The Drama of the Gifted Child (The Search for the True Self)

Foreword
"If a fool throws a stone into the water," goes an old saying,
"even a hundred sages can't bring it back." Here we
have a perfect reflection of the despair of the bright in the
face of stupidity. But an ingenuous child, who still thinks
in pictures, might ask: "Isn't the world full of stones—so
why should a hundred clever people try so hard to get back
this one? Why don't they look around? If they do, they
might find all kinds of new treasures they can't see because
they are so busy searching in vain in the water!"
This may well be the case with the word "narcissism."
The word has become part of everyday speech to such an
extent, and perhaps more than any other scientific term,
that it is difficult today to rescue it for scientific use.
The more sincerely the psychoanalytic profession toils for
a deeper understanding of the concept of "narcissism,"
and to elucidate and define it for scientific use, the more
the word attracts people to use it in everyday speech. The
result of all this is such multiplicity of meanings that it is
difficult to use the word now to define a precise psychoanalytic
concept.
Now narcissism, the ambiguous noun, can be used, according
to one's preference and need, to project a variety
of meanings: a condition, a stage of development, a character
trait, an illness. Yet, when used in its adverbial and adjectival
forms, the word becomes more precise; for then it
is possible to achieve some degree of complementary clarxvii