What was going on when I was born?

EMPTINESS By MAYA PINES AMERICAN psychoanalysts believe they are finding new ways to treat a large and possibly growing group of patients whose problems used to seem nearly insoluble to traditional analysis: the joyless men and women who cannot love anyone, but spend their lives desperately seeking admiration to counteract their feelings of inner emptiness. These people suffer from what is now being called a ''narcissistic personality disorder,'' which paradoxically involves self-hatred as well as self-love. They have a grandiose sense of self-importance or uniqueness, and react with rage or deep humiliation when their superiority is not recognized. The syndrome is being diagnosed with increasing frequency by analysts and other therapists. It is said to have its roots in the earliest years of life (even before the Oedipal conflict, which is a central part of Freudian theory) and therefore to require unusual approaches to therapy. By understanding it better, many analysts believe they are developing a powerful framework for dealing with a kind of unhappiness that, for reasons as yet unclear, seems especially prevalent today.

J.P. Morgan & Company's proposal to be the first bank holding company to trade in financial futures has encountered stiff opposition from some commodity brokers and dealers who fear that Morgan and other banks may lure away their customers. J.P. Morgan & Company, which owns the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, one of the nation's largest banks, has already set up a subsidiary to trade financial futures for the company's own account. The subsidiary, the Morgan Futures Corporation, was formed last May. The Federal Reserve Board is expected to rule soon on Morgan's proposal to trade financial futures for the bank's customers. If approved, Morgan Futures would act as a futures commission merchant - in effect, a broker - in futures contracts for bullion, foreign exchange and United States Government securities.

The Administration's chief economist said today that persistently high interest rates have jeopardized the prospects for a business recovery starting this spring and continuing through 1983 and beyond. ''These interest rates are affecting the timing, speed, strength and duration of the recovery,'' Murray L. Weidenbaum, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview. His comments apppeared to increase the possibility that the Administration would scale down its forecast in the revised budgetary outlook that the President must by law send to Congress in April. The almost certain implication of such a downward revision would be lower projected revenues for the fiscal year 1983, which starts Oct. 1, and thus a larger deficit.

International Differing views on Nicaragua were suggested by Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. He made public the proposals he presented Sunday to Mexico's Foreign Minister for settling problems with Nicaragua over El Salvador, but said he had no reason to assume they would be acceptable to the Sandinist leadership. (Page A1, Col. 6.) The leftist government of Nicaragua suspended all individual rights and guarantees for 30 days because of what it said were United States ''plans of aggression against our country.'' Dainel Ortega Saavedra of the ruling Sandinist junta said the suspension of rights might be extended ''in keeping with the prevailing circumstances in the country.'' (A1:5.)

Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. yesterday made public the proposals that he presented to the Mexican Foreign Minister Sunday for settling differences with Nicaragua over El Salvador. But Mr. Haig said there was no reason to assume they would be acceptable to the Sandinist leadership. The proposals amount to a package -previously offered to Nicaragua by the Administration - in which Nicaragua would receive United States protection against exile groups and perhaps get new economic aid if it ended its involvement in the Salvadoran guerrilla war. In the past Nicaragua has denied having a direct role in El Salvador and therefore has refused to give any commitment of noninvolvement there.

The engineer of the Long Island Rail Road train that smashed into a van and killed nine teen-agers at a grade-level crossing early Sunday in Mineola, L.I., said yesterday there was no way he could have stopped in time to avoid a collision. ''Between the time I saw him and the time I hit him no seconds passed,'' said the engineer, Thomas Cavanagh. ''I was right at the edge of the crossing. It happened right then. The kids came around the gate and I hit them.''

As the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries prepares to meet in Vienna on Friday, analysts are suggesting that the oncefeared alliance of oil-producing nations has lost its pre-eminent role in setting world oil prices, perhaps irretrievably. ''OPEC may be facing the biggest crisis since it won control of the world oil market,'' says Daniel Yergin, an energy expert at Harvard University. Others are even more emphatic. ''OPEC is 100 percent dead,'' William Brown of the Hudson Institute asserts. ''There's nothing to save them.''

The General Motors Corporation today asked the United Automobile Workers for concessions nearly identical to those the union recently granted to the Ford Motor Company. The union response to the company proposal, which would trade a wage freeze and loss of some benefits for greater job security and profit sharing, was generally positive. But union officials insisted on seeing specifics in the broadly written G.M. proposal before committing themselves. Some General Motors officials had let it be known before today's first bargaining session that they considered the Ford agreement, reached Feb. 13, not generous enough to meet G.M.'s idea of laborcost competiveness. The union had responded by telling the industry leader not to expect a better deal than Ford had received.

The National Steel Corporation, anticipating losses in the first quarter, said yesterday that it would cut wages and other employee benefits. National Steel, the nation's sixth-largest steel producer, would not disclose the size of its expected deficit. The steelmaker predicted in January that both its steel operations and the corporation as a whole would be unprofitable for the first quarter. The company earned $86.1 million in 1981, down from $83.8 million in 1980.

wide action? Frederick, a community less than 40 miles from Washington, has made a stab at finding answers at a time when it is generally agreed that public education is in serious trouble. The exercise was the outgrowth of a meeting last August in Colorado Springs, when the nation's 50 state education commissioners broke with tradition by inviting college presidents and deans from around the country to their annual summer institute. Their intent was to create a sense of common cause between the public schools and higher education. Out of that meeting emerged an agreement that public education would remain in jeopardy unless it could rely on a strong new coalition, not only with colleges but also with broad community forces. After attending the summer conference, Dr. Martha Church, the president of Hood College, a small women's school here, decided that Frederick should organize a day-long educational town meeting that might become a model for grass-roots coalition building.

''As long as I can cross the Potomac River and get out here with real people every once in a while, I'll keep the faith.'' - President Reagan, to Republicans in Montgomery, Ala. (A21:4.)

Felled power pylons, broken bridges and burned trucks mark the road between San Salvador and this city almost as regularly as the 136 white concrete roadside kilometer markers. The trail of debris offers evidence that the guerrillas have embarked on their promised campaign to disrupt the elections scheduled for two weeks from now. Conversations along the ravaged path, however, leave doubt as to whether the campaign is bringing support for their cause. Rebel commanders have called for ''insurrections'' to sabotage the March 28 election of a constituent assembly. But when guerrillas infiltrated parts of this city early Monday and occupied them for half a day, almost everyone stayed behind doors.