ABSTRACT

It is the thesis of this book that people do not run into difficulty because terrible things were done to them, or because they distort ordinary experience into terror, but because they are tangled in an elusive semiotic web of omissions, simulacrums, and misrepresentations. The problem with narcissism is not so much that it is depriving, which it certainly is, but that it is confusing. A deprived child can, often does, turn elsewhere-to a sibling, to the other parent, to a friend's parent. But thE! confused child stays put, wondering why the love does not satisfy.