Discussion

The official establishment of the concept of “Narcissism” occurs in Freud's paper “On Narcissism: An Introduction.” (“Zur Einfuehrung des Narzismus,” 1914). It changed the opponents in the conflict on which Freud's psychodynamic theory is based. Until then, it was the conflict between libido and self-preservation from which all psychopathological formations were supposed to emerge. After 1914, the new opponents were postulated to be self-love versus object love. However, when we examine Freud's writings which anteceded the establishment of the concept of narcissism, we find that the psychodynamic power of narcissism is implied in many of Freud's explanations of psychopathological formations. We can go back to 1904, when Freud published “Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens.” In numerous of his examples of slip actions, the narcissistic motive is so obvious that it can hardly be covered by the concept of self-preservation. Early in this work, he says: “Ein bestaendiger Strom von ‘Eigenbezie-hung’ geht so durch mein Denken, von dem ich fuer gewoehnlich keine Kunde erhalte, der sich mir aber durch solches Namenvergessen verraet. Es ist, als waere ich genoetigt, alles, was ich ueber fremde Personen hoere, mit der eigenen Person zu vergleichen, als ob meine persoenlichen Komplexe bei jeder Kenntnisnahme von anderen rege wuerden. Dies kann unmoeglich eine individuelle Eigenheit meiner Person sein; es muss vielmehr einen Hinweis auf die Art, wie wir ueber-haupt ‘Anderes’ verstehen, enthalten. Ich habe Gruende anzunehmen, dass es bei anderen Individuen ganz aehnlich zugeht wie bei mir” (Gesammelte Schriften, Sigmund Freud, Volume IV., pp. 30-31).

Strachey's translation of this paragraph reads as follows: “There thus runs through my thoughts a continuous