Psychoanalysis.  2024 Oct;35(4):42-49. 10.18529/psychoanal.2024.35.4.42.

The Curative Effect of Mourning in Narcissistic Personality

• Yoon DH
• Lee HK
• Yoon HR
• Ha JH

• KMID: 2560721
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.18529/psychoanal.2024.35.4.42

Abstract

Narcissistic personality is an ego centric personality characterized by obsession with oneself, disregard for others, and lack of empathy. It forms a spectrum from normal to pathological levels. A narcissistic person unconsciously fears death because he/she pursues immortality and omnipotence. A narcissistic person does not consider others important. Thus, he/she does not mourn separation or loss. It might be a characteristic defense of narcissistic personality. The authors selected by Japanese author Yoko Sano as a text. Many people loved the cat and cried and mourned when the cat died. However, he was reborn immediately a million times. The cat loved only itself. The cat then met a white cat and fell in love for the first time. They lived to-gether. As time passed, the white cat died. For the first time, the cat cried out loud in sadness. After crying and crying, he stopped moving and dying. He was not reborn again. The authors viewed the cat as a narcissistic personality and interpreted its active avoidance and denial of separation, death, and mourning as a narcissistic defense. Repeating this only strengthened his narcissistic traits. However, the momentum of change was falling in love. Losing a loved one and going through the process of mourning the eternal separation of death for the first time became the trigger for the change in narcissistic personality.

Keyword

Narcissistic personality disorder; Defense mechanism; Mourning