Narcissus and Narcissism: NPS, from a psychiatric and psychoanalytical perspective
Narcissus and Narcissism: NPS, from a psychiatric and psychoanalytical perspective: Why nobody chooses grandiosity
Narcissus and Narcissism: NPS, from a psychiatric and psychoanalytical perspective: Why nobody chooses grandiosity
DESCRIPTION: Understanding narcissism: Narcissism is an early wounding of the self, not a character flaw. NPS explained from a psychiatric and psychoanalytical perspective. From mythology to the disorder – symptoms and self-image examined, beyond the popular bashing of narcissism.
Narcissism from a psychoanalytic perspective: symptoms, causes and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)
Narcissism has become a term of abuse, yet the concept refers to an early wounding of the self that arises long before any conscious decision is made. Therefore, to supplement previous, shorter articles, here is a recap of the term’s origins – from Narcissus to Freud – the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) according to the ICD-10 and DSM-5, and the psychoanalytic classification of narcissism as a pre-Oedipal symbolisation disorder. Freud, Kohut, Kernberg and Lacan provide the building blocks for this, and they counter the popular bashing with a clinical, dignified understanding.
Why is ‘narcissist’ not a suitable insult?
‘My ex is a narcissist.’ This phrase is all the rage on TikTok, fills the shelves of self-help books and ends discussions before they even begin. The word functions as a diagnosis without any examination. It categorises a person as one of the ‘bad guys’ and absolves the person uttering it of blame. The clinical significance is lost in the process.
Narcissistic personality disorder is a well-defined clinical condition with specific criteria, a distinct course of development and associated psychological distress. According to conservative estimates, it affects around one to two per cent of the population. In everyday usage, however, the term is extended to include anyone who behaves selfishly, offensively or without empathy. This blurs the line between a difficult character trait and a profound disturbance in self-development.
Anyone who uses the term as a weapon is exploiting a misunderstanding. From the outside, grandiosity appears as self-love and arrogance. In the psychoanalytic interpretation, it is a makeshift shelter over a fragile foundation. This distinction determines whether we condemn or understand a person.
Where does the term ‘narcissism’ come from? The myth of Narcissus
The name originates from Greek mythology and was popularised by Ovid’s *Metamorphoses*. Narcissus, or Narkissos in the Greek form, is a handsome youth who rejects the love of everyone. As punishment, he becomes captivated by his own reflection in the water and is consumed by an unfulfillable self-love until he perishes by the spring. The myth thus tells of a love that remains fixated on one’s own image and finds no way out to the other.
As a psychological term, narcissism emerged in late 19th-century sexology. In 1898, Havelock Ellis described a psychological state of self-admiration with reference to the myth of Narcissus. A year later, the psychiatrist Paul Näcke coined the term ‘Narcismus’ to describe a disorder in which one’s own body is treated as a sexual object. This early interpretation was linked to autoeroticism and to contemporary studies on perversion, such as Alfred Binet’s work on fetishism.
Sigmund Freud adopted the term and shifted its meaning. What had been a specific sexual form became, in his view, a general question of the development of the self. The history of the word thus reflects the evolution of the concept: from self-admiration and vanity, through early sexology, to a theory that places self-reference at the heart of human development.
What are the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)?
Narcissistic personality disorder is recognised in psychiatry as a distinct disorder. The DSM-5 lists it under code 301.81, whilst the ICD-10 classifies it under ‘other specific personality disorders’ (F60.8). For a clinical diagnosis, several characteristics must be present over a prolonged period and across various areas of life, and must result in distress or impairment.
Key symptoms include a grandiose sense of self-importance, fantasies of boundless success, power, beauty or ideal love, and the conviction of being special and unique. Added to this are a strong need for admiration, a pronounced sense of entitlement, taking advantage of others in interpersonal relationships, a lack of empathy, frequent envy, as well as arrogant behaviour and contempt for others.
These criteria describe a pattern, not a label for unsympathetic behaviour. Experts also distinguish between an overtly grandiose type and a covert, easily offended type, which complicates diagnosis. The list of symptoms describes the surface of the clinical picture. The causes of narcissistic development are what clarify why this surface arises, and this is where psychoanalysis leads.
What is the pre-Oedipal core of the disorder?
Classical psychoanalysis attributes many conflicts to the Oedipus complex – that is, the triangular constellation comprising the child, mother and father between the ages of four and six. Narcissism, however, stretches further back. Its roots lie in the first months and years of life, in a time before language, before a clear separation between the self and the other, and before the Oedipal triangle. This phase is known as the pre-Oedipal phase.
During this early period, the child develops a sense of self. They need someone who can pick up on their emotions, name them and reflect them. From thousands of such moments arises the inner certainty of being a coherent, valuable human being. If this reflection is absent or unreliable, a void emerges where a stable core should have developed.
‘Pre-Oedipal’, therefore, refers to a period in which fundamental psychological structures are first emerging. A wound at this stage affects the entire architecture of the self more profoundly than any individual conflict that may arise later. This is why narcissism runs so deep and is so difficult to change through insight alone.
What does ‘symbolisation disorder’ mean?
Symbolisation means translating inner states into images, words and meanings. A child who learns to distinguish their stomach ache from their fear, and their anger from their sadness, develops an inner space in which feelings become conceivable. Recent research refers to this ability as mentalisation: the capacity to understand oneself and others as beings with feelings, intentions and thoughts.
In narcissism, this process of translation remains incomplete. Raw emotions, particularly shame and emptiness, find no linguistic form. They are repressed before they can even be thought of. Instead of feeling ‘I am ashamed right now’, a compulsion to act arises: to make oneself appear grand, to belittle others, to control the situation. The missing inner space is replaced by external regulation.
This is precisely where the connection between the pre-Oedipal wound and symbolisation lies. Where early mirroring was lacking, the child was unable to sufficiently distinguish and name their inner states. The narcissistic defence is an attempt to stabilise from the outside an unsymbolised, barely bearable inner world. Grandiosity then becomes a crutch for a self that has grown up without a foothold.
What did Freud mean by primary and secondary narcissism?
Sigmund Freud laid the foundations in 1914 with ‘An Introduction to Narcissism’. He described primary narcissism as an early normal state and as a necessary stage of development: the young child first directs libidinal energy towards itself before channelling this energy towards other people as object love. A remnant of this self-love persists throughout life and is healthy.
Freud spoke of secondary narcissism when the energy directed towards others is redirected back onto the ego. In the face of disappointment, loss or hurt, a person withdraws their attention from the outside world and turns it back towards themselves. In this context, Freud also developed the concept of the ego ideal, that inner standard against which one measures oneself and which later becomes the superego. Later authors such as Laplanche and Pontalis have shown just how multifaceted Freud’s concept of primary narcissism remained.
Freud’s text marks a turning point. It shows that self-reference is part of normal development and that the pathological form arises from a disturbance in this process. This set the direction: narcissism as a question of the development of the self and not as a moral defect. Later analysts have followed this line of inquiry.
How does Heinz Kohut explain the grandiose self?
Heinz Kohut, the founder of self psychology, placed the needs of the self at the centre. For him, the child needs what are known as ‘self-objects’: attachment figures who take on psychological functions that the child cannot yet perform on its own. The mother, who looks admiringly at a beaming child, reflects its worth back to it. The father, whom the child is allowed to admire and idealise, provides it with support and guidance.
A healthy sense of self develops from these experiences. Kohut described the child’s grandiose self as a normal stage of development. The child feels magnificent and needs someone who will kindly affirm this grandeur whilst gently grounding it in reality. If this need is repeatedly overlooked, the grandiose self remains immature and archaic, rather than transforming into realistic self-worth.
The adult narcissist then carries an inflated sense of grandeur over a fragile core. For Kohut, this grandiosity is an attempt to compensate for the lack of empathic mirroring in childhood. Where the child once found no admiring gaze, the adult searches ceaselessly for validation that can never quite fill the old void.
What is narcissistic rage?
Kohut coined the term ‘narcissistic rage’. It differs from ordinary anger in its intensity and its irreconcilability. It is triggered by an affront: a criticism, a rejection, a merit that has been overlooked. For a stable person, such a thing is unpleasant. For the narcissistically wounded person, it threatens the entire painstakingly constructed façade.
The intensity stems from what is at stake. The affront does not merely touch on a minor aspect; it tears at the seam that holds the fragile self together. Behind the rage lies shame – often a devastating, almost unbearable shame. The rage turns this pain outwards and, for a moment, provides a sense of strength and control.
From the outside, this outburst seems disproportionate and unjust. From an internal perspective, it is a desperate attempt at self-preservation. Anyone who interprets narcissistic rage as pure malice overlooks the panic that drives it. It is the cry of a self that fears its own disintegration.
How does Otto Kernberg describe pathological narcissism?
Otto Kernberg, drawing on the tradition of object relations theory, emphasises the inner world of internalised relationships. For him, pathological narcissism is linked to a pathologically constructed self-structure arising from disrupted early object relationships. The individual has not developed a stable, differentiated image of themselves and others.
Splitting is central to Kernberg’s theory. The child who fails to integrate positive and negative experiences keeps the two sides separate. People are either idealised or devalued; there is no middle ground. The other person is placed on a pedestal as long as they are useful, and cast aside as soon as they disappoint. Idealisation and devaluation are two sides of the same mechanism, which maintains a contradictory self-image.
Kernberg describes this as a chronic emptiness and an insatiable envy. This envy is directed against everything good that the other person possesses, and which one cannot possess oneself. For this reason, Kernberg developed transference-focused psychotherapy, an approach that specifically addresses these split relationship patterns. For him, too, the starting point is early trauma rather than free choice.
What does Lacan’s mirror stage have to do with narcissism?
Jacques Lacan described the mirror stage as a key moment in the formation of the ego. Between the ages of six and eighteen months, the child recognises itself in the mirror and identifies with the image. The moment is both exhilarating and deceptive. The image appears whole and complete, whilst the child still experiences itself internally as uncoordinated and fragmented.
According to Lacan, the ego emerges through this external, imaginary figure. It is based on a misrecognition: the child takes the perfect image for itself and builds its later self-images upon this anticipation. From the very beginning, the ego is a borrowed construct, taken from an outside perspective. Every human being carries this basic structure within them.
The mirror only acquires meaning when a third party, usually a parent, names and frames the image: ‘That’s you.’ In this act, the symbolic dimension comes into play, transforming the mere reflection into a vantage point from which the child is regarded as a person. If this naming, affirming gaze is absent, the ‘I’ remains trapped in this imaginary misrecognition. From this perspective, narcissism can be understood as a fixation within the imaginary, in which the self clings to the borrowed image because the symbolic anchoring failed to materialise.
Why do those affected suffer themselves?
From the outside, narcissism appears to be self-satisfaction. Clinical experience paints a different picture. Behind the grandiosity and contempt lies a chronic emptiness, a dependence on validation and a constant fear of being exposed. Self-esteem fluctuates wildly and depends on others' judgment. A single critical glance can trigger deep shame.
The covert form makes the suffering even more apparent. The covert narcissist comes across as inhibited, easily offended and often depressed. They see themselves as a misunderstood genius and the eternal victim of a world that fails to recognise their worth. Both the grandiose and covert types share the same fragile self-esteem and the same longing for recognition that finds no lasting fulfilment.
This turns relationships into a minefield. Intimacy feels threatening because it makes them vulnerable. Admiration brings only brief relief. Those affected lose partners, friends and touch with their true selves, and often do not understand why. This suffering is real, even if it is hidden behind defences. Recognising it is the prerequisite for treatment to be possible at all.
What does this mean for how we interact with those affected?
In everyday life, this leads to a simple conclusion. People with narcissistic traits can hurt others, and setting boundaries remains the right and necessary thing to do. At the same time, the underlying hurt deserves compassionate understanding. Narcissism stems from an early-life wound. Nobody chooses to be this way. Those who understand this can protect themselves while still upholding the other person’s dignity.
The most important points in brief
• Narcissism is an early disturbance of the self that arises before conscious decisions are made. Its everyday use as a term of abuse misses the clinical picture.
• The term derives from the myth of Narcissus (Ovid) and was first coined in sexology (Havelock Ellis 1898, Paul Näcke 1899, ‘Narcismus’) before Freud expanded it into a theory of the self.
• Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is recognised in psychiatry (DSM-5 301.81, ICD-10 F60.8). Symptoms include grandiosity, a need for admiration, a sense of entitlement, taking advantage of others, a lack of empathy and envy.
• The wound is pre-Oedipal: it originates in the early years of life, at a time before language and a clear distinction between the self and the other.
• Understood as a symbolisation disorder, it involves a lack of the ability to translate raw emotions such as shame and emptiness into words. Grandiosity replaces the missing inner space.
• Freud distinguished between primary and secondary narcissism and introduced the ego ideal.
• Kohut describes the grandiose self as sitting atop a fragile core, the absence of empathic mirroring, and narcissistic rage as a reaction to humiliation.
• Kernberg emphasises splitting, idealisation and devaluation, envy and chronic emptiness as consequences of disturbed early object relationships.
• Lacan’s mirror stage presents the ego as an imaginary misrecognition. Without a naming, holding gaze, the self remains trapped in the imaginary.
• Those affected suffer themselves: fluctuating self-esteem, dependence on validation, fear of being exposed, and relationships breaking down. Setting boundaries and showing compassion are not mutually exclusive.
Sources
• Ovid, Metamorphoses (Narcissus and Echo, Project Gutenberg): https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/ovid/metamor/metamor.html
• Sigmund Freud: An Introduction to Narcissism (1914). Freud Edition: https://www.freud-edition.net/zur-einfuehrung-des-narzissmus
• On Narcissism (overview of Freud’s text, primary and secondary narcissism, ego ideal). Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Narcissism
• On the history of the term (Havelock Ellis, Paul Näcke, narcissism). Wikipedia, Narcissism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder, diagnostic criteria (DSM-5, ICD-10). Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narzisstische_Pers%C3%B6nlichkeitsst%C3%B6rung
• Heinz Kohut, self psychology (Grand Self, self-objects, narcissistic rage, empathic mirroring). Dorsch Encyclopaedia of Psychology, Hogrefe: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/kohut-heinz
• Dragaric: Heinz Kohut’s theory of narcissistic disorder. Existential Analysis: https://www.existenzanalyse.org/wp-content/uploads/Dragaric_2006-_AA_307.pdf
• Otto F. Kernberg (pathological narcissism, object relations, splitting, idealisation and devaluation). DeWiki: https://dewiki.de/Lexikon/Otto_F._Kernberg
Related
DESCRIPTION: Understanding narcissism: Narcissism is an early wounding of the self, not a character flaw. NPS explained from a psychiatric and psychoanalytical perspective. From mythology to the disorder – symptoms and self-image examined, beyond the popular bashing of narcissism.
Narcissism from a psychoanalytic perspective: symptoms, causes and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)
Narcissism has become a term of abuse, yet the concept refers to an early wounding of the self that arises long before any conscious decision is made. Therefore, to supplement previous, shorter articles, here is a recap of the term’s origins – from Narcissus to Freud – the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) according to the ICD-10 and DSM-5, and the psychoanalytic classification of narcissism as a pre-Oedipal symbolisation disorder. Freud, Kohut, Kernberg and Lacan provide the building blocks for this, and they counter the popular bashing with a clinical, dignified understanding.
Why is ‘narcissist’ not a suitable insult?
‘My ex is a narcissist.’ This phrase is all the rage on TikTok, fills the shelves of self-help books and ends discussions before they even begin. The word functions as a diagnosis without any examination. It categorises a person as one of the ‘bad guys’ and absolves the person uttering it of blame. The clinical significance is lost in the process.
Narcissistic personality disorder is a well-defined clinical condition with specific criteria, a distinct course of development and associated psychological distress. According to conservative estimates, it affects around one to two per cent of the population. In everyday usage, however, the term is extended to include anyone who behaves selfishly, offensively or without empathy. This blurs the line between a difficult character trait and a profound disturbance in self-development.
Anyone who uses the term as a weapon is exploiting a misunderstanding. From the outside, grandiosity appears as self-love and arrogance. In the psychoanalytic interpretation, it is a makeshift shelter over a fragile foundation. This distinction determines whether we condemn or understand a person.
Where does the term ‘narcissism’ come from? The myth of Narcissus
The name originates from Greek mythology and was popularised by Ovid’s *Metamorphoses*. Narcissus, or Narkissos in the Greek form, is a handsome youth who rejects the love of everyone. As punishment, he becomes captivated by his own reflection in the water and is consumed by an unfulfillable self-love until he perishes by the spring. The myth thus tells of a love that remains fixated on one’s own image and finds no way out to the other.
As a psychological term, narcissism emerged in late 19th-century sexology. In 1898, Havelock Ellis described a psychological state of self-admiration with reference to the myth of Narcissus. A year later, the psychiatrist Paul Näcke coined the term ‘Narcismus’ to describe a disorder in which one’s own body is treated as a sexual object. This early interpretation was linked to autoeroticism and to contemporary studies on perversion, such as Alfred Binet’s work on fetishism.
Sigmund Freud adopted the term and shifted its meaning. What had been a specific sexual form became, in his view, a general question of the development of the self. The history of the word thus reflects the evolution of the concept: from self-admiration and vanity, through early sexology, to a theory that places self-reference at the heart of human development.
What are the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)?
Narcissistic personality disorder is recognised in psychiatry as a distinct disorder. The DSM-5 lists it under code 301.81, whilst the ICD-10 classifies it under ‘other specific personality disorders’ (F60.8). For a clinical diagnosis, several characteristics must be present over a prolonged period and across various areas of life, and must result in distress or impairment.
Key symptoms include a grandiose sense of self-importance, fantasies of boundless success, power, beauty or ideal love, and the conviction of being special and unique. Added to this are a strong need for admiration, a pronounced sense of entitlement, taking advantage of others in interpersonal relationships, a lack of empathy, frequent envy, as well as arrogant behaviour and contempt for others.
These criteria describe a pattern, not a label for unsympathetic behaviour. Experts also distinguish between an overtly grandiose type and a covert, easily offended type, which complicates diagnosis. The list of symptoms describes the surface of the clinical picture. The causes of narcissistic development are what clarify why this surface arises, and this is where psychoanalysis leads.
What is the pre-Oedipal core of the disorder?
Classical psychoanalysis attributes many conflicts to the Oedipus complex – that is, the triangular constellation comprising the child, mother and father between the ages of four and six. Narcissism, however, stretches further back. Its roots lie in the first months and years of life, in a time before language, before a clear separation between the self and the other, and before the Oedipal triangle. This phase is known as the pre-Oedipal phase.
During this early period, the child develops a sense of self. They need someone who can pick up on their emotions, name them and reflect them. From thousands of such moments arises the inner certainty of being a coherent, valuable human being. If this reflection is absent or unreliable, a void emerges where a stable core should have developed.
‘Pre-Oedipal’, therefore, refers to a period in which fundamental psychological structures are first emerging. A wound at this stage affects the entire architecture of the self more profoundly than any individual conflict that may arise later. This is why narcissism runs so deep and is so difficult to change through insight alone.
What does ‘symbolisation disorder’ mean?
Symbolisation means translating inner states into images, words and meanings. A child who learns to distinguish their stomach ache from their fear, and their anger from their sadness, develops an inner space in which feelings become conceivable. Recent research refers to this ability as mentalisation: the capacity to understand oneself and others as beings with feelings, intentions and thoughts.
In narcissism, this process of translation remains incomplete. Raw emotions, particularly shame and emptiness, find no linguistic form. They are repressed before they can even be thought of. Instead of feeling ‘I am ashamed right now’, a compulsion to act arises: to make oneself appear grand, to belittle others, to control the situation. The missing inner space is replaced by external regulation.
This is precisely where the connection between the pre-Oedipal wound and symbolisation lies. Where early mirroring was lacking, the child was unable to sufficiently distinguish and name their inner states. The narcissistic defence is an attempt to stabilise from the outside an unsymbolised, barely bearable inner world. Grandiosity then becomes a crutch for a self that has grown up without a foothold.
What did Freud mean by primary and secondary narcissism?
Sigmund Freud laid the foundations in 1914 with ‘An Introduction to Narcissism’. He described primary narcissism as an early normal state and as a necessary stage of development: the young child first directs libidinal energy towards itself before channelling this energy towards other people as object love. A remnant of this self-love persists throughout life and is healthy.
Freud spoke of secondary narcissism when the energy directed towards others is redirected back onto the ego. In the face of disappointment, loss or hurt, a person withdraws their attention from the outside world and turns it back towards themselves. In this context, Freud also developed the concept of the ego ideal, that inner standard against which one measures oneself and which later becomes the superego. Later authors such as Laplanche and Pontalis have shown just how multifaceted Freud’s concept of primary narcissism remained.
Freud’s text marks a turning point. It shows that self-reference is part of normal development and that the pathological form arises from a disturbance in this process. This set the direction: narcissism as a question of the development of the self and not as a moral defect. Later analysts have followed this line of inquiry.
How does Heinz Kohut explain the grandiose self?
Heinz Kohut, the founder of self psychology, placed the needs of the self at the centre. For him, the child needs what are known as ‘self-objects’: attachment figures who take on psychological functions that the child cannot yet perform on its own. The mother, who looks admiringly at a beaming child, reflects its worth back to it. The father, whom the child is allowed to admire and idealise, provides it with support and guidance.
A healthy sense of self develops from these experiences. Kohut described the child’s grandiose self as a normal stage of development. The child feels magnificent and needs someone who will kindly affirm this grandeur whilst gently grounding it in reality. If this need is repeatedly overlooked, the grandiose self remains immature and archaic, rather than transforming into realistic self-worth.
The adult narcissist then carries an inflated sense of grandeur over a fragile core. For Kohut, this grandiosity is an attempt to compensate for the lack of empathic mirroring in childhood. Where the child once found no admiring gaze, the adult searches ceaselessly for validation that can never quite fill the old void.
What is narcissistic rage?
Kohut coined the term ‘narcissistic rage’. It differs from ordinary anger in its intensity and its irreconcilability. It is triggered by an affront: a criticism, a rejection, a merit that has been overlooked. For a stable person, such a thing is unpleasant. For the narcissistically wounded person, it threatens the entire painstakingly constructed façade.
The intensity stems from what is at stake. The affront does not merely touch on a minor aspect; it tears at the seam that holds the fragile self together. Behind the rage lies shame – often a devastating, almost unbearable shame. The rage turns this pain outwards and, for a moment, provides a sense of strength and control.
From the outside, this outburst seems disproportionate and unjust. From an internal perspective, it is a desperate attempt at self-preservation. Anyone who interprets narcissistic rage as pure malice overlooks the panic that drives it. It is the cry of a self that fears its own disintegration.
How does Otto Kernberg describe pathological narcissism?
Otto Kernberg, drawing on the tradition of object relations theory, emphasises the inner world of internalised relationships. For him, pathological narcissism is linked to a pathologically constructed self-structure arising from disrupted early object relationships. The individual has not developed a stable, differentiated image of themselves and others.
Splitting is central to Kernberg’s theory. The child who fails to integrate positive and negative experiences keeps the two sides separate. People are either idealised or devalued; there is no middle ground. The other person is placed on a pedestal as long as they are useful, and cast aside as soon as they disappoint. Idealisation and devaluation are two sides of the same mechanism, which maintains a contradictory self-image.
Kernberg describes this as a chronic emptiness and an insatiable envy. This envy is directed against everything good that the other person possesses, and which one cannot possess oneself. For this reason, Kernberg developed transference-focused psychotherapy, an approach that specifically addresses these split relationship patterns. For him, too, the starting point is early trauma rather than free choice.
What does Lacan’s mirror stage have to do with narcissism?
Jacques Lacan described the mirror stage as a key moment in the formation of the ego. Between the ages of six and eighteen months, the child recognises itself in the mirror and identifies with the image. The moment is both exhilarating and deceptive. The image appears whole and complete, whilst the child still experiences itself internally as uncoordinated and fragmented.
According to Lacan, the ego emerges through this external, imaginary figure. It is based on a misrecognition: the child takes the perfect image for itself and builds its later self-images upon this anticipation. From the very beginning, the ego is a borrowed construct, taken from an outside perspective. Every human being carries this basic structure within them.
The mirror only acquires meaning when a third party, usually a parent, names and frames the image: ‘That’s you.’ In this act, the symbolic dimension comes into play, transforming the mere reflection into a vantage point from which the child is regarded as a person. If this naming, affirming gaze is absent, the ‘I’ remains trapped in this imaginary misrecognition. From this perspective, narcissism can be understood as a fixation within the imaginary, in which the self clings to the borrowed image because the symbolic anchoring failed to materialise.
Why do those affected suffer themselves?
From the outside, narcissism appears to be self-satisfaction. Clinical experience paints a different picture. Behind the grandiosity and contempt lies a chronic emptiness, a dependence on validation and a constant fear of being exposed. Self-esteem fluctuates wildly and depends on others' judgment. A single critical glance can trigger deep shame.
The covert form makes the suffering even more apparent. The covert narcissist comes across as inhibited, easily offended and often depressed. They see themselves as a misunderstood genius and the eternal victim of a world that fails to recognise their worth. Both the grandiose and covert types share the same fragile self-esteem and the same longing for recognition that finds no lasting fulfilment.
This turns relationships into a minefield. Intimacy feels threatening because it makes them vulnerable. Admiration brings only brief relief. Those affected lose partners, friends and touch with their true selves, and often do not understand why. This suffering is real, even if it is hidden behind defences. Recognising it is the prerequisite for treatment to be possible at all.
What does this mean for how we interact with those affected?
In everyday life, this leads to a simple conclusion. People with narcissistic traits can hurt others, and setting boundaries remains the right and necessary thing to do. At the same time, the underlying hurt deserves compassionate understanding. Narcissism stems from an early-life wound. Nobody chooses to be this way. Those who understand this can protect themselves while still upholding the other person’s dignity.
The most important points in brief
• Narcissism is an early disturbance of the self that arises before conscious decisions are made. Its everyday use as a term of abuse misses the clinical picture.
• The term derives from the myth of Narcissus (Ovid) and was first coined in sexology (Havelock Ellis 1898, Paul Näcke 1899, ‘Narcismus’) before Freud expanded it into a theory of the self.
• Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is recognised in psychiatry (DSM-5 301.81, ICD-10 F60.8). Symptoms include grandiosity, a need for admiration, a sense of entitlement, taking advantage of others, a lack of empathy and envy.
• The wound is pre-Oedipal: it originates in the early years of life, at a time before language and a clear distinction between the self and the other.
• Understood as a symbolisation disorder, it involves a lack of the ability to translate raw emotions such as shame and emptiness into words. Grandiosity replaces the missing inner space.
• Freud distinguished between primary and secondary narcissism and introduced the ego ideal.
• Kohut describes the grandiose self as sitting atop a fragile core, the absence of empathic mirroring, and narcissistic rage as a reaction to humiliation.
• Kernberg emphasises splitting, idealisation and devaluation, envy and chronic emptiness as consequences of disturbed early object relationships.
• Lacan’s mirror stage presents the ego as an imaginary misrecognition. Without a naming, holding gaze, the self remains trapped in the imaginary.
• Those affected suffer themselves: fluctuating self-esteem, dependence on validation, fear of being exposed, and relationships breaking down. Setting boundaries and showing compassion are not mutually exclusive.
Sources
• Ovid, Metamorphoses (Narcissus and Echo, Project Gutenberg): https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/ovid/metamor/metamor.html
• Sigmund Freud: An Introduction to Narcissism (1914). Freud Edition: https://www.freud-edition.net/zur-einfuehrung-des-narzissmus
• On Narcissism (overview of Freud’s text, primary and secondary narcissism, ego ideal). Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Narcissism
• On the history of the term (Havelock Ellis, Paul Näcke, narcissism). Wikipedia, Narcissism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder, diagnostic criteria (DSM-5, ICD-10). Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narzisstische_Pers%C3%B6nlichkeitsst%C3%B6rung
• Heinz Kohut, self psychology (Grand Self, self-objects, narcissistic rage, empathic mirroring). Dorsch Encyclopaedia of Psychology, Hogrefe: https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/kohut-heinz
• Dragaric: Heinz Kohut’s theory of narcissistic disorder. Existential Analysis: https://www.existenzanalyse.org/wp-content/uploads/Dragaric_2006-_AA_307.pdf
• Otto F. Kernberg (pathological narcissism, object relations, splitting, idealisation and devaluation). DeWiki: https://dewiki.de/Lexikon/Otto_F._Kernberg