LACAN AND THE PROBLEMATICS OF NARCISSISM

Abstract

Narcissism, says Lacan, is an inherent characteristic of human subjectivity that rests upon the primary narcissistic identifications characteristic of the mirror stage. Unlike Kohut, who in his later works argued for the recognition of a particular nosological category, that of the so-called narcissistic disorders, Lacan asserts the opposite - that all mental disorders are essentially narcissistic. What distinguishes them is not the presence or absence of narcissism, but the different relations that the subject can develop to narcissism itself. Psychoticism and neuroticism are both narcissistic in their own ways. Put simply, all these disorders are essentially narcissistic, because what lies at their essence is the relationship between the imaginary and the symbolic order. Psychoticism leads to the loss of subjectivity in the realm of early non-integrated (narcissistic) identifications, while neuroticism is characterized by insufficient distancing. But in both cases, what is crucial is the fundamental transformation that marks the destiny of the subject, a transformation that the subject undergoes by taking the image of the other by means of the mirror stage.