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The experience of analysing the transference relationships of patients whose psychopathology is dominated by narcissistic omnipotent object relationships and consequent negative therapeutic reactions (such as those of the patients discussed in the last two chapters) has drawn my attention to the important role of recognizing and analysing aggression and destructiveness and the special ways in which these are incorporated in the life of the narcissistic individual. In studying narcissism in some detail it seemed to me essential to differentiate between its libidinal and destructive aspects.
In considering the libidinal aspect of narcissism one can see that the over-valuation of the self plays a central role, based mainly on the idealization of the self. Self-idealization is maintained by omnipotent introjective and projective identifications with ideal objects and their qualities. In this way the narcissist feels that everything that is valuable relating to external objects and the outside world is part of him or is omnipotently controlled by him. The negative consequences of such processes are obvious, and narcissism was generally discussed by Freud (1914) in relation to the distribution of the libido into the ego and its pathological consequences. In Freud's belief there was in narcissistic conditions a loss of all object cathexis and the absence of a transference (indifference to objects). But Freud also described narcissism in relation to the narcissist's love of his self and in relation to self-regard. He stressed, for example, that ‘everything a person possesses or achieves, every remnant of the primitive feeling of omnipotence, which is experienced as confirmed helps to increase the self-regard’ (1914: SE 14: 98). In my view this type of narcissism often acts as an essential protector of the self, and some patients