Customer Reviews

Narcissism: A New Theory

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For me, the most valuable aspect of the book was its clinical wisdom. I don't consider a collection of ideas a "new theory," however, nor do I see why the "lifegiver"-disrupted relationship concept at the root of the author's vision of narcissism says anything more innovative than "the child has chosen unconsciously to turn away from his or her inner aliveness." Some good critiques of traditional theories of narcissism.

Symington presents a fresh approach to the suject of Narcissism. I am currently in a Ph.D. program at the Institute for Clincial Social Work in Chicago. The program is psychodynamically based and Symington's book is one of the texts for the clinical process and technique class. I highly recommend this work-- easy to read and clincially profound with refreshing ideas!!! Michael Miller, MSSA, LCSW

The title "Narcissism - a new theory" is promising, but Symington doesn't quite succeed in challenging the old theories (which he criticizes harshly). He introduces a new psychic object: the "life-giver" which is a hypostatized energy-source which, allegedly, the narcissist has turned away from, in early infancy. Accordingly, the narcissist developes a false and shallow attitude towards life. In Symington's view narcissism is an habitual attitude which can be reversed. To my mind, it's not much of a theory. It's rather a way of describing the phenomenology of the illness. Symington draws largely upon myths and the novel Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, when analysing the problem. But I am sceptical of this method. Characters from myth and fiction cannot do justice to a psychic etiology because such characters are more of abstractions than true persons. Real case histories are preferable when describing pathological traits. Thus, Symington's book is not convincing, although I cannot argue that he is altogether wrong. Certain of his postulates are noteworthy, for instance, that the psyche is composed of relatively independent parts or complexes.