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In this book, Rothstein seeks to lessen the great confusion that has arisen about the concept of narcissism by limiting the term "narcissism" to a "felt quality of perfection,… this conscious or unconscious, affectively laden fantasy… invested in a panoply of self-and/or object-representations in a spectrum of integrations" (p. 4). The content, he says, has affective, physical, and cognitive components. What is common to all is a superlative designation. This definition is qualified by the statement that "the pursuit of perfection may be invested, for example, in phallic activities derived primarily from oedipal issues and conflicts. However, whatever the narcissistic investment, it is associatively linked to pre-individuated fixation points of perfection that remain unconscious and in a state of primary repression" (p. 18).
This central thesis is based in part on the observation that "Freud used the term narcissism to describe a felt quality of perfection and as a prestructural concept to describe the development of psychic structure in response to ubiquitous narcissistic injuries" (p. 5). In the quoted reference Freud did say that narcissism is displaced onto a new ideal ego in an attempt to recover the lost perfection of childhood. Rothstein's use of Freud's statement to justify a concept of undifferentiated narcissism throughout life is subject to serious question, however.
Rothstein defines narcissism as the pursuit of perfection, and he views the means for attaining it in a way that conforms to Stolorow's definition of narcissism as mental activity functioning to "maintain the structural cohesiveness, temporal stability and positive affective colouring of the self-representation."1 The pursuit of perfection in one or more aspects of the self-representation undoubtedly serves narcissistic needs, but the acquisition of power, position, intellectual