Defensive and Adaptive Processes in Narcissism

Narcissistically structured individuals can use a wide range of defenses, but most fundamentally, they rely on idealization and devaluation. These defenses are complementary in the sense that when one idealizes their own “self,” the significance and role of others are diminished, and vice versa. Kohut (1971) introduced the term “grandiose self” to describe the sense of greatness and superiority that characterizes one pole of the narcissistic personality’s inner world. This grandiosity can be felt internally or projected outward. There is a constant process of “ranking” that narcissistic individuals use when dealing with any problem: Which doctor is “better”? Which school is “the best”? Where are the “toughest” academic requirements? Real advantages and disadvantages may be completely ignored due to a preoccupation with prestige.

For example, an acquaintance of mine was determined that her son would attend “the best” college. She visited several outstanding schools with him, pulled some strings, and even wrote thank-you letters to the deans who interviewed her son. By mid-April, he had been accepted to Amherst, Columbia, Princeton, the University of Chicago, and Williams, and was still waiting to hear from Yale. The mother’s reaction was a sense of emptiness after he was not accepted to Harvard. The young man decided to enroll at Princeton. Throughout his first year, his mother bombarded Harvard with requests to transfer her son. Finally, although the young man was doing well at Princeton, when Harvard finally relented under his mother’s relentless pressure, the question of where he should study was no longer up for discussion.

This example clearly shows how all other interests are subordinated to the constant and pervasive process of evaluation and devaluation. The woman knew that professors in her son’s chosen field ranked Harvard below Princeton; she also knew that Harvard paid less attention to undergraduates than Princeton; she realized her son would face social difficulties at Harvard because he hadn’t started there as a freshman. Nevertheless, she insisted on the transfer. Although this woman’s character was not narcissistic, in this case she used her son as a narcissistic extension, as she held a defensive belief system that included the conviction that her own life would have been radically different if she had chosen Radcliffe—the “best” women’s college.

One of my patients, a college student with artistic and literary inclinations (whose parents’ character structures included evaluation and devaluation), had a grandiose father who told him he could only support himself if he became a doctor (preferably) or a lawyer (if he wasn’t capable in the sciences). There was no other option. Medicine and law control money and respect; any other career would reflect poorly on the family. Since this young man had always been seen as a narcissistic extension, he saw nothing unusual in his father’s position.

A related defensive stance that narcissistically motivated people often take is perfectionism. They set unrealistic ideals for themselves and either respect themselves for achieving them (a grandiose outcome) or, in case of failure, feel irreparably defective rather than simply human with normal weaknesses (a depressive outcome). Therapy for these patients is characterized by ego-syntonic expectations, as they believe the main goal of therapy is self-improvement, not self-understanding to find more effective ways of dealing with their own needs. The demand for perfection is expressed in constant self-criticism or criticism of others (depending on whether the devalued “self” is projected), as well as an inability to enjoy the inherent duality of human existence.

Sometimes, narcissistic individuals solve their self-esteem problems by considering someone—a lover, teacher, or literary hero—to be perfect. Then they feel their own greatness by identifying with this person (“I am an extension of them, and they can’t be wrong”). Some patients have lifelong patterns of idealizing someone and then knocking them off the pedestal when their imperfections are revealed. The perfectionist solution to the narcissistic dilemma is essentially self-destructive: unattainable ideals are created to compensate for defects in the “self.” These defects seem so contemptible that no brief success can hide them, and since no one can be perfect, the whole strategy fails and the devalued “self” reemerges.