causing narcism to disappear. From the evolutionary history of object-libido we remembered that in the beginning many sex instincts seek auto-erotic gratification, and that this capacity for auto-eroticism forms the basis for the retardation of sexuality in its education to conformity with fact. And so, auto-eroticism was the sexual activity of the narcistic stage in the placing of the libido.
To be brief: We represented the relation of the ego-libido to the object-libido in a way which I can explain by an analogy from zoology. Think of the simplest forms of life, which consist of a little lump of protoplasmic substance which is only slightly differentiated. They stretch out protrusions, known as pseudopia, into which the protoplasm flows. But they can withdraw these protrusions and assume their original shape. Now we compare the stretching out of these processes with the radiation of libido to the objects, while the central mass of libido can remain in the ego, and we assume that under normal conditions ego-libido can be changed into object-libido, and this can again be taken up into the ego, without any trouble.
With the help of this representation we can now explain a great number of psychic conditions, or to express it more modestly, describe them, in the language of the libido theory; conditions that we must accredit to normal life, such as the psychic attitude during love, during organic sickness, during sleep. We assumed that the conditions of sleep rest upon withdrawal from the outer world and concentration upon the wish to sleep. The nocturnal psychic activity expressed in the dream we found in the service of a wish to sleep and, moreover, governed by wholly egoistic motives. Continuing in the sense of libido theory: sleep is a condition in which all occupations of objects, the libidinous as well as the egoistic, are given up, and are withdrawn into the ego. Does this not throw a new light upon recovery during sleep, and upon the nature of exhaustion in general? The picture of blissful isolation in the intra-uterine life, which the sleeper conjures up night after night, thus also completes the picture from the psychic side. In the sleeper the original condition of libido division is again restored, a condition of complete narcism in which libido and ego-interest are still united and live indistinguishably in the self-sufficient ego.
We must observe two things: First, how can the conceptions of narcism and egoism be distinguished? I believe narcism is the libidinous complement of egoism. When we speak of egoism we mean only the benefits to the individual; if we speak of narcism we also take into account his libidinous satisfaction. As practical motives the two can be followed up separately to a considerable degree. One can be absolutely egoistic, and still have strong libidinous occupation of objects, in so far as the libidinous gratification by way of the object serves the needs of the ego. Egoism will then take care that the striving for the object results in no harm to the ego. One can be egoistic and at the same time excessively narcistic, i.e., have very slight need of an object. This need may be for direct sexual satisfaction or even for those higher desires, derived from need, which we are in the habit of calling love as opposed to sensuality. In all of these aspects, egoism is the self-evident, the constant, and narcism the variable element. The antithesis of egoism, altruism, is not the same as the conception of libidinous occupation of objects. Altruism differs from it by the absence of desire for sexual satisfaction. But in the state of being completely in love, altruism and libidinous occupation with an object clash. The sex object as a rule draws upon itself a part of the narcism of the ego. This is generally called “sexual over-estimation” of the object. If the altruistic transformation from egoism to the sex object is added, the sex object becomes all powerful; it has virtually sucked up the ego.
I think you will find it a pleasant change if after the dry phantasy of science I present to you a poetic representation of the economic contrast between narcism and being in love. I take it from the Westostliche Divans of Goethe:
SULEIKA:
Conqueror and serf and nation;
They proclaim it joyously;
Mankind’s loftiest elation,
Shines in personality.
Life’s enchantment lures and lingers,
Of yourself is not afar,
All may slip through passive fingers,
If you tarry as you are.
HATEM:
Never could I be thus ravished,
Other thoughts are in my mind,
All the gladness earth has lavished
In Suleika’s charms I find.
When I cherish her, then only
Dearer to myself I grow,
If she turned to leave me lonely
I should lose the self I know.
Hatem’s happiness were over —
But his changeling soul would glide
Into any favored lover
Whom she fondles at her side.
The second observation is supplementary to the dream theory. We cannot explain the origin of the dream unless we assume that the suppressed unconscious has achieved a certain independence of the ego. It does not conform to the wish for sleep and retains its hold on the energies that have seized it, even when all the occupations with objects dependent upon the ego have been released for the benefit of sleep. Not until then can we understand how this unconscious can take advantage of the nocturnal discontinuance or deposition of the censor, and can seize control of fragments left over from the day to fashion a forbidden dream wish from them. On the other hand, it is to the already existing connections with these supposed elements that these fragments owe a part of the resistance directed against the withdrawal of the libido, and controlled by the wish for sleep. We also wish to supplement our conception of dream formation with this trait of dynamic importance.
Organic diseases, painful irritations, inflammation of the organs create a condition which clearly results in freeing the libido of its objects. The withdrawn libido again finds itself in the ego and occupies the diseased part of the part. We may even venture to assert that under these conditions the withdrawal of the libido from its objects is more conspicuous than the withdrawal of egoistic interest from the outside world. This seems to open the way to an understanding of hypochondria, where an organ occupies the ego in a similar way without being diseased, according to our conception. I shall resist the temptation of continuing along this line, or of discussing other situations which we can understand or represent through the assumption that the object libido travels to the ego. For I am eager to meet two objections, which I know are absorbing your attention. In the first place, you want to call me to account for my insistence upon distinguishing in sleep, in sickness and in similar situations between libido and interest, sexual instincts and ego instincts, since throughout the observations can be explained by assuming a single and uniform energy, which, freely mobile, occupies now the object, now the ego, and enters into the services of one or the other of these impulses. And, secondly, how can I venture to treat the freeing of libido from its object as the source of a pathological condition, since such transformation of object-libido into ego-libido — or more generally, ego-energy — belongs to the normal, daily and nightly repeated occurrences of psychic dynamics?
The answer is: Your first objection sounds good. The discussion of the conditions of sleep, of sickness and of being in love would in themselves probably never have led to a distinction between ego-libido and object-libido, or between libido and interest. But you do not take into account the investigations from which we have set out, in the light of which we now regard the psychic situations under discussion. The necessity of distinguishing between libido and interest, that is, between sexual instincts and those of self-preservation, is forced upon
