Psychology sometimes sounds like the ramblings of a secret society.
Let me give you an example. Shoshanim and Shoshanot. My most recent work.
The narcissist's self-object is the false self, an internal object. Only the false self-self forms self-object relations with external objects.
Got it? Because I didn't. No, seriously.
Today's topic is very, very fascinating and interesting.
Why can't the narcissist perceive external objects as external? Why can't the narcissists experience separateness from other people? What is this othering failure? What's a mechanism behind it?
And to try to explain it, I use the work of Heinz Kohut, one of the giants of modern psychology, and his self-psychology, more precisely the concept of self-object.
And who am I? My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, the first book ever on narcissistic abuse, and I'm a professor of clinical psychology.
Let's start with the definition.
Self-object is how you experience another person.
You remember that in many, many schools in psychology, people are called objects, which tells you a lot about psychologists. So object is person. Another person is another object. Someone that is not you is an external object a representation of that person in your mind is an internal object.
Get it? Shoshanim?
Okay, self-object in self-psychology is how you experience another object, another person, as part of your own self.
How you experience others as elements of your self, figments of your mind, components, ingredients.
So, you don't experience other people as separate from you, as independent from yourself, but you experience them as incorporated within you, at least mentally, metaphorically, as if you have assimilated them or digested them.
And this is actually a process that happens with healthy people, not only with narcissists.
Even healthy people have self-objects. Even healthy people experience other people as an integral part or integral parts of their selves.
The self therefore is comprised of, among other things, impressions or interactions with other people, elements of other people.
When the objects, the other persons, actions, affirm your narcissistic well-being, when they cater to your healthy narcissism.
For example, when the actions of another person enhance your self-esteem, make you feel more self-confident, more worthy, at that point, you treat this other person who makes you feel so good as a self-object, that other person becomes integrated as a self-object that other person becomes integrated with yourself.
The actions of that other person, the words that other person is saying, the utterances of the other person, everything that emanates from the other person, everything comes out of the other person, and that has to do with you, becomes a part of your self.
Now, of course, this could become a pathology, like everything else in psychology. The most benign things can become pathologies.
In narcissism, for example, the narcissist is unable to relate to other people as separate. The narcissist keeps asking what's in it for me. What can I take from that other person?
And then the minute the narcissist obtains something from the other person, that other person becomes an integral part of the self, of the false self of the narcissist.
So the self-object process can become a pathology.
But before we go to the pathology, and we will go there, I promise you, before we go there, I will recap, the self-object is one's experience of another person, another object, as part of, rather than as separate and independent from one's self.
Particularly when the object's actions affirm one's narcissistic well-being.
Self-object, therefore, is an object, another person, which is used in the service of the self, or objects, other people, which are experienced as part of the self and provide functions of the self.
It's as if these other people out there were at the service of the self. There were employees of the self.
And so the self came to appropriate, came to regard them as property. These other people performed functions. They provided feedback, interacted with the self.
And these functions became very crucial for the functioning of the self. And so the self incorporated the functions and the sources of the functions, these people, these objects, these external objects became in many ways internalized as self objects.
Got the picture? That's a foundation. We'll discuss it much more in depth a bit later so that's a foundation.
In the case of the narcissist the only self-object is the false object.
In other words, the narcissist does not interact with other people, out there, persons, human beings. He doesn't, or she doesn't. Half of all narcissists are women.
The narcissist's interactions are totally internalized. The narcissist never interacts with an external object, with someone out there, someone separate, someone external, not such thing.
And the reason, of course, is that narcissists does not possess a self.
Narcissism, pathological narcissism, is a disruption in the formation, integration and constellation of a self.
Because there is no self in narcissism, there are no self objects out there. There are no people who perform functions for the self because there's no self. There are no people who are experienced by the self because there's no self.
So there are no self objects. There's no self which will incorporate somehow, internalize, assimilate, digest people out there as elements, because there's no self.
So what is there in narcissism?
The false self.
The false self is perceived simultaneously as an external object and as an internal object, which is a pretty amazing dichotomy unique to narcissism and some psychotic disorders.
So the narcissist self object is the false self. The false self is the only object which is used at the service of the narcissist. The false self is the only object which is experienced as part of the narcissist and provides ego functions for the narcissists.
The false self, of course, is a replacement for the real self, a substitute, where there is no self, where there is a void, a black hole, an emptiness.
The false self insinuates itself and fulfills this void and becomes an internal object, becomes a fake self, on the one hand, and on the other hand, something the narcissist can relate to as a godhead, a divinity, an imaginary friend.
So, a narcissist has a very complicated relationship with the false self.
On the one hand, it's an external object. There is some mental distance between the narcissists and the false self.
And on the other hand the narcissist's experience of existence, his only sense of being, his only self-conception, his only self-perception, his only becoming, is the false self.
So simultaneously, the false self is an object out there and the totality of the narcissists.
And the false self, therefore, has a self-object relationship with itself. It is its own source of functioning.
The false self regards itself as the only object, and has a self-object relationship, and a self-object relationship and a self-object experience with itself.
In other words, the false self is self-referential.
At the same time, the false self is the only entity, the only construct, the only element that is capable in principle of forming self-object relations with external objects.
The false self has a public facing aspect or dimension and an inward facing aspect or dimension.
The public facing element or part or facade of the false self is capable in principle of interacting with external objects and using them as self objects.
In other words, the false self is capable of perceiving other people as objects that could serve him.
The false self is looking at other people as potential servants, potential functions, potential helpers, potential participants in fantasy or whatever.
They're useful. It's a utilitarian approach.
What can this person, what can this external object do for me?
And so the false self is capable of regarding other people and using them at the service of the false self.
At the same time the false self is also capable of experiencing other people as part of the false self and as providers of functions of the false self.
So wait a minute, you say, there's some inconsistency here. Again, you're contradicting yourself.
No, I'm not.
Okay, here's your argument.
You say, wait a minute, the narcissist and the false self are one and the same. Yes? Yes. You keep telling us that the narcissist is incapable of experiencing other people as external and separate.
You even coined the phrase other in failure.
True. True.
And yet at the same time, right now you're telling us, that the false self is capable of interacting with external objects for purposes of self-gratification or enhancement of functions or what have you.
But the false self is capable of interacting with others, external, separate as self-objects. So isn't this a contradiction?
The narcissist is not capable of interacting with external objects.
The false self is capable of interacting with external objects.
You see, you contradict yourself.
No, I'm not.
I did not say that the false self is capable of interacting with external objects as, for example, romantic partners, intimate friends, as normal, healthy interactions with others via object relations.
The false self is not capable with interacting with other people as independent, unique, autonomous entities.
No. The false self is capable of doing only one thing, immediately converting external objects into internal objects, self objects.
So the false self has a detection mechanism. It is the false self that recognizes, wow, here's an external object. Here's another person.
And I need to convert that person into an internal object. I need to convert that object, external object. I need to convert it into an introject.
I need to make use of this external object as a self-object. I need to deny the external object, the externality and the separateness and the independence and the personal autonomy and the self-efficacy and the agency that they have.
I need to render the external object no longer separate from me, no longer external, but internal and my extension.
So what I was saying is this.
The narcissist uses the false self as the mechanism of converting external separate objects into internal self-object objects. That's all I was saying.
Definitely, the narcissist is incapable of recognizing the externality and separateness of external objects, or at least accepting them.
He immediately converts everything to internal object, and this is done via the false self, which requires self objects for functioning.
The narcissist, on the other hand, interacts with the false self as if in some ways it was an external object.
So the relationship of the narcissist with the false self, with his or her false self, is ambiguous, is equivocal.
On the one hand, the false self is definitely an internal object, so 100% internal object. It's a concoction. It's a piece of fiction.
On the other hand, the narcissist need to believe in his own or her own grandiosity, in the fantasy shared or not, forces narcissists to attribute or misattribute to the false self, externality and separatist, as if the false self were an observer, someone from the outside.
So if the false self informs the narcissist that he is a genius, it is coming from the outside.
So it has some kind of validity or veracity or power.
So here the situation between the narcissist and the false self is a lot more murky than the situation between the narcissists and all other objects, all other external objects.
All other external objects are instantaneously converted into internal objects.
But the entity, the construct that does the conversion from external objects to internal objects, this entity is perceived by the narcissists sometimes or in some ways as an external object.
There is a misattribution here.
So this is a complicated inner landscape of the narcissist.
The self-object is a very interesting idea, very interesting concept. It's a central psychic apparatus in Kohut's theory of self-psychology.
Now, Freud was the first to use the word object in relation to other people.
But when Freud used the word object, he meant something completely different.
What Freud meant when he said, when he used the word object, was the target of cathexis, the target of emotional investment.
What Kohut meant when he used the word object is the target that is cathected with narcissistic energy at the service of the self.
In other words, the target that is acquired in order to narcissistically service the self.
So in Freud's work, the object is infused or imbued with psychic energy, libido, but is still kept at arm's length.
It's clear that the object is external and separate.
In Kohut, the minute the object is cathected with narcissistic energy, it becomes an integrated part of the self and a disservice of the self.
That's a major difference, of course.
Freud believed in subject and object. He was Cartesian in this sense, the dualism, Cartesian dualism.
Kohut did not make such a distinction so clearly.
He said, I don't know what is external and what is internal. I'm not quite sure about this. I don't know what is object and subject. I'm not quite sure about this.
I think that every object has prominent subjective dimensions.
Every object is immediately somehow incorporated into the subject. Every object becomes subject to interaction, becomes a part of the subject, part of the self.
He said, everything, every person, everything, not only every person, is subject to internalization.
We always experience the subject in relation to the object and the object in relation to the subject. We have these experiences and we internalize them and they become who we are, these experiences.
So the self-object is the dimensions of experience of another person.
When we experience another person, and this person relates to ourselves in some way, helps ourselves to function, for example, or helps us to establish a sense of self, when the other person has a role in the emergence of the self, the maintenance of the self, the functioning of the self, that other person is a self object.
Our experience of that other person is mediated via the self, and he in some ways, that other person becomes inextricably tied to ourself.
It's a kind of integrated in the self.
Now of course, Kohut was actually not the first to suggest this.
Margaret Mahler, Heinz Hartmann, Edith Jacobson, they hinted or they were on the way to reaching the same insights, but Kohut took this insight and developed a whole theory, an amazing theory.
Kohut started by saying that there is something like a rudimentary, a primitive, or an infantile self.
And he said this kind of self develops along two primary relationships with others.
There's like a continuum or promenade of relationships with others, there are two of them.
It's a double rail.
And the initial, the primordial self develops along these two rails.
So there's the grandiose self and the idealized parental image.
Each one of them has different functions and each one of them interacts with other people in a different way.
So according to Kohut, narcissism was not a pathology in any way.
And in this sense, Kohut resembles Jung a lot. It's not a pathology, but a necessary component of healthy development.
In Kohut's theory, the infant develops a sense of affirmation through the mirroring of the parent.
The parent reflects back at the infant, the grandiosity of the infant.
Because when the infant says, I don't need mommy anymore, I'm going to go out into the world on my own and I'm going to explore the world and I'm going to discover everything and you know this is a very grandiose sentiment. It's delusional in many ways.
But a good parent reflects this grandiosity back at the child and allows the child to experience this grandiosity in a way which is not punitive and not critical.
This grandiosity, when it is mirrored by the parent appropriately, signifies acceptance.
The parent participates in the infant's developing sense of self and self-agency by embracing the infant's nascent grandiosity and essentially primary narcissism to borrow a phrase from Freud.
Now, we need not forget that children are dependent for their survival on parents. Parents provide food and shelter and nurturers.
So children dieif they're deprived of even touch, their well-being suffers.
So these are critical tasks. The parent fulfills critical tasks, both physiological and psychological. The parent caters to the needs of the child. The parent services the child.
And the child is helpless in the sense that the child cannot self-administer, cannot self-cater, cannot self-fulfill his or her needs. The child is dependent totally. The helplessness is real.
So the child experiences the parent as an extension of itself as essentially the first self-object.
Effective parental mirroring builds the child's internal confirmation, self-agency, and creates healthy self-objects, self-objects.
Self-objects that do not reject, self-objects that do not attack and do not criticize and do not punish, but self-objects that accept, that embrace, that contain, that enhance.
And these internalizations aid the child.
Now the child can act in the world and on the world and gradually become more and more self-sufficient, more and more able to meet her, his or her needs.
This mirroring enables the child, empowers the child.
If the need for mirroring is absent or inadequate, the child grows up to feel deficient.
This kind of child spends a lifetime seeking self-objects to fulfill this gap.
It's another way of looking at the need, the compulsive need for narcissistic supply, in order to maintain the fragile precarious internal balance, which is brittle.
And so the psychic structures of the self in Kohut's work are built through the process of transmuting internalizations.
We internalize the world and we become via this internalization.
It is very reminiscent of the work of Jacques Lacan actually.
Through the process of optimal frustration of the child's narcissistic needs by the parent, the child's emergent self develops.
The child has needs, and most of these needs are narcissistic.
The parent's role is to frustrate these needs, so that the child draws back and notices that the parent is a separate entity, the emergent self provides mirroring and idealization through mature relations in the future, external internal functions of mature self objects.
The frustration of the narcissistic needs in early childhood, frustration that is done compassionately and lovingly, of course, not rejection, frustration.
This creates an emergent self.
Gradually the self looks for gratification, looks for functioning, looks for satisfaction elsewhere and this is object relations.
This new self will no longer look to the parents but will look to an intimate partner or to a friend.
So the new self that has emerged as a result of parental frustration is capable of idealizing, self-idealizing, and self-mirroring via other people, converts other people into self-objects, idealizes itself through other people.
And this, of course, creates boundaries. I stop here, the world starts, the world stops here and I stop. This is external internal.
And this is of course the key failure in pathological narcissism.
According to Hode, the way you experience yourself is the unconscious experience of self in relation to objects.
The self is nothing but the sum total of self-objects according to Kohut.
The individual experience of I, you know, is the experience of I in relation to others.
There's not I isolated from others. It's relational.
When you say I, it's I in relation to who? To others.
You are experientially connected to other people.
The experience of self is crucially dependent on the self objects, which are integrated into the self.
So the self itself, or at least the experience of self, changes as the people around you change when you change environment across time context different relationships your sense of self your self conception your experience of self fluctuate change metamorphose they're different.
The concept of self-object is not an object in the interpersonal sense you know when I keep saying object other people and so what you imagine is there's this other person, there's me, and there's a relationship.
No, because in this case, the other person cannot fulfill self-functions, cannot help yourself to function in any way, cannot service yourself, cannot become a self-object.
The self-object is the inner experience of the other person, how you experience the other person. It's the inner experience of the object and the functions of the object and that helps you to establish a sense of the self, which is actually nothing but the combination or compendium of all the self-objects you would have come across.
Self-objects are not necessarily selves and they are not necessarily objects. They are the internal subjective experiences of relationships.
And the way these relationships, or more precisely the objects in the relationships, provide the self, yourself, with functions, with functioning, help you to cut a long story short.
The rudimentary infantile self that we mentioned earlier is immediately bound to the experience of external others and their self-object functions.
As we grow up, self-objects could be anything. They could be people. They could be works of art. They could be music. They could be literature, religious traditions, beliefs, etc. Anything that is experienced, that is external, and helps to regulate the self, helps the self with some functions and becomes an integral part of the self, is a self object. It doesn't have to be a human being.
In adulthood, in early childhood it has to be a human being, but in adulthood, no. Mature individuals turn to self-object functions of abstracts, symbols, and these fulfill the deepest emotional and self-needs.
So, according to Kohut, the core nuclear self is developed through mirroring, idealizing, and the optimal frustration of these needs.
There's an optimal response of the caregiver. The caregiver has to meet the need for mirroring. The caregiver has to allow the child to idealize the caregiver.
And the eventual frustration of those needs pushes the child to separate and individuate, to use Margaret Mahler's terminology, to become a self.
The child internalizes the self object and the nuclear self emerges.
The parent must allow the child to idealize the parent.
Because when the child idealizes the parent it reduces anxiety, it comforts the child, it allows the child to develop a notion of secure base, essentially it's a merger with the perceived strength of the parent as a godlike figure.
When the child idealizes the parent the child feels empowered, my parents are ideal, I'm protected, I'm safe.
The rudimentary self usually is in a very early stage of childhood when the child is totally dependent.
The only way to meet the child's needs is through the parental figures.
And so the child internalizes this dependency, but in order not to feel threatened that it is dependent on some bad object or some monster, the child feels very threatened and so the child idealizes the parent.
Ah, it's okay I'm dependent on a godlike figure, you know, it's okay the child says my parents are perfect, I'm part of my parents so that makes me perfect and because I'm perfect I'm a good object and I'm deserving of care and compassion and love and support.
This continues throughout life in adulthood as well.
But the difference between pathology and maturity is that a mature adult definitely uses aspects of other people to regulate his or herself. In other words, uses other people as self-objects.
But the mature individual, the mature adult individual, doesn't make the mistake of regarding other people as extensions, as pieces of fiction, as elements in his mind, as internal objects.
The narcissist does this.
This inability to recognize the separate and externality of others, the other in failure, is at the core of pathological narcissism.
This is the first lecture of two on self-objects. There's another one coming. You're warned. Take cover.
The other one goes much deeper into the relationships between a healthy self-objection and a sick self-object or a pathological self-objectand how the pathological self-object manifests in narcissism.
So, stay tuned.