Title: Seven: An Ontological Reading of Narcissism
Abstract: THE ROLE OF ONTOLOGICAL THOUGHT IN RELATION TO PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORYAlthough Freud depicts the human subject as the chief object of research of psychoanalytic theory, we have already seen that the latter's theoretical foundations are embedded in the ontic layer of human existence. Therefore, psychoanalysis, as a method aiming to describe and account for human nature, ought to investigate human beings as ontic-ontological entities. In other words, it ought to explain the psychological phenomena disclosed in the analytic setting and depicted in professional literature as manifestations of ontological relations which are, as aforementioned, essentially temporal relations.Throughout this chapter I will seek out those parts of psychoanalytic theory by which ontological concepts may provide the theoretical background for such notions as Ego, unconscious, repression, projection, identification, etc. Although I have hitherto demonstrated that the psychoanalytic method is founded upon theoretical foundations constrained by the metaphysics of presence, we can indeed find, within the vast array of theoretical conceptualizations of human conditions characteristic of psychoanalytic research, the kind of accounts which enable us to acknowledge ontological concepts as an alternative to the theoretical foundations set down by Freud. I would like to reexamine the way in which Freud describes the link between human beings and the world, between Ego and reality, in order to locate the particular point in psychoanalytic thinking in which the concepts it employs could be reinterpreted as manifesting ontological relations. That is, before delving into the description of key psychoanalytic notions and ideas from a temporal perspective, I shall discuss the very possibility of converting such concepts from the psychoanalytic to the ontological layer.The Relation between Reality and the Psychic StructureSince Freud discusses the world in terms of scientific truth and objectivity, and seeing that we are in search of the place where ontological concepts could provide a theoretical alternative, we ought to focus on those sections of psychoanalytic theory in which this aspect of the Freudian view of reality had not yet overwhelmed his understanding of the individual's presence in the world.According to Freud, the mature Ego possesses the ability to relinquish the pleasure principle in favor of the reality principle, to the extent that it is not governed blindly by instinct, but chooses its actions in light of their possible consequences. In his Ego and the Id [1923], Freud depicts the mature Ego as mediating between the external world and the internal one (Id). The existence of the Ego in the psychic system is thereby essentially connected to the distinction between internal and external worlds. The stages preceding the full maturation of the Ego are those in which the world does not appear in the infant's experience as some external object clearly distinguished from its internal world. Chronologically, regarding the development of psychoanalytic theory, Freud first introduced the Ego as a repressing factor and only later on came to consider it a faculty in charge of organizing the various psychic components.The ego is an organization characterized by a very remarkable trend towards unification, towards synthesis. This characteristic is lacking in the id; it is, as we might say, 'all to pieces'; its different urges pursue their own purposes independently and regardless of one another (Freud, 1959, p. 196).As his method developed further, Freud was more and more inclined to see the Ego as an organizing faculty, though its defensive role was never fully abandoned and still lingered on in the background. The role of the Ego could be defined, therefore, through three characteristics:1. Mediating between external and internal worlds.2. In charge of organizing the internal world vis-a-vis the Id. …
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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