Narcissism - the Refusal of Twoness through Sexual Addiction and Pornography

Proceeding from oneness to twoness is a psychological process of relating inter- and intrapersonally. This article links the perspectives of French psychoanalyst André Green's concepts of the dead mother and narcissism with Hester Solomon, British Jungian analyst writing on the ‘as-if’ personality. These concepts are elucidated with the composite example of a self-described sexually addicted man. His behaviours attempted to mask the shadows of melancholy, a fragile self, and the absence of self-animation from early emotional wounds. He did not know love or the other. André Green, French psychoanalyst, described feelings of misery, lack, and emptiness. The defence against relatedness arises from fears of replicating the original object losses. He delineated death narcissism and life narcissism as limiting relationships and creating the illusionary.

Narcissus could not live if he knew himself. Immersion within singularity occludes relationship to the unconscious and the other, like Echo. Jung's concept of the transcendent function evolves from inclusion of the symbolic through listening to the language of the unconscious. Through the transference and countertransference, the former disowned and split-off others, secreted in the shadows of addictions, open relatedness to self, soul, and world.