PREFACE Please see the posting above titled "Explanation of Six Didactic Letters from Narcissus" if you have not already read it so you understand that this letter is fictitious and used only for instruction. Questions and comments can be directed to Jessica, not to Narcissus, who cannot really write or speak about the matters in these letters, of course. In this third letter Narcissus continues to refer to the behavioral tests needed to be able to adopt more satisfactory beliefs to replace the old pathological beliefs. The pathological beliefs are those that represent Narcissus' adaptation to early learning that needing others was an imposition on others, an imposition that induces guilt in Narcissus. Thus, as an altruistic concession to others in his/her social world, Narcissus complied with their rejection or neglect to spare them Narcissus' needing them. Thereafter, however, Narcissus, a human being with needs for others, will continue to make only awkward and indirect and unacknowledged impositions on others until finding someone who can better accommodate or understand the neediness that is everyone's. Misguided altruistic self-sacrifice in feeling guilty for needing others is Narcissus' basic difficulty. With this guilt, Narcissus feels it would be worse to directly and openly express (1) needs for others, (2) gratitude for others or (3) regret or remorse for having harmed others. Narcissistic disturbance is developmentally derailed wholesome narcissism. When not developmentally derailed, wholesome narcissism in its mature form is acconmpanied by confident assertions of one's need for others. With mature narcissism one feels entitled to needing others and can then assert this need with more confidence and, thus, with greater skill and tact and gratitude. And with mature narcissism one can express sincere remorse when one has injured another. This confidence makes it unnecessary to express one's need for others in awkward and hard-to-decode ways such as with grandiose strivings and demanding entitlement attitudes. In the following letter, Narcissus also refers to passive-to-active tests when referring to having to put the would-be helper through trials that parallel those that Narcissus had to undergo when younger in which she or he learned how to become Narcissus. Such behavioral tests are the only means Narcissus now has to communicate about what happened early in his or her life. Control-Mastery Theory teaches that it is important for therapists to show patients they (therapists) can withstand these tests and to not discourage patients' testing. Interpretations of the passive-to-active testing, given only after a therapist has willingly accepted a patient's testing, are not made in order to discourage testing, that is, but to help patients feel understood. There are two exceptions to this guideline for therapists to not intervene when patients use passive-to-active tests. (1) If a patient feels very guilty about these tests, a therapist may be able to alleviate some of this guilt by readily giving patients exculpatory explanations that such tests are necessary and represent re-enactments of what was done to the patient. (2) Also, therapists may need to intervene against extreme passive-to-active tests if they pose a threat of physical harm to anyone. If I Could Speak, Letter III Hi again, Narcissus here talking at you all. When I put you through the tests I mentioned in my earlier letter, it would be good for you to realize that you will have to keep on passing many such tests without any expression of thanks from me nor an apology on my part nor an acknowledgement that I need you to continue your fine work with me. Please always remember to understand the following as the basis of my problems: I cannot say "I'm sorry" nor "thank you," nor "I need you." When I can say these three things I won't be Narcissus anymore, and I'll have to change my name. If you understand that my basic problem is that I feel humiliated needing others--in fact, I feel a humiliating GUILT and GUILTY humiliation needing others-you can stay close to understanding what I'm all about. I really feel I am bad and hurtful to others for needing them. That's why I have to use such awkward and offensive ways to express my necessary human need for others--it's not a need I can permit myself to feel to be my own to express skillfully. My project with you, and your mission with me, should you decide to accept it, is to see if you can really help me with this miserable problem. Among my many problems is that I certainly cannot talk to you directly about my problems as I am doing in these letters. If I really could write all of this in these letters to you, I would be somebody else, not Narcissus. So I cannot talk to you about any of this stuff. Instead I'll demand that you help me, but I'll do so in more or less obnoxious and unappreciative ways so that I can make you partly feel like NOT wanting to help me. Since we are both adults and I'll be often acting rather like a child, you will sometimes feel like telling me "GROW UP!" But if you really do believe that a human being can feel entitled to help and understanding and that it's OK to feel that way, then don't be put-off by my demandingness in a childlike manner. Try to see beyond this demandingness to the extraordinary guilty humiliation underneath that stands in my way of being able to say "I need you" and "thank you" and "I'm sorry." Help me know that what I really want and need--which is your help, your apology, your care and your interest and appreciation towards me--are not really such humiliating things to want after all. I, in effect, will be saying to you (only in my behavior, of course, until you convince me it is safe to need others and I'll then talk to you about these things): "Try to help me somehow learn that it's OK to need others even while I do lots of things I can think up to make you not want to help me learn this. That is, I'm going to put you through a severe series of tests to see if you can convince me that you really mean it when you say people understandably don't want to be humiliated when needing what I need. There's no reason I should be convinced unless I'm sure you really mean it. And I cannot know you really mean it unless you are consistent through my many tests." If I could speak to you, you would also hear me say, "The tests are like this: I will make it so hard for you to feel like caring for me that only a person who is really convinced that I am hurting and who really knows what I need would be able to talk to me about this problem. I'm going to make you want to believe it is impossible to help me or to talk to me about this so that I'm sure you really mean what you say when you hold fast to your position despite all my difficult tests." And be sure to get this, too: I'm even going to get you to experience first-hand what I experienced when younger that was actually the same KIND of experience that made me come to believe that help or understanding is impossible and humiliating to try for. Control-Mastery folks call this passive-to-active testing. They're going to be some of the hardest tests for you to pass because you're going to feel as I did when I learned to be Narcissus. If I could speak about these passive-to-active tests, I'd tell you: "I will even do to you some of what was done to me--insult you or mistreat you as I was insulted or mistreated--so that you can experience how I felt when much younger and so that I have some way of showing you what really happened to me." You see, I have to do it this way--show you rather than tell you--because I cannot yet really talk about any of these things. I have to communicate with my behavior only. I can only show you what happened to me; I can't really discuss it or become aware of it yet because the whole thing is too enormously difficult for me to be able to recall in consciousness. Until next time, I am sincerely not yours or mine, Narcissus
Items (2) and (3) are implicit acknowledgements that others are needed--a needing that arouses guilt, a guilt that altruistically returns Narcissus to self-sacrifice, a self-sacrifice that, for Narcissus, is expreseed in his/her infamous striving for what superficially appears to be "grandiose self-sufficiency" with accompanying supposed "entitlement attitudes" that are equally superficial (and that mask underlying UNentitlement attitudes).
Expressions of appreciation for others, of regret/remorse for hurting them, and of genuine direct acknowledgement of one's needs for others may all be found in wholesome narcissism that was not developmentally derailed.
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