The Culture of Narcissism

The Culture of Narcissism

Christopher Lasch — 2 recordings in the archive.

The book: The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch.

I will attempt to make some sense of the culture of narcissism ever since the 1940s and 50s psychiatry has devoted a growing part of its attention to a type of patient who very seldom resembles the classical neuroses floyd described this patient confronts the psychiatrist not with well-defined symptoms but with ill-defined dissatisfaction he doesn't suffer from debilitating fixations or phobias or from the conversion of repressed sexual energy into nervous symptom instead he complains of vague diffuse dissatisfaction with life and feels his amorphous existence to be futile and purposeless language that follows is mostly drawn from clinical descriptions he complains of subtly experienced yet pervasive feelings of emptiness and depression violent oscillations of self-esteem and a general inability to get along he gains a sense of heightened self-esteem only by attaching himself to strong admired figures whose acceptance he craves and by whom he needs to feel supported although he carries out his daily responsibilities and even achieves distinction happiness seems to erude him and life frequently strikes him as not worth living psychoanalysis a therapy that grew out of experience with severely repressed and morally rigid individuals who needed to come to terms with a rigorous inner sensor today finds itself confronted more and more with a chaotic and impulse ridden character it has to deal with patients who act out their conflict instead of repressing or sublimating them these patients though often ingratiating tend to cultivate a protective shallowness in emotional relations they lack the capacity to mourn because the intensity of their rage against lost love objects in particular against their parents prevents their reliving happy experiences or treasuring them in memory sexually promiscuous rather than repressed they nevertheless find it difficult as one clinician says to elaborate the sexual impulse or to approach sex in the spirit of play they avoid close involvements which might release intense feelings of rage their personalities consist largely of defenses against this rage and against feelings of oral deprivation that originate in the very early stage of psychic development often these patients suffer from hypochondria and complain of a sense of inner emptiness at the same time they entertain fantasies of omnipotence and a strong belief in their right to exploit others and be gratifying archaic punitive and sadistic elements predominate in the superegos of these patients and they conform to social rules more out of fear…