Rom J Psychoanal 2024, 17(1):16-26
DOI: 10.26336/rjp-2024-0003

Abstract: Reformulating Freud’s hypothesis that primary narcissism has a protective function for life, S. Nacht attributes to it the role of “guardian of life”. Primary narcissism, “an absolute affective climate”, is indispensable for the construction of the human being and life itself. According to us, the concept of “narcissism as guardian of life” belongs to the “common representational treasure”. It represents, for each of us, an inexhaustible source of representations and creations. The universal fund of primary narcissism is a “living core” built by “reminiscences” of centuries of culture and civilization. We strongly emphasize this shift in perspective from the universal to the subjective, from the existence of a multitude of possibilities in becoming, echoing in the latest research in biology and in contemporary analytical writings. Authors such as Bion, Winnicott, A. Green, Ogden, Meltzer..., view us as preordained heroes destined to seek and find the mysteries and beauty of the internal/external world, enveloped in the infinite richness of the infantile...


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