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I. The term ‘’ (α) appears in Freud's work for the first time in 1910, when it is called upon to account for object-choice in homosexuals, who ‘take themselves as their sexual object. That is to say, they proceed from a narcissistic basis and look for a young man who resembles themselves and whom they may love as their mother loved them‘ 1a.

The discovery of narcissism leads Freud–in the Schreber case (1911c)–to posit the existence of a stage in sexual development between * and object-love. The subject ‘begins by taking himself, his own body, as his love-’ 2, which allows a first unification of the sexual instincts. This view of the matter is again put forward in Totem and Taboo (1912-13).

II. Thus Freud was already making use of the concept of narcissism before he ‘introduced’ it in a paper devoted to the topic: ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’ (1914c). It is this text, nevertheless, which integrates the notion into the psycho-analytic theory as a whole, particularly by relating it to libidinal cathexes. It now becomes clear that the possibility of the libido's recathecting the ego while withdrawing cathexis from the object is illustrated by psychosis (‘’*); the implication of this is that ‘an original libidinal cathexis of the ego […] fundamentally persists and is related to the object-cathexes much as the body of an amoeba is related to the pseudopodia which it puts out’ 3a. Basing himself on a sort of principle of conservation of libidinal energy, Freud postulates a seesaw balance between * (i.e. libido which cathects the ego) and : ‘The more of the one is employed, the more the other becomes depleted’ 3b. ‘The ego is to be regarded as a great reservoir of libido from which libido is sent out to objects and which is always ready to absorb libido flowing back from ’ 4.

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