This is a section of a paper on hysteria that focusses on the borderline types which are sometimes called hysterics. It focuses on the proto-phallic drive/ego ideal or what I've called in other posts the poly-phallic ideal. This is in contrast to the deutero-phallic or phallic-narcissistic ideal and the non-universal stage involving the phallic mother. Specifically, the hysteroid and histrionic type while the next part of the essay focusses on the female compulsive (phallic-narcissistic) and the "genital" hysteric.
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I’ve mentioned the feminine ego ideal of tender giving, renunciation, etc. In a simple way all of this can be captured by saying that the masochist feels he or she must be “nice”. To be nice means that one shouldn’t put others out and in fact should share with them and make them comfortable and happy if possible. One shouldn’t use vulgar language, one shouldn’t draw attention to any achievement, and one shouldn’t make claims upon others. I don’t think that object-cathexis and self-effacement must go together but I understand them as masochistic features. Similarly, narcissism and ‘blame’ seem to go together. In an interesting article Bela Grunberger relates racism to the proto-phallic ego ideal which would seem to put blame on par with the masochistic ego ideal of self-effacement:
The anti-Semite's profound satisfaction flows from the fact that his ego is in perfect harmony with his ego-ideal. Having made his projection onto the Jew, he has found his Manichaean paradise: all that is bad is thereafter on one side—the side of the Jew—and all that is good on the other side where he himself is. . . The ego-ideal is narcissistic, and the satisfaction is that of perfect narcissistic integrity recovered through the projection on to the Jew (Grunberger, The anti-semite and the Oedipus Complex, p. 382)[1].
The profound satisfaction of the racist can be taken as an example of an individual affect being displaced onto a group identification[2]. However, it also works at the individual level as C.W. Socarides notes in his study of the affect of Vengeance. He discusses them both as group vendettas manifest in “feuds, lynchings, or retaliatory political or military acts solely for the sake of national pride” or individual vendettas. Where the Count of Monte Cristo has a legitimate reason to seek revenge, it can be argued, the blame in the affect of vengeance is more petty as with an arrogant- vindictive co-worker who will blame his failure to get the raise on you (On Vengeance, p.358)[3]. Socarides writes:
The avenger often has considered himself to be a male without any phallic deficiency in adult life. In certain circumstances he may suddenly be threatened by loss of this self-image, loss of the love object, financial distress, etc. Resorting to vengefulness is a startling proof, however, of his unconscious infantile fears, his castration anxiety, feelings of inferiority and smallness. In adult life, the initial infantile aggression become manifest instead of the deeper underlying castration fear. Typically, such persons have developed a defensive screening out of their fear and have imagined themselves to be the proud possessors of a large phallus, the favorite child, loved and admired. This response to the adult frustration contradicts these earlier infantile convictions. This mechanism which consists essentially of attempting to deny the wrong that was done to him in childhood does not sustain him for long (ibid, p.367-8)
The proto-phallic ego ideal is tied to a confidence or ‘cockiness’ that one was somehow preferable to the mother overtop of the father[4]. However, the affect of vengeance also betrays that the narcissist in his denial does believe that the other who is blamed is superior to him. The racist object often has envied physical or intellectual capacities as Grunberger points out. I’ve chosen to use the more neutral word blame because the affect of vengeance constitutes a certain type emotion while the narcissist may blame others or circumstances for his failures without being vengeful and when things get to their most bleak he can even console himself with racism. A white man may be poor and miserable but at least, he can think to himself, he is not black, and at the individual level a boy can console himself with the idea that at least he isn’t a girl[5].
Sticking to the linguistic convention of shame that Alexander brought forward I think that we can see the same constellation at work in relation to the self-effacement of the feminine ego ideal. It seems to me that if the masculine subject can overcome inferiority feelings by externalizing them on women and somehow console himself with the thought that he can take pride in that despite his lack of accomplishments why couldn’t the same structure be in the feminine subject? Instead of experiencing the depression or self-pity from feeling that one will never find love and be alone if this is externalized on others then there is worrying about others and trying to help them as a form of denial that allows one’s own lack of love to be ignored. The same is possible at the level of group identifications and it is possible to see liberals who worry about minority rights and the unhappiness of others.
Just as the structure goes from blame to active vengeance in the masculine subject concern for the unhappiness of others can go to the affect of compassion. When the mother’s desire is seen to go beyond the child (for the father) he or she can deny the loss of love by loving the father. This gives us the link to religious ethical life being simplified to loving others that would be an imitation of individuals who are compassionate with everyone. On the group level besides those who simply pity or feel badly for others there are individuals who sacrifice themselves to crusade for the rights of others. In between these two positions we have the general sense of ‘being nice’ as a concern although it need not go to the heights of compassion or be preoccupied with pity.
A further way to conceptualize these two poles of narcissism and masochism comes from the basic political stance of liberal and conservative. The liberal feels that people are basically good and deserve help while the conservative feels they are basically bad and don’t deserve help. The liberal is careful not to offend any minority groups while the conservative often demonizes some of them. The liberal would like social programs to help disadvantaged groups while the conservative focuses on the abuse of such programs and the limitations to his own freedoms that tax dollars take away. Additionally, if we look at the aim people have in telling lies these two trends can also be seen. There is a common anecdote of the narcissistic person lying about having written a book. At first he claims that he will write a book to others and they begin to ask about its progress. He starts by lying about sketching the plot, then about having written the first chapter, and keeps telling those who ask to see some of it to wait until he finishes more even though he hasn’t even started. With the masochist ‘white lies’ are what come to the fore because they are made so that the other person doesn't feel rejected by them. An example here is a person who lies about liking the sweaters that her friend designs. She finds them to be ugly but doesn’t want to put down her friend’s attempts and this gets her to the point that she begins to receive the sweaters as gifts, and then begins to have to start wearing them in order to keep up the lie that she finds them to beautiful.
In Freud’s work there is the possibility of extending the narcissistic and masochistic positions. Freud essentially creates a complementary object position for the subject positions of conquering and loving that I just explored. From ‘conquer’ one wants to be the object of the conqueror and ‘be conquered’ and from love, to be the object of the lover and ‘be loved’. If the two subject positions can be captured by the two political stances the two object positions can be captured by the two major appeals of magazines and entertainment coverage in the news. The object narcissist is concerned with beauty and being the cause of desire to the subject and entertainment has always been filled with people more known for their beauty than for their talent. The object masochist is concerned with what can be called personality and whether it’s through humour, charisma, or the ability to inspire others there are many entertainers who similarly lack talent in the diversity of their art (i.e. play the same role in acting or re-write the same song in music). I will explore these positions in detail shortly but I’d to consider the subject narcissist and masochist positions in relation to another meaning of penis envy.
As we saw earlier, Freud’s late formulation of penis envy was related to depression and feeling like nothing can be done to help one. This is very different from what would be considered the classic position. However, as HP Blum along with earlier analysts has found the idea of penis envy as revenge on and wishing to be a man is related to the potential narcissistic (masculine) trend in a woman’s character[6]. In an explication of penis envy that will be a good segue to the object narcissist position is given by Karl Abraham:
In some of our patients we come across phantasies which refer to the possibility of a recognition of the man and to the formulation of conditions under which the patient, after their fulfilment, would be prepared to reconcile herself to her femininity. I mention first of all a condition I have met with many times; it runs: 'I could be content with my femininity if I were absolutely the most beautiful of all women'. All men would lie at the feet of the most beautiful woman, and the female narcissism would consider this power not a bad compensation for the defect so painfully perceived. It is in fact easier for a beautiful woman to assuage her castration complex than for an ugly one. However, the idea of being the most beautiful of all women does not have this effect in all cases. We are well-acquainted with the expression of a woman, 'I should like to be the most beautiful of all women so that all men would adore me; then I would show them the cold shoulder'. In this case the craving for revenge is quite clear; this remark was made by a woman of an extremely tyrannical nature which was based on a wholly unsublimated castration complex Abraham, Manifestations of the Female Castration Complex, p.)
The object narcissist position is based upon what Freud called narcissistic object choice[7]. Lacan drops the connection it has with potential homosexual objects to say that feminine narcissism wants to be the cause of desire of the male narcissist:
[Regarding] woman… in her stature as an object offered up to desire… we should not be surprised that the narcissism of desire immediately latches onto the narcissism of the ego that is its prototype (Ecrits, p. 617).
The idea of equating feminine narcissism with beauty has been made by other analysts[8]. It is common to say that someone can be narcissistic about their appearance or beauty and be very active in trying to appear fashionable and “hot”. However, the relationship between them seems to be lost and is what I hope to capture with the idea of ‘be conquered’. The narcissistic object position means that one seeks to find a narcissistic subject who has power, or is dominant and by possessing them one becomes more valuable. By causing desire in the man a woman can control him and the couple’s sex life. If the subject narcissist conquers and expresses his uniqueness in using his strength or intellect to make others recognize this, then the object narcissist wants to ‘be conquered’ by the subject narcissist and make him work in order to possess her. She wants to cause desire in him as well as prove the worth of her beauty or attractiveness by how far he’ll go. For example, She might pretend to be disinterested, she won’t return calls, and she generally sets up obstacles for him to get to her.
As the affects of vengeance and compassion above were linked to the denial of castration a position of denial is also discernable in the object narcissist. Firstly, like the narcissist subject position the superego of inferiority would constitute the ego ideal failure. Inferiority in regards to one’s beauty seems self-explanatory. As mentioned above, the obsession with objects of beauty in the media for those that question theirs is obvious. To the extent that this inferiority can be externalized we find a similar obsession in the object narcissist with judgment of the beauty of celebrities and others in general. This of course can be transferred to the group level in which narcissism in beauty is attached to one’s family, race, or ethnicity. This goes hand in hand with the idea that the men of other groups desire women of the narcissist’s group. For example, lower class men desire upper class women or black men desire white women irrespective of individual attractiveness.
If we take the same structure of the woman encountering the loss of the mother as mirroring her beauty to find she desires beyond her, then we can find a position of denial in which the father is taken as the subject. The object-position denial elicits the ‘masculine-gaze’ and an affect of ‘sexiness’ denies the narcissistic failure to be the object of desire. Here we have both cultivation of a hyper-feminine body and demeanor as well as the use of causing sexual desire to be used in the denial. In other words, when such a person doesn’t feel that he or she is properly admired in their relationship they begin to use the causing of sexual desire in others, if not sex itself, to deny this. This isn’t done indiscriminately of course, but with potent males. At the group level the example that comes to mind are the women who would have sex with the ex-pat English teachers in Eastern Europe without any designs of marriage, to get money from them, nor to be in a relationship with them. So, basically, a higher class or more esteemed ethnic group in a culture would mediate this attitude.
One characterlogical style of hysteria can be explained from this object position. This view, as outlined by Lawerence Josephs is to see the hysteric as playing a game of predator and prey with men in which the object of the hysteric is to get revenge on the man by causing desire in him and then leaving him in the lurch[9]. “The hysteric not only wants to win the object’s love” he writes, “but to then go on to inflict the humiliating wound of rebuffing the other at the height of infatuation” (Josephs, Character and Self-Experience, p. 167). Marion Burgner in her famous article on the phallic-narcissistic stage similarly asks for the hysteric to be reconsidered as phallic-narcissistic, but, so far as she is blatantly sexual and doesn't impart a sense of having an ideal based upon the mother's phallic image I'd correct this to belong to the proto-phallic stage. Burgner in the Phallic-Narcissistic Phase writes:
While as adults these patients were often able to have heterosexual intercourse (thus indicating the relative intactness of their drive development), their relationships to their objects were frequently characterized by interactions on a phallic-narcissistic level; for example, an inability to achieve a reciprocal relationship in which the object's real qualities and characteristics are recognized and valued, and in which the needs and demands of the object are accepted; a tendency to use the object solely as a source of admiration or condemnation, as a substitute for internalized approval or sanctions; an emphasis on exhibitionistic and voyeuristic behavior in relation to the object; an incessantly phallic-competitive interaction with the object. Indeed, we were struck, as we examined the level of object relationships of these patients, how many of them could also be described as hysterical characters, and we would further suggest that in the hysteric the phallic-narcissistic level rather than the oedipal one is the nodal point of the regressive behavior. Much of what is often described as oral-demanding behavior in hysterics is perhaps better understood as a manifestation of phallic-narcissistic demands for admiration and narcissistic supplies from the object. 178
The object-narcissist hysteric who is pre-oedipal has also been called a hysteroid in contrast to the oedipal level hysteric[10]. Easser and Lesser, whose quotation opened this paper, give a good illustration of this type:
In many instances the hysteroid would appear to be a caricature of the hysteric, much as the hysteric has been said to be a caricature of femininity. Each characteristic is demonstrated in even sharper dramatic relief. The bounds of social custom and propriety are breached. The latent aggressivity of the exhibitionism, the competitiveness and the self-absorption becomes blatant, insistent, and bizarre. The chic becomes the mannequin; the casual, sloppy; the bohemian, beat. Thus, a hysterical patient was able to enjoy the pleasures of the beauty parlor only after analysis had broken through her defense against exhibitionism while a hysteroid patient changed the color of her hair one to two times a week to keep pace with her rapidly shifting moods.
The adaptational functioning of the hysteroid is erratic. Inconstancy and irresponsibility cause the patient to suffer realistic rebuffs, injuries, and failures. By contrast, the hysteric often voices desperation and provokes concern in others but rarely is in actual danger. Historically, in the hysteroid, academic and vocational patterns usually reflect the same erratic quality of attainment, alternating with periods of serious dysfunction.
In object relationships, the hysteric has difficulty within the relationship, the hysteroid with the relationship. Friendships are maintained over long periods by the hysteric. These are characterized by much affectionate display, much ingratiation, and many emotional storms. The hysteroid starts friendships with great hopes and enthusiasm. The friendship commences with idolatry and ends in bitterness when the expectation of rescue, nurture and care is not fulfilled. These relational ruptures are often succeeded by detachment, isolation, depression, and paranoidlike trends. The hysteric uses emotional relationships to copulate symbolically, to hold her partner as guardian over her own erotism, to contain her own physical impulses. Since emotional engagement for the hysteroid embodies the impulse to engulf and incorporate the object, this in turn is viewed as a reciprocal threat of self-depletion. The defensive movement of detachment becomes a psychic imperative (Easser & Lesser, Hysterical Personality, p.398-9).
This dramatic engulfing of the object, jealousy, and revenge play into a femme fatale character that many would probably call borderline. I'd prefer to use pre-oedipal character. There is no doubt pre-phallic fixations that would apply and they are seen in regressions to hypochondria, states of deadness, etc. however I'm only focussing on the proto-phallic and the 'genital' stage for this paper[11]. The neurotic or genital version of the object narcissist hysteric will be discussed in the next section.
Turning to the masochistic position, the masochistic quality can generally be seen in sacrificing one’s own growth and development for assisting the other in expressing his uniqueness, or by seeking to be liked by others or having their approval. Freud points to the object position of the masochist when he writes:
loving—being loved, corresponds exactly to the transformation from activity to passivity.… according as the object or the subject is replaced by an extraneous one, what results is the active aim of loving or the passive one of being loved—the latter remaining near to narcissism. (Instincts and Their Vicissitudes, p.133)
Freud says that being loved is “near to narcissism” but again one must pay attention to the phenomenology. Just because a person talks a lot and seems to draw a lot of attention it doesn’t mean that they are establishing their power or dominance. Rather, as the object narcissist wants to be the cause of desire in the subject, the object masochist wants to the cause of interest, delight, or fascination in the subject. Here qualities like charm, endearment, exuberance, or spirituality and depth are in order[12]. Hans Sachs contrasts the loving woman who sacrifices her individuality for her husband’s glorification with a version that very well fits ‘be loved’ in its inspiring side:
The women of whom I am thinking are almost always remarkably charming in appearance and exceptionally attractive socially—at least, to men; they do not usually form any satisfactory relations with other women. A woman of this sort has the power of entering into the idiosyncrasies and interests and ideas of the particular man with whom she happens to be talking, so that he feels she thoroughly understands him and is accordingly greatly attracted to her. We are astonished to see how such women, although they have never followed out any course of mental training or pursued any serious studies, know quite a lot about a number of, often very difficult, subjects. But a finer ear soon detects that what they say is not original, but simply an echo of some man or other whose knowledge and views they have borrowed. All the subjects on which they talk—science or art, sport or religion—can be assigned to particular periods in their lives and to particular men, from whom they have derived their views. They do not even try to reflect upon and reconcile the various points of view: they simply treasure up the individual utterances of different men and actually do not hesitate calmly to advance quite opposite opinions, taken from different sources. (Sachs, ‘One of the Motive Factors in the Formation of the Superego in Women’p.42-3).
Following the structure established the ideal of rousing, intriguing, or delighting the object and being loved by it would also have a superego failure in depression and feelings of emptiness. This in turn can be externalized onto others and this would be synonymous with feelings of boredom. In the step of denial things would go a step further and the person would defend against the failure of their ideal in relation to the mother by becoming ‘enthusiastic’ about the father. The phenomenology of this state, as in the other states, is that the feeling of satisfying the ideal is in place and the denial involves reference to an action involving another so it is a “denial à deux” (Greenson, On Enthusiasm, p.10). Preoccupation with vengeance allows the subject narcissicist to remain superior to others, eliciting sexual desire allows the object narcissist to feel beautiful (sexiness and beauty being different), preoccupation with compassion allows the subject masochist to feel like she has love, and the object masochist enthusiastically talks about how great another person is and keeps her sense of receiving approval, or the chance of it, from someone important.
As with the other denials this can go through group identifications so that involvement in certain group activities and excitement about various experiences with other groups can be the cause of enthusiasm. Instead of meeting the most interesting person ever and talking about him or her the enthusiast can talk about how it was the best time ever to go to another’s family’s place for dinner, or an Episcopal church in which everyone sings, or be excited for a holiday beyond the self-interest in personal presents. As with the other denials in group identifications the racist, the minority rights fighter, and the person who enjoys sex with someone of a more esteemed group others must also be convinced of the worthiness of, or one’s worth for being involved with it. Greenson writes:
There is an air of extravagance and expansiveness about enthusiasm—a readiness to use superlatives. The enthusiastic person does not merely feel good or even very good, but great—in fact, "the greatest!" There is a sense of exuberance, richness, an abundance of good fortune; yet with it all, there is some awareness that one is exaggerating; but it is enjoyable, and one is reluctant to give it up… One cannot remain enthusiastic alone. Like laughter, one needs cohorts, accomplices. They have to be converted to enthusiasm, or else the enthusiasm is endangered. (p. 2-3)[13].
In an article entitled ‘A Reevaluation of Hysterical Relatedness’ Marylou Lionells paints a picture of the hysteric that is directly relatable to what I’m calling the object masochist[14]. She uses the terms self-as-agent and self-in-relation for what I’ve identified in classic psychoanalysis as narcissistic vs. masochistic trends in the personality and places the hysteric in the latter category (Lionells, ‘A Reevaluation of Hysterical Relatedness, p. 577). She even quotes Freud’s position that “being loved, is the most important thing in life” for someone of this libidinal type (ibid, p. 571). She does a literature review in which she supports a view of “emotionality as an interpersonal tool designed to elicit approval” and her findings are as follows:
the hysteric seeks sustained interest, excitement, and especially approval… while all interacting persons manipulate others to fulfil personal needs, the hysteric achieves his particular goal by seeming relatively helpless and dependent… To the extent that I’m hysterical I care more that you like me than that you agree with me or even understand me… hysterical approval seeking is a search for emotional holding, though phrased as if help is what is needed. The hysteric can behave quite independently as long as a fantasy is maintained that another presides over that activity as a parent, authority, seat of power, and fount of love (ibid, p. 571-3).
It isn’t sex which is desired by this type of hysteric, just as presenting oneself as needy or dependent is really about wanting to be emotionally held the object masochist hysteric can also use sex to get another person to spend time with her (ibid, 574)[15]. The dependence on the fantasy of a parent that presides over activity and the threat of helplessness when that fantasy fades creates a position that is comparable to the hysteroid but, conceived of masochistically. While the hysteroid will engulf another, get into fights, be jealous, and seek to cause the love object pain (i.e. is power based) the object masochist hysteric will conjure up all kinds of problems regarding to feelings and things she needs help with in order to hold onto another person’s attention (i.e. is anxiety based)[16]. If her track record with personal relationships and work is similarly as spotty as the hysteroid then we can speak of another borderline type that would prefer to be engulfed rather than to engulf another. The borderline power, revenge, and sex in one that is without friends and guilt and the helplessness, exaggeration of feeling, and frigidity that is without friends and guilt leads us to appreciate the proper identification with the father that establishes morality and assertiveness in the Oedipus complex. This will be discussed in the next section.
[1] Again, psychoanalytic writers often turn Oedipus into everything and Freud clearly attached to the ego ideal to the castration complex which must be kept separate from the Oedipus complex. I’ll try to differentiate it in the next part of the paper.
[2] This new ego ideal is group membership or a social narcissism in identification with the head of the group. This can be seen in the little boy who says ‘My dad can beat up your dad’ even though no individual merit is at stake, the sense of pride is located in the sense of belonging to the family. This group identity will later take other objects such as country, which a citizen may irrationally claim is the best in the world even though he has never beyond its borders and thus has no point of comparison. “In addition to its individual side, this [ego] ideal has a social side” Freud writes, “it is also the common ideal of a family, a class or a nation” (Freud, On Narcissism, p.101). His most succinct formulation of the working of this ideal is made in Future of an Illusion:
The satisfaction which the ideal offers to the participants in the culture is thus of a narcissistic nature; it rests on their pride in what has already been successfully achieved. To achieve make this satisfaction complete calls for a comparison with other cultures which have aimed at different achievements and have developed different ideals. On the strength of these differences every culture claims the right to look down on the rest… The narcissistic satisfaction provided by the cultural ideal… can be shared in not only by the favoured classes, which enjoy the benefits of the culture, but also by the suppressed ones, since the right to despise the people outside it compensates them for the wrongs they suffer within their own unit. No doubt one is a wretched plebian, harassed by debts and military service; but, to make up for it, one is a Roman citizen, one has one’s share in the task of ruling other nations and dictating their laws (Freud, Future of an Illusion, p.13).
[3] Horney, in the expansive types, in Neurosis and Human growth has a subsection on the arrogant-vindictive type but at this point she no longer examines its associations to phallic-narcissism.
[4] I think this position can undergo further refinement but for the purposes of this paper I am only interested in exploring the levels of shame vs. guilt and don’t have the space to delineate
[5] Just as women are exchanged from the beginning of social organization but misogyny proper enters in patriarchy so too does the cultural Other who is inferior and bad appear to bolster up the narcissism of groups. One’s own tribe is made of real human beings while the Other tribe has sex with animals, their mothers, or is bad in some way.
[6] i.e. men have penis envy of paternal phallus and women with narcissistic fixations do as well.
Penis envy is also found in boys an may be discerned in the boy's envy of the larger penetrating and impregnating paternal phallus… penis envy might be regarded as the developmental organizer of female masculinity. To derive femininity mainly from penis envy would be developmental distortion and reductionism (although penis envy contributes to feminine character). A feminine identity and self-representation has other important roots. Penis envy may indirectly and adaptively foster a heterosexual feminine orientation, but penis envy is commonly an impediment to femininity (Blum, Masochism, the Ego Ideal, and the Psychology of Women’, p.185-6).
This view seems to have been taken up earliest by Alfred Adler who examines the castration complex of psychoanalysis not along sexual but characterological lines. Adler writes:
When a girl imagines that she can change into a boy, it is because the feminine role has not been presented to her as the equal of the masculine role. She revolts against what she believes to be a permanent perspective of inferiority for her. The Freudians have interpreted this fact as what they call the 'castration complex. (Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind, p).
Adler deserves immense credit for criticizing the fixed biological psychoanalytic view with a sociological one that can recognize a distinction between early indigenous tribes in which gender roles seem to exist but with more fluidity and without the explicit misogyny of later patriarchal tribes and civilization up to the present. However, when he writes that “In civilization every woman wants to be a man” he continues to read every person as functioning through the narcissistic side of their personality (Understanding Human Nature).
[7] The sexual ideal may enter into an interesting auxiliary relation to the ego ideal. It may be used for substitutive satisfaction where narcissistic satisfaction encounters real hindrances. In that case a person will love in conformity with the narcissistic type of object-choice, will love what he once was and no longer is, or else what possesses the excellences which he never had at all. The formula parallel to the one there stated runs thus: what possesses the excellence which the ego lacks for making it an ideal, is loved. (On Narcissism, p.101).
[8] In a very interesting article J. Harnik ties this to the woman’s entire body being a phallus: in men the genital continues to be the centre of their narcissism, whilst in women there is a secondary narcissism which becomes attached to the body as a whole. (Hárnik, ‘The Various Developments Undergone by Narcissism in Men and in Women’, p. 69). He even goes on to outline how the need to be admired, desired, or “loved” for one’s beauty exists in men as well in bisexuality, which is the case for all the positions:
This narcissism is strongly marked in a number of men whose love-life is also frequently characterized by a reversal of the typical relation between man and woman: they are attracted by a woman who falls in love with them and displays towards them the sexual overestimation appropriate to their own narcissistic valuation of themselves. It is entirely in accordance with our views on bisexuality to assume that a given psychic mechanism operates in both sexes, only more powerfully in the one than in the other… (ibid. 71)
[9] Lawerence Josephs description and I’m left with the impression that his book on character is partly an amalgam of every bit of behaviour that is described as hysterical and partly a more subtle picture that notes the potential bisexuality in the hysteric and how she’d rather identify with love, ‘being nice’, and her masochistic side while repressing her narcissistic side.
[10] In McDougall’s ‘Anonymous Spectator’ a very good clinical example of a pre-oedipal character although it is an illustration of a phallic-narcissistic one. It is illustrated and theoretically elaborated as ‘the circumvention of the oedipal complex’ without internalization of the father or paternal phallus. McDougall calls all pre-oedipals perverts but I'd prefer to reserve that name for a certain type of pre-oedipal character:
For K. had invented his own solution to the Oedipal conflict. In rendering his father inexistant (helped, no doubt, by the complicity of his mother) K. had kept intact his illusion of being his mother's sole love object. His "phoney diplomas" procured him certain rights, but they had cost him dearly. In spite of his increasing feeling of depression K. could neither give up the "diplomas" (by now an integral part of his identity) without pain, nor could he precipitate the "catastrophe" without anxiety. He sought reassurance in the eyes of the onlookers (p. 300)
[11] Let us look at some further general patterns in patients with narcissistic personality disorders. In their histories, their prominent orientation to external relationships for affirmation and confirmation is quite evident. We can often determine through questioning, the pattern of their search for idealized figures. All of these patients have a major problem with self-esteem, manifested by feelings of worthlessness, major self-doubts, or feelings of ugliness. No amount of external assurance lasts for long, because they cannot sustain their own opinions, and are always looking to others for support. On occasion, an exaggeratedly arrogant attitude is a thinly veiled façade for self-doubts that we can sense… The other major diagnostic signs and findings involve the phenomenology of the narcissistic regression. The fear of temporary fragmentation, or the temporary fragmentation itself, results from a temporary decathexis of the self or self-objects. These structural regressions of the self and the attempts to adapt to them have certain characteristic ways of being described by the patient or observed by us. One way the patients manifest this is to worry about the mind and/or body and its functioning. They report vague, or sometimes insistent, preoccupations with fears of cancer, dying, or heart attacks. A related complaint is feeling like a “mummy” or “ghost,” or the sensation of having a plastic shield all around the body. In other words, the patient doesn't feel or experience himself as being in touch with others, the world, or himself… Another group of patients manifest symptoms diametrically opposed to those just described. They are chronically hyperactive “achievers,” constantly climbing new heights and pursuing new goals. Characteristically, they speak very rapidly, articulately, as though under great pressure, sometimes with accompanying spastic and agitated movements of the head or body. These patients will refer to these moods as “hyper,” or “zooming,” because they are regularly hyperactive in speech and work and constantly push for increase in both quantity and excellence in performance. When they are not succeeding in reaching impossible standards of perfection, they are brooding and worrying about failing or being surpassed by others. What becomes evident in the analysis after a time is that this hyperactive pressure of speech and activity is an intense effort to disguise an underlying sense of deadness, a narcissistic regression of the self, a sense of being damaged, injured, vulnerable. The chronic excitement is not only reactive to the underlying deadness, but also a derivative of the archaic grandiose-exhibitionistic self… One of the symptoms that represents an attempt to overcome the regression in the self is sexual fantasying or infantile or perverse acting out. The patient unconsciously attempts to counteract the underlying threat of fragmentation or deadness by sexualizing a relationship in a search for intense stimulation and response. An additional contributing motive in the sexual acting out may be an attempt to express some of the grandiose-exhibitionistic self. The overt form of fantasy or acting out takes either a heterosexual or a homosexual form and is consistent in a given patient. When the fantasy or acting out is of a homosexual nature, the patient is seeking a sexualized merger with someone of the same sex. But whatever the sex of the objects sought, they are need-satisfying, narcissistic, and interchangeable, for there is no deep, emotional, lasting tie, with these objects although clearly they are desperately needed.
(Forman, ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorders and the Oedipal Fixations’ p. 70-2)
[12] See Appendix II on Greek Gods for a more in schematic presentation of the four types.
[13] Greenson, since he doesn’t pay attention to the reference to the father or other that gives structure to these denials, gives a case study of an individual who would better be characterized as having a fixation as an object masochist as one who causes delight in others without reference to an other (Greenson, On Enthusiasm, p.14-9). Additionally, he focuses on buying clothes and accruing ‘fetishes’ such as clothing that one can get excited about. Each of these phallic-narcissistic ideals can have fetishes that stand in for power, being beautiful, love, and being loveable but I believe that the object relation is key to the structure.
[14] In a collection of Analytic Aphorisms both the object narcissist side with sex and desire for the masculine gaze and the object masochist side with desire for holding are noted:
The hysteric lives out an invitation to rape and lives in perpetual fear of it.
There is a fusion of orality and vaginality in the hysterical woman.
The hysteric attempts to protect herself from childish impulses and at the same time gratify them. p.264 Kramer, C.H. (1967). Maxwell Gitelson: Analytic Aphorisms
[15] Another example which seems to be a mixed subject and object type, like Karl Abraham’s example of aggressive penis envy, would give us a picture of Freud’s depressive penis envy:
From the time she left home to go to college, the patient had led a life of sexual promiscuity, but with total frigidity. Her original pattern was "to lead men on but not have relations with them, " but when one of them angrily criticized her for this, she became anxious and thereafter was almost always compliant. Intercourse meant nothing to her but she felt it was "unfriendly" to refuse a man who wanted her. During the act, she blocked off all sensation below the waist, almost to the point of anesthesia. Being kissed and fondled above the waist was the only part of sex she enjoyed, and she often wished she had "only scales below the waist, like a mermaid." Nevertheless, if she did not have intercourse for any length of time, she would become anxious, and equated it with feeling "starved."
Prior to her marriage and afterwards, she always had to have a boy friend "on the side." She described this on one occasion as "love insurance, " on another as "extra food in the pantry."
Although she was a more than averagely good-looking person, she had a deep conviction that she was unattractive and that no one could love her for herself. Being loved was more important than loving. She once said: "I can't let myself love anybody unless I'm absolutely certain they love me, and I'm never certain."
She was terrified of aggressive attitudes in others, but even more so of any aggressive feelings in herself. She was so concerned with what others thought of her, and so eager to please everyone, that she had lost the sense of self and had no real identity or convictions of her own. Responsibility of any kind frightened her, although she was both intelligent and talented. She cultivated an elaborate façade of pseudo stupidity as a defense against having to deal responsibly with household problems, with her children or with money. The idea of growing old was frightening to her, and she clung to the pattern of the child-wife. She showed a marked tendency toward fabrication and exaggeration which was a source of frequent friction between herself and her husband (Marmor, Orality in the Hysterical Personality, p. 664-5).
[16] Also, while the object narcissist needs people to recognize her beauty the object masochistic trend in the individual is on the side of being cute. “Being cute (not necessarily beautiful), alert, responsive, and cheerful are common attributes. Budding hysterics often seem to have an innate sense of humour. They spontaneously clown and entertain. They show a quick wit, making use of analogy and metaphor…” (Lionells, ‘A Reevaluation of Hysterical Relatedness, p.583).
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