ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author draws attention to an existential phenomenological approach to understanding Being, and describes the discoveries she have made that have come from this particular method of working. She explains the ways in which the ordinary individual is impacted by, and defends against, being exposed to the painful ontological conditions of his existence. The author discusses her clinical findings showing how the narcissist defends in very specific ways against his ontological anxiety, providing a vignette to exemplify this. She considers the notion of mauvaise-foi (bad-faith) and how this relates to the aforementioned states of Being, as well as the concept of “The Look”, and “Shame”. In psychoanalytic terms the author has come to understand the self-destructive echoist’s way of being as actively introjecting the other. In her experience, the encounter with the self-destructive echoist can leave the therapist feeling inadequate, depleted, self-critical, and with a sense of having been unable to give the patient enough.
