The origins of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder a

80 JOHN s. AUERBACH
ages 18 and 24 months (Amsterdam& Levitt, 1980; M. Lewis & Brooks-
Gunn, 1979). The period between ages 18 and 24 months corresponds,
of course, with the height of the rapprochement subphase, a developmental
period ushered in by the discovery that one is indeed a small
and separate being in a large world (Mahler et al., 1975), by the discovery
of shame (Amsterdam & Levitt, 1980).
A period of relative emotional tempest and turbulence, rapprochement
corresponds with the anal phase (or at least toilet training), with
the establishment of gender identity (Money & Ehrhardt, 1972), and
with the emergence of a superego or at least of evaluative standards
(Kagan, 1981), the last of which is consistent with the beginnings of
self-reflexive shame at this stage. The turbulence of this period, on the
traditional account (Mahler et al., 1975), is due to oscillations between
fears that, on the one hand, in separating and individuating, one will
lose mother and be left all alone but that, on the other hand, in clinging
to mother, one will be reengulfed by her and will lose one’s emerging
autonomy. Because the proposition that infants differentiate from a
fused state and are in psychological danger of being reengulfed into it
is highly dubious, the present account disregards this hypothesis and
focuses instead on the experiential states that the traditional perspective
has associated with the new capacity for objective self-awareness.
These include a sense of separateness or of being distinct from others,
especially from mother (Rothstein, 1979), of smallness and vulnerability
(Mahler et al., 1975), and of distress at being unable to measure
up to newly constructed evaluative standards (Kagan, 1981), all of
which can be regarded as narcissistic injuries. An upsurge in these
feelings, insofar as they result in disruptions of attachments and of the
sense of efficacy, quite easily accounts for the negativistic, willful behavior
of the 2-year-old. Issues of anality are also likely to be crucial
at this time, if only because anality is associated with shame-filled
experiences of defectiveness, dirtiness, and loss of control (Erikson,
1963). But anality, along with early genital play, becomes a focus of
toddlers’ negative self-appraisals because it is a focus of parental disapproval
(Amsterdam & Levitt, 1980).
In any case, the attempt to ward off feelings of shame-that is, a
sense that one is weak, incompetent, defective, dirty, and above all
unlovable (Wurmser, 1981)-constitutes the motivational structure underlying
normal narcissistic illusions. To limit feelings of shame, one
can inflate oneself, proclaim an illusory self-sufficiency, and minimize