Dr. Avraham Cohen’s Field Notes
October 1, 2024
Avraham Cohen, PhD, RCC-ACS, CCC
dr.avrahamcohen@gmail.com
BEYOND
NARCISSISM
Authors
Avraham Cohen
Heesoon Bai
https://pixabay.com/photos/align-fingers-index-fingers-hands-71282/
Recording of Field Note
That many-faceted thing called love succeeds in building bridges from the loneliness on this shore to the loneliness on the other one. These bridges can be of great beauty, but they are rarely built for eternity, and frequently they cannot tolerate too heavy a burden without collapsing.
—Karen Horney
If we value our children, we must cherish their parents.
—John Bowlby
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.
― Carl Gustav Jung
In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Please note that in this Field Note, which is co-authored by Heesoon and me, we have chosen to use a gender-neutral name, Jaimie. As well, in the fictional scenarios we will insert, we refer to Jaimie at times as she, and at other times, as he, to signal as best we can that we are talking about everybody.
Narcissus was a hunter in Greek mythology who had a fatal flaw. He was obsessed with himself, totally fascinated, and had no care for anyone or anything else. One day he happened to walk by a crystal-clear pool, and he saw his own image reflected in the pool. However, he had no idea that this image was not a real being. He was struck by the beauty of what he saw in the pool. He stared at the image for a long time, and then wanting more, he dived into the pool looking for the source of the image. What happened to Narcissus? A common view is that he drowned, and thus his obsession with himself led to his demise: a good metaphor for many who are possessed by their own unfulfilled needs. Another revisionist interpretation we will suggest is that it was essential for Narcissus to make the deepest possible dive into the pool to get to the bottom of his self-possession, to challenge his self-obsessed identity, and to discover his own authentic self, in the service of becoming the primordial whole self that he was meant to be.
In this Note we will focus on the influence of parents’ ways of being and the relationship that parents have with each other and with their children. The inspiration and motivation for this Note comes from, besides our own personal and professional experience, Carl Gustav Jung’s line: “The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.” We begin our offering with a fictionalized illustration of Jung’s thought (in the way we interpret it):
Little Jaimie’s parents are very devoted to their child. They both would say, “I put my child first. Everything I do is for my child.” Indeed, very many parents would say this with pride. Most of us might well think this is laudable. However, what is being modelled is putting yourself after another, and putting others after your child. Certainly, there is a context and time when this is unquestionably the only option, namely, when it comes to an infant and a small, totally dependent and helpless, child. Their primacy is central and must be given top priority. However, if this goes on into the years, as in the case of Little Jaimie, beyond the point where Jaimie is capable of being increasingly agentic, then he is being infantilised. He does not grow up. What Jaimie ends up embodying and enacting is the model of his parents who believe: “I and my well-being are not as important as my child’s.” As time goes by, Jaimie will grow up thinking with little or no awareness of any other possibility than “I am the center of the universe, and I deserve to be primary in all relationships.” And subsequently when her own children emerge she will shift to the other end of the polarity and put her children first, and herself out of the picture.
Currently there seems to be a major trend to label adults, such as Jaimie, as narcissists. It is usually a harsh criticism of that person. Does the person deserve such criticism, given that the person is the way they are, due to their upbringing, as in the case of Little Jaimie? The clear message given to them and repeatedly is this: “You matter more than anyone else; you are singularly important, and the world needs to recognize that.” A child growing up experiencing this message day-in and day-out would not question “Everyone ought to put me first. I am all-important.”
We must hasten to add that while it may sound as though we are blaming Jaimie’s parents, that is not the case. Jaimie’s parents also had their parents who also had their parents who all lived within the zeitgeist of their times and who were the endpoint of all history to the point they have arrived at in their own lifetime and the lifetime of Jaimie. What all these points highlight is that human consciousness has not changed much, if at all. Certainly, nowhere near the rate at which technology has changed.
Let us also note the apparent opposite circumstance. Any child who grows up being mostly not attended to will have a similar difficulty with an opposite interpretation: “I am not important. I am the most unimportant person in the world!” Such children tend to become withdrawn, belligerent and attention-demanding, or a combination of both. They may feel ‘cold’ inside and will do whatever is needed to compensate for this dearth of love and attention. Their ‘problem’ is similar to Jaimie’s with an opposite manifestation.
The psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott spoke about “the gleam in the Mother’s eye’ when the mother was with the child. The lack of beam in the eye of the parent for your beingness creates a wound. There is a more detailed complexity to this that we will leave for another time. You can likely ascertain how a neglected child will grow up longing to be central while at the same time being frightened of such strong attention.
Little Jaimie was not able to see the gleam in his mother’s and father’s eyes. Instead of the gleam, Jaimie received praises and gifts, validation about being the most important person over and above others, and expectation that he would be a perfect one. In short, narcissism in the making, or better put, ‘arrested development.’ Not too many will love a grown-up who is essentially an infant, or alternatively, pretending that they are not an infant.
The world does not agree with Jaimie’s views, particularly since many already know that they ought to be put first! The adult who has arisen out of such treatment during their growing up years will most likely be frustrated and unhappy: for, they will see others as not meeting their entitled needs to be viewed and treated as the most important person. When this happens, some will complain bitterly. Others will lash out. And some others will take to habits and substance use to sooth themselves along with their disappointment, frustration, and even rage. And most likely all will change into a form that is the best they can do to conform to what will get them what they need for their survival, even if that means going against who they are in themselves: their authentic self.
Little Jaimie grows up believing that he is a profoundly entitled person. Chances are that Little Jaimie is filled with disappointment about how others are not fulfilling his needs, first by not recognizing his supremacy (that his parents bestowed on him and guaranteed), and second, by not treating him as most special. No-Longer-Little Jaimie leads an increasingly isolated life when his doting parents, partners, friends, and those who were significant in his life, all have had enough of his self-absorbed ways. Perhaps he will have a lot of wealth with which he “buys” others’ attention and even sycophantic adoration. Even so, this will not fundamentally resolve the misery of living his profoundly lonely life.
The above account is not meant to demean Jaimie and the literally millions and billions like him. In truth, most of us have at least some of this in us. It is a matter of degree and circumstance. Most often who we become is largely a construct, reflecting all the known and unknown shaping influences. Thus, how Jaimie turned out is not his fault nor is it, as mentioned previously, his parents’ fault, either. After all, his parents had parents whose influence shaped them to be the way they became, and we can look back to the beginning of time. Why not? We are all the end point of familial, civilizational, and cosmic history. Hence, we would argue that nobody is at fault. Really, fault-finding or blaming is at best useless and at worst life-degrading for all parties. Blaming is a flawed effort to make things right. Besides, the blaming identity can grow into a moralistic judgemental self, finger-wagging at others. Instead of engaging in life-zapping blaming, let us consider how to begin to take responsibility for the current state of life in which we find ourselves. What does that look like? Back to Jaimie’s story, this time, Jaimie as she:
The No-Longer-Little Jaimie has the good fortune to come across the iconic book by Parker Palmer, entitled: The Courage to Teach (Palmer, P., 2017). Jaimie reads a chapter title from the book, “We Teach Who We Are,” and realizes that this thought can be applied to all actions and interactions she undertakes. (One thing Jaimie doesn’t lack is intelligence.) Jaimie comes to understand that whatever action she takes, reveals, communicates, and transmits all the influences that have shaped her. What will show up is her character that has been configured most likely as a mixture of both an authentic and a distorted self that has huge quantities of self-absorption (aka, narcissism). Jaimie now sees that she doesn’t just act but that her narcissistic tendencies and qualities are acted out, and subsequently land on people. She is seeing increasingly that this narcissistic self is not a personality that she has, rather it is a self identity that has her! And people, if they are discerning, respond to her by leaving her. The important point is that Jaimie now understands that the way she thinks, perceives, feels, and acts has been greatly, and even decisively, shaped by others, most notably, by all manner of civilizational influences, including her parents (especially in his earliest days) and others who had indelible influences with the development of their own problematic character.
Now knowing all this, when Jaimie is accused of being a narcissist, instead of getting angry and wanting to get even with her accuser, she thinks that perhaps she could “un-program” herself. That is, (she thinks to herself) perhaps she could “re-program” herself by undoing and redoing factors of influences that went into making her a narcissist. Her plan is as follows: she will go into her own Shadow and perhaps discover the self that was most certainly always there from the moment of her conception. She will perhaps re/discover this self, and the influences that created her into who she was not. She will discover the arrested development of all these experiences and sub-identities that emerged. She will facilitate their growth and development and her movement towards wholeness. All this is in the service of herself and her contribution to making the world a better place. This is her self-making project, and she embraces it wholeheartedly. In doing so, she could see both what was done too much in her “programming” that resulted in her being so self-absorbed; and what was not done enough that resulted in her not taking enough interest in others’ thoughts and feelings and not being able to see through others’ eyes and hearts. Jaimie could see that she lacked a developed capacity for empathy: having a feel for the experience of being another.
People like Jaimie in our story would need to go into their own personal and transpersonal depths to discover their authentic self and to facilitate the process of growing this self. However, knowing that something is undesirable, or, to speak more conventionally, “wrong,” is not the same as knowing what to do to change that something. Perseverance, investment of time and energy, and deep reflection and inner work will need to go into making the changes, the changes towards the more authentic self. In short, a challenging project. All too often, such time and energy are wasted if people get trapped in the blaming game.
Given that we all have been ‘brought up’ in a ‘blaming’ culture, this view of the world is not readily transformed. Typically, people can’t make the move to do or be something else, unless they have a sense of where else to go. Hence, our recommendation is that we focus on what is in us that has helped us to get along as best as possible and, most centrally, to find what else is possible. The dream that was there about life and living must be reconstituted as the high dream it always was meant to be and used as a dreamed self to move towards, from the current starting point, whatever that may be. Again, how do we do this? What is ‘growth consciousness,’ anyway?
The first spark of growth consciousness was in your mom’s eyes (and your dad’s or someone else’s who received you into this world). What does the gleam in mother’s and father’s (and whoever is around) eye signal and signify? We could go utterly wrong if we misinterpreted the gleam. The gleam does not mean “you are most important,” “you are more important than others,” or “others and their needs should come after yours.” Rather, the gleam means simply a shout and laughter of joy and gladness, an affirmation of life itself. It is the sheer animating power surged into the child. And it is a welcome message to Life and World and is an invitation to take one’s place amongst all others. If you are a Zen practitioner, the gleam in the eye would convey: “You are one with the whole world.” This is, we suggest, where Jaimie’s parents went wrong: they gave a “wrong” message (because that was the only message they knew).
This gleam experience could be described as love. Let us share with you a brief, and perhaps unusual, definition of love (inspired by Simone Weil, the French philosopher). Love is full attention with the gleam, particularly accompanied by the right message (as we spoke about above) of feelings and attitudes in the moment. Years of this builds up a base of feeling within a child. This gleam is a life-giving and life-affirming energy for the baby. If a baby does not see that gleam in mother’s eye, their growth is compromised. The growth consciousness may not take root—at least not strongly.
To revisit C. G. Jung’s line: “The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.” Jaimie’s parents had unlived lives since they, too, were not raised to feel that they were “at home” with all beings, including other humans. Instead, they were raised to feel that they were supreme and, therefore, special, being placed at the top over everyone. With that messaging forming the core of who they were, they could never feel their lives were fully lived. The message was a recipe for exhaustion from constant commanding, demanding, and defending the impossible position of supremacy and unique specialness. Our lives become unlived when they are impossible to live. Another way of putting is that, if we live against who we are by nature, it would be impossible to live such a life.
Our nature is that we are mortal, and we are not so special to stand over and above all others. Our nature reflects, and is one-piece with, the nature of this phenomenal world: it is completely interdependent. From this understanding, narcissism goes against the nature of this phenomenal world, and therefore, against the nature of individual human beings. Narcissism is an untenable philosophy, and its adoption will not enable people to live a fulfilled and contributing life: on the contrary, it will lead to unlived lives. We will end this Note by returning to our Jaimie (this time as he) who has been seeking sources of the gleam for himself. For, the gleam is the missing ingredient in the composition of his being, and he is now in the position of supplying the gleam for himself.
Jaimie realizes that his parents were too busy doing things for him and making his child life “perfect,” inducing in him an illusion that he was perfect. Waking up from that illusion, Jaimie is now fully engaged with the project of self-transformation, having realized that he was infantilized, and his growth, consequently arrested.
He needs to learn to feel at home with all beings, big and small, strong and weak, different or alike. He needs to see, not just intellectualize, that all beings are special, unique, deserving of being loved and supported, and to live their brief mortal lives as fully as possible. He also realizes that many humans entertain wrong notions, just as he did previously: that he is a threat to them.
To the extent that many around Jaimie are like the Little Jaimie that he once was, Jaimie needs to be careful in his relationships with people so as not to be dominated, controlled, get hurt, or to hurt. He is now learning ways of self-protection that don’t involve hurting others. After some investigation, he chose to study and practice Aikido: a Japanese martial art that is based on a philosophy of love and peace-making, and the art of self and other protection.
We recently saw Jaimie, he was practising katas (choreographed pattern of martial arts movements), which were about protecting oneself and the other, and connecting in the most optimal in-the-moment ways. As well, Jaimie was deeply involved in living in the healthiest way possible. We also learned that he was immersed in long-term, in depth/breadth life-changing psychotherapy. He was living a life that was as much of an exemplar of his beliefs and values as he could create. He knows he is not perfect!
Some of our readers who are parents may ask for some parenting advice based on what we have been talking about in this Field Note. We say the following: for an infant and small child, heavily demanding parents’ attention is a normal part of their developmental process, and the best way to support them not to get stuck at this stage is to give them lots of ‘gleam’ and to attend to their very real needs that they cannot meet themselves. However, let us also remember that continuing to treat them as if they are made of precious bone china past the point where this is necessary will have great potential to cement their tendency to be ‘narcissistic’ into their adult years with the ‘consequences we have already explored. In particular, do not load up your gleams with a wrong message: “You are so perfect and special that you deserve to be on top of everyone and everything else.”
I am grateful to Heesoon for her beyond-the-usual support and agreeing to co-author this Field Note with me. Each of us, and as a pair, are work-in-progress. We each and together are a process.
Shalom and Peace to you all,
Avraham & Heesoon
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