lines delineated by Socarides and Stolorow (1984/85), the central role of affect and affect integration in the gradually developing sense of self and the concurrent transformations of narcissism. He identifies both cross-modal perception and entering the behavioral/affective stream of another as two of many precursors to empathy. Both acts lead to the transformation of affect and the subsequent experience of empathy. Lachmann again provided a poignant example involving both of these processes in a film clip depicting Isaac Stern helping a young violinist transform her ability to imbue her music with significantly greater feeling. In a matter of minutes he both joined her behavioral and affective stream and invited her to join his. By asking her to sing what she was playing, he allowed her to experience in a different modality the music she was attempting to create. Her later achievements speak to a transformation in her ability to play that may well have resulted from subsequent repetitions of her new acquisition, as well as an enhanced sense of self.

In combination, Lachmann's examples served to illustrate his formulation of the process of transformation of affect into empathy and other more mature forms of narcissism. The examples, ranging from interaction within the therapeutic dyad to encounters outside of the consulting room, evocatively depicted the part played by the aforementioned "three principles of salience" in the transformation of disregulating or uncomfortable affect states into more positive and generative ones, setting the stage for the narcissistic transformations first described by Kohut.

Dr. VanDerHeide is a Training and Supervising analyst as well as a Board member at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. She has a private practice in Beverly Hills, CA.

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