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We have before us the life history of a woman, deceased at the age of sixty-six, which offers unusual opportunities for the study of pathological narcissism.
Lack of feeling for others was F's outstanding characteristic. The narcissistic predicate determined, so far as could be observed, each and every one of her actions. Inordinate vanity, jealousy, petty spites, grudges, and hatreds, made up the only world she knew. Her's was a strictly solipsistic universe. Human beings, whether within the family circle or outside of it, had a single meaning for F: they were mere things to play against each other, useful to subserve her distorted Ego-affects. The moment people ‘caught on,’ and refused to be treated as slaves for catering to these affects, the full measure of her wrath was turned upon them.
An abnormal attachment—we cannot call it love—to her parents manifested itself right up through childhood and adolescence into marriage, with disastrous results. She was a “tantrum” child, made worse by petting from the grandparents; especially during the time she lived with them because of a temporary separation of her parents. This difficulty between the parents was brought about by the mother, whom F closely resembled as to mental traits; this hysterical, disagreeable woman so domineered the father that he was virtually compelled to leave home. Eventually he returned and took up the burden of family life again.
F's Œdipus complex never underwent the normal metamorphosis, but persisted in its infantile form right into her first marriage at twenty-two to a flashy man who, because of his occupation, was moving about the country a good deal. A man was, to her, something in