Brief Notes on Empathy & Narcissism

Narcissism is the New Black
In social media, a popular yet disturbing trend is occurring: there is a large-scale attack on "narcissists." It has become part of the cultural vernacular - a label casually placed on anyone displaying selfishness or a lack of empathy in the eyes on another – quite often a jilted lover. Demonizing this population is a socially acceptable practice. Imagine the public outrage if the same judgment and disgust were aimed at another group with a mental health diagnosis such as those on the autism spectrum or people with psychotic disorders. There hundred, maybe thousands, of posts every week on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. ridiculing and berating people deemed to be narcissists. These bloggers, laypersons, and even mental health professionals are demonstrating the very lack of empathy the narcissist is being accused of. This culturally sanctioned onslaught of hatred is dangerous for many reasons. The popularization of the term narcissist is being confused with an actual mental disorder narcissistic personality disorder. Those "diagnosing" others as narcissists are generally unqualified to do, which leads to stereotyping and the proliferation of incorrect information about the disorder. From a depth psychological perspective, the wholesale projection of shadow material, both personal and collective, results in a frightening de-humanization of the other (i.e., the narcissist). Those accusing the narcissist of wrong-doing are often overly-identified with the victim archetype, which creates an inability to see one's role in the relationship – it blinds a person to recognizing one's self as a potential perpetrator. This absolves a person of any responsibility for their participation in the situation and justifies guiltless retaliation. Though Heinz Kohut comes from the school of psychoanalysis, practitioners of any orientation should take his work on narcissism seriously. This discussion comprises my brief notes on Kohut's contributions.
Kohut (1959) developed an approach that placed empathy at the core of treatment, which he initially defined empathy as vicarious introspection. By his definition, empathy with introspection involves sharing in the patient's experience and then organizing that experience within a larger, more complex, and more objective context (Levy, 1985). Vicarious introspection, or empathy, was seen by Kohut as a primary method of gathering psychological information about the patient and endeavored to legitimatize empathy and introspection as valuable scientific instruments (Levy, 1985). To that end, self psychologists were careful to avoid equating empathy with what Kohut described as "a sentimental regression to subjectivity" (Kohut, 1971). Kohut's work with narcissism, in particular, provided a new understanding and approach to working with patients utilizing selfobject transferences, rather than interpreting or disrupting the narcissistic transference as would typically be done in classical analysis (Mitchell et al, 1995). Kohut conceptualized selfobject transferences not just as the patient's need to obtain gratification from the analyst and he developed three basic types of selfobject transferences: mirroring, idealizing, and twinship, which are distinct from Freud's Oedipal transference. More specifically, in the narcissistic transferences of mirroring, idealizing, and twinship, the analyst is not viewed as separate from the patient but experienced as an extension of the patient. Kohut asserted that due to the nature of analysis, empathic failures would inevitably occur and that an analyst need not contrive a situation that would bring them about; the process of analysis in itself would capitulate the negative transference the patient is disposed to experience (Post, 1980). One of Kohut's ideas was that instances of optimal frustration in a supportive setting would, over time with repetition, create the conditions wherein the selfobject transferences were challenged (Mitchell et al, 1995). A stronger internal structure would develop as the patient repeatedly survived the disappointments and internalized aspects of the selfobject, in this case the analyst, leading to a resiliency that does not sacrifice the verve that the patient once drew through narcissism, in a process Kohut termed transmuting internalization (Mitchell et al, 1995).
For Kohut, the narcissistic patient was not simply a spoiled child who needed a reality check, despite displays of grandiosity or apparent indifference towards the analyst (Mitchell et al, 1995). Kohut (1971) observed that narcissistic patients' reaction to empathic failures were very critical to the analysis and were experienced with high intensity, which could result in extreme acting out. Kohut (1971) further expanded his concepts of empathy based on his clinical experience as he describes the state of the analyst being in empathic immersion with the patient; wherein the analyst suspends making interpretations, confronting the patient's selfobject transferences or features of the relationship that facilitate the patient's sense that the analyst is empathetic. Kohut emphasized the importance of "sustained rather than momentary empathic immersion by the analyst, especially with regard to narcissistic disturbance in patients" (Post, 1980).
Whereas, classical psychoanalysis might view empathic immersion as countertransference gratification of the patient's infantile needs leading to regressive states; Kohut found that prolonged empathic immersion in the transference field could allow the patient to develop a cohesive sense of self and sense of vitality (Mitchell et al, 1995). Kohut demonstrates a level of empathy towards narcissistic patients that was not previously conveyed in psychoanalysis. It follows that an extended period of empathic immersion would create the conditions for transmuting internalization to occur as that process is based on repeated frustrations or failures in a supportive setting. I liken empathic immersion to incubation. An incubator serves as a surrogate that protects and provides the environment for the animal to develop in place of the "parent" and, under most circumstances, the animal emerges unprompted by external forces from the shell (and thus, the incubator) once it had completed its process. So to, the patient's "spontaneous attempt to grow" is fostered in an empathic environment (Mitchell et al, 1995).
I attempted to address some of Kohut's contributions, mostly with regard to processes, in this paper. However, I believe to be essence of his concepts, which, I believe are articulated in Thoughts on narcissism and narcissistic rage (Kohut, 1972). In this work, Kohut discusses his acceptance of an "affirmative attitude toward narcissism in theory and practice" that is aptly conveyed in the following quote:
"We should not deny our ambitions, our wish to dominate, our wish to shine, and our yearning to merge into omnipotent figures, but should instead learn to acknowledge the legitimacy of these narcissistic forces as we have learned to acknowledge the legitimacy of our object-instinctual strivings. We shall then be able, as can be observed in the systematic therapeutic analysis of narcissistic personality disturbances, to transform our archaic grandiosity and exhibitionism into realistic self-esteem and into pleasure with ourselves, and our yearning to be at one with the omnipotent self-object into the socially useful, adaptive, and joyful capacity to be enthusiastic and to admire the great after whose lives, deeds, and personalities we can permit ourselves to model our own."
This quote, for me, forms the some of the underpinnings for Kohut's seminal work with narcissism. There is a purposefulness and sense of optimism in reading this work because there a profound shift in the way narcissism is perceived. Kohut understood that pathologizing and suppressing narcissistic striving was detrimental both personally and on a grander, societal scale.
References
Kohut, H. (1959). Introspection, empathy, and psychoanalysis. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association,7 :459-483 (APA.007.0459A)
Kohut, H. (1971). The Analysis of the Self . New York: Int. Univ. Press.
Kohut, H. (1972). Thoughts on narcissism and narcissistic rage. By: Kohut, Heinz, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 00797308, 19720201, Vol. 27
Levy, S. T. (1985). Empathy and Psychoanalytic Technique. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 33353-378. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Post, S. L. (1980). Origins, Elements, and Functions of Therapeutic Empathy. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 61277-293. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.