One of the mods dug out this article that was discussed years ago in one of the working groups. We thought it would be a good idea to post it for discussion in the forum. The comments in blue are Laura's from back then.
Aspects of Narcissistic Revenge as Elicited in Group Psychotherapy
Douglass B. Clark
In her article entitled "Handling Narcissistic Problems in Group
Psychotherapy/' Glatzer (1962) notes that a frequent expression of
narcissism emerges in the form of revenge.
Basically, she posits that the narcissistic patient unconsciously remains
fixated on the pre-oedipal "witch mother." The term "witch mother" describes
an unconscious image of a primary caretaker who is never giving and always
malicious in her methods of deprivation. This image is projected onto real
objects, like real mothers, fathers, or spouses, and experienced as if the
image itself were realistic. Key to the witch mother fixation is that the
patient experiences himself as the innocent victim of her sadistic attacks.
Such unconscious preoccupation with the witch mother not only underlies the
patient's deep sense of deprivation but also provides him with an ever-
present object to blame for his helpless malaise. Furthermore, because of
its unconscious nature, this dynamic is acted out repeatedly so that the
patient's belief in his victimization at the hands of the ubiquitous witch
mother is perpetuated and strengthened; in other words it provides the
foundation for the patient's masochism, which is endlessly enacted in the
repetition compulsion.
{Here I would like to say that the "witch mother" may be a useful Freudian
term, but what is more likely what we are seeing is a general attitude
toward the Universe at large that is conditioned in early infancy at points
of imprint vulnerability. There can, of course, be an actual situation with
the mother - or primary caretaker - that contributes to this feeling about
the world, but it can develop in many ways. Also, how it develops may have
a lot to do with temperament as described and defined by Pavlov. A person
born with a strong, active temperament would naturally react differently to
their care than a needy, weak temperament. So, don't get hung up on the
term "witch mother."}
One of the most powerful factors supporting the narcissistic patient's
cathexis of the witch mother is his unconscious wish to take revenge on her,
to expose her depriving nature and prove his own innocence.
{"Cathexis" is a term that means, more or less, emotional investment or
identification. For example, a person who has a strong, deep feeling that
the world is NOT safe would be a person who has cathected the "Witch mother"
image. Having done this, the person will then project that belief onto
other people and situations because they have a strong emotional investment
in believing that the world is a rotten place.}
When such a patient enters treatment, he will inevitably enact it in the
transference, engaging in numerous unconscious maneuvers to convince the
therapist of the witch mother's "badness" and his own innocent "goodness."
The unconscious aim is to find and fixate on the witch mother in the
therapist, so that in proving his point he "gets narcissistic satisfaction
(by) defeating the therapist and reducing treatment to absurdity" (Glatzer,
1962).
Many a patient has exclaimed to me with a tone of defiance, "I know I set
people up to be rotten to me, but see here, I just can't seem to stop doing
it. Maybe you can't help me."
One of the key assumptions of this paper is that if these revengeful
elements are not incorporated into the analysis of narcissism in patients,
then it cannot be worked through. Helping the patient become aware of his
own role in creating his own misery through pointing out his masochistic
defiance is often an inroad to a substantial analysis of narcissism. In
elaborating on these issues in this paper, I will review several basic
points in the psychodynamics of narcissistic revenge, offer clinical
examples to illustrate revengeful operations, and underscore the use of
group psychotherapy in identifying and analyzing the problem.
Freud viewed narcissism, to begin with, as the earliest and most primary
developmental stage during which a child is utterly undifferentiated from
the external world. It followed, then, that narcissism as a form of
psychopathology was seen as a regressed emotional position in which the
individual slipped back to the experience of non-differentiation (Fenichel,
1945). Freud first defined narcissism in terms of libido and its cathexis of
the self: narcissism was "the attitude of a person who treats his own body
in the same way as otherwise the body of a sexual object is treated" (Freud,
1914). The two groups of patients in whom he found "narcissistic attitudes"
were homosexuals and schizophrenics.
{And here is why Freudianism is more like a cult than anything else - but
that's another topic for another day. Indeed, narcissism is a difficulty in
differentiating between self and others, and it IS being locked into an
infantile stage of development, most likely due to some trauma at an
important moment of imprint vulnerability, or even ongoing insults to the
psyche of the infant via neglect, etc (depending, of course, on the
temperament of the infant), but assigning a sexual aspect to it is patently
ridiculous.}
In 1915 Freud wrote that "the relation of hate to objects is older than that
of love. It is derived from the primal repudiation by the narcissistic ego
of the external world whence flows the stream of stimuli." This is a deeply
profound perception.
{Again, Freud misses the mark. It isn't hate, it is fear. All creatures in
nature withdraw from what inspires fear. But then, if you define "hate" as
"primal repudiation of that which is feared," it's not too far off. Again,
however, we have to look to temperament. This is not so cut and dried.}
It suggests that an intrinsic part of the developmental process in us all
involves experiencing "hatred," that is, narcissistic rage, toward the
mother who (Winnicott's phrase, 1942) cannot help but disappoint us.
{This is a load of horse-hockey IMO though certainly, being frustrated at
not getting what one wants/needs immediately can cause "pain" in the infant.
And this pain can induce fear or a belief in the non-safety of the
Universe. But again, it depends on the temperament. A weak inhibitory
temperament is far more likely to be reduced to jello by the mildest
unpleasantness than a strong, excitatory type. At the same time, a weak
inhibitory type is less likely to feel any strong emotions at all, including
hate, or so it would seem.}
Even the "good enough" mother cannot prevent her own unresolved narcissistic
difficulties from interfering with the quality of her mothering. What Freud
implies but does not expand on is how, to some degree, we all internalize
those aspects of the mothering experience which support our rage, namely
those aspects which are experienced as depriving, in essence, this becomes
the foundation of the "witch mother" introject.
{I don't think that "we all" do exactly this. As mentioned above, it
depends on the situation and the temperament. This cannot be generalized.
Each individual temperament has a different way of reacting and different
things that they react to.}
As a fantasy figure, the witch mother image is continuously projected onto
external objects and experienced as if it were both real and external to the
projector.
{This certainly seems to be so. If an individual has the deep belief that
the world is not safe, they will project that onto others.}
Evidence of the witch mother image can be seen in much revengeful behavior
and indeed such behavior becomes a major outlet for the expression of
narcissistic rage. Freud also implies that as long as an individual's
narcissism remains intact, true object love is impossible, since the
narcissistic person is unable to separate the "other" from the self's own
projections.
{This is an important point to remember: it often seems that those people
who claim that they deeply long to be loved, to have "a love" or "the one"
etc, are those that have the most narcissist barriers to love.}
Since these formulations, the object relations theorists have detailed the
earliest phases of ego development, making more explicit the relationship
between early traumas and the development of narcissism.
In more recent years Kohut (1971) and Kernberg (1975) have written
significantly about narcissism, deepening still further our understanding of
the cathecting of the self, object relations, and the splitting of objects.
They have also reemphasized the important role oral rage plays in a thorough
understanding of narcissism and especially how it undergirds the
narcissistic patient's experience of the world as categorically hostile
through his use of projective identification.
Clatzer (1959, 1962, 1972) has helped us appreciate a unique dimension of
the relationship between oral rage and narcissism by focusing on its
revengeful aspects. Most particularly, she has shown how in refusing to give
up long-standing grudges patients perpetuate their own difficulties through
their unconscious preoccupation with the image of the malicious witch mother
who preys on their innocence.
Another key addition to Freud's seminal notions about narcissism is offered
by Annie Reich (1960) in her paper on "Pathologic Forms of Self-Esteem
Regulation." She suggests that it is far too limiting, indeed that it is
inaccurate, to link pathological narcissism only to homosexual or psychotic
patients. Glatzer (1964) picks this up and goes on to say that "the problems
of narcissistic pathology which are rooted in the pre-oedipal trauma are
ubiquitous in all analyses, and the handling of these early character
difficulties can no longer be restricted to psychotic patients but is an
essential task in all psychotherapies." That these primary conflicts dwell
within each of us to a greater or lesser degree cannot be overstated.
{"To a greater or lesser degree" is probably pretty accurate.}
In view of these important contributions, our current functional concept of
narcissism must include two core points: 1) a fundamental cathexis of the
self in which others are not really experienced as "other" but as extensions
of the self, with the primary unconscious support of such symbiosis with the
"other" being the mechanism of projection, and 2) the focusing of oral rage,
perhaps in the form of revenge, on all objects who do not cooperate in this
neurotic activity.
{I would say that this is a pretty accurate statement of the problem of
narcissitic behavior in its varied manifestations. Notice the "perhaps".}
Among the uncooperative enemies will be, sooner or later, the therapist who
begins to analyze these narcissistic problems.
In trying to protect himself from the annihilating wound which he
fantasizes will occur if he gives up this struggle, and also in his stubborn
rage against the one whom he sees as depriving him of neurotic pleasure, the
patient digs in and fights. Herein "lies the pathetic revenge of the infant
on the powerful adult for narcissistic hurt imposed on him by the
frustrations of growing up" (Glatzer, 1962). This revengeful position, along
with the killing wound which is feared will result if it is given up,
constitutes a major underpinning of therapeutic resistance in patients.
{The above seems to be the crux of the problem of those individuals who
cannot "see oursels as ithers see us." They believe that if they give up
their struggle to force other people to see things the way they do, or want
them to (including seeing them as they believe themselves to be), that they
will be annihilated.}
The therapist's challenge is to remain alert to opportunities for showing
these patients how their resistance contributes to their isolation and
misery. Such opportunities, and the leverage to use them, emerge more often
in group than in individual psychotherapy. A major reason for this is simply
the multiplicity of interaction that the group situation offers.
{And here we see the value of bringing these issues to the group.}
While the individual treatment situation is certainly a forum in which to
explore these narcissistic problems, its very structure may also help to
mask their depth. The reality of the individual attention the patient
receives may not only offer him narcissistic gratification but also solidify
his omnipotent belief in his absolute right to such gratification.
The group situation, however, provides a radically different structure, and
this difference in and of itself, when used skillfully, goes a long way
toward exposing narcissistic conflicts and making them available for
analysis.
{Exactly. And for reasons that we know (the mirror).}
Not only are opportunities for neurotic interaction multiplied in group as
compared to individual therapy, but so are opportunities for patients to
confront each other and lift up their own provocations. Since peers are most
often not endowed with the depth of transferential projections as is the
therapist, and since negative feelings about some members are
counterbalanced by positive ones about others, members input to each other
can often be absorbed and integrated without as deep an experience of
narcissistic wounding as may be feared with the therapist's confrontations.
Yet the fact of having to share the therapist with other objects immediately
throws a monkey wrench into the patients' narcissistic strivings and
therefore evokes deep narcissistic rage.
A good example of this can be seen in the case of Barbara, a woman in her
mid-thirties who developed a strong positive transference in seven initial
months of individual treatment. Unconsciously, she saw me as the idealized
mother who would guide her into health in a rather magical way if only she
was a good enough girl for me. Barbara had become superficially invested in
her therapy quickly and seemed to have gained some insight into her rigid
and compulsive nature. Yet in her solicitous behavior was couched enormous
hostility, which I knew to be related to her feelings about her
overprotective mother. Although intellectually Barbara could see the benefit
of group in terms of discovering why others seemed to resent her, she
entered group more because I suggested it than because she herself really
wanted it.
During the first several group sessions Barbara was guarded, distant, and
controlling. She remained silent unless spoken to and assumed various
"closed" positions, keeping her arms and legs folded, looking down at the
floor, even covering her eyes. As she ventured into the group interaction,
her comments were almost always critical and negative. She questioned other
members' insights, disagreed on picayune issues, and interjected sarcastic
comments toward me. When asked how she felt, she had "nothing" to say that
she felt would be valuable. She was vague about why she had entered group.
After six group sessions, Barbara had progressed into being more openly
hostile, complaining that the group had "ruined" her progress in therapy and
assailing me for "forcing" her into group in the first place. During this
time the other members had been generally supportive of her anxiety and had
tried to help her make the difficult entrance into the group's life. But
their patience wore thin after a month and a half of Barbara's persistent
criticism and finally Caren, herself a relatively new member, exclaimed to
her, "I wish you'd get the hell out of here if you're going to be so sour
all the time; you can't take away my progress here." A silence fell over the
group and Barbara confessed, "I guess I've been a bitch here so far. I'm so
scared of you all."
This interaction helped Barbara step back from her passively hostile stance
and begin to understand her feelings rather than act them out. Whereas she
originally saw me as supportive, understanding, and emotionally present,
since joining group she felt I was rejecting, aloof, and even maliciously
uncaring. Not only had I "thrown her to the wolves," but I had no regard for
her vulnerability since I had not jumped to her rescue.
Subsequently, in both group and individual sessions, Barbara was able to
recognize how deeply she had idealized me, how deeply she had unconsciously
made me into a perfect and magical mother, and how her experience in joining
group had shattered that image. Furthermore, she was able to see how she had
expressed her rage toward me through her withholding and controlling
behavior in the group and how she had harbored the fantasy since entering
group of sabotaging its progress as a way to get back at me.
Now, some two years later, Barbara continues to work this narcissistic
transference through, and the group continues to be an invaluable asset to
her in that process. Of particular value have been major group changes, such
as new members joining, old members terminating, or other members undergoing
significant changes, which have tended to provoke recurrences of Barbara's
initial narcissistic blow when she first came into group. Thus, she has had
many opportunities to work it through at deeper and deeper levels. Also of
value has been other members pointing out how her passive aggressive
behavior provokes them into angry rejections of her, which is the thing she
consciously fears the most. And perhaps most importantly, she is beginning
to relate this whole dynamic to her image of her own mother, whom she has
always viewed consciously as "perfect" and unconsciously as sadistic and
remote.
Two factors are noteworthy in this example. First, the group situation
evoked Barbara's unconscious hostile transference in a way the individual
treatment situation had not. While I was giving her my undivided attention,
she could hardly rationalize feeling too angry at me, but when she no longer
had me all to herself, she felt incensed. What fractured her narcissistic
expectations was the reality of my attending to other people in her
presence. In fantasy she saw the other group members as differing versions
of her own sister, who was born when Barbara was five, and a key part of the
fantasy was that I cared more for her "sisters" than I did for her. Second,
the form her rage assumed was that of revenge. Unconsciously, she sought to
get back at me by undermining the group, not to mention her own therapy, and
in so doing prove to the others and to me that her righteous anger and
misery were stronger than my therapeutic power. In effect, she tried to
render herself unable to be helped. Such is the masochism of the
narcissistic position.
Narcissistic problems are never totally resolvable. To put it another way,
no one ever erases every trace of the unconscious tie to the image of the
witch mother. Certainly it is true that in protracted analyses it emerges
again and again in progressively subtler forms. The case of David
illustrates this clearly.
David, himself a therapist, entered my group after four years of combined
treatment with another therapist. He saw his therapy as "complete." He
sought treatment in my group largely to fulfill a requirement of a training
institute at which he studied.
During one particularly moving session in which another member described,
with palpable anxiety, having literally broken up his house in a fit of
unrestrained rage, David was active in responding to him. He seemed
genuinely touched by the depth of John's outbreak and was empathetic in
assisting him, along with others, to reconstruct what had happened. At one
point David remarked that he felt so close to John that he wanted to give
him a hug. As he said this he looked at me and grinned. The group asked him
what the grin meant, and it was suggested that some feelings he had about me
were being disguised.
In subsequent weeks this interaction was analyzed with the following result:
David had identified with John's violent feelings and envied his open
expression of rage. His own fear of his own mother's highly disguised anger
would not permit such a raw expression of his own feelings, nor could he
even claim them intellectually. Unconsciously, he used that session, in
which he ostensibly was supporting John, to provoke me with his fantasy of
the hug, since he knew very well that in this group hugging was often seen
as a form of acting out. David had indeed been moved by John's presentation,
but unconsciously he had used his empathy to disguise his anger at me. He
fantasized exposing me to the group as too "tight" (that is, depriving) and
showing himself to be the model of openness (that is, the good mother). His
unconscious had, in effect, scored a double point. Not only had he taken
revenge at me as the fantasized witch mother, but he also had wangled the
group's attention away from John and onto himself.
I have discussed aspects of narcissistic revenge in this paper. In analyzing
its relationship to narcissistic rage, I have shown how unconscious efforts
to get back at one's imagined deprivers can be a major expression of that
rage as well as a major aspect of masochism. I have also suggested that
narcissistic revenge is a factor in all in-depth analyses and must be
thoroughly analyzed for narcissistic self-cathexis to be therapeutically
resolved. Two examples were given to illustrate re vengeful operations and
the use of group psychotherapy as an ideal treatment mode in exposing
narcissistic revenge in patients and helping them work it through.
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The American Journal
of Orthopsychiatry, 1959, 29. 383-390. Glatzer, H. Handling Narcissistic
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Reich, A. Pathologic Forms of Self-Esteem Regulation. Psychoanalytic
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