Narcissus

Painting of Narcissus by Caravaggio

According to the legend of Narcissus, this Greek boy fell in love with his own reflection in a pond. In a way, this amply sums up the nature of his namesakes: narcissists. The mythological Narcissus rejected the advances of the nymph Echo and was punished by Nemesis. Consigned to pine away as he fell in love with his own reflection – exactly as Echo had pined away for him. How apt. Narcissists are punished by echoes and reflections of their problematic personalities up to this very day.


Narcissists are said to be in love with themselves.

But this is a fallacy. Narcissus is not in love with himself. He is in love with his reflection.

There is a major difference between one's True Self and reflected-self.

Loving your True Self is healthy, adaptive, and functional.

Loving a reflection has two major drawbacks:

1. One depends on the existence and availability of the reflection to produce the emotion of self-love.

2. The absence of a "compass", an "objective and realistic yardstick", by which to judge the authenticity of the reflection. In other words, it is impossible to tell whether the reflection is true to reality – and, if so, to what extent.

The popular misconception is that narcissists love themselves. In reality, they direct their love to other people's impressions of them. He who loves only impressions is incapable of loving people, himself included.

But the narcissist does possess the in-bred desire to love and to be loved. If he cannot love himself – he must love his reflection. But to love his reflection – it must be loveable. Thus, driven by the insatiable urge to love (which we all possess), the narcissist is preoccupied with projecting a loveable image, albeit compatible with his self-image (the way he "sees" himself).

The narcissist maintains this projected image and invests resources and energy in it, sometimes depleting him to the point of rendering him vulnerable to external threats.

But the most important characteristic of the narcissist's projected image is its lovability.


From: MALIGNANT SELF LOVE NARCISSISM REVISITED
The World of the Narcissist (Essay), Narcissism, Pathological Narcissism, The Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the Narcissist,and Relationships with Abusive Narcissists and Psychopaths (Fifth, Revised Impression, 2003) By: Dr. Sam Vaknin