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This paper aims to differentiate and illuminate the contrasting modes of lived-time experience of three personality types—the narcissist, the as-if and the schizoid personality. The individual's sense of self might be seen as crucially related to the kind of orientation to time that dominates his experience. The paper speculates about what these orientations might be, drawing on the psychoanalytic literature and clinical experience to describe the self experiences, and on philosophical ideas to guide the speculations about the role of time in the three pathological self conditions under consideration. It is hypothesized that each of the three personality types (narcissistic, schizoid, and as-if) accords primacy to a different temporal mode (namely, past, present, and future), and it is suggested that whether or not an individual feels he has a self at
Acknowledgement. The writing of this paper was supported in part by a fellowship at Cornell University Medical Center—New York Hospital, West-chester Division. For helpful editorial comments on an earlier draft, the author would like to thank Steve Hurt, Louis Sass, and Lisa Gornick.
Dr. Nay man is a Consultant Psychologist, Strategic Frameworking, Inc., New York, New York, and a freelance writer.
all is related to the way in which he lives in time. Furthermore, the characteristic mood-tone of each of the three personality types is discussed, in terms of how these express a characteristic rootedness in time; these are the nostalgia of the narcissist, the disembodied hope of the as-if personality, and the futility of the schizoid.