Talk:Malignant narcissism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Spectrum of Malignant Narcissism

The following was posted on my talk page, but I feel it is far more relevant here:

The reference used is Kernberg's essay "The Psychotherapeutic Management of Psychopathic, Narcissistic, and Paranoid Transferences", in which Kernberg treats Antisocial Personality Disorder, Malignant Narcissism, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder as being part of the same spectrum ("I now formulate, from a psychodynamic viewpoint, the characteristic structural aspects of the antisocial personality disorder, as well as of the entire spectrum of narcissistic pathology with antisocial behavior - rangind from narcissistic personality disorder proper, to the syndrome of malignanat narcissism, to the antisocial personality disorder proper"; "The antisocial personality disorder proper as defined here constitutes the most severe form of patholofical narcissism"; "The syndrome of malignanat narcissism is a somewhat less severe form of pathological narcissism"; "The next step in this continuum from most to lest severe psychopathology is the narcissistic personality disorder proper") and restores Cleckcley's concept of APD in opposition to the DSM's ("I am defining "the antisocial personality disorder proper" here in the sense of Robert Hare's and my own work, which reestablishes the direct connection with Cleckley's classical description, and avoids dilution of the concept of the antisocial personality disorder that has ocorred as a consequence os the DSM system").

However, I felt I should tweak the restoration to show clearly that this was Otto Kernberg's thinking, NOT an established, and acknowledged overall perception. Also, of course, to pop the reference there, as well, where it should have been all along. --Zeraeph 18:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should it be noted that...?

I'm a Psychology student at the moment, and after consulting with two different professors and the DSM, that I can find no existance of "Malignant Narcissism" as being official recognised as a disorder. I feel this should be noted on the page, and possibly looked into, for someone to prove that this is a recognised disorder in any society. --24.67.224.41 22:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Malignant narcissism is just an informal term for Narcissitic Personality Disorder, and should be merged with that entry. --75.166.216.148 (talk) 06:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Most of article seems to be Original Research. Mattisse 23:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

STRONG DISAGREE 346 hits - (from Scholar Google) http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22malignant+narcissism%22+-vaknin&num=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8 346 citations from professional literature - and not a single mention of Sam Vaknin.

Malignant narcissism has never been and is not now a formal or informal term for NPD. Narcissism is a subset of personality traits, apparently strongly correlated with genetics. Narcissism exists is ALL human beings, running from the least obvious to highly obvious (even obnoxious) presence. Narcissistic trait intensity presence incidence exists in a a bell-shaped curve. NPD is as the far extreme of narcissistic traits.

However, malignant narcissism goes much further, and while there have not been enough decades of psychoneurology research and psychology studies to show all of the exact brain differences that exist in malignant narcissism and paychopathy (which is NOT the same as AsPD), even what is available at this time strongly supports the parallels.

AsPD by the way is not a list of personality traits, but a list of violations of sociological and legal standards of behavior. The DSM is not hard science -- it is an attempt to classify different groups of person who may come to the attention of psychiatrists and specialties concerned with deviant behaviors. The DSM is, like I said, not hard science. It is strongly influenced by sociological and political pressures - aka the elimination of diagnoses that certain subgroups of society have agitated against --- such as the inclusion of homosexuality, and dependency and codependency.... and it will continue to mirror society until such time as enough HARD MEDICAL SCIENCE is accumulated to make all included diagnoses verifiable via biochemical analyses and precise radiographic studies (such as MRIsA).

There is a lot of hard science already accumulated that the frontal lobes of psychopaths and malignant narcissists are distinctively different than in normal human beings. It is as hard science as the fact that those suffering from Complex PSTD have significant shrinkage of two structures in the brain, one being vital in both emotions and learning. Also hard science is the fact that bipolar patients have distinctive brain structure differences, such as in the grey matter.

The DSM, as is the ICD the rest of the world uses, are ATTEMPTS by committees of psychiatrists decide what is pathological and what is not pathological (and, as I said, this is strongly influenced by cultural influences - not all societies agree with us, for instance, about many sets of behaviors). And when they decide what is pathological, the spend considerable time trying to decide what personality traits are most distinctively "unique" to this WORD/TERM they have selected for the book, then they decide how MANY of the items on this list must be PERSISTANTLY present to the degree that they make life very difficult for a given individual.

The DSM has two purposes - one is to help psychiatric workers all over the world have a basic grasp of what is meant when they come across a diagnostic term in a book or journal. Just as when we see the word "horse", we can distinguish it from "cow", "zebra", "mule" or "donkey". No matter where you live in the world, "horse" will always be understood to represent a particular species of animal. the DSM & ICD were created to produce a common VOCABULARY.

The seoond purpose of the DSM is to give the psychologist or psychiatrist a LABEL (paired with a number) to place on the bills sent to the insurance companies for payment. This is vital for each insurance company has charts that tell them WHAT KIND and HOW MUCH of treatment a particular diagnosis will be paid.

The current DSM is sadly badly out of date. Every year for the past 10 or more years, the proposed publication date for the new edition has been pushed further and further into the distance. They used to just add a year at a time. Last year, they finally admitted that the committee was facing several more years. Thankfully (and hopefully), this means that they are taking more and more research, both psychological and neurological studies, into consideration. Spotted Owl (talk) 19:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Feel I should also mention that not all professional published bookor psychiatric/psychology journals have been scanned and uploaded to the web. I have recently seen in the psychiatric topics, strong suggestions, bordering on demands, that sources not discoverable by google be strongly discounted and/or eliminated out of hand. Think this is something that should be discussed by those who oversee such issues.

Just my way of pointing out that Google Scholar is or even PubMed are NOT totally inclusive sources of what exists on various psychiatric/psychological topics. Spotted Owl (talk) 19:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Spotted Owl (talk) 19:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I cannot agree. The article clearly states that individuals with Malignant Narcissism can admire people whereas individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder aren't usually capable of admiring anyone but themselves from what I've read in the article. Furthermore I read a shocking news report today about an Austrian chap who raped his daughter. They say he might have suffered from a "power complex" but I don't know of any such disorder. Might he have suffered from Malignant Narcissism? It just doesn't strike me as the sort of thing a person with NPD would do. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 10:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Jupitor, I am quite confused as to what you do not agree with in the above prolonged discussion. And what article are you referring to?

A "power complex is one of the many possible criteria for the diagnosis of NPD, as well as being present in Malignant Narcissism. Power Complex is not a diagnosis, but a description of how one sees and comports themselves.

As to a parent who sexually violates his own child, male or female, is highly narcissistic as they are not capable of seeing anyone else as a 3-dimensional human being, but merely as a two-dimensional cartoon character without any emotions, needs or drives separate from such as person. The Malignant Narcissist does not "admire" the child. The child, from a psychiatric point of view, as an extension of the actual body, essence and being of the malignant narcissist, not a separately existing entity.

And to touch again upon the matter those with NPD having "admiration" of others. While there is envy and hate towards those who possess (or are feared to possess) more "whatever", there can certainly be a great SHOW of admiration towards those one is trying to impress, to convince to help advance the causes, to provide material and non-material assistance. Generally and specifically, the objective is to groom the subject towards becoming someone who will enhance the "admirer's" sense of self as being the superior of the "admired" person. The the formerly admired person is now working to cater to the manipulator, the task is now complete. Spotted Owl (talk) 09:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I was saying that I don't think Malignant Narcissism is the same as Narcissistic Personality Disorder, it's much worse. Malignant Narcissism is on a par with sociopathy whereas Hyacinth Bucket has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and she's not really a danger to society (well, not a serious one anyway). An example of a person with Malignant Narcissism however would be Sadam Hussein. Oh dear. Psychiatrists say there's a spectrum of mental instability. Psychopathy is at the top, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is toward the bottom and Malignant Narcissism is generally though to be around about the middle. The article I was referring to was the one on NPD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk • contribs) 12:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello again Jupiter. Thanks for clearing things up for me. Isn't this issue of labels such a mess? NPD only having been "recognized as a personality disorder" for a mere 30 years, it has only come to public prominence, widely seen in the lay press, and increasingly spoken of in sociopolitical and those who deal with criminals. Additionally, via primatology studies, genetic inheritance studies as well as radiographic imaging of the brain, NPD is the FIRST of all the personality disorders to come to such high-level prominence via hard science rather than continuing to rely solely on evidence based upon methods of child-rearing and an enhanced understanding of abuse, realizing that "loving too much" promotes serious adulthood dysfunction as much if not more so than physical, mental and verbal abuse.

As to "what lies where" along the continuum of narcissism, let me lead you thru some imagining something that is taught in statistics. Imagine a smoothly shaped hill, that begins its rise gradually to the left, reaches to a rounded top, then once again slowly descends, again trailing off til it reaches "ground level". This image is worked out on graph paper and it is called a Bell Curve. Some curves may climb and descend a bit higher, and some curves may have the uppermost portion a varying degree of being off-center. Let us consider the distribution of "wealth" among citizens of the US. The left hand portion of the bell curve will be very drawn out and very depressed in height over a considerable distance. Then the numbers of persons of greater wealth, the "middle class", would assume an upward rising bulge and would account for a far greater percentage of people than at either extreme. Then the bell would trail off rather rapidly since some 1% of all the US population possesses some 25% of all the wealth possessed in this country. This would be a lopsided bell-curve, but the incidence of human behaviors and characteristics tend to be more of what is called a Normal Bell Curve where there is a mostly smooth and symmetrical form with the highest incidence at or very near to 50%.

So what does this mean exactly? Well, let us take the very normal and healthy quality of Narcissism, present in every brain-intact, cognitively-functioning human being. Some persons have very little natural or acquired narcissism, and due to abuse and other averse life consequence, have had most of their natural narcissism physically or emotionally drained away from them. These persons would be represented at one extreme of the bell curve, meaning that not a lot of such persons exist, when measured in proportion of the total population. Next, you have the rapidly rising to the well over the top of the smoothly mounded bell curve that shows where the vast majority of persons exist in "how narcissistic are they?" The persons in this range do not have any severe dysfunctional pathology, tho many may show greater narcissistic behaviors in one area of their lives than the other.

Finally, as the the bell-curve extends out further and further, you have increasingly narcissistic persons who have increasing amounts of dysfunction in functioning effectively in at least one area of their lives. As the curve flattens out, some are paragons of virtue and admiration in their business or public service lives, but a monster behind the closed doors of home where the family functions like the enabling families of alcoholics, where "nothing is happening at home". These person would most likely be diagnosed with one or more personality disorders of the Cluster B, Axis II variety, and especially with NPD. At the furthest extreme of the narcissism bell curve, you will find the Malignant Narcissist, more commonly known as a psychopath (or, by others, as a sociopath. Those at this extreme end point of the curve have no empathy whatsoever for their victims, whether they be those directly targeted or simply "collateral damage".

While we are not so far along in neuro-psychiatry that medical science yet knows at what point the prominently noticeable brain structure differences begin, we do know they exist in those at the extreme end of narcissism, NPD and psychopathy (aka Malignant Narcissism per more and more professionals). We know a fair amount more about the brain differences in those at the other end of the Bell Curve - those with Borderline Personality Disorder, with Complex PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and those with disabling chronic depressive disorders than we know about the range of brain differences (be there any) among the persons who exist along the continuum - those human beings who make up at least 70-80% of people.

So when someone is diagnosed as having NPD, it DOES indicate a severe lack of empathy - the ability to see things from the other person's POV and an inability to even imagine the emotional components of those they hurt. Malignant Narcissism indicates the worst of the worst of those with NPD - absolutely no conscience, no empathy, totally manipulative, no shame. Spotted Owl (talk) 23:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments Spotted Owl, they're very interesting though I have to disagree with some of the above points. Psychopathy and sociopathy are two different things. Sociopathy is another word for Antisocial Personality Disorder which is corrolated with psychopathy but is actually a different thing. Sociopathy is an enviromentally acquired disorder whereas psychopathy is thought to be neurobiological. The diagnostic criteria are also somewhat different. Sociopathy is more characterised by lack of control over one's emotions whereas psychopathy is more to do with having no emotions or at least very shallow ones. Sociopaths are also as frequently self-loathing as narcissistic whereas psychopaths are innately narcissistic. Malignant Narcissism is also different although there is a corrolation between them. More or less all personality disorders are connected through direct or distant corrolations. Furthermore are you saying that all parents who violate their children (sick people) are narcissistic? --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What this topic needs

The term "Malignant Narcissism" has come a long way over the past 30+ years from the time Kernberg coined the term to delineate a distinct syndrome. What this article needs is not to be merged into another article and reduced to a short paragraph or two, but to be worked on a lot. Even at this stage, this article constitutes not much more than a stub. And I forgot to mention that political scientists have adopted the terminiology, in government as well as university settings, to help predict as well as understand various government leaders. Spotted Owl (talk) 19:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Until more information comes to light we should perhaps merge the article with Narcissism (psychology). If we're going to merge it into any article it should be that one. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 20:37, 5 June 2008 (UTC)