Chapter 5. The Clinical Phenomenology of Narcissism1

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The sources of information at our disposal—published works, letters, biography, society minutes, autobiographies and memoirs—do not, of course, separate out from the life of Freud the particular thread of his investigations of clinical psychopathology nor do the particular papers given in reference lend themselves to classification as “clinical”. Yet this is a very distinct category of Freud's scientific work and an area of relation and interaction with colleagues. Surely in the period we are studying, embracing the later World War I period and its aftermath, the problems of the organisation, development and preservation of psycho-analysis as a scientific discipline and as a “movement” (whatever that means) occupied—or even overshadowed—much of his thought, as it found its way into print. Particularly the conflicts with Adler and later Jung dominate such papers as “The History of the Psycho-analytic Movement” and the “Wolf-Man” case history.

Jones relates how, to relieve Freud of some of this burden, the “Committee” was formed in 1912, but the disruption of communication during the war, not to mention Freud's own nationalistic enthusiasm at its start and despair toward its finish, probably prevented this group's protective mission from realisation.

On the other hand, the scarcity of patients during the war gave Freud an abundance of time for writing, to which we owe the long “Wolf-man” case history, the papers on meta-psychology and the first Introductory Lectures. Furthermore, taking “On Narcissism” as the opening gun in the salvo culminating in “The Ego and the Id”, we can assume that the stocktaking period of the war made possible the immense productivity which gave us the Structural Theory .

Nonetheless, it must be viewed as a period of reassessment rather than one of clinical discovery. Very likely after the war, being now a renowned figure and the leader of a scientific movement, Freud'