You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Jacoby sees Kohut as arriving, half a century later, having set out from a very different starting point, and using a very different language, at conclusions about the human psyche which are strikingly similar to those of Jung. He investigates and evaluates these similarities in the light of more recent developments in both analytical psychology and psychoanalysis. The result is a thorough and competent review of an important and topical subject.
The themes of the eight chapters of the book indicate the breadth of Jacoby's treatment: the myth of Narcissus and how understandings of it have shifted over the centuries; theoretical issues relating to the concept of narcissism as they emerge from Freud's 1914 paper, and the evolution of the concepts of the ego and of the self in analytical psychology and in psychoanalysis. Various aspects of narcissism are described, including narcissism as a developmental phase, the phenomenology of narcissistic disorders, and their symptomatology, diagnosis and aetiology. Finally, theoretical and clinical approaches to therapy are discussed.
The myth of Narcissus, with its many layers and shifting meanings, is particularly fitting as an image of the many-faceted and often confusing concept of narcissism. Jacoby selects certain themes from the myth for special consideration: Teiresias's prophecy that Narcissus will have a long life ‘if he does not know himself’ plunges us immediately into the ambiguous relationship between consciousness and mortality which has been known since Adam and Eve. Narcissus's rejection of the nymph Echo is significant in the light of the need of narcissistic personalities for constant ‘echoing’ and validation, a need which can be transformed gradually into a capacity for inner reflection and self-recognition.
The concept of the self forms the major link between Jung and Kohut. Jacoby sees the development of self theory as being profoundly important for psychoanalysis since it ‘introduces a concept of wholeness’ i