Transforming Narcissism Reflections on Empathy, Humor, and Expectations

Using Kohut's seminal paper "Forms and Transformations of Narcissism" as a springboard, Frank Lachmann updates Kohut's proposals for contemporary clinicians. Transforming Narcissism: Reflections on Empathy, Humor,and Expectations draws on a wide range of contributions from empirical infant research, psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic practice, social psychology, and autobiographies of creative artists to expand and modify Kohut's proposition that archaic narcissism is transformed in the course of development or through treatment into empathy, humor, creativity, an acceptance of transience and wisdom. He asserts that empathy, humor, and creativity are not the goals or end products of transformations, but arean intrinsic part of the ongoing therapist-patient dialogue throughout treatment.The transformative process is bidirectional, impacting both patient and therapist, and their affect undergoes transformation - for example from detached to intimate - andnarcissism or self-states are transformed secondarily as a consequence of the affective interactions.Meeting or violating expectations of emotionalresponsivity provides a majorpathway for transformation of affect. For beginning therapists, Transforming Narcissism presents an engaging approach to treatment that incorporates the therapeutic action of these transformations, but also leaves room for therapists to develop styles of their own.For more experienced therapists, it fills a conceptual and clinical gap, provides a scaffold for crucial aspectsof treatmentthat are often unacknowledged (because they are not "analytic"), or are dismissed and pejorativelylabeled "countertransference."Most importantly, Lachmann offers a balance between therapeutic spontaneity andprofessional constraint. Focused and engaging,Transforming Narcissism provides a bridge from self psychology to a rainbow of relational approaches that beginning and seasoned therapists can profitably traverse in either direction. Dr. Lachmann contributed to an article on empathy in the April, 2008 issue of O magazine, pp. 230.

The Process of Transforming. Implicit and Explicit Transformation. The Road to Empathy. Empathic Understanding. Through the Lens of Humor. Expectations: Affirmed and Violated. Perversion of Sexuality and Aggression. Creative Artists as Violators of Expectation. Disorders of Time. The Search for Wisdom. What Happens to Theory?

Frank M. Lachmann, Ph.D., is a founding faculty member of the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, Training and Supervising Analyst, Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, and Clinical Assistant Professor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He has contributed over 100 articles to the journal literature, and is author of Transforming Aggression (Aronson, 2000), and co-author of Self and Motivational Systems (TAP, 1992), The Clinical Exchange (TAP, 1996), and Infant Research and Adult Treatment (TAP, 2002).