Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited

(faq page 63)

Question:

In your writing, you seem to be very sceptical that the individual with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder can be treated successfully. Is that your position?

Answer:

No, it is the position of clinical psychologists (which I am NOT) who wrote about the subject. NPD has been recognised as a distinct mental disorder a little more than two decades ago. There is no one who can honestly claim expertise or even in-depth understanding of this complex condition. My writings are limited to its phenomenology. I deal very briefly (and unconvincingly) with its aetiology (and I follow in this the object-relations school of psychodynamics for want of a better "explanation"). So, no one knows whether therapy works. What IS known is that therapists find narcissists repulsive, overbearing and unnerving. It is also known that narcissists try to co-opt, idolize, or humiliate the therapist.

To a narcissist, I would recommend a functional approach, perhaps along the following lines:

1. Know and accept thyself. This is what you are. You are highly intelligent. You are very inquisitive. You are a narcissist. These are facts. Narcissism is an adaptive mechanism. It is dysfunctional – but it saved you from a LOT MORE dysfunction or even non-function. Make a list: what does it mean to be a narcissist in your specific case? What are your typical behaviour patterns? Which types of behaviour are counterproductive, irritating, self-defeating or self-destructive? Which are productive, constructive and should be enhanced DESPITE their pathological origin?

2. Decide to suppress the first and to promote the latter. Construct lists of self-punishments, negative feedback and negative reinforcements. Impose them upon yourself when you exhibit one of the behaviours in the first list. Make a list of prizes, little indulgences, positive feedbacks and positive reinforcements. Use them to reward yourself when you display a behaviour of the second kind.

3. Keep doing this with the express intent of conditioning yourself. Be objective, predictable and just in the administration of both punishments and awards, positive reinforcements and feedback and negative ones. Learn to trust your "inner court". Constrain the sadistic, immature and ideal parts of your personality (known as Superego in psychoanalytic parlance) by the application of a uniform codex, a set of immutable and invariably applied rules.

4. Once sufficiently conditioned, monitor yourself incessantly. Narcissism is sneaky and it possesses all your resources because it is you. Your disorder is intelligent because you are. Beware and never lose control. With time this onerous regime will become a second habit and supplant the narcissistic (pathological) superstructure.

You might have noticed that all the above can be amply summed by suggesting to you to become your own parent. This is what parents do and the process is called "education" or "socialisation". If your path to the adoption of this course is a particular therapy – go ahead. As a metaphor, a narrative, no therapeutic approach is better or worse than any other.

top | continued | table of contents

home | about me | narcissism defined | faq | narcissism list excerpts
the book | book excerpts | articles | email me