Mentoring: Narcissistic Fantasies and Oedipal Realities

Abstract

This article examines the literature on mentoring from a psychoanalytic perspective. Two common contrasting experiences of mentoring, harmony between a protege and a perfect mentor, and sexuality and aggressive conflict between the protege and mentor, are typically successive stages in mentoring relationships. These stages resemble infantile narcissism and the Oedipus complex. In successful mentoring, these experiences are followed by the protege's internalization of the mentor's values and growing autonomy, as the protege moves from largely unconscious fantasies about the mentor toward increasingly realistic understanding of and action in the organization. A successful mentoring relationship apparently requires the protege to undergo a regression in the service of ego interests in career advancement. This "rebirth" entails returning to narcissism and working through an Oedipus-like relationship with the mentor before moving into a latency concern with work skills and developing an independent identity.