Narcisus and his vain search for the invisible other: An interpretation from the point of view of valency theory

publisher奈良"In the present paper, I have first atempted to discus the Grek myth of Narcisus, showing that Narcisus’s was not really narcisistic in the narow and strict meaning of the term. For Narcisus’s real “sin” is not self-loving, but his indiference towards, hate and confrontation of others, or the group and its mentality as defined by Bion. Viewed from the standpoint of valency theory, Narcisus’s mental dificulty or disorder was not his self-loving but his pathological or minus valency structure, precisely speaking his minus fight valency. Furthermore, based on valency theory and Bion’s idea of ‘narcisism/social-ism” as modified by the author, 1)I atempted here a new definition of narcisism as a psychic state comprising two inseparabIe poles (narcis-ism and social-ism), and 2)proposed a new typology of narcisism including pathological (with three subtypes), and normal narcisism. Pathological narcisism refers to 1)a psychicstate, characterized by excesiveself-loving,and indiferenceand hatetowardsthegroup, s1m11artoNarc1sus’sone,2)astatewhereexcesive1oveofthegroupcoexistswithse1f- abnegationasaresu1tofrepresion,3)aseverestatecharacterizedby1ow amountof bothse1f-1oveand1oveofothersornarcis-ism andsocia1-ism.Fina1y,norma1narc1s1sm sredef nedasamenta1statecharacterizedbyaba1ancebetween“narc1s-1sm”and “social-ism”.This valency theory-based conception and typology ofnarcisism has var1ouss1gn1f1cant1mpI1cat1onsfornotonlyclinicalbutalsoempiricaIresearch.