Primary Narcissism

I have previously characterized the early practicing period, a developmental stage of heightened pleasurable affect that fuels infantile grandiosity, as a phase of primary narcissism.

Schore identifies primary narcissism as a neurobiologically grounded developmental phase corresponding to Mahler’s practicing period, defined by elevated positive affect and omnipotence, which socialization must then transform into secondary narcissism via shame transactions.

Schore, Allan N., Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, 1994thesis

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it is probable that this narcissism is the universal original condition, out of which object-love develops later without thereby necessarily effecting a disappearance of the narcissism.

Freud establishes primary narcissism as the universal psychic baseline — a preobjective libidinal state from which object-love differentiates while narcissism itself persists alongside it.

Freud, Sigmund, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, 1917thesis

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Increasing levels of experienced regulated shame serve an important sociodevelopmental function as the agent for the dilution of primary narcissism and narcissistic rage.

Schore argues that regulated shame is the primary mechanism by which primary narcissism is transformed into secondary narcissism, making shame tolerance clinically central to the resolution of narcissistic pathology.

Schore, Allan N., Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, 1994thesis

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It is the inevitable fallout from the transition from the pleasure principle to the reality principle, because we all retain the desire that our wishes will be gratified without our having to ask, that our needs will be met magically.

Epstein frames primary narcissism as a universal residue of the pleasure principle whose incomplete metabolization produces the narcissistic craving that Buddhist analysis as well as psychotherapy must address.

Epstein, Mark, Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, 1995supporting

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Kohut legitimated narcissism as a normal, developmentally healthy, and age-appropriate need for object relatedness. From Kohut’s perspective, narcissistic needs are not regarded as selfish, but reflective of a dis

Flores transmits Kohut’s reconceptualization, which rehabilitates narcissism as a normal developmental line rather than a fixation to be dissolved, implicitly critiquing the classical view of primary narcissism as merely a primitive stage to be outgrown.

Flores, Philip J, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997supporting

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Balint M. (1960). ‘Primary Narcissism and Primary Love.’ Psychoanal. Quart. 29: 6-43.

Bowlby’s bibliographic citation of Balint’s foundational 1960 paper signals the theoretical proximity of primary narcissism to the concept of primary love, indicating a competing relational account of early selfhood.

Bowlby, John, Loss: Sadness and Depression (Attachment and Loss, Volume III), 1980supporting

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narcissistic personalities must be arrested before the development of the rapprochement crisis, since the deflation of infantile grandiosity and omnipotence never occurs.

Schore, citing Masterson, locates narcissistic pathogenesis in a developmental arrest at the primary narcissism phase, where the normative deflation of grandiosity through late-practicing shame transactions fails to occur.

Schore, Allan N., Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, 1994supporting

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Narcissism; Buddha on; elimination of; and Freud; and Human Realm; and humility; and meditative practice; pathological versus healthy; penetration of; primary

Epstein’s index entry confirms primary narcissism as a distinct thematic node in his integrative Buddhist-psychoanalytic framework, co-located with the Freudian pleasure principle and the distinction between healthy and pathological narcissism.

Epstein, Mark, Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, 1995aside

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Toward the end of this subphase, the child begins to experience an inflated sense of omnipotence that is augmented by th

Flores describes the developmental moment of inflated omnipotence in Mahler’s practicing subphase that Schore and others identify as the behavioral signature of primary narcissism.

Flores, Philip J, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997aside

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