Presents a case study of a 30-yr-old man treated for narcissistic personality disorder and attempts to show how further contributions to an alternative approach to psychoanalysis can come from E. FROMM. FROMMian themes are all present in the case in varying degrees. It is suggested that the 2 main features of this case (narcissism and homosexuality) were the outcome of a pathological symbiosis with both parents. Eight themes, drawn both from FROMM's published works and from his unpublished writings, are stressed, including benign vs malignant aggression, having vs being, homosexual and incestuous symbiosis, and secret family narcissism.
>Psychoanalytic Considerations on the Defences from Confrontation with the Stranger<: The conscious and unconscious are qualities of the contents of the psyche attributed, for the most part, to social processes, that are themselves unconscious. In this way the conscious area is largely an illusion. The total man, from the most distant past to the potential future, remains unconscious. One is a member of society, but also member of the human race and, as such, citizen of the world. Humanism is the antithesis of all xenophobic nationalism, all racism and all prejudiced thought. The repression of emotions, sentiments and thoughts which strike the family harmony are part of a strategy of survival adopted by the individual from the start of infancy. The operation of estrangement begins from oneself in order to conform with the family and social environment. Ostracism is avoided by directing it towards repressed and split parts of oneself and towards all aspects on the outside to which those parts allude, according to the defence mechanisms of identifiaation with the aggressor and the projection. Not only is >primordial man< estranged, but also and above all man in his potentiality of development, the >new man< who has overcome narcissism and the symbioticincestuous attachment. The revolutionary character is the strangest of all in today's Western society. The Author supports these positions by the analysis of two dreams and by a brief history of witch hunt.
Presents a case study of a 30-yr-old man treated for narcissistic personality disorder and attempts to show how further contributions to an alternative approach to psychoanalysis can come from E. FROMM. FROMMian themes are all present in the case in varying degrees. It is suggested that the 2 main features of this case (narcissism and homosexuality) were the outcome of a pathological symbiosis with both parents. Eight themes, drawn both from FROMM's published works and from his unpublished writings, are stressed, including benign vs malignant aggression, having vs being, homosexual and incestuous symbiosis, and secret family narcissism.