The origins of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder a

THE ORIGINS OF NARCISSISM 49
(c) drive or tension reduction (Freud, 1900/1953, 1911/1958a, 1920/
1955). In fact, as I will discuss, Freud had many doubts about describing
infancy as a state in which there is neither awareness of nor investment
in objects, although it is certain that tension reduction was always a
core motivational postulate of psychoanalysis-for both infants and
adults. Theoretical conflicts within psychoanalysis, therefore, have always
been fought on the terrain of drive reduction. Nevertheless, in
reading the following discussion of Freud’s view of primary narcissism,
one should bear in mind that research in developmental psychology
has effectively refuted each of these three underlying propositions
about the nature of the infant (Eagle, 1984; Horner, 1985; Lichtenberg,
1983; D. K. Silverman, 1986; Stern, 1985). The best current evidence
is that neonates, although certainly not capable of constructing full
representations of a human object, are biologically organized (a) to
invest in objects; (b) to become aware of others as separate and distinct
from themselves; and (c) to seek out an optimal level of stimulation,
not to eliminate it. So, in brief, the concept of primary narcissism,
because it rests upon assumptions that are empirically untenable, is
hopelessly flawed. To whatever extent later psychoanalytic developmentalists
(eg, A. Freud, Melanie Klein, Mahler, Spitz, and Winnicott)
incorporate these assumptions into their descriptions of infancy, their
views are untenable as well.
Virtually all psychoanalytic theorists hold one of Freud’s three assumptions
about infancy-that the infant is undifferentiated from objects.
With little in the way of empirical backing for either side in the
debate, ego psychologists (e.g., Hartmann, Jacobson, Rapaport, and
Spitz) on one side and object-relations theorists (e.g., Balint, Fairbairn,
Melanie Klein, Sullivan, and Winnicott) on the other fought bitter theoretical
battles over the remaining two propositions-namely, the infant’s
hypothesized indifference to objects and the infant’s hypothesized
drive to reduce tensions to a minimum. Naturally, drive reduction
and an initial indifference to objects are closely related concepts, so
that to hold one of these ideas is to hold the other as well. Empirical
research, codified by attachment theory, supports the object-relational
view that infants seek both stimulation in general (Emde & Robinson,
1979; Haith, 1980; Kinney & Kagan, 1976) and human objects in particular
(Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1958, 1973,
1980, 1982). But even the earlier generation of object-relations theorists
(e.g., Balint, Fairbairn, and Winnicott) held that infants begin life in