Chapter 13. Adult Love

In ‘On Narcissism’ Freud wrote: ‘… the aim and the satisfaction in a narcissistic object-choice is to be loved’ (Standard Edition, XIV, 98.) Of course this is another impeccable clinical observation but somewhat of a theoretical non sequitur. Narcissistic object-choice means that the subject takes himself, or somebody representing or deriving from himself, as a love-object, but it does not follow necessarily from the theory of narcissism that he should desire to be loved by others. On the contrary, as he has withdrawn his libido from the external world — or alternatively has not yet cathected it — and thus only himself or somebody representing him can matter at all, one would expect that the rest of his environment would be more or less indifferent to him. Evidently this is another of the internal contradictions inherent in the theory of primary narcissism.

All the clinical literature on narcissism — that is, secondary narcissism — shows this same picture of excellent, easily verifiable observations which fit uncomfortably into the Procrustean bed of primary narcissism. Annie Reich (1953), for instance, says that objects at the pre-genital sexual level are ‘selfishly’ used for one's own gratification; their interest cannot yet be considered, and ‘whether we define such behaviour as fixated on pre-genital levels, or as object relationship, or as narcissistic, is a question of terminology’. She adds: ‘At these early levels passive attitudes are more frequently found than an active reaching out for an object’ (pp. 22-24).

I think it is rather doubtful whether any logical connections are to be found between the wish to be loved passively, the use of objects ‘selfishly’, inability to be concerned with their interests, the prevalence of passive expectant attitudes over actively reaching out for satisfactions, and the theory of primary narcissism, which states that all the libido is concentrated either in the ego or in the id — or in the self.

Equally, we do not understand wh