Do I love me?—Yeserrie!
Mother Nature has endowed all animals, except for Homo sapiens, with a complex of instincts that makes it possible for that animal to survive in a dangerous world. “The animal has no ‘problems’ of survival in the sense that its built-in instinctive nature takes care of survival in such a way that the animal does not have to consider or decide whether or not it wants to make an effort. In man the instinctive apparatus has lost most of its efficacy—hence narcissism assumes a very necessary biological function.â€
Narcissism means self-love; it refers to a set of characteristic traits that are concerned with forms of self-preservation. In the normal individual narcissism represents the allocation of psychic energies to maintain a healthy balance of personal needs. Humans have lost many of the pre-programmed self-preservation control over maneuvers required for survival; thereby requiring the human to make decisions as to the proper maneuvers for self-preservation.
Freud defined the libido as the—emotional or psychic energy derived from primitive biological urges that is usually goal oriented. In common usage, libido means sexual desire—in more general and scientific usage, it is the free creative or psychic energy available to the individual for personal development as a complete unified person.
Jung has taken Freud’s concepts and has modified them in a manner more satisfactory to Fromm. In Jung’s system, libido is a general energy concept. This energy deals with and is visible through manifestations of human behavior, which has a certain intensity and direction. The energy holds together the individual within him self as well as the direction of the self toward the outside world.
The science of psychoanalysis depends upon the assumption of a dynamic character of human behavior. To comprehend human behavior one must comprehend these forces that animate human behavior.
Primary narcissism is that of the newborn infant and of the insane person. The infant has not yet found the outside world and all of this energy is directed inward; the insane person has rejected the outside world as existing, the outside world no longer is real. For both the newborn and the insane all narcissistic energy is directed at the self. The person who has achieved the status of ultimate power may become an example also of primary narcissism. Such an individual has absolute power over all she surveys. Such a person, like Hitler or Stalin, has severed all connection with reality.
Quotes from “The Heart of Manâ€â€”Erich Fromm
