body and person instead of on some external object exists, this
cannot be an exceptional or trivial occurrence. It is much more
probable that this narcism is the general and original condition,
out of which the love for an object later develops, without how-
ever necessarily causing narcism to disappear. From the evolu-
tionary history of object-libido we remembered that in the bd
ginning many sex instincts seek auto-erotic gratification, and
that this capacity for auto-eroticism forms the basis for the
retardation of sexuality in its education to conformity with fact.
And so, auto-eroticism was the sexual activity of the narcistic
stage in the placing of the libido.
To be brief: "We represented the relation of the ego-libido
to the object-libido in a way which I can explain by an analogy
from zoology. Think of the simplest forms of life, which con-
sist of a little lump of protoplasmic substance which is only
slightly differentiated. They stretch out protrusions, known as
pseudopia, into which the protoplasm flows. But they can with-
draw these protrusions and assume their original shape. Now
we compare the stretching out of these processes with the radia-
tion of libido to the objects, while the central mass of libido can
remain in the ego, and we assume that under normal conditions
ego-libido can be changed into object-libido, and this can again
be taken up into the ego, without any trouble.
360 Introduction to Psychoanalysis
With the help of this representation we can now explain a
great number of psychic conditions, or to express it more
modestly, describe them, in the language of the libido theory;
conditions that we must accredit to normal life, such as the
psychic attitude during love, during organic sickness, during
eleep. We assumed that the conditions of sleep rest upon with-
drawal from the outer world and concentration upon the wish
to sleep. The nocturnal psychic activity expressed in the dream
we found in the service of a wish to sleep and, moreover, gov-
erned by wholly egoistic motives. Continuing in the sense of
libido theory: sleep is a condition in which all occupations of
objects, the libidinous as well as the egoistic, are given up, and
ere withdrawn into the ego. Does this not throw a new light
upon recovery during sleep, and upon the nature of exhaustion
in general ? The picture of blissful isolation in the intra-uterine
life, which the sleeper conjures up night after night, thus also
completes the picture from the psychic side. In the sleeper the
original condition of libido division is again restored, a con-
dition of complete narcism in which libido and ego-interest
are still united and live indistinguishably in the self-sufficient
ego.
We must observe two things : First, how can the conceptions
of narcism and egoism be distinguished? I believe narcism is
the libidinous complement of egoism. When we speak of egoism
we mean only the benefits to the individual; if we speak of
narcism we also take into account his libidinous satisfaction. As
practical motives the two can be followed up separately to a
considerable degree. One can be absolutely egoistic, and still
have strong libidinous occupation of objects, in so far as the
libidinous gratification by way of the object serves the needs of
the ego. Egoism will then take care that the striving for the
object results in no harm to the ego. One can be egoistic and
at the same time excessively narcistic, i.e., have very slight need
of an object. This need may be for direct sexual satisfaction or
even for those higher desires, derived from need, which we are
in the habit of calling love as opposed to sensuality. In
all of these aspects, egoism is the self-evident, the constant, and
narcism the variable element. The antithesis of egoism, altruism,
is not the same as the conception of libidinous occupation of
objects. Altruism differs from it by the absence of desire for
The Libido Theory and Narcism 361
sexual satisfaction. But in the state of being completely in love,
altruism and libidinous occupation with an object clash. The
sex object as a rule draws upon itself a part of the narcism of
the ego. This is generally called "sexual over-estimation" of the
object. If the altruistic transformation from egoism to the
sex object is added, the sex object becomes all powerful ; it has
virtually sucked up the ego.
I think you will find it a pleasant change if after the dry
phantasy of science I present to you a poetic representation of
the economic contrast between narcism and being in love. I
take it from the Westostliche Divans of Goethe:
SULEIKA :
Conqueror and serf and nation ;
They proclaim it joyously;
Mankind's loftiest elation,
Shines in personality.
Life 's enchantment lures and lingers,
Of yourself is not afar,
All may slip through passive fingers,
If you tarry as you are.
HATEM :
Never could I be thus ravished,
Other thoughts are in my mind,
All the gladness earth has lavished
In Suleika's charms I find.
When I cherish her, then only
Dearer to myself I grow,
If she turned to leave me lonely
I should lose the self I know.
Hatem's happiness were over,
But his changeling soul would glide
Into any favored lover
Whom she fondles at her side.
The second observation is supplementary to the dream theory.
We cannot explain the origin of the dream unless we assume
that the suppressed unconscious has achieved a certain inde-
pendence of the ego. It does not conform to the wish for sleep
and retains its hold on the energies that have seized it, even when
all the occupations with objects dependent upon the ego have
been released for the benefit of sleep. Not until then can we
362 Introduction to Psychoanalysis
understand how this unconscious can take advantage of the noc-
turnal discontinuance or deposition of the censor, and can seize
control of fragments left over from the day to fashion a forbid-
den dream wish from them. On the other hand, it is to the
already existing connections with these supposed elements that
these fragments owe a part of the resistance directed against
the withdrawal of the libido, and controlled by the wish for
Bleep. We also wish to supplement our conception of dream
formation with this trait of dynamic importance.
Organic diseases, painful irritations, inflammation of the or-
gans create a condition which clearly results in freeing the libido
of its objects. The withdrawn libido again finds itself in the
ego and occupies the diseased part of the part. "We may even
venture to assert that under these conditions the withdrawal
of the libido from its objects is more conspicuous than the with-
drawal of egoistic interest from the outside world. This seems
to open the way to an understanding of hypochondria, where
an organ occupies the ego in a similar way without being dis-
eased, according to our conception. I shall resist the temptation
of continuing along this line, or of discussing other situations
which we can understand or represent through the assumption
that the object libido travels to the ego. For I am eager to meet
two objections, which I know are absorbing your attention. In
the first place, you want to call me to account for my insistence
upon distinguishing in sleep, in sickness and in similar situations
between libido and interest, sexual instincts and ego instincts,
since throughout the observations can be explained by assuming
a single and uniform energy, which, freely mobile, occupies now
the object, now the ego, and enters into the services of one or
the other of these impulses. And, secondly, how can I venture
to treat the freeing of libido from its object as the source of a
pathological condition, since such transformation of object-
libido into ego-libido or more generally, ego-energy belongs
to the normal, daily and nightly repeated occurrences of psychic
dynamics ?
The answer is: Your first objection sounds good. The dis-
cussion of the conditions of sleep, of sickness and of being in love
would in themselves probably never have led to a distinction
between ego-libido and object-libido, or between libido and in-
terest. But you do not take into account the investigations from
The Libido Theory and Narcism 363
which we have set out, in the light of which we now regard the
psychic situations under discussion. The necessity of dis-
tinguishing between libido and interest, that is, between sexual
instincts and those of self-preservation, is forced upon us by our
insight into the conflict out of which the transference neuroses
emerge. We can no longer reckon without it. The assumption
that object-libido can change into the ego-libido, in other words,
that we must reckon with an ego-libido, appeared to us the only
possible one wherewith to solve the riddle of the so-called nar-
cistic neuroses for instance, dementia praecox or to justify
the similarities and differences in a comparison of hysteria and
compulsion. We now apply to sickness, sleep and love that
which we found undeniably affirmed elsewhere. We may pro-
ceed with such applications as far as they will go. The only
assertion that is not a direct refutation of our analytic experi-
ence is that libido remains libido whether it is directed towards
objects or toward the ego itself, and is never transferred into
egoistic interest, and vice-versa. But this assertion is of equal
weight with the distinction of sex and ego instincts which we
have already critically appraised, and which we will maintain
from methodological motives until it may possibly be dis-
proved.
Your second objection, too, raises a justified question, but it
points in a wrong direction. To be sure the retreat of object-
libido into the ego is not purely pathogenic ; we see that it occurs
each time before going to sleep, only to be released again upon
awaking. The little protoplasmic animal draws in its protru-
sions, only to send them out again on a later occasion. But it is
quite another matter when a specific, very energetic process com-
pels the withdrawal of libido from the object. The libido has
become narcistic and cannot find its way back to the object, and
this hindrance to the mobility of the libido certainly becomes
pathogenic. It appears that an accumulation of narcistic libido
cannot be borne beyond a certain point. We can imagine that
the reason for occupation with the object is that the ego found
it necessary to send out its libido in order not to become diseased
because it was pent up. If it were our plan to go further into
the subject of dementia praecox, I would show you that this
process which frees the libido from the objects and bars the
way back to them, is closely related to the process of suDDres-
364 Introduction to Psychoanalysis
sion, and must be considered as its counterpart. But above ail
you would recognize familiar ground, for the conditions of these
processes are practically identical, as far as we can now see,
with those of suppression. The conflict appears to be the same,
and to take place between the same forces. The reason for a
result as different as, for instance, the result in hysteria, can be
found only in a difference of dispositions. The vulnerable point
in the libido development of these patients lies in another phase ;
the controlling fixation, which, as you will remember, permits
the breach resulting in the formation of symptoms, is in another
place probably in the stage of primitive narcism, to which de-
mentia praecox returns in its final stage. It is noteworthy that
for all the narcistic neuroses, we must assume fixation points
of the libido which reach back into far earlier phases of develop-
ment than in cases of hysteria or compulsion neuroses. But you
have heard that the conceptions obtained in our study of trans-
ference neuroses are sufficient to orient us in the narcistic
neuroses, which present far greater practical difficulties. The
similarities are considerable; it is fundamentally the same field
of observation. But you can easily imagine how hopeless the
explanations of these conditions, which belong to psychiatry,
appear to him who is not equipped for this task with an analytic
knowledge of transference neuroses.
The picture given by the symptoms of dementia praecox,
which, moreover, is highly variable, is not exclusively determined
by the symptoms. These result from forcing the libido away
from the objects and accumulating it in the ego in the form
of narcistic libido. A large space is occupied by other phe-
nomena, which result from the impulses of the libido to regain
the objects, and so show an attempt toward restitution and
healing. These symptoms are in fact the more conspicuous, the
more clamorous ; they show an unquestionable similarity to those
of hysteria, or less often to those of compulsion neurosis, and
yet they are different in every respect. It appears that in de-
mentia praecox the libido in its endeavor to return to the
objects, i.e., to the images of the objects, really captures some-
thing, but only their shadows I mean, the veibal images belong-
ing to them. This is not the place to discuss this matter, but
I believe that these reversed impulses of the libido have per-
The Libido Theory and Narcism 365
mitted us an insight into what really determines the difference
between a conscious and an unconscious representation.
I have now brought you into the field where we may expect
the further progress of analytic work. Since we can now employ
the conception of ego-libido, the narcistic neuroses have become
accessible to us. We are confronted with the problem of finding
a dynamic explanation of these conditions and at the same time
of enlarging our knowledge of psychic life by an understanding
of the ego. The ego psychology, which we strive to understand,
must not be founded upon introspective data, but rather, as in
the libido, upon analysis of the disturbances and decompositions
of the ego. When this greater task is accomplished we shall
probably disparage our previous knowledge of the fate of the
libido which we gained from our study of the transference
neuroses. But there is still much to be said in this matter.
Narcistic neuroses can scarcely be approached by the same
technique which served us in the transference neuroses. Soon
you will hear why. After forging ahead a little in the study of
narcistic neuroses we always seem to come to a wall which im-
pedes progress. You know that in the transference neuroses we
also encountered such barriers of resistance, but we were able
to break them down piece by piece. In narcistic neuroses the
resistance is insuperable; at best we are permitted to cast a
curious glance over the wall to spy out what is taking place on
the other side. Our technical methods must be replaced by
others ; we do not yet know whether or not we shall be able to
find such a substitute. To be sure, even these patients furnish
us with ample material. They do say many things, though not
in answer to our questions, and for the time being we are forced
to interpret these utterances through the understanding we have
gained from the symptoms of transference neuroses. The coin r
cidence is sufficiently great to assure us a good beginning. How
far this technique will go, remains to be seen.
There are additional difficulties that impede our progress.
The narcistic conditions and the psychoses related to them can
only be solved by observers who have schooled themselves in
analytic study of transference neuroses. But our psychiatrists
do not study psychoanalysis and we psychoanalysts see too
few psychiatric cases. A race of psychiatrists that has gone
through the school of psychoanalysis as a preparatory science
366 Introduction to Psychoanalysis
must first grow up. The beginnings of this are now being made
in America, where many leading psychiatrists explain the teach-
ings of psychoanalysis to their students, and where many owners
of sanatoriums and directors of institutes for the insane take
pains to observe their patients in the light of these teachings.
But even here we have occasionally been successful in casting
a glance over the narcistic wall and I shall tell you a few things
that we think we have discovered.
The disease of paranoia, chronic systematic insanity, is given
a very uncertain position by the attempts at classification of
present-day psychiatry. There is no doubt of its close relation-
ship to dementia praecox. I once was so bold as to propose that
paranoia and dementia praecox could be classed together under
the common name of paraphrenia. The types of paranoia are
described according to their content as : megalomania, the mania
of persecution, eroto mania, mania of jealousy, etc. From
psychiatry we do not expect attempts at explanation. As an
example of such an attempt, to be sure an antiquated and not
entirely valid example, I might mention the attempt to develop
one symptom directly out of another by means of an intellectual
rationalization, as : the patient who primarily believes he is being
persecuted draws the conclusion from this persecution that he
must be an extraordinarily important personality and thus
develops megalomania. In our analytical conception megalo-
mania is the immediate outcome of exaggeration of the ego, which
results from the drawing-in of libidinous occupation with objects,
a secondary narcism as a recurrence of the originally early
infantile form. In cases of the mania of persecution we have
noticed a few things that lead us to follow a definite track. In
the first place, we observed that in the great majority of cases
the persecutor was of the same sex as the persecuted. This could
still be explained in a harmless way, but in a few carefully
studied cases it was clearly shown that the person of the same
sex, who was most loved in normal times, became the persecutor
after the malady set in. A further development is made possible
by the fact that one loved person is replaced by another, accord-
ing to familiar affinities, e.g., the father by the teacher or the
superior. We concluded from such ever-increasing experiences,
that paranoia persecutoria is the form in which the individual
guards himself against a homosexual tendency that has become
The Libido Theory and Narcism 367
too powerful. The change from affection to hate, which notori-
ously may take the form of serious threats against the life of the
loved and hated person, expresses the transformation of libidin-
ous impulse into fear, which is a regularly recurring result of
the process of suppression. As an illustration I shall cite the
last case in which I made observations on this subject. A young
physician had to be sent away from his home town because he
had threatened the life of the son of a university professor, who
up to that time had been his best friend. He ascribed truly
devilish intentions to his erstwhile friend and credited him with
power of a demon. He was to blame for all the misfortunes
that had in recent years befallen the family of the patient, for
all his personal and social ill-luck. But this was not enough.
The wicked friend, and his father the professor, had been the
cause of the war and had called the Russians into the land. He
had forfeited his life a thousand times and our patient was con-
vinced that with the death of the culprit all misfortune would
come to an end. And yet his old affection for his friend was
so great that it had paralyzed his hand when he had had the
opportunity of shooting down the enemy at close quarters. In
my short consultations with the patient, I discovered that the
friendship between the two dated back to early school-life. Once
at least the bonds of friendship had been over-stepped ; a night
spent together had been the occasion for complete sexual inter-
course. Our patient never felt attracted to women, as would
have been natural to his age or his charming personality. At
one time he was engaged to a beautiful and distinguished young
girl, but she broke off the engagement because she found so little
affection in her fiance. Years later his malady broke out just
at that moment when for the first time he had succeeded in giving
complete gratification to a woman. When this woman embraced
him, full of gratitude and devotion, he suddenly felt a strange
pain which cut around his skull like a sharp incision. His later
interpretation of this sensation was that an incision such as
is used to expose a part of the brain had been performed upon
him, and since his friend had become a pathological anatomist,
he gradually came to the conclusion that he alone could have
sent him this last woman as a temptation. From that time on his
eyes were also opened to the other persecutions in which he was
to be the victim of the intrigues of his former friend.
368 Introduction to Psychoanalysis
But how about those cases where the persecutor is not of the
same sex as the persecuted, where our explanation of a guard
against homosexual libido is apparently contradicted? A short
time ago I had occasion to investigate such a case and was able
to glean corroboration from this apparent contradiction. A
young girl thought she was followed by a man, with whom she
had twice had intimate relations. She had, as a matter of fact,
first laid these maniacal imputations at the door of a woman,
whom we may consider as having played the part of a mother-
substitute in her psychic life. Only after the second meeting
did she progress to the point of diverting this maniacal idea
from the woman and of transferring it to the man. The condi-
tion that the persecutor must be of the same sex was also origin-
ally maintained in this instance. In her claim before the lawyer
and the physician, this patient did not mention this first stage
of her mania, and this caused the appearance of a contradiction
to our theory of paranoia.
Homosexual choice of object is originally more natural to
narcism than the heterosexual. If it is a matter of thwarting
a strong and undesirable homosexual impulse, the way back
to narcism is made especially easy. Until now I have had very
little opportunity of speaking to you about the fundamental
conditions of love-life, so far as we know them, and now I cannot
make up for lost time. I only want to point out that the choice
of an object, that progress in the development of the libido
which comes after the narcistic stage, can proceed according
to two different types either according to the narcistic type,
which puts a very similar personality in the place of the personal
ego, or according to the dependent type, which chooses those
persons who have become valuable by satisfying needs of life
other than as objects of the libido. We also accredit a strong
fixation of the libido to the narcistic type of object-choice when
there is a disposition toward manifest homosexuality.
You will recall that in our first meeting of this semester I
told you about the case of a woman who suffered from the mania
of jealousy. Since we are so near the end you certainly will
be glad to hear the psychoanalytic explanation of a maniacal
idea. But I have less to say about it than you expect. The
maniacal idea as well as the compulsion idea cannot be assailed
by logical arguments or actual experience. This is explained by
The Libido Theory and Narcism 369
their relation to the unconscious, which is represented by the
maniacal idea or the compulsion idea, and held down by which-
ever is effective. The difference between the two is based upon
respective localization and dynamic relations of the two con-
ditions.
As in paranoia, so also in melancholia, of which, moreover,
very different clinical forms are described. We have discovered
a point of vantage which will yield us an insight into the inner
structure of the condition. We realize that the self -accusations
with which these melancholic patients torture themselves in the
most pitiless way, really apply to another person, namely, the
sex object which they have lost, or which through some fault
has lost value for them. From this we may conclude that the
melancholic has withdrawn his libido from the object. Through
a process which we designate as "narcistic identification" the
object is built up within the ego itself, is, so to say, projected
upon the ego. Here I can give you only a descriptive repre-
sentation, as yet without reference to the topical and dynamic
relations. The personal ego is now treated in the same manner
as the abandoned object, and suffers all the aggression and ex-
pressions of revenge which were planned for the object. Even
the suicidal tendencies of melancholia are more comprehensible