Neville Symington

Neville Symington is a member of the Middle Group of British Psychoanalysts which argues that the primary motivation of the child is object-seeking rather than drive gratification. He has published a number of books on psychoanalytic topics, and was President of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society from 1999 to 2002.

Life and career

Neville Symington was born in Portugal, and was a Catholic priest before becoming a psychoanalyst. He worked in England at the Tavistock Clinic, and the British Institute of Psycho-Analysis, before emigrating to Australia in 1986.

On narcissism

Symington is perhaps best known for his work on narcissism, which he considered to be the central psychopathology underlying all others. Symington introduced the concept of the 'lifegiver' as a kind of transitional object made up from the healthy part of the self combined with aspects of the motherer, and considered that narcissism emerged from the rejection of that object, and with it a sense of an authentically lived existence.