In the recent shocking incident at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, Akash, a 23-year old student armed with a gun, axe and knife furiously attacked the object of his ‘love’, the young woman who battled in the hospital for many days for life. The young man with a promising future is dead, having consumed poison after the brutal attack. The more comforting course is to read the incident as isolated – the work of a ‘psychopath’. However, it is the link between the ‘normal’ and the ‘pathological’: the teasing apart of the dynamics at play in ‘love’ and attempts to unravel the possible sources of the rage which can point towards steps which could be taken to prevent situations from escalating to points of no return.
Another incident this week on the same campus, of 24-year-old Abhinandan trying to throttle and push a young woman in front of a moving vehicle reifies the need for such enquiry.
The popularity of legends like Laila-Majnun epitomizing ‘love’, folk tales like Kissa Tota-Maina (The Story of the Parrot and the Starling) and staple Bollywood cinema, one of the most recent being Raanjhana offer us insights into notions which shape the outlook towards love in our society. The story of Laila- Majnun is of being entranced and bewitched at first sight. Love here is not about getting to know each other, sharing interests, likes and dislikes. It is routine for young men to stalk women they are attracted to, perceiving the action to be reciprocal. Likewise, it is not unknown for ‘boys’ to have ‘girl-friends’ to whom they may have never spoken, but are ready to beat up other boys who may dare to talk to her. The tremendously popular Kissa Tota-Maina, printed on cheap paper and found on pavements all over Hindi speaking India, is a series of ‘love stories’ focusing on the unfaithfulness of women. The offerings of Bollywood pulling at our heart-strings and deeply impacting notions of love are legion. Lata-Rafi’s ‘tum meri ho mere siva kisi ki nahi’ (You are mine and belong to no one but me) and Mukesh’s ‘tum agar mujkho na chaho to koi baat nahi, tum kisa aur ko chahogi to mushkil hogi’ (it’s ok if don’t want me, but it will create difficulties if you want anyone else) epitomize the dominant sentiment of possessive love.
Akash’s suicide note says –‘She used me, I am feeling cheated …..and I am going to resort to an extreme step because of that.’ In the case of Abhinandan the extreme behavior took the shape of trying to kill the woman he purportedly ‘loved’. The twenty year old woman reports ‘he would be furious if he found me with friends or in a meeting. I had to answer him for every move I made, even if I was just going to the library’. We just have to look at the extreme behavior of Majnun, the cultural ideal of glorious ‘love’: ‘He was in rags and looked wilder each day …from far people would point at him and said: ‘There goes Majnun the madman, the crazy one..’. The picture is of Majnun roaming the deserts, clothes torn to shreds on thorns!
Furious rage may often be a reaction to a deep narcissistic injury – a perceived threat to the entire sense of self-worth and for undoing a hurt by whatever means. Freud’s (1914) remarks on love are pointers to the link between the ‘normal’ and the ‘pathological’: “Loving in itself, is in so far as it involves longing and deprivation, lowers self-regard” (p. 99). It is an attempt to turn from a passive sense of victimization to an active role. Incoherent and unjust rage appears to the narcissist as rage directed towards the person who has slighted them. Kohut (1972) observes “The ego, furthermore, increasingly surrenders its reasoning capacity to the task of rationalizing the persisting insistence on the limitlessness of the power of the grandiose self: it does not acknowledge the inherent limitations of the power of the self, but attributes its failures and weaknesses to the malevolence and corruption of the uncooperative archaic object” (p. 657).
It is in a sense being stuck in the groove of and replay of primary infantile narcissism, the self love which we have as infants, we split off the bad parts which cause distress and project on to the other – ‘the doll is bad’ . Freud (1914) observes “The subject’s narcissism makes its appearance displaced on this new ideal ego, which like the infantile ego, finds itself possessed of every perfection that is of value….What he projects before him as his ideal is the substitute for the lost narcissism of his childhood in which he was his own ideal” (p. 94).
As we grow older we acknowledge the good and bad parts of ourselves, learn to tolerate distress and frustration and develop a healthy narcissism with a sturdy self-esteem and a love of self which sets us free to love others. On the other hand, a person with severe narcissistic traits sees the ‘other’ as a mere screen for one’s own projections. In the Kleinian paranoid-schizoid paradigm an integration of the bad and the good leading to a shift in primary concern from the survival of the self to a concern for the object does not take place. The yearning is for an unconditional love where the ‘chosen’ partner will give them perfect love and make up for all the hurts and slights of their life.
A narcissist not wanting to feel bad inside builds defenses such as denial and a strong need to be right. This in turn prevents the person from taking responsibility for actions instead of blaming the other, learning from mistakes and growing up. Others then become for us, not partners in a caring relationship, but ways of providing pieces of self. Freud (1921) observes “It is even obvious, in many forms of love-choice, that the object serves as a substitute for some unattained ego ideal of our own” (p. 112). Most adults realize unconditional love would be comforting, but understand that it rarely happens as people we love usually hold us accountable for our actions in some way. As we should be – no one should be allowed to impose their neediness and bad behavior on others.
The brutal incident at JNU should serve as a wakeup call to offer psychotherapeutic and counseling services in colleges and universities in India. As Kohut (1972) expresses it “We shall then be able, as can be observed in the systematic therapeutic analysis of narcissistic personality disturbances, to transform our archaic grandiosity and exhibitionism into realistic self-esteem and into pleasure with ourselves, and with our yearning to be one with the omnipotent self object into the socially useful, adaptive and joyful capacity to be enthusiastic and admire the great after whose lives, deeds and personalities we can permit ourselves to model our own” (p. 620). Therapy initiates a process of acknowledging our grandiose self, of taking back the bad parts of oneself, rather than projecting on to the other, to understand the defenses at work, to tolerate uncomfortable emotional states and to move towards achieving more satisfying and balanced relationships with others.
Freud S (1914). On Narcissism: An Introduction. Standard Edition XIV.
Freud, S (1921). Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Standard Edition XVIII.
Kohut, H (1972). The Search for the Self, Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950-1978, Volume 2 Edited by Paul H. Ornstein. Karnac 2011
