Once you have been exposed to information about pathological narcissism, you begin to see narcissists everywhere. Your neighbors are narcissists. Your wife, of course, is a narcissist. Even your children are narcissists. Some people say that their dogs and cats are narcissists.
So, what's going on? Why this preponderance of narcissists suddenly?
My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, and I'm a professor of psychology.
And the reason you see narcissists everywhere is because you confuse people with narcissistic personality disorder with people who are only possessed of a narcissistic style.
The authoritative texts such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the fourth edition, surveys, population surveys and so and so forth, they agree that only between 1 and 2% of the general population, the population that is not in clinical settings, only 1 to 2% are or can be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder they are narcissists or they can be diagnosed with narcissistic personality only 1 to 2% not one 16th of the population as some self-styled experts would have it.
And yet, you all experience a different reality. You would tend to agree with the 16% claim, rather than with the 1.6% claim which appears in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.
Among alcoholics, the number is much higher, it's 6.2%.
I will dedicate a separate video to this issue of why do we keep seeing not seeing analysis everywhere I will give you five reasons five sources of confusion as to this hallucinatory delusional misperception. But this is a separate video.
I'm waiting for an interview that I granted to Marie Claire to be published, and then I will go ahead with my version of these topics.
But today I want to focus on one of the reasons, one of five of the reasons, that you see narcissists everywhere.
And as I've said, it's a confusion between narcissistic style, which is actually a variant of healthy narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder.
Now, rather than again quote myself, I would like today to read an extended section from the magisterial masterpiece written by Theodore Millon and Davis, titled Personality Disorders in Daily Life. I'm going to read a segment, section from the second edition.
And I hope that by the end of it, things will be a lot clearer.
You see, there's a continuum between healthy narcissism and pathological narcissism. It's a spectrum, but it is not a spectrum of narcissistic personality disorder. It's not a spectrum of pathological narcissism. It's a spectrum of healthy narcissism.
Pathological narcissism is not a spectrum. It's like pregnancy. Either you have it or you don't. Either you could be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, or you couldn't. There's no middle way, middle ground. There are no variants and species and levels of pathological narcissism. And anyone who claims otherwise is ignorant or a charlatan and usually both.
However, there is a spectrum of healthy narcissism as it bleeds into pathological narcissism, as it approximates asymptotically pathological narcissism.
And this is what Theodore Millon, one of the greatest minds in psychology, had to say in his book, which I will read you in a minute.
One last comment.
Many of you would say, the reason we underdiagnose narcissism in the general population, the reason we think there's only 2% of a population who are narcissists is because narcissists are reluctant to attend therapy.
We underdiagnose them because they are underrepresented in clinical settings. They don't attend therapy, they don't talk to diagnosticians, they think nothing's wrong with them, and so on and so forth.
Yes, this is true, of course.
But this is equally true for all other mental health issues. Mentally ill people are reluctant to attend therapy and to get diagnosed. Most of them think that nothing's wrong with them.
We have powerful statistical tools to correct for this bias and the figure of 1.6% which appears in the DSM is probably highly accurate.
With one caveat, women are underdiagnosed and underrepresented in the statistics and men are overdiagnosed and overrepresented in the statistics.
If we were to equalize these two population groups, these two cohorts, we would come to the correct figure.
The correct figure is anywhere between 1 and 2%.
Now let's see what Millon has to say about the spectrum of normal, healthy narcissism. It's a bit of a long segment, but Millon's work has been seminal in this field, and I would advise you strongly to listen to it with great attention.
Okay, Theodore Millon, Personality Disorders in Daily Life, Second Edition.
Although it has appeared across the globe and throughout history among the royal and the wealthy, the narcissistic personality seems to have gained prominence only in the late 20th century.
Narcissism may manifest differently in other cultures, he refers to work by Warren and Capone in 1995.
Our experience derives mainly from the more advantaged American middle and upper classes.
The international classification of diseases, the international equivalent of the DSM, does not include this personality disorder, indicating that its more American expression does not occur with frequency in other nations.
Instead, narcissism may be associated with higher level of Abraham Maslow's 1968 hierarchy of needs.
Individuals in disadvantaged nations must navigate the slings and arrows of disease and famine. They are too preoccupied with basic safety and survival needs and cannot afford the luxury of a passive existence where the riches of the world are in their eyes owed to them.
However, as basic survival needs become satisfied, the quest for self-actualization moves into the foreground, at times along with pathologies related to more extreme forms of that quest, including the narcissistic personality disorder.
Indeed, the risk is likely to be much lower in a collectivist society.
Many Western societies such as the United States stress individualism and self-gratification at the expense of community.
Moreover, the disorder seems more prevalent in professions that are unusually respected, including law, medicine and science, or those that boast celebrity status such as entertainment, sports and politics.
For most of us, our immediate impression is that narcissists are more likely to be male than female, Rienzi, 1995, perhaps because males are widely considered more exploiting and entitled, Tramp, Morph and Turner, 1998.
This personality style is unusual as a relationship between disordered narcissism and adaptiveness is less clear and less direct than with other personality disorders.
As with most personality styles, only a fine line separates normality from pathology, in this case, normal self-confidence, and an artificially inflated sense of self-worth.
On the other hand, because narcissism is intimately connected with self-regard, too little can be just as pathological as too much.
Deficient self-regard typically implies feelings of incompetence, ineffectiveness, unworthiness, and inferiority, whereas excessive self-regard implies feelings of superiority, arrogance, grandiosity, and lack of empathy for others.
Low self-regard can be paralyzing, if only because the individual hesitates to risk, what little self-regard remains. The smallest possibility of failure is interpreted as another chance to lose.
In contrast, individuals with an inflated self-regard may falsely believe that they can accomplish anything or that their accomplishments or contributions far exceed their true worth.
Overconfidence causes them to dismiss realistic risks as somehow inapplicable to them.
The relationship between self-regard and pathology thus resembles the letter U.
Being somewhat self-confident helps make you seem sociable and confident, but being too self-confident makes you seem arrogant and exploiting.
Those in the middle, the so-called healthy narcissists, should demonstrate social concern, an interpersonal empathy, a genuine trust in the ideas and feelings of others, and a willingness to acknowledge the personal role when problems occur.
Several normal range variants of the narcissistic style have been proposed, each built around some slightly different aspect of the total pattern.
Because our society often values narcissistic traits, Lash, 1978, you are likely to even find aspects of yourself in these brief portraits.
Individuals with a self-confidence style first proposed by Oldham and Morris in 1995, these individuals have a strong faith in themselves, believing that they are special, exceptional or even destined to do great things.
Many have a powerful vision of themselves as hero, conqueror or experts.
Most often they are frank about their ambition to realize their goals.
Often their enthusiasm and natural leadership create an aura that makes it easy to recruit others to the purpose.
Most aim high and enjoy the battle to succeed. They enjoy the vision of being on top of their game, at the top of their field or profession, though they are not above envying others who may be more accomplished.
Ever aware of their strengths, their equanimity is untouched by self-doubt. They expect others to acknowledge their specialness and treat them with respect, if not admiration. Sometimes they may show their temper when they are crossed or slighted.
Milan and others in 1994 described a similar, asserting pattern, though this style is more strongly competitive and self-assured.
Such individuals exhibit a sense of boldness that stems from an unwavering belief in their own talent and intelligence.
Ever ambitious, they naturally assume the role of leader, act decisively and expect others to recognize and defer to their superior abilities.
Beyond mere self-confidence, they are audacious, clever and persuasive, charming others to their cause at times however their self-regard may create a sense of entitlement the feeling that they are special and therefore entitled to special treatment beyond what is merited by their role or convention or by conventional social courtesies.
The normal range narcissistic style, can also be portrayed by examining normal variants of the pathological traits found in the DSM.
This is a work done by Lensperry in 1995.
The narcissistic personality exhibits a grandiose sense of self-regard, expecting their superior talent, ability and intelligence to be recognized even in the absence of commensurate performance.
In contrast, the narcissistic style is a healthy sense of self-esteem, based on genuine achievements, but one that may overestimate inherent talents and endowments.
Whereas the disordered individual is preoccupied with fantasies of almost infinite success, power, brilliance, beauty or accomplishment, those with the style project confidence rather than omnipotence, and they have more well-formed plans concerning how their goals can be achieved.
Whereas the disordered individual feels a sense of specialness and affiliates only with others who are likewise special, the person with narcissistic style simply prefers the company of talented others without feeling a strong contempt for individuals not similarly gifted.
Whereas a disordered person actively requires admiration and seeks to evoke displays of admiration from others, the person with narcissistic style gracefully accepts compliments and praise without excessive ego inflation.
For each of the preceding contrasts, there is an example in the book.
So I strongly recommend that you buy it and read it. It's an amazing introduction to personality disorders.
So it seems that we are, or at least self-styled experts are confusing narcissistic style with narcissistic disorder.
Narcissistic style is healthy. Narcissistic disorder is a disease, it's mental illness.
People with narcissistic style may be obnoxious, may be abrasive, may be arrogant, may even be bullying, and so on. They may display a pattern of reduced or diminished empathy, somewhat exploitative, and so on and so forth.
And therefore, most laymen and literally all self-style experts call them narcissists. They're not.
Similarly, people who have a dark personality, dark triad personality or dark tetral personality are not narcissists and they're not psychopaths.
Dark triad and dark tetral personalities are subclinical. These are people who cannot be diagnosed with a personality disorder because they don't have the requisite amalgamation of traits, behaviors and internal psychodynamics, internal psychological processes.
I'll come to it in this forthcoming video about how many narcissists are there.
What does Milan have to say about culture and narcissism?
Because what could be construed as narcissism in one culture would be utterly acceptable, even expected, and even admired in other cultures and societies. How can we tell the difference between pathology and a culture-bound syndrome, a syndrome that actually reflects cultural preferences and mores and norms?
Here is what Milan has to say.
How does narcissism differ in collectivist culture?
In short, Milan suggests in the wake of work by Caponi and Roland and many others, he suggested the locus of grandiosity of narcissists in individualistic societies such as the United States, the locus of grandiosity is in the individual. The individual attributes to itself greatness and all the accomplishments.
Whereas the locus of grandiosity in collectivist societies is the collective.
The narcissist in collectivist societies is the collective. The narcissist in collective societies feel aggrandized. He feels superior. He feels amazing and godlike and perfect and everything.
But he attributes all this to his belonging to a collective. He attributes his accomplishments, for example, to the support of the collective.
Let me read to you what Milan had to say.
I'm going to start with the second edition, and then there's been a section that has been omitted in the second edition, and I'm going to go to the first edition.
So it's a bit of a mix-up, but stay tuned.
Culture and narcissism. How does narcissism differ in collectivist cultures?
Because individualistic cultures value self-identity over group identity, pathological narcissism fits well in that cultural climate.
But how might it arise and be expressed in a collectivist society?
In an individualistic culture, the narcissist is God's gift to the world.
In a collectivist society, however, the narcissist is God's gift to the collective.
Because of this special status, the collectivist narcissist is granted privileges within the group, not generally available to other members.
For example, in 15th century Spain, a collectivist culture, first born males were regarded as Idalgos, literally sons of something, and stood to inherit the family's wealth. Sons born subsequently were known as Secondonis, literally the second ones. And because of the lower status in the family, they had to make their own fortune.
Not surprisingly, many Spanish conquistadors who came to the new world in search of their fortune were second sons.
Because the self develops in accordance with cultural patterns, you would expect different forms of the self to develop in different societies.
Roland in 1992 discusses the familial or we self more characteristic of collectivist societies and collectivist cultures. And this is contrasted with individualized or I self more characteristic of individual cultures, individualistic cultures.
In the United States, an individualistic society, of course the inner representation of the self emphasizes individuality and a self with outer boundaries and these outer boundaries are impermeable. Accordingly, individualistic narcissistic structures of self-regard are relatively self-contained and independent, according to Warren and Caponi 1995.
In collectivist cultures such as Japan, the development of the inner self involves intensely emotional intimacy relationships, symbiotic reciprocity, and ego boundaries that are permeable and accessible to those in the collective.
Accordingly, narcissistic configurations of the we self, the collectivist self, denote self-esteem, derived from strong identification with the reputation and honor of the family, groups and others in hierarchical relationships.
And now the segment that has been mysteriously omitted from the second edition. I'm reading from the first edition.
Moreover, how people speak about their accomplishments differs according to cultural orientation.
Individualistic cultures allow the individual to express high regard for their self and its accomplishments. One can thereby speak with candor about one's accomplishments, even about one's greatness in individualistic societies, according to Stone 1998. In predominantly Buddhist cultures, such as Japan, however, individuals are taught to express feelings that are exactly the opposite. Because Western narcissism stresses the exaltation of the self, personal accomplishment is usually attributed to the self alone. In collectivist cultures, however, personal accomplishment is attributed to the unwavering support of the group. When Japan's Babe Ruth, Saddharu Ohh, hit his 800th home run, he said in a manner typical of his culture, the following. Thanks to the good advice of my coach and to the encouragement of my teammates and fans, I was fortunate enough. So although there is an implicit recognition of one's role in the accomplishment, the outcome is attributed to the group, not to the individual. Some writers have come to characterize the type of narcissism prevalent in the United States as exhibitionistic narcissism, and that in Japan is closed-at narcissism, later came to be known as covert narcissism. I hope you enjoy it. Milan is one of my favorite writers, not only psychologists. He writes well, really well.
The book is personality disorders in daily life. There's a second edition. The differences between the first and the second, I possess both. And it's a flowing smooth read and a wealth of information about personality disorders the like of which I don't think there's any equivalent
another very good book is Lens Perry's book Lens Perry came up with the concept or construct of narcissistic style. Okay, enjoy the rest of the day if you can.