Childhood Of Narcissus

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

There is no consensus among psychologists about the causes of narcissistic disorder. Most theories of the origin of narcissism can be roughly distributed on an axis between the two poles. The first pole speaks about biological causes, such as an innate mental constitution, genetic disorders and internal drives, instinctive drives leading to a narcissistic mental disorder. The second pole speaks about the narcissistic trauma inflicted on the child in childhood by his environment, his family, the situation that he had in childhood. There is nothing we can do about biological causes. To consider the reasons behind childhood traumas will be interesting in my opinion.

At the beginning of the myth of Narcissus, as outlined by Ovid, there are these words:

The experience of trust and the words of the prophetic first happened

Liriopee recognize the blue one that hugged

By the flexible current of Kefis and, locking her in the waters, the violence

I did it to her. Brought the beauty and was born

A sweet child who was love and was already worthy of it;

The boy's name was Narcissus."

(Publius Ovid Nazon. Metamorphoses. M., "Fiction", 1977.

Translated from Latin by S. V. Shervinsky.)

So, Narcissus was born as a result of the rape of the nymph Liriopeia by the river god Kephis. And this is very symbolic from a Jungian point of view. Because the story of a narcissistic child's family contains the violence of aggressive destructive masculinity over soft femininity.

How will this look in real-life examples of families? In such a family, there will be an absent, or emotionally unavailable, cold, or cruel, destructive father. Such a child will not have an example of a positive masculinity providing male-type support and care. Narcissus will not have a father to take care of the family and the mother of the child so that she can fully devote herself to caring for the baby in the safety and trust of the world. Fate can also act as such a destructive masculinity. For example, placing the child's family in harsh circumstances where the mother is in constant anxiety and cannot be caring and empathic. For example, war, the death of a partner, severe depression, some kind of life difficulties that completely absorb the mother's attention, making her immune to the urgent needs of the child.

It could also be a mother who has lost her feminine, gentle, caring nature and, under the influence of a destructive Animus (possibly caused by her own childhood), cannot manifest herself as a positive, reflective, empathic mother. Most likely, she will establish rigid rigid frameworks, rules, raising a baby. Driving him there against his will, perpetrating violence against him through hard upbringing, not showing empathy and not taking into account his feelings. His negative emotions and behavior will be denied, condemned, and accompanied by maternal messages such as “Good girls don't behave like that,” “Boys don't cry,” and so on. In this case, the child will be used by the mother to meet her own needs. That is, she will not see his feelings, his needs, which need to be provided for a sufficiently good mother. No, such a mother will put into the child her image of how he should be, not noticing the real child. She will bring him up so that he embodies her dreams and aspirations, something that she herself could not do or achieve. Instead of becoming a mirror to her child, the mother will demand to reflect her. Merging with the child, she will not contact the true one. And this pattern will become the curse of Narcissus.

The child will submit to this upbringing. To meet the mother's need for reflection, he will become an obedient mirror, as long as he is loved. He will grow himself a false Ego, a magnificent Person, which his mother will gladly present to everyone around him, proving how good and correct she is. But Narcissus will not have contact with himself. He will lose his true Self, he will not be able to connect with him. Cut off his real feelings so as not to experience them. Suppress all negative emotions so as not to upset anyone. And this pain, the inability to know himself from now on will accompany him through life. He will look for mirrors in other people in order to be reflected in them and to finally see himself, the true one, to connect with himself. He will look in other people for that reflective and empathic mother, which he was deprived of in childhood. Search and not find, try to connect with yourself, feel unreal and empty inside. The narcissist will fall into rage and hatred at the feeling of death within himself, the falsity of his ego. He will be fiercely jealous of people who have such contact with themselves. Will be in a rage and painful hatred to try to destroy them too. Just like it was destroyed in childhood itself.

Such is the drama of the narcissistic personality, whose roots lie in the depths of childhood experience.

The article was written based on the materials:

1. K. Asper “Psychology of the narcissistic self. The inner child and self-esteem"

2. D. W. Winnicott "Ego Distortions in Terms of True and False Self"

3. A. Green "Dead Mother"

Illustration: Narcissus poeticus. Botanical illustration from the book "Flora Batava" by Jan Kops