Alienation: character neuroses and narcissistic disorders

Various defensive adaptations are described that patients with structural defects involving the self-representation (character neurotics) use to adapt to the external world, often achieving an organization sufficiently stable to lead to considerable success. Externalization rather than projection is used. The differences between these two psychic processes are important for our understanding of character neurotics. Projection signifies placing impulses or parts of the self into external objects whereas externalization involves creating or finding a reality to support the defences, including projecting. The patient externalizes his infantile traumatic environment to construct a current world after his early environment which he finds both threatening and familar. Clinical material illustrates how the process of externalization operating within the transference context may lead to special technical problems. One type of character neurotic demonstrates a special type of externalization which supports overcompensatory feelings of self-aggrandizement, which are in effect, narcissistic defenses. To varying degrees, all character neurotics have some narcissistic defenses. Countertransference problems are also discussed.