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.
The object of this study is obsessive-compulsive neurosis, focusing on certain elements of particular clinical and theoretical interest arising from the treatments of two young OCD patients. I use the term “mechanisms of manic narcissistic satisfaction” to describe these psychic mechanisms on the basis of said elements within obsessive-compulsive neurosis.
The relevant clinical observation was that the great distress exhibited most of the time by both severely ill OCD patients, the acuity of their symptoms, appeared to subside periodically and temporarily on the occasion of some ‘pleasing’ acts or activities. Often, if not always, such ‘pleasing’ acts went hand in hand with the spending of money. This improvement in the clinical picture would reduce the gravity and intensity of their complaints about the symptoms, making these patients more receptive to psychoanalytic work.
These mechanisms of manic narcissistic satisfaction were accompanied by a denial of the superego, in the sense of its temporary inactivation. At the same time, this kind of ‘liberation’ appeared to constitute a sort of revenge and compensation for the suffering that the patients endured and exhibited the tendency to attach to a sadistic father imago.
A corresponding dimension of narcissistic satisfaction, one that demands exemption and distinction, imbibed with a sadistic control over, and devaluation of, the other (and of the therapist), and wielding some duress, was also characteristic of dimensions of the transference-countertransference relationship.
Melanie Klein proposes a theory that contributes to the understanding of such psychic mechanisms, recognising the dynamic equilibrium/alternation between the poles of the guilt/manic defense/obsessions triangle. We can postulate that the incidents of narcissistic pleasure described herein have a manic dimension, at the same time without meeting the formal criteria to be considered a manic defense proper.