Narcissism: Psychoanalytic Clinicians and Researchers in Dialogue
Part of IPA - Current Challenges in Psychoanalysis series - more in this series
Book Details
- Publisher : Routledge
- Published : October 2025
- Cover : Paperback
- Pages : 258
- Category :
Forthcoming - Category 2 :
Psychoanalysis - Catalogue No : 98418
- ISBN 13 : 9781032932972
- ISBN 10 : 103293297X
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Narcissism: Psychoanalytic Clinicians and Researchers in Dialogue presents current research and practice on working psychoanalytically with narcissism.
The contributors discuss a broad spectrum of approaches for understanding narcissism, from cultural-theoretical and social perspectives to clinical psychoanalytic observations and conceptual clarifications of terms, and new interdisciplinary and extra-clinical psychoanalytic research. Part I deals with the social danger posed by the close, unconscious link between pathological narcissism and extreme destructiveness. Part II is devoted to insights gained from years of psychoanalysis and long-term psychoanalytic treatment with patients with narcissistic pathology. Part III discusses how psychoanalysis tries to meet contemporary cultural challenges, and this book concludes with three chapters devoted to the important issue of narcissism in adolescence and young adulthood.
Reviews and Endorsements
This book provides an excellent, up-to-date psychoanalytic view of the clinical and growing extra-clinical phenomenon of narcissism. The book's collection of papers by leading psychoanalytic clinicians and researchers illustrates the complex nature of narcissistic experience and narcissistically motivated behaviours, providing a contemporary understanding of narcissism as a broad affective spectrum between the poles of a lively, realistically positive self-esteem and a possible self-aggrandizement with varying consequences for the quality of interpersonal relationships. In the course of this presentation, a fascination grows for the connection between clinical psychoanalysis and extra-clinical psychoanalytic research as well as for the inclusion of individual-centred as well as cultural-theoretical and social perspectives. Anyone who wants to know what contemporary psychoanalysis means in the 21st century will find central answers here that will stimulate their own thinking.
Dr. med. Heribert Blass, Training Analyst, German Psychoanalytic Association (DPV), IPA-President elect
As pathological narcissism drives polarization, science denial, and political deception, this book provides a crucial psychoanalytic perspective on our time. Are we living in a 'narcissistic age,' where malignant, omnipotent leaders exploit unresolved vulnerabilities to manipulate the masses? Through rigorous clinical and empirical research, this work unpacks the deep entanglement of individual and collective pathologies shaping today’s crises. Understanding these forces is not just necessary—it is urgent! A must-read for anyone unwilling to succumb to illusory grandiosity, regression, and the seductive pull of destructive power.
Prof. Dr.med. Ricardo Bernardi, Training analyst Uruguayan Psychoanalytic Association (APU), Former Dean of the Medical faculty of Universidad de Montevideo
This rich, timely, and vitally important book includes chapters by an international collection of sophisticated psychoanalytic theorists, researchers and clinicians presenting a much-needed broad spectrum of perspectives for understanding narcissism. Seeking a stronger interlinking between psychoanalytic knowledge of the largely unconscious individual mind and wider interdisciplinary dialogue, the chapters offer a contemporary understanding of narcissism’s impact on trauma, depression, as well group dynamics, collective regression, and the role of malignant leadership. Finally and most significantly in today’s turbulent times marked by autocratic turns and threats to democracy, the book sheds considerable light on powerful social issues and difficult cultural challenges. This is a book that should stimulate thinking and deepen awareness among social scientists, serious scholars, and psychoanalysts and other practitioners.
Michael J. Diamond, Ph.D, Training and Supervising Analyst, Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies; Author, Ruptures in the American Psyche: Containing Destructive Populism in Perilous Times
Table of Contents
Introduction
Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber, Stephan Hau, Rogério Lerner, Erik Stänicke & Siri Erika Gullestad
Part I - Narcissism in Society and Culture
1. Malignant narcissism and large group regression
Otto Kernberg
2. The return of the authoritarian: narcissism and destructiveness in nationalistic ideologies
Werner Bohleber
3. Murderous narcissism in a terrorist act: a psychoanalytic perspective
Siri Erika Gullestad
4. Putin is not the answer, but the question: on neurotic fears and collective narcissism
Gerd Koenen
Part II - Narcissism: Clinical Practice and Research
5. Challenges in understanding narcissism in patients with autism spectrum disorder: consequences for psychoanalytical work and research
Rogério Lerner et al
6. Types of narcissism: a neuropsychoanalytic contribution
Mark Solms
7. Diagnosis and evaluation of narcissism
Stephan Doering
8. Therapeutic approaches to narcissism in transference-focused psychotherapy
John F. Clarkin, Nicole Cain, Eve Caligor & Julia Sowislo
9. Are personality disorders disease variants or (extreme) normal variants? – fragments of an ongoing debate
Stephan Hau
Part III - Confronting Contemporary Cultural Challenges
10. Confronting modern zeitgeist: visions of psychoanalysis in life and mental health care
Erik Stänicke and Helene A. Nissen-Lie
11. Transgender – a challenge for psychoanalysis?
Siri Erika Gullestad
12. Adolescence in a digital age – developmental challenges, risk behavior, and potential space
Line Indrevoll Staenicke
13. Narcissism in “emerging adulthood”: chances and risks
Inge Seiffge-Krenke
14. Narcissism, trauma and depression: clinical observations from the MODE study
Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber
15. Changes in dreams in psychoanalyses of chronic depressed patients in a narcissistic psychic retreat: clinical Research in the MODE Study
Tamara Fischmann, Gilles Ambresin & Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber
About the Editor(s)
Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber is professor emeritus for psychoanalysis at the University of Kassel, Germany. She is former director of the Sigmund-Freud-Institut in Frankfurt a.M., senior scientist at the University of Medicine in Mainz, a training and supervising analyst and author of numerous books and articles. She is the recipient of awards including the 2016 Sigourney Award and the IPA’s Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award.
More titles by Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber
Stephan Hau, PhD, is a professor of clinical psychology in the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden. He is also a member of the Research Committee and a member of the Research Grants Subcommittee of the IPA, as well as a co‑chair of the IPA’s RTP/Sandler Conference Subcommittee. He is the editor‑in‑chief of Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review and the author of numerous books and articles.
Rogério Lerner, PhD, is a professor at the Institute of Psychology and the Faculty of Medicine (Department of Psychiatry) of the University of São Paulo. He is also member of the Research Committee of IPA, co-Chair of Joseph Sandler Psychoanalytic Research Conference and Research Training Programme, and associate member of the Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society of São Paulo.
Erik Stänicke is professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oslo, Norway, and a training psychoanalyst. He is an experienced supervisor and teacher and is the author of numerous books and articles.
Siri Erika Gullestad is professor emeritus of clinical psychology at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is a training and supervising psychoanalyst and was awarded the Sigourney Award in 2019. An experienced teacher and supervisor, she is the author of numerous books and articles, including The Theory and Practice of Psychoanalytic Therapy: Listening for the Subtext (with Bjørn Killingmo, Routledge).
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