The Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper on Sunday, August 7th ran a column by Offra Gerstein, a psychologist who provides advice on "life and love" from her Santa Cruz office. Gerstein's column was titled, "What is a Narcissistic Personality Disorder?" Here is her list of the signs and signals:
• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance.
• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it.
• Exaggerating one’s achievements and talents.
• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.
• Believing that he/she is superior and can only be understood by or associating with equally special people.
• Requiring constant admiration.
• Having a sense of entitlement.
• Expecting special favors and unquestioned compliance with their expectations.
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want.
• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.
• Being envious of others and believing others envy you.
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner.
I can't help but think that the timing of Gerstein's column reflects our current politics, but in whatever context you may be called upon to deal with someone who diagnoses as NPD, here is Gerstein's bottom line evaluation:
There are no remedies, medications, treatments or procedures that are known to alleviate or correct manifestations of narcissism. Thus, all who relate to a narcissist cannot anticipate any improvements to occur in his/her behavior or attitude.
Image Credit:
http://thenarcissisticlife.com/narcissism-checklist-am-i-a-narcissist/
Actually, the clinical determination that there are no remedies for NPD is old thinking. There are, now, but it takes a very committed therapist with specialized knowledge, and the person with NPD needs to be unhappy enough to commit to therapy. This doesn't often occur.
ReplyDeleteThanks for adding this information to my comment!
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