Individuation and Narcissism: The Psychology of Self in Jung and Kohut [Hardcover]

The book demonstrates that, in a way, Heinz Kohut merely took Jung a step further and invented a new vocabulary to rephrase some of Jung's insights. He said that pathological narcissism is not the result of excessive narcissism, libido or aggression.

It is the result of defective, deformed or incomplete narcissistic (self) structures. Kohut postulated the existence of core constructs which he named: the Grandiose Exhibitionistic Self and the Idealized Parent Imago (see below). Children entertain notions of greatness (primitive or naive grandiosity) mingled with magical thinking, feelings of omnipotence and omniscience and a belief in their immunity to the consequences of their actions. These elements and the child's feelings regarding its parents (which are also painted by it with a brush of omnipotence and grandiosity) - coagulate and form these constructs.

The child's feelings towards its parents are reactions to their responses (affirmation, buffering, modulation or disapproval, punisment, even abuse).

These responses help maintain the self-structures. Without the appropriate responses, grandiosity, for instance, cannot be transformed into adult ambitions and ideals.

To Kohut, grandiosity and idealization were positive childhood development mechanisms. Even their reappearance in transference should not be considered a pathological narcissistic regression. am Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".

Mario Jacoby does make this overlap of interest meaningful and rewarding for those who have a necessary (but not necessarily completed) background in reading Jung and Kohut to follow and understand his presentation of their views of the self. In my own readings of these master-minds, I interpret Jung as a lofty-spritualizing-cultural personality; while, Kohut strikes me as being a "down-to-earth" hardcore realist in dealing with the personality problems of boarderline narcissistic disturbances. The very nature of this comparative work is a challenge, but someone with competence and a high degree of credibility had to do it, and this effort to offer a comprehensive introductory comparison of these two men and their thoughts regarding psycho-analysis as a healing develop-mental process is very worthy.

In the Jungian work "Celebrating Soul: Preparing for the New Religion" by Lawrence W. Jaffe, I found myself reflecting on an interpretation that the new temple will take (based on Jung's projected interpretation of a dream) six hundred years. Symbolically and structurally understood in my thoughts, each pillar of this new system will represent a comprehensive variation of emerging pscho-analytical develop-mental systems. Hence, Jacoby's comparative work may subscribe to Jung's notion that any fixed psycho-analytical or theraputic system is not worth very much if it cannot add or learn something new about our-selves. I personally found many areas of Jacoby's presentation offering something new to my own understanding of my-self, my life experiences, and my life-long interest in psycho-analytical thought as a healing develop-mental field, and as a universal psychologism of learning to be a humane human being. With this in mind, I sense that a well-grounded foundation in Jungian Psychology makes Heinz Kohut's work in Self-Object Psychology much more meaningful and useful in terms of a global theraputic and cultural application; especially, for those who are interested in pursuing "Self-Analysis"...as a universal practice of self-discipline and personal maintenance.