OUR DISCUSSION of the neurotic’s fundamental attitudes toward others has acquainted us with two of the major ways in which he attempts to solve his conflicts or, more precisely, to dispose of them. One of these consists in repressing certain aspects of the personality and bringing their opposites to the fore; the other is to put such distance between oneself and one’s fellows that the conflicts are set out of operation. Both processes induce a feeling of unity that permits the individual to function, even if at considerable cost to himself.1
A further attempt, here to be described, is the creation of an image of what the neurotic believes himself to be, or of what at the time he feels he can or ought to be. Conscious or unconscious, the image is always in large degree removed from reality, though the influence it exerts on the person’s life is very real indeed. What is more, it is always flattering in character, as illustrated by a cartoon in the New Yorker in which a large middle-aged woman sees herself in the mirror a slender young girl. The particular features of the image vary and are determined by the structure of the personality: beauty may be held to be outstanding, or power, intelligence, genius, saintliness, honesty, or what you will. Precisely to the extent that the image is unrealistic, it tends to make the person arrogant, in the original meaning of the word; for arrogance, though used synonymously with superciliousness, means to arrogate to oneself qualities that one does not have, or that one has potentially but not factually. And the more unrealistic the image, the more it makes the person vulnerable and avid for outside affirmation and recognition. We do not need confirmation for qualities of which we are certain, but we will be extremely touchy when false claims are questioned.
We can observe this idealized image at its most blatant in the grandiose notions of psychotics; but in principle its characteristics are the same in neurotics. It is less fantastic here, but it may be just as real to them. If we regard the degree of removal from reality as marking the difference between psychoses and neuroses, we may consider the idealized image as a bit of psychosis woven into the texture of neurosis.
In all its essentials the idealized image is an unconscious phenomenon. Although his self-inflation may be most obvious even to an untrained observer, the neurotic is not aware that he is idealizing himself. Nor does he know what a bizarre conglomeration of characters is assembled here. He may have a vague sense that he is making high demands upon himself, but mistaking such perfectionist demands for genuine ideals he in no way questions their validity and is indeed rather proud of them.
How his creation affects his attitude toward himself varies with the individual and depends largely on the focus of interest. If the neurotic’s interest lies in convincing himself that he is his idealized image, he develops the belief that he is in fact the mastermind, the exquisite human being, whose very faults are divine.2 If the focus is on the realistic self which by comparison with the idealized image is highly despicable, self-derogatory criticism is in the foreground. Since the picture of the self that results from such disparagement is just as far removed from reality as is the idealized image, it could appropriately be called the despised image. If, finally, the focus is upon the discrepancy between the idealized image and the actual self, then all he is aware of and all we can observe are his incessant attempts to bridge the gap and whip himself into perfection. In this event he keeps reiterating the word “should” with amazing frequency. He keeps telling us what he should have felt, thought, done. He is at bottom as convinced of his inherent perfection as the naïvely “narcissistic” person, and betrays it by the belief that he actually could be perfect if only he were more strict with himself, more controlled, more alert, more circumspect.
In contrast to authentic ideals, the idealized image has a static quality. It is not a goal toward whose attainment he strives but a fixed idea which he worships. Ideals have a dynamic quality; they arouse an incentive to approximate them; they are an indispensable and invaluable force for growth and development. The idealized image is a decided hindrance to growth because it either denies shortcomings or merely condemns them. Genuine ideals make for humility, the idealized image for arrogance.
This phenomenon—however defined—has long been recognized. It is referred to in the philosophic writings of all times. Freud introduced it into the theory of neurosis, calling it by a variety of names: ego ideal, narcissism, superego. It forms the central thesis of Adler’s psychology, described there as a striving for superiority. It would lead us too far afield to point out in detail the differences and similarities between these concepts and my own.3 Briefly, all of these are concerned only with one or another aspect of the idealized image, and fail to see the phenomenon as a whole. Hence despite pertinent comment and argument not only by Freud and Adler but by many other writers as well—among them Franz Alexander, Paul Federn. Bernard Glueck, and Ernest Jones—the full significance of the phenomenon and its functions has not been recognized. What, then, are its functions? Apparently it fulfills vital needs. No matter how the various writers account for it theoretically, they are all agreed on the one point that it constitutes a stronghold of neurosis difficult to shake or even to weaken. Freud for one regarded a deeply ingrained “narcissistic” attitude as among the most serious obstacles to therapy.
To begin with what is perhaps its most elementary function, the idealized image substitutes for realistic self-confidence and realistic pride. A person who eventually becomes neurotic has little chance to build up initial self-confidence because of the crushing experiences he has been subjected to. Such self-confidence as he may have is further weakened in the course of his neurotic development because the very conditions indispensable for self-confidence are apt to be destroyed. It is difficult to formulate these conditions briefly. The most important factors are the aliveness and availability of one’s emotional energies, the development of authentic goals of one’s own, and the faculty of being an active instrument in one’s own life. However a neurosis develops, just these things are liable to be damaged. Neurotic trends impair self-determination because a person is then driven instead of being himself the driver. Moreover, the neurotic’s capacity to determine his own paths is continually weakened by his dependence upon people, whatever form this may have assumed—blind rebellion, blind craving to excel, and a blind need to keep away from others are all forms of dependence. Further, by inhibiting great sectors of emotional energy, he puts them completely out of action. All of these factors make it nearly impossible for him to develop his own goals. Last but not least, the basic conflict makes him divided in his own house. Being thus deprived of a substantial foundation, the neurotic must inflate his feeling of significance and power. That is why a belief in his omnipotence is a never-failing component of the idealized image.
A second function is closely linked with the first. The neurotic does not feel weak in a vacuum but in a world peopled with enemies ready to cheat, humiliate, enslave, and defeat him. He must therefore constantly measure and compare himself with others, not for reasons of vanity or caprice but by bitter necessity. And since at bottom he feels weak and contemptible—as we shall see later on—he must search for something that will make him feel better, more worthy than others. Whether it takes the form of feeling more saintly or more ruthless, more loving or more cynical, he must in his own mind feel superior in some way—regardless of any particular drive to excel. For the most part such a need contains elements of wanting to triumph over others, because no matter what the structure of the neurosis there is always vulnerability and a readiness to feel looked down on and humiliated. The need for vindictive triumph as an antidote to feeling humiliated may be acted upon or may exist mainly in the neurotic’s own mind; it may be conscious or unconscious, but it is one of the driving forces in the neurotic need for superiority and gives it its special coloring.4 The competitive spirit of this civilization is not only conducive to fostering neuroses in general, through the disturbances in human relationships it creates, but it also specifically feeds this need for pre-eminence.
We have seen how the idealized image substitutes for true self-confidence and pride. But there is yet another way in which it serves as surrogate. Since the neurotic’s ideals are contradictory they cannot possibly have any obligating power; remaining dim and undefined, they can give him no guidance. Hence if it were not that his endeavor to be his self-created idol gave a kind of meaning to his life he would feel wholly without purpose. This becomes particularly apparent in the course of analysis, when the undermining of his idealized image gives him for a time the feeling of being quite lost. And it is only then that he recognizes his confusion in the matter of ideals and that this begins to strike him as undesirable. Before, the whole subject was beyond his understanding and interest, no matter how much lip service he gave it; now for the first time he realizes that ideals have some meaning, and wants to discover what his own ideals really are. This kind of experience is evidence, I should say, that the idealized image substitutes for genuine ideals. An understanding of this function has significance for therapy. The analyst may point out to the patient at an earlier period the contradictions in his set of values. But he cannot expect any constructive interest in the subject and hence cannot work on it until the idealized image has become dispensable.
To a greater degree than any of the others, one particular function of the image can be held accountable for its rigidity. If in our private mirror we see ourselves as paragons of virtue or intelligence, even our most blatant faults and handicaps will disappear or acquire attractive coloration—just as in a good painting a shabby, decaying wall is no longer a shabby, decaying wall but a beautiful composite of brown and gray and reddish color values.
We can arrive at a deeper understanding of this defensive function if we raise the simple question: What does a person regard as his faults and shortcomings? It is one of those questions that at first sight does not seem to lead anywhere because one starts to think of infinite possibilities. Nevertheless there is a fairly concrete answer. What a person regards as his faults and shortcomings depends on what he accepts or rejects in himself. That, however—under similar cultural conditions—is determined by which aspect of the basic conflict predominates. The compliant type, for instance, does not regard his fears or his helplessness as a taint, whereas the aggressive type would regard any such feeling as shameful, to be hidden from oneself and others. The compliant type registers his hostile aggressions as sinful; the aggressive type looks upon his softer feelings as contemptible weakness. Each type, in addition, is driven to reject all that is actually mere pretense on the part of his more acceptable self. The compliant type, for instance, has to reject the fact that he is not a genuinely loving and generous person; the detached type does not want to see that his aloofness is not a matter of his own free choice, that he must keep apart because he cannot cope with others, and so on. Both, as a rule, reject sadistic trends (to be discussed later). We would thus arrive at the conclusion that what is regarded as a shortcoming and rejected is whatever does not fit into the consistent picture created by the predominant attitude toward others. And we could say that the defensive function of the idealized image is to negate the existence of conflicts; that is why it must of necessity remain so immovable. Before I recognized this I often wondered why it is so impossible for a patient to accept himself as a little less significant, a little less superior. But looked at this way the answer is clear. He cannot budge an inch because the recognition of certain short-comings would confront him with his conflicts, thus jeopardizing the artificial harmony he has established. We can arrive, therefore, at a positive correlation between the intensity of the conflicts and the rigidity of the idealized image: an especially elaborate and rigid image permits us to infer especially disruptive conflicts.
Over and above the four functions already pointed out, the idealized image has still a fifth, likewise related to the basic conflict. The image has a more positive use than merely to camouflage the conflict’s unacceptable parts. It represents a kind of artistic creation in which opposites appear reconciled or in which, at any rate, they no longer appear as conflicts to the individual himself. A few examples will show how this happens. In order to avoid lengthy reports I shall merely name the conflicts present and show how they appeared in the idealized image.
The predominating aspect of X’s conflict was compliance—a great need for affection and approval, to be taken care of, to be sympathetic, generous, considerate, loving. Second in prominence was detachment, with the usual aversion to joining groups, emphasis on independence, fear of ties, sensitivity to coercion. The detachment constantly clashed with the need for human intimacy and created repeated disturbances in his relations with women. Aggressive drives, too, were quite apparent, manifesting themselves in his having to be first in any situation, in dominating others indirectly, occasionally exploiting them, and tolerating no interference. Naturally these tendencies detracted considerably from his capacity for love and friendship, and clashed as well with his detachment. Unaware of these drives, he had fabricated an idealized image that was a composite of three figures. He was the great lover and friend—incredible that any woman could care more for another man; nobody was so kind and good as he. He was the greatest leader of his time, a political genius held much in awe. And finally he was the great philosopher, the man of wisdom, one of the few gifted with profound insight into the meaning of life and its ultimate futility.
The image was not altogether fantastic. He had ample potentialities in all these directions. But the potentialities had been raised to the level of accomplished fact, of great and unique achievement. Moreover, the compulsive nature of the drives had been obscured and was replaced by a belief in innate qualities and gifts. Instead of a neurotic need for affection and approval there was a supposed capacity to love; instead of a drive to excel, assumed superior gifts; instead of a need for aloofness, independence and wisdom. Finally and most important, the conflicts were exorcised in the following way. The drives which in real life interfered with one another and prevented him from fulfilling any of his potentialities were promoted to the realm of abstract perfection, appearing as several compatible aspects of a rich personality; and the three aspects of the basic conflict which they represented were isolated in the three figures that made up his idealized image.
Another example brings into clearer relief the importance of isolating the conflicting elements.5 In the case of Y the predominant trend was detachment, in a rather extreme form, with all the implications described in the previous chapter. His tendency to comply was also quite marked, though Y himself shut it out from awareness because it was too incompatible with his desire for independence. Strivings to be extremely good occasionally broke forcibly through the shell of repression. A longing for human intimacy was conscious, and clashed continuously with his detachment. He could be ruthlessly aggressive only in his imagination: he indulged in fantasies of mass destruction, wishing quite frankly to kill all those who interfered with his life; he professed to believe in a jungle philosophy—the gospel of might makes right, with its ruthless pursuit of self-interest, was the only intelligent and unhypocritical way of living. In his actual living, however, he was rather timid; explosions of violence occurred under certain conditions only.
His idealized image was the following odd combination. Most of the time he was a hermit living on a mountaintop, having attained to infinite wisdom and serenity. At rare intervals he could turn into a werewolf, entirely devoid of human feelings, bent on killing. And as if these two incompatible figures were not enough, he was as well the ideal friend and lover.
We see here the same denial of neurotic trends, the same self-aggrandizement, the same mistaking of potentialities for realities. In this instance, though, no attempt has been made to reconcile the conflicts; the contradictions remain. But—in contrast to real life—they appear pure and undiluted. Because they are isolated they do not interfere with one another. And that seems to be what counts. The conflicts as such have disappeared.
One last example of a more unified idealized image: In the factual behavior of Z aggressive trends strongly predominated, accompanied by sadistic tendencies. He was domineering and inclined to exploit. Driven by a devouring ambition, he pushed ruthlessly ahead. He could plan, organize, fight, and adhered consciously to an unmitigated jungle philosophy. He was also extremely detached; but since his aggressive drives always entangled him with groups of people, he could not maintain his aloofness. He kept strict guard, though, not to get involved in any personal relationship nor to let himself enjoy anything to which people were essential contributors. In this he succeeded fairly well, because positive feelings for others were greatly repressed; desires for human intimacy were mainly channeled along sexual lines. There was present, however, a distinct tendency to comply, together with a need for approval that interfered with his craving for power. And there were underlying puritanical standards, used chiefly as a whip over others—but which of course he could not help applying to himself as well that clashed head-long with his jungle philosophy.
In his idealized image he was the knight in shining armor, the crusader with wide and unfailing vision, ever pursuing the right. As becomes a wise leader, he was not personally attached to anyone but dispensed a stern though just discipline. He was honest without being hypocritical. Women loved him and he could be a great lover but was not tied to any woman. Here the same goal is achieved as in the other instances: the elements of the basic conflict are blended.
The idealized image is thus an attempt at solving the basic conflict, an attempt of at least as great importance as the others I have described. It has the enormous subjective value of serving as a binder, of holding together a divided individual. And although it exists only in the person’s mind, it exerts a decisive influence on his relations with others.
The idealized image might be called a fictitious or illusory self, but that would be only a half truth and hence misleading. The wishful thinking operating in its creation is certainly striking, particularly since it occurs in persons who otherwise stand on a ground of firm reality. But this does not make it wholly fictitious. It is an imaginative creation interwoven with and determined by very realistic factors. It usually contains traces of the person’s genuine ideals. While the grandiose achievements are illusory, the potentialities underlying them are often real. More relevant, it is born of very real inner necessities, it fulfills very real functions, and it has a very real influence on its creator. The processes operating in its creation are determined by such definite laws that a knowledge of its specific features permits us to make accurate inferences as to the true character structure of the particular person.
But regardless of how much fantasy is woven into the idealized image, for the neurotic himself it has the value of reality. The more firmly it is established the more he is his idealized image, while his real self is proportionately dimmed out. This reversal of the actual picture is bound to come about because of the very nature of the functions the image performs. Every one of them is aimed at effacing the real personality and turning the spotlight on itself. Looking back over the history of many patients we are led to believe that its establishment has often been literally lifesaving, and that is why the resistance a patient puts up if his image is attacked is entirely justified, or at least logical. As long as his image remains real to him and is intact, he can feel significant, superior, and harmonious, in spite of the illusory nature of those feelings. He can consider himself entitled to raise all kinds of demands and claims on the basis of his assumed superiority. But if he allows it to be undermined he is immediately threatened with the prospect of facing all his weaknesses, with no title to special claims, a comparatively insignificant figure or even—in his own eyes—a contemptible one. More terrifying still, he is faced with his conflicts and the hideous fear of being torn to pieces. That this may give him a chance of becoming a much better human being, worth more than all the glory of his idealized image, is a gospel he hears but that for a long time means nothing to him. It is a leap in the dark of which he is afraid.
With so great a subjective value to recommend it, the position of the image would be unassailable if it were not for the huge drawbacks inseparable from it. The whole edifice is in the first place extremely rickety by reason of the fictitious elements involved. A treasure house loaded with dynamite, it makes the individual highly vulnerable. Any questioning or criticism from outside, any awareness of his own failure to measure up to the image, any real insight into the forces operating within him can make it explode or crumble. He must restrict his life lest he be exposed to such dangers. He must avoid situations in which he would not be admired or recognized. He must avoid tasks that he is not certain to master. He may even develop an intense aversion to effort of any kind. To him, the gifted one, the mere vision of a picture he might paint is already the master painting. Any mediocre person can get somewhere by hard work; for him to apply himself like every Tom, Dick, and Harry would be an admission that he is not the mastermind, and so humiliating. Since nothing can actually be achieved without work, he defeats by his attitude the very ends he is driven to attain. And the gap between his idealized image and his real self widens.
He is dependent upon endless affirmation from others in the form of approval, admiration, flattery—none of which, however, can give him any more than temporary reassurance. He may unconsciously hate everyone who is overbearing or who, being better than he in any way—more assertive, more evenly balanced, better informed— threatens to undermine his own notions of himself. The more desperately he clings to the belief that he is his idealized image, the more violent the hatred. Or, if his own arrogance is repressed, he may blindly admire persons who are openly convinced of their importance and show it by arrogant behavior. He loves in them his own image and inevitably runs into severe disappointment when he becomes aware, as he must at some time or other, that the gods he so admires are interested only in themselves, and as far as he is concerned care only for the incense he burns at their altars.
Probably the worst drawback is the ensuing alienation from the self. We cannot suppress or eliminate essential parts of ourselves without becoming estranged from ourselves. It is one of those changes gradually produced by neurotic processes that despite their fundamental nature come about unobserved. The person simply becomes oblivious to what he really feels, likes, rejects, believes—in short, to what he really is. Without knowing it he may live the life of his image. Tommy in J. M. Barrie’s Tommy and Grizel illuminates this process better than any clinical description. Of course it is not possible to behave so without being inextricably caught in a spider’s web of unconscious pretense and rationalization, which makes for precarious living. The person loses interest in life because it is not he who lives it; he cannot make decisions because he does not know what he really wants; if difficulties mount, he may be pervaded by a sense of unreality—an accentuated expression of his permanent condition of being unreal to himself. To understand such a state we must realize that a veil of unreality shrouding the inner world is bound to be extended to the outer. A patient recently epitomized the whole situation by saying: “If it were not for reality, I would be quite all right.”
Finally, although the idealized image is created to remove the basic conflict and in a limited way succeeds in doing so, it generates at the same time a new rift in the personality almost more dangerous than the original one. Roughly speaking, a person builds up an idealized image of himself because he cannot tolerate himself as he actually is. The image apparently counteracts this calamity; but having placed himself on a pedestal, he can tolerate his real self still less and starts to rage against it, to despise himself and to chafe under the yoke of his own unattainable demands upon himself. He wavers then between self-adoration and self-contempt, between his idealized image and his despised image, with no solid middle ground to fall back on.
Thus a new conflict is created between compulsive, contradictory strivings on the one hand and a kind of internal dictatorship imposed by the inner disturbance. And he reacts to this inner dictatorship just as a person might react to a comparable political dictatorship: he may identify himself with it, that is, feel that he is as wonderful and ideal as the dictator tells him he is; or he may stand on tiptoe to try to measure up to its demands; or he may rebel against the coercion and refuse to recognize the imposed obligations. If he reacts in the first way, we get the impression of a “narcissistic” individual, inaccessible to criticism; the existing rift, then, is not consciously felt as such. In the second instance we have the perfectionistic person, Freud’s superego type. In the third, the person appears not to be accountable to anyone or anything; he tends to become erratic, irresponsible, and negativistic. I speak advisedly of impressions and appearances, because whatever is his reaction, he continues to be fundamentally restive. Even a rebellious type who ordinarily believes he is “free” labors under the enforced standards he is trying to overthrow; though the fact that he is still in the clutches of his idealized image may show only in his swinging those standards as a whip over others.6 Sometimes a person goes through periods of alternating between one extreme and another. He may, for instance, try for a time to be super-humanly “good” and, getting no comfort from that, swing to the opposite pole of rebelling violently against such standards. Or he may switch from an apparently unreserved self-adoration to perfectionism. More often we find a combination of these variant attitudes. All of which points to the fact—understandable in the light of our theory—that none of the attempts are satisfactory; that they all are doomed to failure; that we must regard them as desperate efforts to get out of an intolerable situation; that as in any other intolerable situation the most dissimilar means are tried—if one fails, another is resorted to.
All these consequences combine to build a mighty barrier against true development. The person cannot learn from his mistakes because he does not see them. In spite of his assertions to the contrary he is actually bound to lose interest in his own growth. What he has in mind when he speaks of growth is an unconscious idea of creating a more perfect idealized image, one that will be without drawbacks.
The task of therapy, therefore, is to make the patient aware of his idealized image in all its detail, to assist him in gradually understanding all its functions and subjective values, and to show him the suffering that it inevitably entails. He will then start to wonder whether the price is not too high. But he can relinquish the image only when the needs that have created it are considerably diminished.
1 Herman Nunberg dealt with this problem of the striving for unity in his paper, “Die Synthetische Funktion des Ich,” Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 1930.
2 Cf. Anne Parrish, “All Kneeling,” The Second Woollcott Reader, Garden City Publishing Co., 1939.
3 Cf. the critical examination of Freud’s concept of narcissism, superego, and guilt feelings in Karen Horney, New Ways in Psychoanalysis, Regan Paul London, 1938; cf. also Erich Fromm, “Selfishness and Self-Love,” Psychiatry, 1939.
4 Cf. Chapter 12, Sadistic Trends.
5 In that classic illustration of dual personality, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the main idea is built around the possibility of separating the conflicting elements in man. After recognizing how radical is the schism between good and evil within himself, Dr. Jekyll says: “From an early date . . . I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable.”
6 Cf. Chapter 12, Sadistic Trends.