The role of repetition in narcissism and self-sacrifice
A Freudian Kleinian reflection on the person’s foundational love of the other
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8971854 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rachel B Blass, Rachel Β Blass (Schlumberger (Ireland), corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 101 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1188-1202 |
| Publication date | 2020-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7578 • E-ISSN: 1745-8315 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00207578.2020.1809154 |
| PMID | 33952127 |
| OpenAlex | W3113679258 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 11 |
Through reexamination of Freud's thinking on the "compulsion to repeat", including detailed study of his Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), this paper brings to the fore a central tension in Freud's thinking on the roles narcissism and love in his foundational view of the person. While Freud conceptualizes the person as self-serving, aiming primarily to maximize personal satisfaction in accordance with the "pleasure principle," he develops an alternative view of the person as primarily loving, desiring to truly encounter the other and reality, even if painful, and guilty when he fails to do so (largely because of conflicting narcissistic/destructive aims). This basic loving desire is associated with Eros and the life instincts, which, counter to what is commonly thought, is what Freud ultimately posits as lying beyond the pleasure principle. From this perspective, narcissistic pleasures become associated with death. The paper goes on to show how while Freud struggled to conceptually ground the view of the person as contending with his desire to love and inevitable inner obstacles to it, Kleinian psychoanalysis takes this view as basic and develops it further. One significant development finds expression in ideas on how the desire to love is not only non-narcissistic, but, rather, is self-sacrificing. Clinical implications are noted
Death drive · Epistemology · Freudian slip · Instinct · Narcissism · Perspective (graphical · Pleasure · Pleasure principle · Psychoanalysis · Psychotherapist · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Social Psychology · Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy
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Examination of a case of “treatment failure” in long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy for treatment-resistant depression
On the nature of transference interpretation and why only it can bring about analytic change
What’s in a word? A brief reflection on why the understanding of Freud is not changed by replacing the word “instinct” with “drive” and the importance of reading in context
Autoimmunity and its expression in the analytic situation
Reply to the letter by Michel Sanchez-Cardenas
On the Power of the Experience of “Longing” in the Development of Freud’s Thinking
Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
The Dynamics of the Transference
The Quest for Truth as the Foundation of Psychoanalytic Practice
Creative repetition
Termination and repetition
Death drive, repetition compulsion and some corridors to psychic change
On ‘The fear of death’ as the primary anxiety
The puzzle of Freud's puzzle analogy
Freud's view of death and repetition as grounds of a Kleinian approach to narcissism
A psychoanalytic understanding of the desire for knowledge as reflected in Freud's Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,4 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |