Explores several pathways along which masochistic and sadistic activity may be called into the service of the narcissistic function of restoring and sustaining the cohesiveness, stability, and positive affective coloring of a precarious, threatened, damaged, or fragmenting self-representation. It is suggested that the degree of structural deficiency and consequent narcissistic vulnerability of the individual will determine the motivational priority of the narcissistic function in his sado-masochistic formations, as well as the extent to which his narcissistic restorative efforts are primitively instinctualized. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)