The Mirror and the Mask—On Narcissism and …

(1983) Contemp. Psychoanal., 19:359-387 The Mirror and the Mask On Narcissism and Psychoanalytic Growth1 Philip M. Bromberg, IntroductionTRYING TO EXTRACT SOME COHERENT view of Narcissism from the ongoing controversy in the currentpsychoanalytic literature is somewhat like trying to chill Russian vodka by adding ice cubes; it is possible to do it,but the soul of the experience is diluted. Levenson's (1978, p. 16) suggestion that "it may not be the truth arrived atas much as the manner of arriving at the truth which is the essence of therapy", leads me to wonder if it maylikewise be said that it is not the definition of Narcissism arrived at as much as the struggle to arrive at one, which isthe essence of recent progress in psychoanalytic thought. The struggle contains within it, an emerging shift inperspective that has begun to influence our conceptions of clinical diagnosis, the nature of human development,psychoanalytic metatheory, and the parameters of psychoanalytic treatment the past two decades there has been a gradual but consistent movement of the mainstream ofpsychoanalysis in the direction of field theory, and toward the interpersonal context as the medium of both normalmaturation and therapeutic change (See Bromberg, 1979a).

fascinates psychoanalysts in our time because the experience of meaninglessness may be the context in which the feeling of non-being most typically expresses itself in our time.

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  Time, Narcissism, Masks, The mask on narcissism and

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