The word "narcissism" is on everyone's lips. The common discourse assumes the pathology of an individual whose unwholesome, destructive qualities we feel in relationships, be they personal or general. To corroborate this view, many resort to common everyday psychological "diagnoses." This allows them to see themselves as blamelessly involved in such a relationship. In her practice-experienced work the author, a Zurich psychoanalyst, refutes the division into narcissistic and non-narcissistic, guilty and innocent, evil and good. She fans out the Ovidian narrative and asks: Why does Narcissus only have himself as a counterpart? Why is the world lost to him? Does this world in turn need the narcissist? The book illuminates not only the personal narcissistic relationship patterns, but also their forms of expression in society and in political-economic action.
