The frequent combination in narcissistic patients of choosing severely narcissistic sexual partners, along with the incapacity of tolerating a good relationship with such a partner, may reflect the condensation of narcissism and yet unconscious guilt over identification with the oedipal couple.

Otto Kernberg—one of the leading theorists of pathological narcissism and the originator of the concept of malignant narcissism—together with Diana Diamond, Frank E. Yeomans, and Barry L. Stern, notes in the book Treating Pathological Narcissism with Transference-Focused Psychotherapy: 

Narcissistic patients often do not wish to have children out of unconscious fear of their children’s dependency upon them, the fantasy (realistic) of children’s greedy demandingness, reflecting, in part, the projection onto the children of the patient’s own unconscious feelings of deprivation, along with the attendant expressions of resentment and greed. 

For example, a patient may speak about a future child as someone who will “take away all their freedom” or constantly demand something from them. Behind this may lie not only a reluctance to have children, but also a difficulty tolerating the dependency and needs of the Other. 

At the same time, however, the refusal to have children may also reflect unconscious guilt feelings over one’s oedipal identification, a masochistic element that needs to be taken into consideration, particularly in advanced stages, of the treatment of narcissistic patients. In that regard, the development of jealous feelings, painful feelings that one’s partner may prefer a rival, and the emergence of fears of potential rivals much more able than the patient to gratify his or her partner, may signal a painful but progressive stage of development in the treatment.

Thus, a patient who previously devalued their partner with ease and was convinced that they could always find “someone better” may, in the course of therapy, begin for the first time to experience jealousy and fear of loss. The partner gradually ceases to be interchangeable.

Jealousy is a normal aspect of the repertoire of triangular relations geared to protect the boundaries of a love relation against invasion from the outside. Severely narcissistic patients are remarkably free of jealous feelings, reflecting their denial of oedipal wishes. The development of jealousy, in addition to the working through of envy, marks the strengthening of the capacity to tolerate triangular relations. 

Narcissistic patients typically attempt to destroy the boundaries of exclusive relations of other couples, enacting both the envious wishes to appropriate for themselves what others have and they lack, and, at a deeper level, the attack on the oedipal couple. The tolerance of jealousy is a symptom of oedipal recovery.

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(c) Yuliia Holopiorova,

Ukrainian Association of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy