In Narcissism
Kleinians like Herbert Rosenfeld 're-invoked Freud's earlier emphasis on the importance of the ego ideal in narcissism, and conceived of a characteristic internal object - a chimerical montage or monster, one might say - that was constructed of the ego, the ego ideal, and the "mad omnipotent self"'. In their wake, Otto Kernberg highlighted the destructive qualities of the 'infantile, grandiose ego ideal' - of 'identification with an overidealized self- and object-representation, with the primitive form of ego-ideal'.
Harold Bloom has since explored in a literary context how 'in the narcissist, the ego-ideal becomes inflated and destructive, because it is filled with images of "perfection and omnipotence"'. Escape from such 'intense, excessive, and sometimes fatal devotion to the ego-ideal' - 'To the narcissist, the only reality is the ego-ideal' - is only possible when one 'gives up his corrupt ego-ideal and affirms the innocence of humility'.
Read more about this topic: Ego Ideal
Famous quotes containing the word narcissism:
“Our ego ideal is precious to us because it repairs a loss of our earlier childhood, the loss of our image of self as perfect and whole, the loss of a major portion of our infantile, limitless, ain’t-I-wonderful narcissism which we had to give up in the face of compelling reality. Modified and reshaped into ethical goals and moral standards and a vision of what at our finest we might be, our dream of perfection lives on—our lost narcissism lives on—in our ego ideal.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)