Narcissism: A New Theory: Neville Symington, foreword by James Grotstein. London:  Karnac Books, 1993,  137 pp.

“I have been more effective in tackling narcissism since I have begun thinking along the lines suggested in this book” (p. 4). Clearly, Symington's rethinking of narcissism is guided by practical concerns. A psychoanalyst now working in Australia, Symington trained in London in what is known as the British Independent tradition. His theory of narcissism reflects the influences of Fairbairn, Klein, Winnicott, and Bion, as well as his points of divergence from their thinking. In particular, it owes much to Fairbairn's theory of object relations and understanding of the schizoid states as a turning away from disappointing external objects and inward to internalized objects.

In summary: Symington rests the origin of narcissism (always pathological, in his view) on the individual's response to early traumas. In the debate between those who favour a trauma/deficit conception of narcissism and those who maintain the primacy of psychic conflict motivated by unconscious phantasy, he holds that trauma alone is insufficient to explain the narcissistic disorders, and that an unconscious intentionality in the self's response to trauma must also be taken into account. He proposes that, in response to trauma, the subject makes an unconscious choice either to maintain the tie to the “lifegiver,” which is the source of creative and authentic interpersonal exchanges essential to psychological growth, or to forsake it and turn upon himself. The individual who chooses the “narcissistic option” responds to separations or disruptions in the early bond with the mother by a split in the self, whereby part of the self spurns the object relation to the mother as a “lifegiver,” and takes himself as an erotic object. Propelled along this path by a desire to evade a painful internal and external reality, the narcissistic subject utilizes manic defences and disavows unwanted aspects of himself, forfeiting the capacity for spontaneous initiative that proceeds from the “true self.”

Culled from a ser