Chapter 14, Transitions & Revisions Summary and Analysis

The first section is devoted to narcissism, which occurs when healthy self-love has been taken much too far. Editor Peter Gay writes a note before the paper which remarks that on the whole, other psychologists found the contents of this message to be "disturbing". He proceeds to characterize and to explain the libido in terms of the ego, and in relation to objects. Narcissism in its simplest form is described as 'caring and attentive masturbation,' where an individual gets engrossed in stroking himself or herself. In these cases, he writes that the individual is treating his or her own body as a sexual object. He then goes on to distinguish external sexual objects - others, and ego-instincts and ego-objects. Then he explains that there is ego-libido and object-libido. Here, again, Freud informs readers that he has...