Women have been historically relegated to supporting other people’s lives. Is it possible to find meaning in these roles? Beauvoir examined some common strategies that women employ to overcome the sense of their own insignificance. Motherhood is one of the most common. But can a child be their mother’s project? ‘The woman in love’ indicates those women who dedicate their existences to their partner’s life and projects. ‘The mystic’ aims to lose herself in a more powerful beloved, God, while ‘the narcissist’ loves her own body. Chapter 5 examines these figures as analysed in The Second Sex, and as presented both in Beauvoir’s and another writer’s novel, and shows their enduring relevance. For instance, Beauvoir’s depiction of the narcissist has become all the more significant with the advent of social media and online identities. Similarly, Beauvoir’s exploration of women’s complicity with the world of men that oppresses them is applied to the current situation, with a focus on women in power. The chapter concludes by addressing a crucial question: is it ethical, or even possible, to renounce one’s freedom and choose submission?

The half-century prior to 1914 was not just a belle époque of world fairs and art nouveau; it was also a period of increasingly contentious international relations, characterized by the developing force of public opinion. Patriotic humanities scholars acquired a new role as public intellectuals, ‘explaining the ways of history to men’. The French–German debates over Germany’s annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 were a formative moment in the longer time-frame of alternating lost wars between 1804 and 1918, marking the crystallization of French revanchism and German triumphalism. These debates became the breeding ground, paradoxically, both of Ernest Renan’s seminal and still authoritative ‘voluntaristic’ theory of national identity and of a type of chauvinistic propaganda that reached almost hysterical levels in 1914. The fervent jingoism of the Great War, fomented and rationalized by learned disquisitions from prestigious academics, marks the zenith of nationalism as a force in European relations. One committed participant, Emile Durkheim, recognized that self-righteous patriotism could lead to something like national narcissism.

Philosophy is not only about beliefs but also decisions and desires. This chapter explores Pascal’s ideas about the human condition, how our desires can make us miserable even when they are satisfied, and how this condition leads us to seek distractions that only make us more miserable. Again we find Pascal’s views and prescriptions stem from the heart, as our fallen state is the source of this sad situation. At the same time, by thinking well about it we can arrive at the conclusion that life could be great, and that the fact that it is not so great confirms the theology of the Fall (and doesn’t confirm other religions, which do not predict our actual predicament). The heart, then, is the key to all of our engagement with the world: not only our beliefs about it but also our desires and happiness. Remarkably, some of the problems Pascal wrote so eloquently about seem especially applicable today, as his descriptions of the need to display a fake identity predict and diagnose TikTok culture, and his rejection of the project to “find your true self,” “love yourself,” and “go with your heart” challenges the typical self-help advice one finds today.

In this chapter, we are concerned with ordinary hubris – what social and personality psychologists empirically study under the heading of self-enhancement. This umbrella term refers to both (a) the motive to augment or protect the positivity of the self, and (b) probable manifestations of that motive at a cognitive or behavioural level. We review five such manifestations: the better-than-average effect (regarding oneself as superior to others); the self-serving bias (taking credit for success but disavowing blame for failure); selective memory (forgetting one’s weaknesses but not one’s strengths); overclaiming (endorsing flattering falsehoods about oneself); and socially desirable responding (strategically acting to gain social approval). We also discuss the case of excessive self-enhancement: narcissism. This personality trait combines self-serving grandiosity with manipulative propensity. Narcissists irrationally over-exhibit all five key manifestations of self-enhancement but are likely to be over-represented among movers and shakers. We conclude with a nuanced consideration of self-enhancement’s costs and benefits.

This chapter describes the value of using Contemporary Integrative Interpersonal Theory (CIIT) to understand the self and social impairments that define personality disorders as a group. CIIT’s major tenets are summarized, with a particular emphasis on elaborating how the self and self-functioning are an integral part of interpersonal experience and expression. A generic definition of adaptive interpersonal functioning is provided along with a demonstration of how CIIT can accommodate specific constructs and diagnoses using borderline personality disorder and narcissism as examples.

This chapter will examine how intentionality shapes the intimate life of people affected by narcissistic traits. Focusing on the notion of interaffectivity, the chapter will discuss the affectivity of people suffering from narcissistic traits through the lenses of passive, active and practical intentionality as expounded in Husserl’s work. I believe that the clarification of the narcissistic wound and its impact on the interaffective dynamics of daily life might help rehabilitation to a healthier life. Removing the “intentional blockage” that prevents them from exploring the content of their lived-experience would restore an interaffective space conducive to a more flourishing intimate life with their loved ones.

I scrutinize the common idea that Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) involves empathy deficits. I argue that empathy is foremost an epistemic mechanism, leading to different forms and levels of interpersonal understanding. Interactive difficulties can result in profound interpersonal misunderstanding, which leaves some people in persistent doubt about other people’s perspectives and about their own social standing. Such status blindness, as I will call it, can explain some specific symptoms of NPD. I introduce relevant conceptual distinctions, devise a complex map of empathy that describes four types and four features, and apply the map to NPD. Finally, I specifically discuss empathy deficits in being the target of the empathy of others.

This chapter overviews the characteristics and circumstances predisposing people to lead or join hate movements with a particular focus on the virulent anti-Semitism that united figures such as Father Charles Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh, and Henry Ford. By analyzing these figures and their followers, we extrapolate practices common among hate groups. After identifying character traits and risk factors (e.g., political and economic insecurity), we discuss their more modern manifestations. First we clarify our definition of hate groups as defined by the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Southern Poverty Law Center. We then extrapolate from these definitions to show how they align well with our definition of a cult. Following this, we acknowledge the challenges that accompany hate group designation while concluding that it is still vital for tracking modern-day hate groups and discrimination. We conclude by acknowledging the continued threat of hate groups and the presence of risk factors seen throughout history, such as global public health emergencies. We also discuss challenges unique to the technology age, such as epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. In summary, the chapter provides an outline of how hate groups come to be and provides a discussion of their continuing threat in society.

After the biological turn of the Fliess years, the key word in psychoanalysis is no longer “trauma” but “drive.” The ultimate cause of neurotic disorders is no longer to be found in an external accident but in internal, hereditary instincts that repeat, in a compulsive and reflex way, the history of life and the species. As a result, everything that was previously described in terms of neuro-physio-psychological conflicts (desire/defense, will/counter-will, repression/return of the repressed, etc.) is henceforth interpreted as expressing conflicts between biological drives: sexual drive (reproductive instinct)/ego drive (self-preservation instinct); object (erotic) libido/ego (narcissistic) libido; and finally, life drive/death drive, Eros/Thanatos. Freud’s metapsychology is a speculative metabiology.

This chapter provides an overview of current thinking regarding the supporting theory of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Rather than going through theoretical constructs in historical order of when each theory was proposed, they are presented as a composite of past and present thinking that the authors have found to be clinically relevant. It commences by describing theories on the early development of the infant and the creation of the internal world and object relations. The chapter them moves on to the issue of accommodating to the world as it is experienced by the infant, outlining circumstances leading to adaptive and less adaptive development. The chapter then outlines ‘core theory’ which covers more traditional psychodynamic concepts such as conflict, resistance, and defence mechanisms with an emphasis on projective identification. The role of this latter defence mechanism is linked with the theoretical constructs of transference and countertransference. There is a section on the narcissistic constellation in order to help the reader negotiate later sections in the book. Finally the chapter concludes with an introduction to theories as to how change is effected in psychodynamic psychotherapy.

A mentalizing framework for understanding narcissism is outlined, and the resulting modifications of basic mentalization-based treatment (MBT) for narcissistic personality disorder are discussed. Treatment of patients with pathological narcissism requires an emphasis on empathic validation and support of the vulnerable “I-mode.” The dangers of not recognizing low mentalizing in narcissistic functioning are also discussed, as both patient and clinician can fail to recognize pretend mode, which may masquerade as “we-mode.” Together the patient and the therapist may then set up a pretend therapy that can be interminable and that functions only to fuel the mental narcissistic structure. A clinical example of a patient in treatment is used to illustrate the process of treatment.

While scholarship and cultural commentary following Wallace’s death was laudatory, straying at times into the hagiographic, at a distance of over ten years, different currents in his legacy are emerging. As might be expected with the developing field of research into any author of such high profile, a second wave of more critical work followed that first wave of scholarship, grappling with problems and failures in the Wallace oeuvre once the work of establishing the field was complete. This exciting period in the growth of Wallace Studies focused particularly around Wallace’s treatment of gender and positions of racial and gender privilege occupied by his writing. This turn, which has enriched and enlivened the scholarly dialogue, anticipated by some years the resurgence of a conversation regarding Wallace’s personal behavior in relationships with women, but Wallace’s public reputation has also been deeply affected by this conversation. Picking up some of the themes identified in earlier chapters relating specifically to the writing, this chapter traces the development of Wallace’s critical and cultural legacy with reference to this confluence of conversations, discussing the emerging public imagination of Wallace as well as the evolving critical dialogue around the strengths and weaknesses of his work.