Abstract
Anders Heger’s biography “Et diktet liv” of the controversial norwegian author Agnar Mykle came in for a good deal of criticism over the intimate descriptions of Mykle’s personality. Heger was accused for moralizing about Mykle’s egocentric behaviour and megalomania, and that the biography is a project of reductionism that creates an aversion to Mykle and his works. My assertion is that the extreme personality traits of Mykle, who satisfies the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder (DSM-IV), triggers immediate and unconscious psychological reactions, in psychiatric practice known as transferences, that emerge during the reading of the biography. If this is not considered in the subsequent process of interpretation, there is a great risk that important aspects of Mykle’s life, thoughts and actions could be misunderstood, and false conclusions about his mental state could be drawn. The purpose of this analysis is to explain Mykle’s exaggerated view of his own importance and power through the use of Heinz Kohut’s theory of the self (psychoanalytic selfpsychology).
This analysis of Agnar Mykle shows that Heger’s portrait of him describes the continuity in the development of the grandiose self into the massive megalomania of his adult life. This megalomania is expressed in his arrogant behaviour, assumed entitlement to grandiosity, the selfishness and the exploitive use of others primarily to meet his own needs and desires. In Kohut’s theory his desperate search for power and attention is considered as a psychological mechanism for compensating an incoherent and vulnerable self. The theory emphasizes the parent’s functions as necessary regulators, modulators and protectors of the child’s self-esteem, and Mykle’s retention of the primitive grandiose impulses in the adult is considered as a developmental pathology of the self that is in part a result of lack of empathic responsiveness from his parents. Kohut’s theory adds increased coherence and insight into the grandiose dimension of Agnar Mykle, and the analysis shows that this is continual part of his personality and not a reflection of episodic madness.