Uniqueness and narcissism, by: Mario Jacobi

The recent developments in Freudian psychoanalysis, especially the works of Kohut and Winnicott, have led to a convergence with Jung's stance. The book "Uniqueness and Narcissism" attempts to overcome the doctrinal differences among various schools of depth psychology, taking into account the distinctive approaches of each. The author clarifies, through a careful examination of the actual experience of the self and the process of individuation and narcissism, as well as narcissistic personality disorder, the importance of mutual fertilization of the ideas and techniques of the professional analyst. Mario Jacobi studies the origins of the Narcissus myth and attempts to interpret it from a Jungian perspective. He traces the effects of the dispute that arose between Freud and Jung regarding the instinct theory and compares the schools that developed this theory. He sees that the similarities between Winnicott's and Kohut's works and Jung's are somewhat ambiguous, due to the language each developed to express his theories. Number of pages: 257