Dear all,
Dr. Otto Kernberg and Dr. Heinz Kohut are frequently referred to when we study narcissism and NPD. I discovered this informative lecture on the web this morning and thought perhaps some of you might be interested in reading it. Now, you don't have to read all these PDFs to understand 'bad behavior' and 'nasty narcissism', however, if you're so inclined, I will continue to add articles to this section of the forum. It's useful to have a place to store information rather than losing the link somewhere deep in the bowels of my computer.
I particularly appreciate Kohut's description of The Tragic Man. How many of us have watched the narcissist destroy his-or-her life and felt tremendous sadness? Or felt completely powerless because we had no effect on their self-destructive (and other-destructive) behavior.........
Hugs,
CZ
"...The first problem area can be treated with classical psychoanalysis. In this category, humanity is understood as 'GUILTY Man' (Jensma, 1993: 291, bolding mine). Humanity feels guilty because it has broken the law ('thou shalt not') at some point or not lived up to the ideals in the superego. But, the second area cannot be treated or understood using this model. Kohut termed people in this second category, 'TRAGIC Man'. Patients in this second category do not experience guilt; they experience despair, a sense of emptiness, a sense of having failed to reach their ideals. This condition particularly afflicts those in middle-age. Kohut can be understood to have formulated a view of the person in which humanness is thought to be dual, both guilty and tragic...
"...Those with damaged selves may achieve all sorts of things and through these have various props to get the self somehow together. Famous people will use the fame and attention they get to hold themselves together. But, a day of reckoning will overtake them eventually. They are cracked bridges waiting for the right conditions that will precipitate a collapse and are always susceptible to disintegration..."
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