Issue #25

Abstract: The author continues work on problems presented in the former article Ideology and Narcissism. Manias for grandiosity: observation, symptomatics, genesis. Repression of topics related to narcissistic deviations (as everything close to psychopathology and psychiatry) is determined by dramatic biography of society. The problem aggravated by relapses of megalomania combined with devaluation of the “primary narcissism” of the society that has arose on the ruins of the USSR. Despite similarity of missionary ideologies there are significant differences in the epidemics of narcissism in the USA (leadership in politics, private sphere) and in Russia (idealized form of transference to power and personified cults). Mythology of cohesion, strength and global supremacy seems to be a “psychic shelter” (J. Steiner) for those who suffer from various forms of the inferiority complex. The need for special reflection that opposes the “narcissistic provocation” of the collective patient, the temptations of “analytical grandiosity” and “the omnipotence of the therapist” is stressed in the article. The author presents critique of deep social stratification which opens to the deprived social groups the future of narcissistic exhaustion close to delirium grandeur. Media optics is being analyzed showing how the reflection of own perfection is replaced by images of the power grandiosity on TV screens and PC monitors. Narcissistic effects are investigated in the shadow, latent, diffuse and “penetrating” ideology. Fixation on overestimated self-esteem is revealed in specific ideological constructions – starting from own attributing the mission to embody universal values up to the works presenting “loneliness of the half-blooded country.”