Narcissistic Withdrawal

Dear Reader

For those of you with a love of poetry I shall leave it to you to work out the stanza form.  For others in relationships that are not working, I shall leave it to you for analysis, for this is the very thing that led me to writing it in the first place.  Of course, it is based on Freud's 1908 original idea of 'loss of a significant object', that is a person, taken from his in depth and lengthy discussion on Narcissism. Further, it does bear some reflections on the myth of Narcissus.  Moreover, I do wonder if in a trivial and yet destructive way the loss of the object could be triggered much later in a person by some kind of unconscious 'castration complex' that Freud also mentioned frequently in his works, that may in a new form exhibit itself in either sex in adulthood associated to loss of power or phantasies of emasculation?  However, bringing things up-to-date we can all see how merely being an extension to an intimate other is a rather complex relationship. Can't we.

Narcissistic Withdrawal


A I wonder where have you gone to?

B I see and hear no Echo, echo, echo...

A I sense a kind of symptom too.

B What has ruined the image deco?

B It seems that only you might show,

C Return of engery to libido.

B Flight from the object as I know,

C Seems to be an objectless flow.



A What has led to this anxious situation?

B Lack of control of the object,

A And a present link to symbolic castration.

B Or is it merely the subject,

B Love of the object or it reject?

C Libidinal energy one must protect,

B To block the shift of the effects,

C A defence used to deflect.



A And so the story continues,

B The echo is then to retain,

A A sense of grandiose in you,

B Admiration in a domain,

B All for the purpose to avoid pain.

C How does one then recover,

B And not persue this path of vain?

C To: share libido with the other.



B All for the purpose to avoid pain,

C How does one then recover,

B And not persue this path of vain?

C To: share libido with the other.

 
(c) Jennifer Hooper 2009

Superiority - Inferiority Syndrome

I pay due respect to Adler, A. 1933 here, with his thoughts on an aspect of narcissism that he calls the Superiority-Inferiority Complex, in my view, I see as some kind of a syndrome.  I had at first wondered what he meant when reading Adler, but the symptoms became much clearer as the reading got much more interesting and I could see myself in a phantasy as a character on one side of the polarity in the past!  Maybe someone is wondering what is it with narcissism that I keep talking about it?  Even I am beginning to wonder whether it is growing in me.  I would rather like to think that it has matured - normally.

So here we are in this moment ruminating about how we 'choose' to live our lives. For some of us it has rather become an 'even though ...' excuse for attention seeking behaviours, which does make me wonder what the mother's gaze with her baby might have to do with all of this.  Especially in terms of the duration or lack of duration of the gaze and how this may have an effect on how an individual feels inside and towards the other, if he/she is able to recognise the 'other'.

Having entered a competition some time ago it was good to receive a letter from Poetry Rivals that I had been selected and my work would be featured in the Poetry Rivals' Collection 2010 - The Passions of the Poet - a collection of poems for adult writers.


May I add this poem is featured in my second book that I need to publish, which does make an interesting read.

Superiority - Inferiority Syndrome

I can assure you that had I had a good start
Things would have been so different for me.

You see, firstly, if I was able to do things
On my own, I would not have become so

Dependent on others doing things for me.
Even though I am fully aware of my patterns.

You see, it serves my purpose having others
In servitude to me. It helps me perpetuate

My ‘lifestyle’ that I am so accustomed to
In this world that I find so uninteresting

And boring, to the extent that I need to
Event dramas to bring my whole world alive.

You see, it all goes back to a much earlier
Time when I felt ignored and insignificant

So much so that I vowed that if ever the
Opportunity arises for fame then that will

Be me, First. You see it doesn’t really
Matter whether I was born first, middle or last.

The fact is I was born to be superior
Even though somewhere along the line there

Is this gnawing feeling of feeling inferior.
That I find myself constantly battling.

It had dawned on me recently though that
If I focussed on the world in terms of two people

Instead of only one, I might gain an understanding
Of where my relation to the other begun.

(c) Jennifer Hooper 2010