I recently saw Black Swan, the much acclaimed thriller starring Natalie Portman as a ballerina whose sense of self undergoes a dramatic collapse under the pressure of her elevation to prima donna in a production of Swan Lake.
Overall, I will be looking at the film as an interesting portrayal of a young woman driven by a narcissistic injury. In particular, I’m interested in the film’s potential for creating compassion for its main character. I feel this offers an emotional way in to feeling warmth towards what is often one of the more difficulty human issues to empathise with.
That said, the film is decidely Hollywood with smarts rather than Art House, so ends up caught up more with its own image than with an in-depth exploration of its content… all of which actually serves to make it ironically suitable as a case study in narcissistic injury.
I’ll be reviewing this with the assumption you haven’t seen it so as to avoid spoilers.
Nina as Narcissus
The driving force for the plot is protagonist Nina’s burning ambition to be the Swan Queen in her company’s production of Swan Lake. The entire film revolves around this ambition, giving rise to two important effects: firstly, there is no development of any other character in the film beyond what is necessary for developing the character of Nina. Secondly, Nina undergoes no character development beyond what is necessary for developing her role as Swan Queen.
On the one hand, that could just mean this is a poorly developed, one-dimensional thriller featuring Natalie Portman in interesting face paint and an opportunity for some gratuitous sexualisation. However, watching the film through my gestalt-therapy-tinted spectacles, I felt this was entirely appropriate to any presentation of a character driven by narcissistic injury (although the gratuitous sexualisation was indeed gratuitous).
I think issues around narcissism can be greatly misunderstood, and the term can end up used in a persecutory way. There is a beautiful paradox in attempting to empathise with someone who has little capacity for empathy. Consider that empathy is ultimately about attuning to someone else’s emotional experience. Counsellors and psychotherapists need to develop their ability to empathise with their clients. So imagine attempting to attune to the emotional experience of not being able to attune to the emotional experience of another. It’s the kind of paradox that deserves its own name.
The essence of narcissistic injury is this: a person naturally grows their own sense of who they are, and seeks love and approval from important others. The narcissistic injury occurs when the important others attack that home-grown sense of self, and demand that an external standard be achieved instead. So, natural sense of self is rejected as sub-standard; external sense of what self should be is imposed.
Consequently, the narcissistic injury drives a perfectionism that is un-natural (because it doesn’t actually fit with what the person wants ‘in their heart of hearts’), and can never be satisfied (because the external standard is alien, so any success can’t truly be felt as belonging to self).
Remember, in the Greek myth, the beautiful young man Narcissus is cursed by the Gods to fall in love with his own reflection; but he doesn’t know he is in love with his reflection, he takes his reflection to be another person. That is the tragedy of narcissistically driven ambition; the person who is so driven doesn’t realise they are chasing their own reflection, which they are doomed never to attain, however successful they are.
Clearly, there is simply no room for the emotional reality of other people in the midst of this psychic drama, hence the limitations in the person’s capacity for empathy. The only purpose for other people in the midst of this drama is to provide context.
Applied to Nina, her injury is clear; she needs to be the Swan Queen to feel worthwhile because, in her narcissistically driven emotional reality, there are only two categories: perfection and worthlessness. Incidentally, this dichotomy of perfection and worthlessness plays itself out well between Nina and Beth; the former’s star rising as the latter’s descends.
The influence of Nina’s mother sits heavily in the background, and it is striking that the film doesn’t make an overly big deal out of this. It is simply presented as the way things are, meaning that the full impact and implications of Nina’s homelife aren’t over played.
Some descriptions of the film describe a dramatic stand-off between Nina and Lily, making much of the contrast of Nina perfectly embodying the white swan, Lily the black swan. Nina’s struggle is to grow her sense of the black swan, the (re)discovery and assimilation of all the shadow aspects of her self she’s had to disown to stay true to her ballet ambitions.
However, whilst Lily does loom large in Nina’s psychic life, the actual character of Lily is not developed beyond her role of the new, rocky, bad girl in the company. The point being, Lily’s relevance to the film is solely as Nina’s largely imagined adversary. I’d advise holding in mind a distinction between Lily as Nina sees her, and Lily as a character in her own right; the two are very different.
There are no characters, even those whose approval Nina is seeking that have an effective existence independently of Nina. Consider that as an emotional reality; one in which people only exist in the context of your own goals. That is part of the trap of narcissistic relating; Nina only ever relates to her own reflection, never the actual people she meets. That is true not only of the other girls in the company, but also director Thomas, and Nina’s mother; the two people whose approval Nina so desperately seeks.
Consequently, it isn’t possible for Nina to receive human nourishment because at no point is she in contact with another person; she relates only to her own reflection. And reflection is a great way of explaining what happens when we project unwanted aspects of ourselves onto others; the other becomes a pool of water, upon the surface of which we see something of ourselves without recognising it as such. In a sense, all projection could be considered Narcissistic.
The feeling tone of the film as I experienced it was one of tightly wound ambition set against a cold and undeveloped background. I had a knot in my stomach most of the way through the film, feeling very tense during any kind of action phase, and very empty in the absence of action. I like to live through the films I watch, entering into contact with them as a special and externalised kind of dream. I’m used to Hollywood films being drenched with over-sentimentalised emotion that sits heavily in my gut. Black Swan felt largely devoid of sentiment; only ambition wound tightly around an emotionally empty core.
Having experienced that, I feel more able to weep for Narcissus; trapped as he is in a world of his own reflections, driven further and further into isolation by his need to attain perfection.
The emotional conclusion of that process is given dramatic voice in the climax of Black Swan.
I consider narcissisms as a form of self neglect, not self love as it often falsely interpreted. It is a bit like the difference between moral (society pleasing temporary construct) and ethic, nourished from the inside in touch with life.
Narcissism is probably the main disease of our days who has the disadvantage to be considered as society worthy career attitude. It is the pleasing of an image about oneself, only true self acceptance can cure.
I have loved dancing classical ballet in young age, but moved towards more free expression later. I found dancing always a wonderful way to feel and express myself and experiment space, contact and communication. I think, the missing of awareness is very visible in the way people dance.
To be in sensitive touch with the other dancers and the environment can be felt by the public. Narcissistic dancers looks simply stiff and cold, and have nothing to share.
Yes! In the myth, Narcissus in fact dies of self-neglect, his vitality entirely drained away by his unaware self-worship at the pool.
Psychotherapy literature talks now about the unmet ‘narcissistic needs’ of childhood. These needs being the acknowledgment and support of a child’s natural magnificence. Yet Narcissus is cursed by the Gods to love his own reflection without realising it to be his… his need is to be released from this curse and finally see himself as himself (as you say ‘only true self acceptance can cure’).
My thought is that children don’t start out with narcissistic needs; that these needs only arise in relation to narcissistic wounds. The Gods (parents, peers, society) deny the child’s emerging sense of self in all its magnificence, and point to some image they prefer. And so the child pursues ‘an image about oneself’ without realising it’s their reflection.
Have you seen Black Swan? What you say about narcissistic dancers is similar to how the director attacks Nina’s character. She is so focused on a fixed image of perfection that she can’t be spontaneous enough to embody the black swan.
I don’t agree about there being nothing for such a dancer to share; there would be the development of technical brilliance and feats that appear super-human precisely because they are the result of a self-objectification. So much of that person’s vitality is tied up in the image they pursue that compassion must compel us to be willing to meet them there even as we hunt for the withering youth wasting away at the water’s edge.
I don’t know how you feel it, but I don’t believe that technical brilliance, can exhale out of a wounded body, and I assume that a narcissistic body is wounded.
That reminds me the performance(You can imagine how I dislike that word!) of a certain singer many found erotic, and I felt each time some sadness about the angular movements and I was noticing the look who appeared lost to me, in search for a confirmation and some point of stability. later this poor girl , once her superbe vanished a bit, lost truly ground. the wound is visible for those willing to see it ,not blinded by the artifice.
I have not seen the film, but I heard a good one is coming our way about the Pina Bausch dance company.
Some narcissism are even boring, like of many actual dance companies who tries to impress with sophisticated movement, but without what we could call “guts” or story.
I think, we will be confronted in the next years with a lot of dramatic narcissistic wounds, considering all those parents who force their children to represent their own society success, flattering their own insecure egos and push them through abusive courses and reality disconnected learning goals.
What can we do, beside frustrating this expectations for superficial recognition and seeing the other as he is with love.
I’m reflecting on your wounded body idea and wondering about a difference between a wounded body and an exhausted body. I play guitar, and in a small way I need to wound my body to do that. By pressing the finger tips of my left hand onto steel strings, I cause damage to my skin. Over time, that hardens and I no longer feel pain, but I have wounded myself to get there. Also, I’m thinking that in order to build muscle, we actually rip and tear our muscle fibres; these then repair with extra strength. So again, building muscle involves wounding our body; as our body repairs those wounds, it adapts in ways that make physical feats possible that weren’t before the wounding.
So I wonder if technical brilliance necessitates some bodily wounding if only because technical brilliance doesn’t come naturally but requires the shaping of a natural talent that starts out somewhat raw. I agree that any wound to the self, such as a narcissistic wound, involves some bodily expression of that wound. But I’m wondering if the technical brilliance is achieved through a desire to dominate one’s body in order to bury the wound as deeply as possible.
But then, I consider technical brilliance to be a matter of mechanics, and different to vitality of spirit; as you say, guts or story. I had singing lessons for a while in the classical style, and the exercises focused on the mechanics of singing; the combined action of diaphragm, various tendons (the names of which I can’t remember!), vocal chords, mouth, tongue and lips. All good technique. Yet the songs I write are all driven by spirit. As I create a synthesis between the two, I find that good technique can serve as a loyal vehicle to spirit.
An exhausted body would be one where matter has been consumed by spirit. So the difference between the healthy wound and repair of adapting physically to the demands of some physical discipline, and the naricissitic wound, is that the narcissistic wound doesn’t repair itself. In some ways, that would allow for reaching beyond what is considered physically possible out of sheer determination; technical brilliance could be attained. But eventually exhaustion would set in, and all that technique would collapse in on itself because the underlying wounds have never been healed.
So, reflecting on those thoughts, I would say that yes, technical brilliance can shine out from a narcissistically wounded person (I’m not so comfortable talking about a narcisstic body; I feel like the person as a whole goes missing then). The difference is that the spirit driving that brilliance is the urge to earn a love and acceptance that can never be felt. All that applause for the performance, but the performer is an alien mask, so the person behind the mask never hears the praise and ends up seeking it even more.
Let s view it from a different angle. How much of this performance a sign of a low inner ability to experience satisfaction.
How much is trespassing the limits of the own caring intuition, not pointing to a neurological hormonal issue.
The Spartan idealisation of the effort made to succeed, is questionable, as it represents a selective dehumanised ideology and mistrust the harmonious flow in human.
[…] Weeping for Narcissus: a review of Black Swan with 205 […]
[…] (February 21, 2013): If you enjoyed the essay, I highly recommend Weeping for Narcissus: A Review of Black Swan, Le Chat D’Argent (February 14, 2011), a well-informed and articulate take on Black Swan from the perspective of a gestalt […]
I hope you don’t mind that I added a link to my blog essay, ‘Black Swan (2010): A Portrait of the Artist as Narcissist’. I posted it about two days ago, and a reader PM’d me a link to your wonderful post.
Thanks, I appreciate the link! 🙂 Yours looks pretty detailed. I have a major headache this evening, so I’ll come back at the weekend when I can take time to enjoy what you’ve written.
Nina’s mother was a narcissist as well. It would make sense that Nina becomes one too as her only guidance is that of a clinging narcissist who sees her daughter as herself and a not a separate person. In fact, I’m not even sure how Nina is portrayed as that narcissistic in the film. Her mother on the other hand is a perfect example. She lives vicariously through her daughter, being an ex-ballerina herself, yet doesn’t want her daughter to succeed anymore then she did in her career. Nina actually getting the part of Black Swan is a success her own mother never achieved, so she tried to sabotage Nina various times in the movie. Part of the entire reason Nina wanted so bad to be the Black Swan was because her mother never achieved it and she wanted to be her own person.
Narcissism is up there with ASPD and Psychopathy disorders. The empathy, the very thing many argue even makes us human is messed up or faulty in some form. Nina actually cared about others. She wanted to emulate that one girl who was being forced to retire, but she was worried about her. Nina’s mother only cared about herself and anyone she viewed as herself which was her daughter. Once he daughter showed signs of changing into her own person, her mother flipped out, pulled guilt trips, hurt her and tried to bar her from even having a life. Sure, Nina was going nuts and hallucinating and killing herself over the part, but the more I looked at it and the more I read about narcissism in the clinical term, the more I realized that part of the reason Nina even killed herself that much was because of her own mother who wanted her to only succeed to the level she did. Some may argue that her mother was worried when she kept her from going to performance near the end, but if she was REALLY worried she would of damn well called a doctor over her daughter clearly not being well instead of keeping her home to “take care of her” which was really just her treating herself as she only sees her daughter as her. Narcissists can’t love properly. They have no concept of because others are happy they can be happy because of it. It’s only about what’s in it for them, be it supply, money, emotional support or anything else.
I agree with narcissism as actually extreme self-neglect on an emotional level in particular. The person is damaged and actually hate themselves which masks as extreme self love and adoration. If they had true self love they wouldn’t desperately need it from others and seek narcissistic supply. I’ve personally known a narcissist who could never admit he was wrong and nothing was ever his fault unless he used the excuse as a guilt trip. I learned about his childhood and could see how he became what he was. It’s sad, but infuriating because these people don’t actually care and it’s not by choice. They simply can’t and have to be willing to both want to and to face whatever may of caused their narcissistic traits/personality to begin with, often being painful childhood memories.