The origins of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder a

90 JOHN S. AUERBACH
omnipotence and come to realize instead that independent selfhood
requires, and is limited by, recognition by other independent selves.
This recognition by independent others is precarious because other
persons, insofar as they are truly independent selves, can always
choose not to bestow recognition but to withhold it-to be abandoning,
critical, or rejecting. Thus, to discover one’s autonomy is also to discover
one’s dependence and limitation.
Independent selfhood and the human capacity for reflexive selfawareness
arise, therefore, from the intepersonal matrix, and are constituted
only on the basis of mutual self-recognition (Benjamin, 1990;
Buber, 1923/1970; Habermas, 1968/1971; Kirshner, 1991; Winnicott,
1971/1982). On the other hand, because mutual self-recognition necessarily
involves dependence and limitation, there is always the temptation
to retreat from intersubjectivity to narcissism. One may either
deny the other by asserting a grandiose, illusory self-sufficiency or
deny the self through merger with the totality (Andreas-Salome, 19211
1962; Bach, 1985; Balint, 1959; Grunberger, 1971/1979; Rothstein,
1984). Each of these narcissistic strategies, either shameless grandiosity
or shame-ridden timidity, indicates a failure in the regulation of reflexive
self-awareness (Bach, 1985; Broucek, 1982; Kinston, 1983,
1987).
Recognizing the dangers of illusory, narcissistic responses to ineradicable
human dilemmas, Benjamin (1990, p. 40) writes, ”From the
standpoint of intersubjective theory, the ideal resolution of the paradox
of recognition is for it to continue as a constant tension between recognizing
the other and asserting the self.” This is a resolution based
on an awareness of the tragic and ironic aspects of human existence
and of the tensions that necessarily emerge in a dialogue between two
independent perspectives. Because of the human need for narcissistic
illusions, whether of omnipotence or of tensionless merger, it is foolish,
if not impossible, to eliminate such fantasies, But if there is an antidote
to the pervasiveness of human narcissism, a real solution to the dilemmas
of human weakness and frailty, it is in the continuing dialogue
of self and other.
Summary
Freud was of at least two minds regarding early infant development.
His most well-known theory, found largely in his later writings, is that