The Dynamics of Narcissism in Marriage

I would like to describe the dynamics of narcissism in marriage from a dyadic perspective, comprising both intrapsychic and interpersonal domains of human experience. The two most widely employed frameworks for understanding narcissism, those of Kernberg and Kohut, are too narrow by themselves to explain narcissistic patterns of interaction in adulthood. Narcissistic pathology, as it is lived-out in real relationships, is more than an intrapsychic defense against conflict and internally generated aggression (Kernberg, 1975) or a natural developmental phenomenon that has become pathological in the context of failures of parental empathy (Kohut, 1971, 1977). What is missing in these formulations is attention to details of actual experiences with others. Early interactions, and their internalized representations, provide enduring models for the construction of later relationships. Both in childhood and adulthood, narcissistic ties to others serve multiple purposes. The other person may be used as part of a person's intrapsychic structure, to function as the repository of unacceptable aspects of self and object representations and impulses, and/or to recreate essential human ties in the only reliable way the individual knows.

Psychoanalytic theory has had difficulty in dealing with interpersonal situations such as marriage where interactions are bidirectional and often circular. Modell (1984) writes:

Traditional psychoanalysis has not yet acquired the theoretical language that would enable it to describe a process occurring between two separate personalities in terms encompassing the events in both individuals. We are forced to describe the actual object as a “representation” in the mind of the subject, (p. 11)

This general problem with psychoanalytic writing about relationships is even more pronounced in the area of narcissism, where the