He Primary narcissism Is a moment in the development of the personality, in which the child directs his libido (psychic energy) towards himself.
It is a first moment in the stage of development, where the child chooses himself as an object to be loved, hence the concept of narcissism.
It is understood as primary, given that it is the initial moment where the subject is invested energetically to itself.
This will result in then being able to differentiate from the others and consequently can invest them with their libidinal energy.
Primary narcissism differs from a later time, termed secondary narcissism. In it, after having invested energetically to other people or objects of the outside world, the subject redirects its energy back to itself; To your Self.
Narcissism corresponds to a stage of development, which can be divided into two sub-stages or stages, primary Narcissism and secondary narcissism.
These concepts were relevant in psychoanalytic theory to explain the theory of personality development.
What is narcissism?
Narcissism refers to a legend of Greek mythology. In which is told the love story of Daffodil , An extremely beautiful subject who falls in love with himself.
When he sees his reflection in a fountain, he falls in love with his image. This infatuation led Narcissus not to want to leave her.
Such was the attraction and infatuation for himself that he decides to throw himself in the water for not tolerating to separate of its own image; And this leads to death.
In the place where Narciso passed away there has grown a flower that took its name. Thus, in the Greek tradition, it is called narcissism to love itself.
In psychoanalytic theory, the term narcissism was used by Sigmund Freud for the first time in 1911. At that time, he was used to explain homosexuality.
Freud in his teachings on psychoanalysis said that at one point in his development, the child had to repress the love he felt towards his mother. As a consequence, it identifies with it and seeks as an object of love a substitute for itself.
In this way Freud conceives the existence of a stage in sexual development that is intermediate between autoerotism and object love.
The first refers to the libido or psychic energy deposited in the body itself; Through which the subject takes himself as an object of love.
The second, refers to that energy is deposited in something or someone other than itself, becoming a new object of love.
From psychoanalysis, libido must be understood in terms of sexual energy present in the psychic apparatus and in its development.
This can increase, decrease and even move, being the choice of the object where the libidinal objective is located.
Later, throughout his investigations, Freud conceived the idea of omnipotence. This refers to when the I, understood as a psychic instance, is invested libidinally, manifesting that feeling of omnipotence in the subject. That state then defines what is called primary narcissism.
It is a primitive state, characterized by the absence of the relation between the subject and the environment, since the libido is all of it, deposited in it.
It is in this way that primary narcissism refers to the child taking himself as an object of love. Subsequent to this, you can choose objects belonging to the outer world of which, in primary narcissism, has not yet differentiated.
Now, once primary narcissism has passed, the libido is deposited in the outer world. Being there it can be redirected back to the Self, to itself. This is what Freud calls secondary narcissism. That is, at the return of the libido to the Self.
In this way four libidinal phases can be distinguished, which refer to the path or location of the libido throughout the development of the individual.
The first one is the autoerotic phase; The second, that of primary narcissism; The third is that of object love (when the libido is deposited in some object of the external world). And the last, that of secondary narcissism.
This would be Freud's economic approach to narcissism, from which it is said that in primary narcissism the libido is all lodged in the self.
Primary Narcissism and Secondary Narcissism
Primary narcissism is considered by Freud as the psychic act necessary for the formation of the subject and condition for the birth of his subjectivity.
It is in this way how the Self will be constituted. Insofar as a bodily and affective unity is achieved for the self, where there is still no relationship with the other.
Secondary narcissism will then correspond to a later moment, belonging to a new positioning of libido on this previously formed I, in primary narcissism.
The ego will then be understood as an instance of the psychic apparatus that acts as reservoir or reservoir of libido.
From the structural point of view of the psyche, psychoanalysis concludes that narcissism would not correspond then to an evolutionary stage of development, but to a location of the libido (energy) in the subject.
The stagnation of the libidinal energy in him, brings as a consequence pathologies of diverse characteristics. These may include delusions of grandeur, loss or lack of interest in the outside world, narcissistic personality disorder, among many others.
References
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- Behrendt, R. (2015). Narcissism and the Self: Dynamics of Self-Preservation in Social Interaction, Personality Structure, Subjective Experience, and Psychopathology.
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- Elliott, A. (2015). Psychoanalytic Theory: An Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Joan Berzoff, L. M. (2016). Inside Out and Outside In: Psychodynamic Clinical Theory and Psychopathology in Contemporary Multicultural Contexts. Rowman & Littlefield.
- Leticia Franieck, M. G. (2010). On Latency: Individual Development, Narcissistic Impulse Reminiscence, and Cultural Ideal. Karnac Books.
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- Symington, N. (1993). Narcissism: A New Theory. Karnac Books.