ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the concept of projective identification primarily by reviewing narcissism and narcissistic object relating in the clinical situation. It discusses couple relationships that present with narcissistic features, often considered to be a particularly difficult constellation of intrapsychic and interpersonal object relations. The chapter addresses the ways in which a "gridlock" of projections, as she calls it, traps the individual or the couple in a state of psychic sterility, a state that may be understood as being employed to defend against psychotic breakdown. The clinical study of narcissism and narcissistic object relating suggests that the apparent dichotomy, both theoretically and clinically, between the intrapsychic and the interpersonal, between the inner world and the outer world, can all too readily be overstated. Narcissistic object-relating obviates both the anxiety and aggression caused by frustration and awareness of envy. Primitive relating to an object or a part object may, in fact, be complex and overwhelming in its emotional force.
