1
NARCISSISM AND CREATIVITY
Some skeletal thoughts to stimulate discussion…A popular cliché in our culture is that many of the most creative performers andartists are narcissistic, requiring a degree of self-centredness to develop andnurture their art and to promote themselves. We live in the age of ‘celebrity’.Christopher Lasch referred to American society as the ‘Culture of Narcissism’.Psychotherapy, conceived as the liberation of the individual, has often beenaccused of playing its part in this by promoting the needs of the individualisedself rather than building the ground for collective conscience. I believe we aredealing with a paradox – both cultural and psychological – and with a spiritualand moral issue.Psychotherapists, particularly analysts, have usually considered narcissism as apersonality disorder, involving some sort of arrested development or traumaoccurring in the very early years which results in the infant being unable to relateauthentically as subject-to-subject to anyone or anything beyond her/himself. InObject Relations terms, key thinkers include people such as Klein, Fairbairn,Kohut, Kernberg, Masterson and Symington. Essentially, we are usuallyspeaking of an attachment-separation problem, where narcissism is a defenceagainst facing abandonment depression. The infant idealises the self-object,usually the mother, is unable to move beyond this and cannot adapt to any realitybeyond that figure. Symington sees this as a turning away from the self as‘lifegiver’. As a consequence, the personality becomes impaired, as the egooscillates between a grandiose and an enfeebled position. No surprise then thatsome of our biggest celebrities inevitably succumb to addictions and eatingdisorders as the ego container is ill-equipped to handle the world on its ownterms. Kohut had a more positive view of narcissism, not particularly consideringit as pathology, but as something necessary and healthy to develop in order for the individual to progress through life.I believe that narcissism is not simply the province of those with a developmentalarrest or disorder, but that we meet it at a number of levels in daily experience –much of the time we do not recognise it. Masterson offers this scenario from amale client:
When I have sex with a woman, it’s important that she climax or else I feel like I’m a lousylover. In fact, I’m always more concerned about her response than I am about my ownsatisfaction because her enjoyment is a measure of my performance, and I’m never happy with one woman for very long if I’m not at my peak sexually. Then, when I finishwith one, I have to go after another” (Masterson J:
The Search for the Real Self
,Freedom Press, NY, 1988: 122-124).
This vignette presents us with a number of conceptual problems: How do werecognise when we are at the receiving end of this personality dynamic? Whatdoes it mean when we are in the audience? What does it mean to be inrelationship? This is as much a spiritual problem as a psychological one. How dowe know when we connect – both inwardly and socially?
Leave a Comment