Mirrors of Narcissism: Clinical Manifestations of Psychosis

French psychoanalysis

Abstract

Freud's growing interest to the treatment of psychosis partly motivated the introduction in 1914 of the concept of narcissism. This article proposes to define the contribution of this question of narcissism in the clinic of psychosis from a dual point of view, metapsychological and therapeutic. The evolution of the concept of primary narcissism in the history of psychoanalysis will be considered in the light of Winnicott and the contributions of modern psychoanalysts to the study of primary forms of symbolization. Freud emphasized that the importance of narcissism constituted an obstacle to the therapeutic dimension of psychoanalysis and announced the modification of conventional treatments for these pathologies of narcissism and psychoanalysis in particular. From this point of view, the main thread of clinical research will be the role played by the call to the sensorimotor and body registers in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of psychoses based on therapeutic mediation.