Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited

(faq page 66 cont.)

Speculative Diagnostic Criteria for Compensatory Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of self-inflation, pseudo-confidence, exhibitionism, and strivings for prestige, that compensates for feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, as indicated by the following:

• Pseudo-confidence compensating for an underlying condition of insecurity and feelings of helplessness;

• Pretentiousness, self-inflation;

• Exhibitionism in the pursuit of attention, recognition, and glory;

• Strivings for prestige to enhance self-esteem;

• Deceitfulness and manipulativeness in the service of maintaining feelings of superiority;

• Idealisation in relationships;

• Fragmentation of the self: feelings of emptiness and deadness;

• A proud, hubristic disposition;

• Hypochondriasis;

• Substance abuse;

• Self-destructiveness.

Compensatory Narcissistic Personality Disorder corresponds to Ernest Jones' narcissistic "God Complex", Annie Reich's "Compensatory Narcissism", Heinz Kohut's "Narcissistic Personality Disorder", and Theodore Millon's "Compensatory Narcissist".

Millon, Theodore, and Roger D. Davis. Disorders of Personality: DSM-IV and Beyond. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1996. 411-12.

Compare this to the classic type:

Narcissistic Personality Type

The basic trait of the Narcissistic Personality Type is a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

The Narcissistic Personality Type:

• Reacts to criticism with feelings of rage, shame, or humiliation;

• Is interpersonally exploitive: takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends;

• Has a grandiose sense of self-importance;

• Believes that his problems are unique and can be understood only by other special people;

• Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love;

• Has a sense of entitlement: an unreasonable expectation of especially favourable treatment;

• Requires much attention and admiration of others;

• Lacks empathy: fails to recognise and experience how others feel;

• Is preoccupied with feelings of envy.

This is mainly the DSM-III-R view. Pay attention to the not so subtle changes in the DSM-IV-TR – SV:

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [American Psychiatric Association. DSM-IV-TR, Washington, 2000] describes Narcissistic Personality Disorder as a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

• Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements);

• Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love;

• Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions);

• Requires excessive admiration;

• Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations;

• Is interpersonally exploitive, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends;

• Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognise or identify with the feelings and needs of others;

• Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her;

• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes.

Summarised from: American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR, Washington [2000]

The Inverted Narcissist

It is clear that there is, indeed, an hitherto neglected type of narcissist. It is the "self-effacing" or "introverted" narcissist. We call it the Inverted Narcissist (hereinafter: IN). Others call it "narcissist-codependent" or "N-magnet".

This is a narcissist who, in many respects, is the mirror image of the "classical" narcissist. No one is sure why. The psychodynamics of such a narcissist are not clear, nor are its developmental roots. Perhaps it is the product of an overweening Primary Object or caregiver. Perhaps excessive abuse leads to the repression of even the narcissistic and other defence mechanisms. Perhaps the parents suppress every manifestation of grandiosity (very common in early childhood) and of narcissism – so that the narcissistic defence mechanism is "inverted" and internalised in this unusual form.

These narcissists are self-effacing, sensitive, emotionally fragile, sometimes socially phobic. They derive all their self-esteem and sense of self-worth from the outside (others), are pathologically envious (a transformation of aggression), are likely to intermittently engage in aggressive/violent behaviours, are more emotionally labile than the classic narcissist, etc.

We can, therefore talk about three "basic" types of narcissists:

1. The offspring of neglecting parents – They resort to narcissism as the predominant object relation (with themselves as the exclusive object).

2. The offspring of doting or domineering parents (often narcissists themselves) – They internalised their parents' voices in the form of a sadistic, ideal, immature Superego and spend their lives trying to be perfect, omnipotent, omniscient and to be judged "a success" by these parent-images and their later representations (authority figures).

3. The offspring of abusive parents – They internalise the abusing, demeaning and contemptuous voices and spend their lives in an effort to elicit "counter-voices" from their human environment and thus to extract a modicum of self-esteem and sense of self-worth.

All three types exhibit recursive, recurrent and Sisyphean failures. Shielded by their defence mechanisms, they constantly gauge reality wrongly, their actions and reactions become more and more rigid and ossified and the damage inflicted by them on themselves and on others ever greater.

The narcissistic parent seems to employ a myriad of primitive defences in his dealings with his children. Splitting – idealising the child and devaluing him in cycles, which reflect the internal dynamics of the parent rather than anything the child does. Projective Identification – forcing the child into behaviours and traits, which reflect the parents' fears regarding himself or herself, his or her self-image and his or her self-worth. This is a particularly powerful and pernicious mechanism. If the narcissist parent fears his own deficiencies ("defects"), vulnerability, perceived weaknesses, susceptibility, gullibility, or emotions – he is likely to force the child to "feel" these rejected and (to him) repulsive emotions, to behave in ways strongly abhorred by the parent, to exhibit character traits the parent strongly rejects in himself.

The child, in a way, becomes the "trash bin" of the parents' inhibitions, fears, self-loathing, self-contempt, perceived lack of self-worth, sense of inadequacy, rejected traits, repressed emotions, failures and emotional reticence. Coupled with the parent's treatment of the child as the parent's extension, it serves to totally inhibit the psychological growth and emotional maturation of the child. The child becomes a reflection of the parent – a vessel through which the parent experiences and realises himself for better (hopes, aspirations, ambition, life goals) and for worse (weaknesses, "undesirable" emotions, "negative" traits). A host of other, simpler, defence mechanisms employed by the parent are likely to obscure the predominant use of projective identification: projection, displacement, intellectualisation, depersonalisation. Relationships between such parents and their progeny easily deteriorate to sexual or other modes of abuse because there are no functioning boundaries between them.

It seems that the child's reaction to a narcissistic parent can be either accommodation and assimilation or rejection.

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