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This book, which is loosely organized around the issues of narcissism, demonstrates the potential of the Kleinian point of view when it is applied by a creative mind. The volume consists of papers written by the author, an Italian analyst, and introduces American analysts to a body of literature relatively unknown to the English-speaking world.
It starts with a thorough review of the theories of narcissism: Freud's and the major theories that followed his fundamental thoughts. Because Mancia respects the complexity of the questions surrounding the topic, he does not settle on a facile endorsement of any one theory. He maintains a point of view, however, without being polemical. Following a discussion of theories of narcissism, the author explores such related clinical issues as dependence, separation, guilt, and depression; and the defenses against them, such as withdrawal, boredom, sleepiness, and aloofness. He studies countertransference, creativity, music, and memory, and ends with a comparison between the analytic and the historic method. The unity of the work resides in the author's consistent point of view, which guides the approach to the various themes.
Mancia divides Freud's study of narcissism into three stages: the first relates narcissism to homosexual object choice; the second