The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 26, 1957, No. 3: Bernstein, Isidor. 'The Role of Narcissism in Moral Masochism.'

Excerpts from the analysis of three patients are used to illustrate the role of narcissism in the genesis of moral masochism. These patients were children of narcissistic parents. In their early years their ego-functions were made to serve the narcissistic gratifications of the parents, with the result that their ego-boundaries became blurred and they were deprived of normal ego satisfactions, so that they became narcissistic themselves. They were thus unable to bear oedipal disappointment, and reacted as to pregenital trauma and loss, with introjection of the object and regressive splitting of object and self representations. In this regressive manner the child-parent relationship was restored between ego and superego. The masochistic relationship in adult life is an attempt once more to externalize this internal situation, leading to a restoration of the lost objects. It also gives the patient the illusion that he controls the situations which he once passively endured.

The author notes the similarity of this dynamic formulation with that for depression. He suggests that masochism may stand in a certain sense, in a mid-position between depression and paranoia. When the ego employs more introjection, the masochist becomes more depressed; if the mechanism is more projective, he becomes more paranoid. Thus what partially differentiates the masochist from the paranoiac is the degree of projection.