ABSTRACT
Personality organisation exhibits itself by observable, customary, and—under average expectable circumstances—reasonably predictable patterns of an individual’s day-to-day behaviour. A personality organisation, however, can be chronically maladaptive and a constant source of interpersonal problems and object relations conflicts. For persons like those with narcissistic personality organisation, the developmental splitting, which in normal development largely disappears, evolves as a defensive splitting. There are various types of adjustment to narcissistic personality organisation. Persons with narcissistic personality organisation initially induce counter-responses in the analyst, changing from elation—when the patient relates to the analyst as if the analyst is number one in the world—to boredom and anger—when the patient treats the analyst as inferior. Patients with narcissistic personality organisation are driven to control their interpersonal and internalised object relationships. An iron ball, a glass bubble, or a cocoon surrounds the patient’s grandiose self like water surrounds a private island.
