The Model of the Narcissistic Spectrum of Positions

This model proposes a new way of connecting fundamental phenomena which, until now, have remained scattered across distinct psychoanalytic and psychosomatic traditions. Its ethical stance is to bring these traditions into dialogue, without hierarchies and without competition: it aims to reweave what for a long time has been broken into separate theoretical languages. This model redefines narcissism as a universal biopsychic force, and not as a pathological property of extreme cases. The proposed Narcissistic Spectrum of Positions describes the dynamic ways in which all human beings regulate existence, relationship and vulnerability across the lifespan. Narcissism here is not an exception; it is the very form of being alive. This model presents primary narcissism as an embodied regulatory principle that emerges in utero from rhythm, interoception and bodily mediation, and not as a fantasy of omnipotence. In this way, a Mediator-Other Mechanism is formulated, in which the first experience of continuity of the self is co-created within the maternal body. The first “I” is a rhythmic organism, supported by another organism. This model develops an original re-interpretation of projective identification as the first form of communication, and not as a mere defensive evacuation. It is proposed as a presymbolic language through which bodies exchange emotional states and early meaning. Social and clinical breakdowns are read as versions of a contemporary Babel phenomenon—failures to hear and interpret this primitive language, rather than simple symptoms of chaos. This model highlights that the Narcissistic Spectrum offers clinical precision: each position corresponds to a particular way of using or distorting this primary communicative function. Cooperative narcissism is brought forward as the most mature evolution of this structure: the capacity to coexist in a shared internal space without erasing difference—connection without swallowing. This model offers a developmental bridge between fetal experience, attachment ruptures, psychosomatic deregulation and personality pathology, in the light of contemporary neuroscience on interoception, insular networks and autonomic regulation. This model recognizes that the very history of psychoanalysis has been marked by a form of splitting, a schism between Schools, theoretical camps and languages—a collective borderline position at the level of the field. The proposed Narcissistic Spectrum does not avoid this borderline position nor does it smooth it out; it names it as part of the spectrum itself and describes it as a way of organizing the bond with theory, with the founders and with the Other. In this way, theory does not reproduce the split, but makes it an object of clinical and scientific elaboration. Finally, this model functions as a psychoanalytic prism. It does not require faith in any Theoretical Father nor submission to any School. It stands alongside existing traditions—clarifying them, connecting them and extending them. By weaving together what has historically been torn apart—body and mind, drive and relationship, inside and outside—it offers a new organizational vantage point within psychoanalytic thought, without asking anyone to abandon their theoretical home. In this way, it shapes a new coherent understanding of narcissism as the biopsychic force of existence that runs through all human beings.