Freud's Uses of the Terms "Autoerotism" and "Narcissism"

Autoerotism and narcissism, terms which fundamentally have the same meaning, self-love, and were derived from the same source, the work of Havelock Ellis, were introduced into Freud's writings some ten years apart. The first term, used in conjunction with the developing libido theory, has always referred to sensual pleasure derived from one's own body; the second term, used in conjunction with the development of the ego concept, has usually implied an attitude of love toward the self which involves a more advanced psychic organization in which the sexual aims have been delibidinized and at least a rudimentary self image has been formed. Consequently, autoerotism and narcissism have been differently defined with relation to each other depending upon evolving psychoanalytic views with respect to these basic phenomena.

The particular definition which has gained most currency—that the autoerotic instincts must be prior to a state of narcissism which depends upon an established unity of the ego—was quickly abandoned by Freud himself when he came to see narcissism not as an advanced autoerotic organization of the libido but as an ego organization that functions from the beginning of mental life. Autoerotism, in this framework, reverted to its former status as a mode of pleasure to be obtained from one's own body, more specifically the erogenous zones, at any time in life. Drives may be primarily or secondarily autoerotic; the description of drives as pleasure-seeking or object-seeking is in itself a residue of the early stage of depth psychology and of the empirical references to objects that prevailed prior to the metapsychological distinctions that had to be made between real objects (which are not directly accessible to the drives) and psychic presentations (which may be).