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The major themes presented in this article deal with the self-conceptualization of narcissistic personality disorders based on the experience of time. The “lost in time” hypothesis is descriptive, based on psychotherapies with narcissistically disturbed adults. The basic premise is that these individuals tend to present with a history of both immaturity and inadequate development and with a tendency toward precocity and demonstration of unusual emotional sensitivity or other talent. The forward and backward shifting of these patients' lives is expressed through various successes and failures, as well as through a feeling of being perpetually “in transition” and fearing stagnation and mediocrity. Clinical implications for this “syndrome” are discussed in detail, with special emphasis on difficulties of the patient in making a commitment to treatment and being able to function in the present, demonstrating a preference for the past and/or future.
Very early in my life it was too late. It was already too late when I was eighteen.
This quote from Duras's autobiographical novel reflects the fatalism of a young woman robbed of her childhood by emotional deprivation and economic necessity. Priding herself on her ability to mimic the chicness of grown women, she dressed as an adult while still a little girl. At age 15, she became the lover of a foreign merchant; by age 18, she was poignantly aware of her core of emptiness and despair and knew it was “too late.” But too late for what?