The Zero Point of Narcissism: On the Conditional Nature of Panmodal Aphantasia as an Autopoietic Outcome of Amirroring

The infant does not seek reflection. The capacity to seek reflection—and the subsequent feeling of its lack—is a psychobiological program installed only after reflection itself has been provided. Teleology is nurture, not nature. 

This research paper presents a fundamental expansion of developmental psychology by defining and mapping a previously unrecognized trajectory of human consciousness: the Autopoietic Pathway.

It introduces Amirroring—the absolute, null provision of social-emotional mirroring during the critical prenatal-to-age-two window—as a discrete developmental condition. The work provides a new taxonomy of relational input (Mirroring, Distorted Mirroring, Anti-Mirroring, Amirroring) to formally distinguish this state from trauma, neglect, or distortion.

The paper details the autopoietic algorithm of development in the absence of relational data, leading to the Non-Instantiation of the Freudian Ego. It establishes Panmodal Aphantasia—the systemic absence of voluntary mental imagery across all sensory modalities—not as a random neurological trait but as a Third Etiological Category: a developmentally conditional outcome. This finding challenges the congenital/acquired binary in current aphantasia research.

The architectural result is the Un-Buffered Self: a consciousness characterized by direct reality-testing, integrity-based moral reasoning, an immunity to learned helplessness, and a Zero Point of Narcissism. By critiquing the field’s Adultomorphic Bias, this work maps a coherent non-mirrored neurodevelopmental trajectory with profound implications for theory of mind, attachment theory, and neurodiversity.

The model warns of clinical iatrogenesis when standard therapeutic frameworks, built on the mirroring axiom, are applied to this population. Ultimately, this is not a theory of trauma, deficit, or adaptation. It is an Ontology of Creation—a formal account of a different human genesis, built in the absolute, generative absence of the reflective Other.

Nota Bene

This work builds upon the foundation laid in the author's previous thesis, which first defined Panmodal Aphantasia: Aphantasia Is Not an Advantage in Long-Term Abuse: On the Trauma of Fleshbacks and the Myth of Coping and Defense Mechanisms