It seems like it's always been here, but you're right. That's a Freudian idea. I almost forgot that it was... Yeah, yeah. Only

a hundred and a bit years ago, Freud introduced this. In fact, his paper was called, well, in English translation, it's called Narcissism and Introduction. The German title, more literally translated, is Introducing Narcissism. i'm for the narcissists introducing the concept of narcissism you know is the is the german title so yeah it's a fundamental concept but uh freud initially thought of narcissism only in terms of what he called libido um in other words the sexual drive what what what what in affective neuroscience we call lust um and i said to you as well let me just remind you what freud said that the libidinal drive uh can be directed toward an object or it can be directed toward the subject toward the self That is narcissism. So narcissism is simply put self-love. That's what narcissists suffered. Love of himself is seeing his reflection in the water and thinking, gosh, that's, you know, how beautiful. I think he's the most gorgeous thing ever. So that's loving yourself, self-love. And this is linked in Freud, in Freudian theory. And remember, this is the introduction of the concept of narcissism. It's linked with what Freud called auto-erotism, auto-erotic behavior. So I mentioned masturbation, which is the most obvious form of autoerotic behavior. And that's why lust does not have to be loving in the sense that I suspect Jonathan Lear is getting at. Self-love, is that loving? Well, highly problematical form of love. So for Freud, development, mental development, progress, means transcending narcissism and moving toward object love. Now, in my terms, that involves, when I say mine, I mean affective neuroscience, neuropsychoanalytic terms. That involves the thing I was talking about at the very beginning in relation to romantic love when I said lust has to be integrated with attachment before it becomes object love, now using Freud's term. So it's not just discharging sexual tension. It's integrating sexual feelings with affectionate feelings. And there you have a sexual relationship. So Freud spoke of the libidinal drive being taking itself, taking the self as its object. and then you have to move to taking an object, outside object, as your love object. And the way we conceptualize that today in neuropsychoanalysis is it involves an integration of two drives. Freud didn't realize there's a separate drive for attachment. He never accepted that. He thought this was just a disposition of the libidinal drive that can either be self-directed or object-directed. We think the libidinal drive by itself is a not particularly loving thing. You might almost call it just a bodily need, but to integrate that with these affectionate currents, and remember what we said about separation and loss, is also to make yourself vulnerable. Now you're in the hands of your object. Forgive the pun. I didn't mean that. Now you're in the hands of your object. He or she might meet your sexual needs, they might not. They might find somebody more appealing than you. They might have a headache tonight and so on. And so you're vulnerable. That's the moving, that's the, I'm starting to illustrate a point here, which is that love, in the sense that I think Jonathan Lear is talking about, as a basic state of mind, in fact, is not so basic. It is basic in relation to each of these drives, the ones that I mentioned as loving, but the integration of them makes for a state of mind that is more deserving of the word love. Now, let me go back to Freud. Freud, having discovered narcissism in the context of his first drive theory, then discovered, discovered, I say in inverted commas because I don't believe it's existing. I don't believe in its existence, so I'm not sure he discovered anything. But Freud discovered the death drive, and then came a whole new understanding of narcissism, what we call destructive narcissism, the thing that the Kleinians made so much of. And Freud sums it up pithily in this alarming phrase when he says hatred is older than love as a mode of relationship to objects. So as far as others are concerned, as opposed to my beloved self, others, my first attitude to the other is hate. This is Freud's view. And you have to, and that's because the object is not there for your satisfaction. The object is separate. It's an insult. The object is, the object has his or her own needs, and they're not yours. And so, you know, the object frustrates you. Now, that, so think about the narcissists, you know, maybe even some of your senior politicians, think about the narcissists, you know, they are horrid people. is very evenly matched with their contempt toward others. And so this is a fleshing out of Freud's concept of narcissism, that it involves self-love and object hate. Now, in terms of, in neuropsychoanalytic terms, the way that we understand that, I remember I told you that moving from narcissism to object love sexually involves integration of lust with attachment. Now I'm saying dealing with this aspect of narcissism involves integrating, as I said earlier, integrating your frustrated feelings with your dependency upon the object so you know you can't just give free vent to your selfish um demands and and and expectations and anybody who irritates you gets booted out of your way on you know that that is narcissistic a more loving attitude is to recognize as much as my friend or partner or or at or playmate or whatever you know might be frustrating me i need them so i i have to i have to um i have to keep a lid on things i have to take account of what, what, what about their needs, you know? And so that is loving. So now I could carry on, Andrew, from what I've said now, I don't want to take up all of our time making just this one point. So let me just say, you can generalize from what I've said, each one of our seven drives has a narcissistic disposition, and that's not loving. I mean, just take, for example, if I can just add one more to illustrate when I say each of them.