The subject of Narcissism is extremely im portant in the modern analytical explanation of the mental disease paranoia. In this disease, which is characterized by a systematized suspi cion and delusion of persecution, the subject takes unconsciously and crystallizes the atti tude expressed by Narcissism. The process of mental development which shows how vitally important in the usual development of the psyche is the next and last step to adulthood, may be outlined somewhat as follows: The various phases of the situation have been illus trated by the development of the implications of the simple statement *I love him,* supposing, for the sake of illustration, that the subject eI* is a male. If the idea represented by the sen tence is followed out in real life, there results a more or less veiled homosexuality and the lack of adaptation of the individual to external reality is not so great as if the idea 'II love him' is completely repressed into the unconscious. The idea °I love him* in the ego of a male, how ever, particularly if thus repressed, is always in evitably transformed, by virtue of the prin ciple of ambivalence into III hate him,* and the inference from that is readily made to 'He hates me,* which is the basis on which this type of paranoid trend is built. Men
who have this buried homosexuality in their unconscious are helpless without analysis, be cause they do not know of the existence of it and can never find it themselves. Therefore persons who are unduly suspicious of those around them have frequently the germ of a very serious mental disease, the cure of which requires a very special technique and the pre vention of which would be of the utmost im portance. Narcissism is thus seen to be an unconscious subjective homosexuality, differing from other forms of autoerotism in being ap plicable only to the whole individuality instead of to parts of it, and by reason of its total applicability being the cause of the tendencies which, when allowed to become extreme, lead to paranoia or paranoid states, as well as to alcoholism and various drug addictions. Con sult Jelliffe and White, 'Diseases of the Hu man System) (1917).