IDENTIFICATION
We must now traverse another path through which Narcissism wanders. We
have emphasised the fact that when a child comes into the world, he is
to himself the only real thing; the rest of the world is merely seen
from his phantastic view point, and at this stage he accepts himself as
the one all-powerful centre of everything. Another important fact which
arises from this, however, we have not dealt with, and that is, that he
does not separate the outer world from himself as a separate entity.
His unconscious view point is that the world is subordinate to himself,
beneath his omnipotent control, if you like, that it is a dream of his
own imagining, that it is something which belongs to him in every sense
of the word. This, summed up, means that it is part of himself, that
his identity and the identity of the dream-world around him are part of
the same thing.
Thus, the infant does not at first distinguish between himself and his
mother. When he is hungry, he cries, and he probably has almost as
ready access to his mother’s breasts as if they were part of his own
body. And such imagination is more than encouraged when he is allowed
the use of a rubber teat to suck in the intervals between his meals.
It is generally a comparatively slow process through which the infant
passes, this one of separating himself in thought and feeling from
objects surrounding him. It is one which is hardly ever completely
accomplished. We have already mentioned the fairy-tale which encourages
the child’s phantasy thought. Let us now see how he really obtains
pleasure from that fairy-tale. It is by identification. In imagination
he is a fairy prince or princess, as the case may be; his pleasure in
the triumphs and progress of the central figure of the story is that
of performing his prodigious deeds by proxy; and if he thus identifies
himself with the hero of the story, he is also encouraged to believe
that he possesses the power and qualities of that hero. He is less able
to realise that he, unlike the hero, cannot perform magic deeds with a
mere wave of a wand. Indeed, when the story is over, he will probably
play at being a fairy, and in phantasy perform the magic deeds again.
This demonstrates the force of his identification with the hero of the
story. _And it must be remembered that sooner or later the child will
have to wake up, will have to realise that it possesses no magic power,
and the struggle within it will be great._ It is obviously a mistaken
form of kindness to enhance such pleasures of the moment, when you are
merely accentuating the struggle which the child will have to make at
a later period to overcome his Narcissism. In passing, I may mention
that you have probably already done the child considerable damage by
allowing him to have his rubber teat at the beginning of this period of
identification, since he identifies it with the mother’s breast, and is
thus encouraged to think that the breast is always with him.
Let us now see where this Narcissistic identification may come out
later in life.
First of all, it is this which enables us to enjoy novels, just as
we enjoyed fairy-tales as children. We identify ourselves with the
hero or heroine of the book, and in phantasy perform their various
wonderful feats. Thus we satisfy our Narcissistic desire to be great
and powerful. If we lack cleverness, and the hero is clever, by
identification and imputation we may attain the pleasures of feeling
clever and superior. If the heroine is beautiful and everyone falls in
love with her, we may by proxy be the same. If the hero is a sailor,
and we have always desired to sail, yet have never been on the sea,
our ambition is now attained--and see how easily attained--in a truly
omnipotent fashion, without effort on our part, just by reading
about it. Exactly the same thing takes place at theatres, where the
Narcissist identifies himself with the actors on the stage. So far
so good; if a person can content himself with an occasional theatre
or occasional novel, wherewith to take a restful regression to an
infantile outlet of energy, no harm is done. There are times when we
must rest, and there are times when we must sleep, which also appears
to be Narcissistic regression to a condition somewhat resembling
our pre-birth state. But there are many who cannot control their
identification in this way, who cannot confine it to the stage and the
novel, who bring it into the affairs of life continuously. They may
unconsciously identify themselves with their father or mother, their
relations or friends, or even their enemies, and perhaps, in turn, with
everyone with whom they come into contact. Like a looking-glass, they
reflect everything that goes on around them. They feel the pleasures of
their friends, they also feel their pains. They are called sympathetic,
they are often ultra-sympathetic--they are a nuisance.
I remember on one occasion I had asked a woman of strong Narcissistic
temperament to take a fly out of the corner of my eye. She absolutely
refused to do so under any consideration, as she was sure she would
hurt me too much. Inquiry showed that Narcissism had exaggerated her
own feelings, so that a speck of dust in her own eye was torture. Yet
her eye was so tender and important to herself that she could not bear
anyone to touch it even in order to get something out. _And she could
not imagine that anybody else could have feelings that differed from
hers_; and since she identified herself so much with other people, I
have no doubt it would have been a real agony to her, had she attempted
to extract the fly from my eye.
Such people are by no means uncommon. We all know the person who cannot
bear to hurt us, even for our good. For instance, some cannot bear to
bandage a wound for us since they cannot bear to see pain in any form.
They state that it is almost as if they felt it themselves, and they
call themselves “sympathetic.” But in spite of popular belief to the
contrary, such sympathy is not a virtue, there is nothing altruistic
about it; it is an inconvenient fault of an entirely selfish kind. In
order to help one’s friend, one does not need to feel his feelings and
suffer his pains, one wants to understand them; the more one enters
into his feelings, the more one’s judgment is biased, and the less one
is able, as a rule, to be of assistance. Worse still, in connection
with these people, they not only pour out sympathy in this way,
but attribute it to themselves as a virtue, and they cannot bring
themselves to believe their friends to be really good, unless their
friends also can react in a similar way towards them. They call a
normal person unsympathetic, perhaps exaggerate the term and call him
brutal, wishing indeed that their friends who have climbed higher from
Narcissism should regress to their lower stand-point.
I have given here but one type of Narcissistic identification with
other persons; it seems to me unnecessary to carry it further since
any reader who chooses to think the matter out for himself will find
endless modifications of such identifications. We all possess it in
part, and on the whole women are more Narcissistic than men. Let it
not be thought, however, that this is a reflection on women; it is a
reflection on the way they have been brought up, for from the earliest
times environment impresses them with the idea that “little boys are
made of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails, and little girls are
made of sugar and spice and all things nice!” And hence on such lines
as these, their Narcissism is encouraged, and their capabilities of
facing fact and reality discouraged from the very outset, until
differences of temperament are produced in the adults of the two sexes,
which in no way belong to Nature, but purely to our conventional and
somewhat barbaric stand-point.
There are yet more important results of Narcissistic identification
than those already mentioned; Narcissism leads, in many instances, to
the choice of a particular love-object. Narcissism is, of course, by no
means the only or chief factor in the choice of love-objects, as anyone
who has studied psycho-analysis will at once realise. It is, however,
the only one I intend to touch on in this particular work.
Just as the mythical Narcissus himself fell in love with his
reflection, so does his prototype of to-day. An infant is not only
the omnipotent centre of all, he is also the only interesting portion
of the universe in his early days. His interests are entirely
self-centred, and his joys and pleasures belong to himself alone; and
as he grows older, everything that is like him is identified with
himself. In the worst form of Narcissism in the adult, the individual
remains entirely selfish, and is incapable of loving anybody outside
himself at all.
_By identification, however, he can love in a sense those attributes of
his own personality which he sees in other persons._ Thus, he may love
somebody for a facial similarity, for a voice which is like his, or for
tastes which are like his own, but most commonly he loves them for a
body like his own. And from this we see that he may fall in love with
somebody of his own sex. Hence, homo-sexuality,[5] as it is called,
is frequently one of the distressing results of an early Narcissistic
upbringing. But it need not be necessary for such homo-sexuality to
be of a grossly erotic type; such desires may be for the most part
repressed in the unconscious, or appear only in minor ways such as
the desire to kiss, fondle or touch favoured persons of the same sex.
On the other hand, frequently the early education and environment of
the Narcissistic person has been such as to leave him quite incapable
of complete repression; and we then have expressed more or less
open erotic desires and actions for persons of the same sex. Such
persons, however, should not be treated as criminals in this particular
matter; they are by this time as hopelessly incompetent to deal with
themselves, as is the kleptomaniac or a person having any other form
of so-called degenerate mentality. Here again, we see the reason why
homo-sexuality is so much more rife amongst women than amongst men. The
minor details of their early environment tend so much more to confirm
them in Narcissism. It is partially repressed and partially displaced
homo-sexuality which causes some women to kiss one another, to call one
another by affectionate names and so forth, to delight in taking hold
of one another’s hands on occasion; actions which normally, between
persons of opposite sex, would at once be taken to indicate some sort
of erotic affection, but which we are so used to seeing amongst women
that we do not realise their repressed and unconscious significance.
Let it not be thought, however, that this subject of homo-sexuality is
based on this one simple problem; there are many other early infantile
fixations, which play a very large part in causing persons to become
homo-sexual. I only mention this one Narcissistic complex as being
another example of how identification takes place as one of the chief
results of the Narcissistic temperament, and to what lengths such
identification may, on occasion, lead. Of course, all degrees of such
identifications may be met with, and it is quite common to find persons
who can love hetero-sexually as well as homo-sexually; that is to say,
who can love persons of the opposite sex in the usual way, as well as
persons of their own sex. But such people, even in their hetero-sexual
love, tend to choose a love-object which resembles themselves in some
manner or the other. However, a certain amount of Narcissism (which
fortunately everyone still possesses), may be of value in this way,
for it is certainly good for a man and woman to have similar interests
when they marry; it is excessive Narcissism, excessive identification,
excessive sympathy, which is deleterious, just as in other
manifestations of Narcissism, with which we are going to deal shortly,
it is excessive impatience, excessive anger, excessive tears which are
really harmful, and lead to the greatest unhappiness. Although perhaps
in these latter instances, to be without impatience, anger, or tears
would be better still.
Thirdly, there is yet another method of Narcissistic identification.
Just as a child identifies itself with its living surroundings, so
does it identify itself with its inanimate surroundings. As its mother
and nurse are treated as part of it in the early stages, so also are
its rubber teat, feeding bottle and toys treated. If you take away
the baby’s rattle, it will cry or stamp or weep with as much vigour
and display of emotion as if you had caused it bodily pain by means
of rigorous physical punishment. You have in fact taken away part
of itself from the little omnipotent person. In later stages in his
career, if his Narcissism has been allowed to remain, the adult will
still identify himself with his belongings. He will be absurdly upset
at the breaking of a tea-cup which belongs to him, at the theft of
some jewelry, at damage done to his clothing or property in some way,
however trifling. He cannot realise that these things which belong to
him are more or less unimportant trifles, which can be replaced, or
if they cannot be replaced, can be equally well done without, if he
has attained that philosophical attitude of mind which belongs to the
person who has thrown off this uncomfortable spirit of Narcissistic
identification. Moreover, the Narcissist who thinks himself to be the
best and most important of beings, will attach similar importance to
his property. If he drives an inferior motor-car, which breaks down on
every journey he makes, he will excuse it in all sorts of irrational
ways, he will praise it on every possible occasion as “the best car
on the market,” and what seems more absurd still, he will very likely
think it the best car on the market. It is the same with his house,
his books, with his relations, with everything that is even distantly
connected with him. He will speak in high praise of them all, and be
anxious, at all times, to show them off, and to uphold their virtues
to all comers. The Narcissist, indeed, rationalises about things in
general considerably more than most people. The fuller meaning of
rationalization and its methods of working, however, we shall leave
till later on.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Homo-sexuality--sensual love for a person of the same sex as
oneself.