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The author introduces his book as ‘yet another of the many devoted to this subject’—i.e. narcissism. It is divided into three parts. The first deals with the different versions of the myth of Narcissus and certain features the author believes it shares with that of Oedipus, the other primordial myth of psychoanalytic literature. He argues that Oedipus and Narcissus ‘have their origins in a violent primal scene, and both are unwanted children (unwanted, at least, by their two parents) who were abducted by force’ (p. 28). The fact that this is the sum total of our information on the infantile history of Narcissus—unlike the situation with Oedipus—reminds the author of the ‘histories full of silence and fury’ (p. 30) observed in certain narcissistic pathologies. However, a deeper sense underlies the similarities and differences between the two stories, which, for Guillem, are ‘linked … by initiation myths that lay down rules and precepts, taboos and prohibitions, associated with the transition from childhood to adulthood’ (p. 30). These thought-provoking ideas initially suggest an attempt to connect concepts that are divergent if not antagonistic in psychoanalysis, namely narcissism and the Oedipus complex. This, though, is not the tenor of the book.
The second part begins with a chronological review of the notion of narcissism in Freud's oeuvre, in which Guillem draws attention to the presence of many contradictions. The author's survey of Freud is based on three main considerations: the relationship between auto-erotism and narcissism, the relationship between narcissism and the concept of the ego (as well as that of the self) and the links between the theory of narcissism and the second drive theory. This is a reading of Freud based on a familiarity with object-relations theory and incorporating the contributions not only of Winnicott and Bion but also of Laplanche and Green.
The author continues with a discussion of common elements in and differences between a number