A TRANSPERSONAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE WORK ON NARCISSISM IN CLINICAL AND EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS

Among the skills that a psychotherapist, and any operator "psy" at large, should have is the ability to refrain from projecting his or her own unconscious contents or motives on the patient or the person whom he or she is facilitating. Among the contents that one tends to project outwards, the narcissistic ones are preponderant, which refer to nuclei of the self where one's resistances are still very strong and difficult to break up. Working on one's own narcissism is an ethical imperative for any professional involved in helping relationships, especially in the clinical context and in education. The lack of the archetypal father, which is the mark of wisdom and discrimination, is one of the main factors that afflict mankind today. The qualities of wisdom and discrimination are almost absent in our highly materialistic and narcissistic society. Materialism and narcissism are, in fact, two sides of same coin. In the integral model of Transpersonal Psychology, whose leading theorist is Ken Wilber, the American researcher of consciousness, and whose greatest representative in Italy is Laura Boggio Gilot, narcissism can be considered at various levels of severity and differentiation, corresponding to different levels of development or stages of consciousness. Narcissism has obviously clinical interest as a pathology, but is far more important for its consequences on human health when it manifests in the so-called psychopathology of normality, the often concealed pathology identified and studied by Abraham Maslow. According to the integral approach, overcoming narcissism means also evolve in consciousness. The integral model, when correctly applied, can provide practical help to those who want to evolve in consciousness, overcoming the narcissistic factors, which are rooted in pride and greed, evils that have always been highlighted in all authentic spiritual traditions. By uniting psychology and spirituality, the transpersonal model aims to contribute in creating a more conscious, ethical and communal humankind.