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The Narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders
Ferenczi’s conception of identification with the aggressor, which describes children’s typical response to traumatic assaults by family members, provides a remarkably good framework to understand mass social and economic trauma. In the moment of trauma, children instinctively submit and comply with...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Palgrave Macmillan UK
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9424807/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36042282 http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s11231-022-09369-4 |
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author | Frankel, Jay |
author_facet | Frankel, Jay |
author_sort | Frankel, Jay |
collection | PubMed |
description | Ferenczi’s conception of identification with the aggressor, which describes children’s typical response to traumatic assaults by family members, provides a remarkably good framework to understand mass social and economic trauma. In the moment of trauma, children instinctively submit and comply with what abusers want—not just in behavior but in their perceptions, thoughts, and emotions—in order to survive the assault; afterwards they often continue to comply, out of fear that the family will turn its back on them. Notably, a persistent tendency to identify with the aggressor is also typical in children who have been emotionally abandoned by narcissistically self-preoccupied parents, even when there has not been gross trauma. Similarly, large groups of people who are economically or culturally dispossessed by changes in their society typically respond by submitting and complying with the expectations of a powerful figure or group, hoping they can continue to belong—just like children who are emotionally abandoned by their families. Not surprisingly, emotional abandonment, both in individual lives and on a mass scale, is typically felt as humiliating; and it undermines the sense that life is meaningful and valuable. But the intolerable loss of belonging and of the feeling of being a valuable person often trigger exciting, aggressive, compensatory fantasies of specialness and entitlement. On the large scale, these fantasies are generally authoritarian in nature, with three main dynamics—sadomasochism, paranoid–schizoid organization, and the manic defense—plus a fourth element: the feeling of emotional truth that follows narcissistic injury, that infuses the other dynamics with a sense of emotional power and righteousness. Ironically, the angry attempt to reassert one’s entitlements ends up facilitating compliance with one’s oppressors and undermining the thoughtful, effective pursuit of realistic goals. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9424807 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Palgrave Macmillan UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94248072022-08-30 The Narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders Frankel, Jay Am J Psychoanal Article Ferenczi’s conception of identification with the aggressor, which describes children’s typical response to traumatic assaults by family members, provides a remarkably good framework to understand mass social and economic trauma. In the moment of trauma, children instinctively submit and comply with what abusers want—not just in behavior but in their perceptions, thoughts, and emotions—in order to survive the assault; afterwards they often continue to comply, out of fear that the family will turn its back on them. Notably, a persistent tendency to identify with the aggressor is also typical in children who have been emotionally abandoned by narcissistically self-preoccupied parents, even when there has not been gross trauma. Similarly, large groups of people who are economically or culturally dispossessed by changes in their society typically respond by submitting and complying with the expectations of a powerful figure or group, hoping they can continue to belong—just like children who are emotionally abandoned by their families. Not surprisingly, emotional abandonment, both in individual lives and on a mass scale, is typically felt as humiliating; and it undermines the sense that life is meaningful and valuable. But the intolerable loss of belonging and of the feeling of being a valuable person often trigger exciting, aggressive, compensatory fantasies of specialness and entitlement. On the large scale, these fantasies are generally authoritarian in nature, with three main dynamics—sadomasochism, paranoid–schizoid organization, and the manic defense—plus a fourth element: the feeling of emotional truth that follows narcissistic injury, that infuses the other dynamics with a sense of emotional power and righteousness. Ironically, the angry attempt to reassert one’s entitlements ends up facilitating compliance with one’s oppressors and undermining the thoughtful, effective pursuit of realistic goals. Palgrave Macmillan UK 2022-08-30 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9424807/ /pubmed/36042282 http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s11231-022-09369-4 Text en © Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. |
spellingShingle | Article Frankel, Jay The Narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders |
title | The Narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders |
title_full | The Narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders |
title_fullStr | The Narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders |
title_full_unstemmed | The Narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders |
title_short | The Narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders |
title_sort | narcissistic dynamics of submission: the attraction of the powerless to authoritarian leaders |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9424807/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36042282 http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s11231-022-09369-4 |
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