A quick debunking of two myths, misinformation and items of disinformation, propagated, emanated and disseminated by numerous self-styled experts with and without academic degrees, all manner of coaches and their dogs.
Okay, my name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, and a professor of clinical psychology with expertise in Cluster B personality disorders.
So here are the two nonsensical myths propagated online.
Number one, that's a difference between male and female narcissists.
No, there isn't.
There is no difference in etiology, causation, what led to the emergence of pathological narcissism. There's no difference in psychodynamics, the internal processes in the male and the female narcissists.
There is, however, some difference in behaviors, in manifest behaviors.
But these differences between male and female narcissists are utterly culture-bound.
In other words, they are totally influenced by the prevailing culture and the society the narcissist lives in.
In certain societies, women are expected to behave in highly specific ways. In other societies, men and women are more egalitarian.
Whatever the case may be, culture and society influence gender roles, the way men and women behave, even when they are totally healthy. They don't have to be narcissists.
But as far as psychology goes, no, there is no difference between male and female narcissists.
I can prove it to you easily.
The text in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and in the ICD, the international classification of diseases, the text is gender neutral.
The text does not make a distinction between men and women and then in the fifth edition text revision of the diagnostic and statistical manual the text even says that half of all narcissists are women which leaves the other half to be men or wannabe men.
Okay, myth, nonsensical myth.
Number two, narcissism is on a spectrum.
No, it is not.
Narcissistic traits are on a spectrum. Narcissistic behaviors may be on a spectrum.
And there is a difference between narcissistic style and narcissistic personality disorder.
But there is no spectrum, there is no continuum of narcissistic personality disorder.
It's like pregnancy. Either you have it or you don't have it. There's nothing in between.
It is true that there are all kinds of types of people with narcissistic personality disorder. For example, malignant narcissism is a comorbidity of narcissistic personality disorder with psychopathy and sadism.
But the pure diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder is a binary one. It's an either or yes or no, splitting in its best.
So when it comes to narcissistic personality disorder, there is no spectrum, there is no continuum, there's no high-grade narcissists, low-grade narcissists, it's all complete, unmitigated nonsense.
Narcissistic style and narcissistic disorder. These are the only distinctions we recognize in academic literature.
And academic literature, I'm sorry to inform you, is what counts, not your anecdotal nonsense.
And similarly, there's a question of spectrum in mental health disorders and this is intimately connected to the topic of today's video.
Let me clarify something. Narcissistic personality disorder is like pregnancy, either you have it or you don't. Last time I checked. There's not such thing as a spectrum of narcissistic personality disorder.
However, the traits of pathological narcissism, they are known as domain traits. These are on a spectrum.
How antagonistic the person is. Lack of empathy, and anankastia, in other words, obsessivecompulsive behaviors. All these are on a spectrum.
But traits are not the same as the disorder. You could have many of these traits and not be diagnosed as a narcissist.
So the numbers of actual narcissists, people diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder or people who could have been diagnosed had they attended therapy, these numbers are very low.
The ignorant statements, the nonsensical statements that one in six people are narcissists, well they're just that, ignorant nonsense. The numbers are very low.
And there is a spectrum of traits, some of which are common to narcissism and many other mental health disorders.
For example, grandiosity is common to narcissism, anti-social personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, paranoid personality disorder, always share the trait of grandiosity, and grandiosity is indeed on a spectrum.
Remember this, traits are on a spectrum. Disorders are not, disorders are also not gender specific. There is no psychodynamic or psychological difference or clinical difference between a male narcissist and a female narcissist.
Self-styled experts online are corrupting the profession out of profound ignorance.
And I'm referring to self-styled experts with and without academic degrees.
So we make a distinction between subclinical versus clinical.
In other words, people who can be diagnosed, and they are clinically diagnosable, and people who cannot be diagnosed, and are clinically diagnosable and people who cannot be diagnosed and they are subclinical.
And we make a distinction between disorder and style. For example, a malignant narcissist is a person who can be diagnosed, is diagnosed with narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, and sadism.
But someone with a dark tetrad personality is someone who has narcissistic traits but cannot be diagnosed as a narcissist, has psychopathic traits but cannot be diagnosed as a psychopath, has sadistic traits but cannot be diagnosed with sadism and is also Machiavellian, which is common to many mental health disorders.
So when we discuss behaviors and traits, we can definitely introduce the idea of spectrum.
When we discuss diagnosis, when we discuss disorders, when we discuss mental illness, there is no spectrum.
Either there is a diagnosis or there isn't. It's a binary state.
It's similar, the situation is similar with boundaries.