What Is NPD?

"NPD" stands for "narcissistic personality disorder." It is not mere "narcissism" in the usual sense of the word. To distinguish it from that, the term "malignant narcissism" has been coined for NPD.

Narcissism is usually defined as self-love. Usually the term bears the negative connotation of excessive self-love (whatever that is), due to inflated self-esteem. This can happen when fame or fortune goes to person's head. The result is self-infatuation rather than a healthy self-love — something more akin to self-worship, a sense of entitlement, an exaggerated sense of self-importance, delusions of grandeur.

Yet even this "excessive" narcissism, as unlikable and inconsiderate as it may be, isn't what we're talking about here. It isn't malignant. It isn't a personality disorder. It isn't even a character disorder. It's just a personality trait.

Malignant narcissism is perverted self-love. A malignant narcissist doesn't just exalt himself: he tears down others as a way to seem to exalt himself.

Tearing down others harms them, either materially or morally or both ways.

Since tearing down others harms them — and for no natural or even real motive (i.e., self-defense, retaliation, or competition for the last loaf of bread on earth) — this desire to bring others low is a desire to harm them. That is NOT goodwill; it is ill will, malevolence = pure, unadulterated malice.

Sorry, there's just no getting around that fact.

Therefore, the flip-side of the malignant narcissist's malignant self-love is malice toward others, a desire to malign them, humiliate them, bring them low, degrade them. Therein lies the malignance. At its core is pathological envy.

NPD is legally classified as a character disorder, and many authorities agree — disputing its classification as a personality disorder. But the (American) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR, a handbook mental health professionals use to diagnose mental disorders) lists it as a personality disorder.

The difference between a narcissistic personality and a narcissistically disordered personality may not be evident to the casual observer, but a chasm lies between narcissism and malignant narcissism, because the difference is the difference between good will and ill will.

The superficial similarity is due to malignant narcissism being a psychological complex. Complex comes from the Latin word that means "folded back upon itself" or "played backwards." Like an inferiority complex, which is an ingrained sense of inferiority "played backwards" to come off as a superiority act. The superiority act is just "playing Pretend." It's put on to compensate for the sense of inferiority, to remain in denial of it.

Malignant narcissists have an inferiority complex. So, their narcissism is a compensatory egomania. It is caused by shame and is low esteem in disguise. Quite the opposite of someone who just has a big head.

Is a narcissist aware of his true feelings about himself? That's a moot point. The mind can repress knowledge and feelings to the subconscious level. But those subconscious thoughts and feelings drive behavior nonetheless. What's more, the experiences of daily life constantly call them to consciousness on us by "reminding" us of them.

So, when a person wants to remain in denial about something, he or she must (a) act out a contrary fantasy and (b) keep distracted with trivia that couldn't possibly remind them of what they wish to unknow. The more forcefully they act out their contrary fantasy (the more ridiculously it flies in the face of reality), the harder they're trying to keep the repressed truth buried in the subconscious by these exertions.

So, is a narcissist aware of his true feelings about himself? At some unwanted moments of self-awareness yes, but most of the time no. Nonetheless, at all times, those true feelings about himself are what's driving his behavior. And that superficial act he hides them behind is just that — nothing but an act, a hollow act.

That underlying shame and self-loathing is what makes a malignant narcissist malignant. His or her pathological envy is born of shame, shame narcissists scrape off themselves and smear on others.

In other words, narcissists try to transfer the pain of their shame to you. As though they can rub it off on you. And, again, the desire to shame/humiliate others is malevolence.

No amount of intellectualizing to fog that truth in fuzzy abstractions changes that fact.

Therefore, whereas narcissistic-but-normal people have big heads, malignant narcissists actually think little of themselves. They have no self-confidence. They don't think they can win fair and square. They don't think they can achieve anything or live up to moral standards. They have no self-respect, despite their elaborate play-acting to the contrary. In fact, the thicker they put it on, the less they think of themselves.

Consider the consequences of these attitudes:
- The malignant narcissist has indelibly stamped into his brain the impression that he is somehow defective, a reject, a kind of Quasimodo. So, throughout his life he finds himself surrounded in a world of people who aren't.
- Since narcissists don't think they can measure-up the legitimate way — through effort and excellence — they must cheat. That is, to be greater than others, they don't strive to be: they just tear their betters down.
- Their lack of self-respect is even more damning. Because of it, nothing is beneath them. No lie is too mean to tell. No trick is too lowdown, dirty, and rotten to play. Things you or I couldn't stoop to, because sinking to that level would make us feel as though we are wallowing naked on our bellies in sewage, narcissists glory in like mud-wallowing hogs. Ironic, isn't it? that such deep, unbearable shame makes one shameless? But it does.
- So, your malignant narcissist has the mentality of a rapist. Quasimodo fixes his world (one in which everyone else puts him to shame) by tearing them down off their pedestals... to make them less than him. The bizarre preferred choice of victim highlights the motive. The quickest way to draw the evil eye of a narcissist is to shine in any way. He will hate you for that like a rapist hates a twelve-year-old girl for being pure. Like a pedophile hates a child for being innocent. I knew of a narcissist ordered to remain flat on his back before surgery for an aneurysm: he gave nothing but bloodcurdling looks of hatred to everyone who came to see him, simply for being well and able to stand on their feet!
- This is why every malignant narcissist has two middle names: one is "Abuser" and the other is "Slanderer."

A mere (non-malignant) narcissist isn't like that. He is just someone with a big head. Fame and fortune have probably gone to his head. So, he may be arrogant and haughty, but he doesn't go around tearing people down off pedestals by slandering and calumniating others to make himself look better than them. Or by raping them for being purer than him. A mere narcissist may be obnoxious and disappointing, but he is not a predator hostile to the happiness, well being, and success of others. Hurting people doesn't make him feel good. He has human feelings and can form human relationships. He loves his own children at least and wouldn't dream of hurting them. A malignant narcissist is far different.

So, don't confuse NPD (malignant narcissism) with what people usually mean when they say someone is "narcissistic." Despite the superficial similarities, there's a world of difference! One is benign; the other is malignant.
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Classification & Diagnosis

Mental illnesses are classed in a bewildering and unscientific scheme that one hopes is more useful to psychiatrists than it is to us. We tend to view them as distinct diseases. We assume that they are organized by severity or by shared characteristics that progress. For example, we class animals as mammals, amphibians, or reptiles by shared characteristics that organize them into an evolutionary progression.

But mental illnesses are not best viewed as discreet diseases. They are clinically observed behaviors that analysts have discerned groups and patterns in. Psychology has far to go in sorting them out, and the nature of mental illness makes that hard, if not impossible.

In fact, the classification of mental illness today is, frankly, a mess. For example, if you are homosexual, one day you were mentally ill, and the next day you were not. But, since you smoke cigarettes, you now have a new mental illness instead. And look out, because obesity and anger are on the list.

In its first edition (1952) The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) listed 107 mental disorders. By the fourth edition (1994), they have more than tripled the number to 365.

For details, see Making Us Crazy by Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk or the review of their book by Dr. Ken Livingstone, from which I quote:
The reader of this book comes away with a powerful sense of psychiatry as a profession out of control. Cut off from what ought to be its roots in the basic research community, and at the mercy of the strongest political factions of the moment, psychiatry endlessly expands the range of its diagnostic categories until most ordinary people can be fit into at least one DSM category. Thus does psychiatry seem to be in the business, as the authors contend, of making us all crazy.

Therefore, a healthy dose of skepticism toward this pseudoscience that dabbles in social engineering is in order. Indeed, in return for all the tax dollars spent on it, it has established neither a cause nor a cure for even one of the "diseases" it claims exist.

Mental illness is viewed as occurring on different levels: that of a mental disorder and that of a personality disorder

A mental disorder is simply being in a state of mental disorder = having a disordered mind. It needn't be a permanent state of mind and may run its course to healing. This is the most common disease, by far, in the world.

Just as we can contribute to our own illness in other diseases, we can contribute to our own mental disorder. We can do this by willfully believing lies. For example, denial of reality, projection, make-believe, phoniness, unknowing, calling things what they ain't, wishful thinking, anti-logic, whistling in the dark, acting out charades, and all the mental tricks people play, and all the little games people play are lies. When a person lies to himself (friends don't lie to friends), he is being his own worst enemy and sabotaging his own mind.

Now don't go counting that as an excuse to blame the victim. It's just a fact we can use to resist falling prey to mental disease, like the facts we use to resist falling prey to heart disease.

But we must never jump to the conclusion that the patient is to blame. The great majority of people lie to themselves every day, so no one is fit to cast the first stone. And, people lie to themselves for a reason. They do it as a defense mechanism. Usually in reaction to some form of mental abuse, either by individuals or by social groups. The pressure exerted on a mind is often so great that we can't blame a person at all for succumbing to it. Especially as a child.

So, just as people get other diseases through no fault of their own, they often acquire mental disorder through no fault of their own. In fact, mental illness can be purely biological and therefore nobody's fault. So, if you're looking for excuses to congratulate yourself on being better than "these people," look somewhere else.

Types of Mental Disorders:
• Childhood Disorders
• Eating Disorders
• Anxiety Disorders
• Cognitive Disorders
• Mood Disorders
• Sleep Disorders
• Substance-Related Disorders
• Psychotic Disorders

The Personality Disorders:
• Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Avoidant Personality Disorder
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Dependent Personality Disorder
• Histrionic Personality Disorder
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
• Paranoid Personality Disorder
• Schizoid Personality Disorder
• Schizoid Personality Disorder
• Schizotypal Personality Disorder
All these personality disorders run together around the edges, and neither a cause nor a cure has been established for any of them.

A personality disorder runs deeper than a mental disorder. So, to the doctor, personality disorders are more severe, because they are harder to treat. To us, psychosis (a mental disorder) is the most severe, because of the trail of death and destruction it leaves in its wake. From yet another perspective, the patient's, mental illnesses that impair the mind most are the most severe (such as dementia, autism, schizophrenia).

Since personality disorders run deep, they can be the root of a mental disorder. In fact, people suffering from personality disorders usually have one or more mental disorders. When they present for treatment, it is usually for a mental disorder. So, doctors are supposed to check for an underlying personality disorder.

Unfortunately, with NPD, doctors usually treat only for the mental disorder, which is often substance abuse and/or depression. That's partly because the very nature of NPD is to make itself as impregnable to "head shrinking" as the gates of Nether Hell were to Dante and Virgil. It's also partly because the substance abuse and depression are viewed as more immediate threats.

Moreover (and perhaps more telling), many therapists complain that the way their narcissistic patients treat them makes them really mad. So, when the narcissist is dried out and feels grand again, he's gone, before his doctor has begun dealing with the underlying personality disorder.

Good riddance?

If therapists dislike an hour with a narcissist so much, how would they like to live or work with one? What about the Hypocratic Oath? Does this "no harm?" I dare say that giving no treatment would do less harm. Only a Narcissistic Crisis (signaled by severe substance abuse and depression) can make a narcissist get real. Wasting this precious opportunity by ending the crisis without addressing the disorder just enables a narcissist to continue his Magical Thinking.

And what about the narcissist's victims? many of whom will need therapy themselves, as well as other social services, because of his disorder? What about the people narcissists drive all the way to suicide? Have psychiatrists no regard for the innocent? Do government and health insurance companies have any idea how much this "collateral damage" costs them?
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Examples of Mental Disorders

Anxiety Disorders:
• Acute Stress Disorder
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
• Panic Disorder (panic attacks)
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Separation Anxiety Disorder
• Social Phobia (irrational fear of embarrassment)
• Specific Phobia (other specific irrational fears)
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Cognitive Disorders:
• Delirium
• Dementia
• Amnestic Disorder (amnesia)
• Autistic Disorder
• Psychotic Disorders
• Brief Psychotic Disorder
• Delusional Disorder
• Schizophrenia
• Mood Disorders
• Bipolar Disorder
• Major Depressive Disorder

Childhood Disorders:
• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
• Conduct Disorder (the Antisocial Personality Disorder of Childhood)
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder (not just in children)

Eating Disorders:
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Bulimia Nervosa.
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Personality Disorders

Personality disorders are extreme and rigid extensions of personality traits. For example, NPD is an extreme and rigid extension of narcissism. It's due to a consistently distorted fundamental pattern of thinking.

Previously, I gave an example of how a distorted fundamental pattern of thinking extends into widely different situations: the rapist hates the twelve-year-old girl for being purer than him; the pedophile priest hates the altar boy for being more innocent than him; and the man flat on his back in the hospital hates his visitors for being well and on their feet. It's the same warped thinking pattern underlying each perversion.

Due to this consistently distorted way of thinking, a personality disorder not only affects the patient's behavior, it also affects his experiences. For example, a narcissist experiences pleading for his affection or compassion as an attack.

Yes! as an attack. By pleading for his affection or compassion you are attacking his grandiose image, you see. How? Because a bug like you insult God Almighty by expecting him to treat you as worthy of his regard. You are acting as his equal, and doing so is an insult to God Almighty, attacking his delusion of grandeur.

So, shame on you! Quit "attacking God" = you must act like a bug, beneath God Almighty's notice.

But, of course, you have to be twisted to experience a plea for your affection or compassion as an attack. And that's what people with personality disorders are, twisted by their delusions. So, don't ever assume that they feel the same way about something that a normal person would.

If you drill deeper into the psyche, you can see that a personality disorder affects:
· Cognition (knowing) — ways of perceiving and interpreting oneself, other people, and events (fidelity to the truth and reality).
· Affectivity (emotion) — the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response to things.
· Interpersonal Relations
· Impulsivity (self-control)

Here I note that affects may not be the best word. If you say that a personality disorder affects these things, you imply that the disease is a "thing" and that it acts on the diseased person. These effects may be willful, however. The personality disordered person may willfully distort their thinking and have been doing so since childhood. Consequently, the perverted thinking patterns are a habit, so they seem like a knee-jerk reflex but are actually voluntary behavior. Similarly, the emotional abnormalities may be due to willful and even strategic pumping up or suppressing of emotional states. The impulsivity may simply be a refusal to grow up.

The experiences and behaviors of a personality disorder also form a pattern. An extremely inflexible pattern that originates in adolescence or childhood. So, unlike the symptoms of mental disorders, which may come and go and vary in intensity over time, the symptoms of a personality disorder form an enduring pattern. A pervasive one too, one that impacts a broad range of personal and social situations through a consistently distorted way of thinking, expressing emotions, controlling behavior, and interacting with others.

This is not to say that all people with a personality disorder are severely affected by it. A narcissist, for example, may be as mildly (and hilariously) affected as Hyacinth in the British comedy Keeping Up Appearances or as severely affected as Ted Bundy.

My own experience leads me to believe that narcissists get worse with age and opportunity. In other words, the more they get away with, the further they push the envelope. The worst I personally know of was a school administrator with unlimited/unsupervised power who left a vast trail of human wreckage in his wake. One therefore wonders about men like Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, and Saddam Hussein: They did such openly horrendous things because they weren't just businessmen or factory workers, because people raised them to positions of absolute power = because they could get away with anything and had to prove it.

Abnormal Psychology: Chapter 12 - Personality Disorders by Nietzel, Speltz, McCauly, and Bernstein (PDF, 595 KB).
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Legal Classification

The picture is further clouded by legal issues. Usually a defendant with a personality disorder can use that as a defense. But not in the case of NPD (in the United States). This is because a narcissist's behavior is premeditated and volitional.

How do we know this? Because she is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. She often goes to much trouble to pick out and set up a victim first. She attacks only the vulnerable and only on the sly. Then she steps out the door, mocking the world with an ironic angel-face that portrays her as the very opposite of what she is. For example, if she has beaten someone, she will project an image of herself as exceptionally gentle and abhorred by violence.

That's the damning evidence: covering up something proves that you know it's wrong. And you don't get off on a mental plea when you know that what you're doing is wrong.

Furthermore, a narcissist's calculated, predatory behavior is often diabolical. For example, he behaves anti-narcissistically when courting a woman, idealizing her and showering attentions on her. Then, when the honeymoon is over and he has cunningly distanced her from her family, he immediately begins treating her like dirt.

He is not responsible for the feelings inside that drive him to such conduct. But that conduct itself shows that he can control it: if he could control it before the honeymoon was over, he can control it afterward too. This proof that he can control his conduct is proof that he is absolutely responsible for it.

So U.S. law classes NPD as a character disorder, which is no defense.

You may hear some narcissists defending themselves by saying that NPD is just a personality disorder, not a character disorder. They are mistaken. One cannot confuse the doctor's office with the courtroom and just pick which label he or she prefers.
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Characteristics of NPD

NPD belongs to a class of personality disorders known as Cluster B, the "dramatic/emotional/erratic" personality disorders. This class includes Histrionic, Borderline, and Antisocial personality disorders.

The most heavily researched personality disorders are two in this group, borderline and antisocial personality disorder. That's because people with these disorders appear for treatment in large numbers. Borderlines are often forced into treatment because of socially disruptive behavior. Antisocials commit 40% of the violent crimes people are imprisoned for, and these people are evaluated by court order, then forced into treatment.

Current epidemiological research permits no reliable estimate of how prevalent NPD is in society.

Officially, the principal characteristics of NPD are:
• Inflated self-esteem (i.e., puffed-up self-esteem, actually compensatory for low esteem)
• Lack of empathy for others
• Feeling entitled to special treatment and privileges
• Disagreeableness

That says nothing about the all-consuming need for ALL available attention that bears fruit in these character traits.

As for their own fruit: "psychopathic tendencies are conceptualized as being on a continuum with narcissism, with both involving a motivation to dominate, humiliate, and manipulate others." (Handbook of Psychopathy, by Christopher J. Patrick, p. 162).

Since the real world conflicts with their view of themselves, narcissists live in a fantasy world of their own creation. This is like the fantasy world little children live in. If you think way back to your earliest memories, you can barely remember what this fantasy world was like. Imagine it persisting into adulthood! Little children are the stars of their fantasies and are preoccupied with them. Imagine an adult with that going on in her or his head!

Like the fantasies of little children, these fantasies aggrandize the narcissist's importance, service, and accomplishments. (This is a child's way of coping with being so small and faulty and insignificant in a world of giants.) Their version of their participation in any endeavor leaves everyone else out of the picture. In fact, they may even drive another out of a picture to have the spotlight all to themselves.

The NPD illusion of superiority is a facet of a generalized disdain for reality. These individuals feel unconstrained by rules, customs, limits, and discipline. Their world is filled with self-fiction in which conflicts are dismissed, failures redeemed, and self-pride is effortlessly maintained. They easily devise plausible reasons to justify self-centered and inconsiderate behavior. Their memories of past relationships are often illusory and changing. If rationalizations and self-deception fail, individuals with NPD are vulnerable to dejection, shame, and a sense of emptiness. Then they have little recourse other than fantasy. They have an uninhibited imagination and engage in self-glorifying fantasies. What is unmanageable through fantasy is repressed and kept from awareness. As they consistently devalue others, they do not question the correctness of their own beliefs; they assume that others are wrong. The characteristic difficulties of individuals with NPD almost all stem from their lack of solid contact with reality. If the false image of self becomes substantive enough, their thinking will become peculiar and deviant. Then their defensive maneuvers become increasingly transparent to others (Millon & Davis, 1996, pp. 405-423).
— Sharon C. Ekleberry, Dual Diagnosis and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A fantasy, of course, is a lie. One must constantly lie to oneself to maintain a fantasy.

A preference for fantasy over Truth is natural in little children. What magic thinking a lie and then believing it does!

Magical thinking is natural in little children, too.

In a young child's view, it is very possible that it rains because the sky is sad. If your baby brother gets sick and goes to the hospital, it could be your fault if you were mad at him the day before. If you want something very, very badly and it happens, then your wanting caused it to happen.

These are examples of magical thinking.

They are also examples of egocentric thinking — not that the young child is selfish. It's just that he cannot take anyone else's perspective, so that everything in the world revolves around him. When he's sad, he cries. So, it must be that the sky does, too.

(An egocentric child, on seeing his father upset, hands him his favorite teddy bear. This act shows that the child is not selfish. He is offering the thing that he finds most comforting. He cannot imagine that his father would not have the same feelings.)

The preoperational [preschool] child's understanding starts and stops with what he sees. Logical rules (operations) do not yet come into play.
— Dr. Benjamin Spock

But children learn by experience. Adults, when behaving neurotically, revert to childishness and magical thinking, even though they know better. They just choose to unknow that mind has no power over matter and that, therefore, altering their perceptions does not alter truth and reality. Hence magical thinking in adults manifests itself as a strong belief in make-believe = that believing a thing makes its so.

You can find examples of this in the daily newspaper. For instance, in politics there is an element persistently stating known falsehoods as if shouting their lies loud enough and repeating them often enough to silence all contradiction makes their fiction fact. The best you can get from them is an allowance that there may be such a thing as "your truth" and "my truth," but many of these wing-nuts will argue with you till the cows come home that the moon is made of green cheese for you if you choose to believe that it is.

You can see the advantage in magical thinking and egocentric thinking: magical thinking makes you omnipotent, and egocentric thinking makes you all-important! Despite the temptation to cling to these childish errors, normal children do choose to leave Never Never Land at the proverbial Age of Reason, even though as adults they may revert to childish magical thinking about some things.

Narcissists are Peter Pans who stubbornly refuse to ever leave Never Never Land. Since they thus lie to themselves constantly, malignant narcissists are pathological liars who lie to everyone else too. And since the purpose of their egocentric thinking is to feel all-important, their egocentric thinking becomes wholly selfish, willfully and wantonly selfish.

Their sense of entitlement proceeds from these fantasies, these delusions of importance and grandeur. It exempts narcissists from rules that apply to others. Just as a baby is exempt from the rules that apply to others. This sense of entitlement is common among the high and mighty who view themselves as superior: because they are higher than the rest of us they need a lower set of standards to live up to. (Their upside-down logic, not mine.)

But notice that a sense of self-importance and grandeur is also a characteristic of little children. In fact, it's common behavior in the young of all higher animals. It's adaptive. Nature has made the young of every species cute and lovable = attractive to their parents. Nature has programmed the young of every species to clamor for attention and to behave as though their needs are the most important thing in the world. It's easy to see why Nature has done this.

Hence, the parents of every species later must unspoil and wean their young, giving them an unceremonious shove out of the nest. In human development, this is likely to be countered by the child with temper tantrums. But eventually the child's concept of personhood takes shape and he sees advantages in leaving Never Never Land. The child likes having more control concerning himself and getting to make some of his own choices like a big boy. So, he will accept a commensurate amount of responsibility and will respect others as persons in their own right, with needs and rights of their own that he must respect.

This is what psychiatrists are talking about when they say that every child goes through a narcissistic stage of development. Unfortunately, narcissists never get through it.

Narcissists are prone to rage when others don't behave in a way that echoes or reflects their grand specialness. In other words, at the drop of a hat.

Sometimes this is a seething rage, sometimes a violent one. Rage is a primitive emotion, common in little children during a temper tantrum but rare in adults.

Adults normally experience rage only in extreme situations like combat or when under attack by the severe abuse of some willful and wanton outrage. Even then, adults rarely let 'er rip. Like absolute dictators, narcissists feel no need to restrain themselves — unless the coast isn't clear and they might get a bad reputation or land in jail.

In other words, they are as irresponsible as children are, too: the only reign on their behavior is what they think they can get away with.

Nothing is so aggrandizing as power. Hence, narcissists are control freaks. In fact, being a control freak is so at-the-heart of malignant narcissism that it is a red flag of NPD.

It takes much less power to exert negative control than positive control, so narcissists flatter themselves about how powerful they are by being infuriatingly negative. Like Katharina (the shrew) in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, narcissists cross people and disagree at every turn to exert control through gratuitous obstructionism. They play Keep Away with things others want. In short, they deal in power plays.

Notice how much this too is like the behavior of little children. Adults constantly have to keep them from controlling and bossing around littler children, often treating a littler child like an object (e.g., like a doll to dress up and play with). Children also frequently show no interest in a toy until they see that another child wants to play with it. Then suddenly that toy is the most important thing in the world, something to fight over, to keep away from that other child who wanted it.

To feel their power, they domineer. They manipulate (to control people like mere objects, tools). They humiliate.

Whenever they can get away with it, they boss people around to a ridiculous degree by issuing arbitrary and pointless orders, such as to sit in a different chair or to clean a different room first. Always testing boundaries, they learn at a young age the art of "shock and awe" in using a sudden temper tantrum to blind-side and run over a playmate.

Since power used to bash and destroy is spectacular, and power used to defend or build isn't so much fun, they prefer to bash and destroy. They get a big charge — almost erotic pleasure it seems — out of bashing and destroying, because of the power rush they get.

Besides, it takes much less power to destroy something than it did to make it. So, like terrorists, they pretend that if they knock down something someone else made, they are as mighty as the builders.

Not.

The bad news is that narcissists view other people as objects to be powerful on. So, they have as much regard for others' feelings as we do for a nail we are hitting with a hammer. Which is why they have no compunctions about exploiting people.

Narcissists are not the only people who have no empathy/humanity though. Neither do psychopaths. And neither do infants or toddlers, who will abuse smaller children and animals on a whim with nothing but keen interest in the victim's suffering. In fact, all people can revert to this mental state by turning off their human sensibilities like a light switch.

The resulting mental state is known as brutality, the unfeeling state of mind that a brute beast has, like a predator. In fact, the word brutality is the opposite of humanity.

Brutality isn't always a bad thing, so this ability to turn off our human sensibilities is adaptive. One could hardly clean a fish without this ability. It enables us to function in ordeals such as combat or natural disaster. How could a doctor commit surgery, a dentist an extraction, or anyone mouth-to-mouth resuscitation without a little brutality? What about people who have had to do terrible things, such as amputate a limb, to rescue someone from a heap of rubble?

Unfortunately, however, this mental state of brutality also enables us to watch a lynching or a burning at the stake or the Holocaust in a brutish state of mind.

Psychopaths and other narcissists are unique in that they have that light switch permanently turned off for everyone but themselves. And I mean "everyone," even their own children.

In fact, they don't know what humanity is. They think it's having hurt feelings. Since their feelings are easily hurt, they think they have humanity. Which would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

It's beyond them to realize that an animal (i.e., a brute beast) has hurtable feelings and that humanity is having human feeling for other beings, especially other human beings.

They do try to pass for normal. It is well documented that they often (badly) imitate the normal human feelings they see in others by putting on melodramatic shows of "concern" and "sympathy" that are so overdone one sometimes wonders if it is parody. For example, at a funeral they don't know how they should feel, so they watch other people, trying to mimic their expressions of emotion.

That said, I am not convinced that narcissists can have no empathy. I think that they won't have empathy.

I say that because I have known some shockingly brutal narcissists for a long time and have observed a couple things that could have been expressions of true feeling and, in one case, a search for feeling that the narcissist wanted to believe she had. Not that I think it was genuine: I just don't know what to think about these events. It could have been mockery. A narcissist's lines are characteristically vague, duplicitous and can have double meaning.

My best guess is that narcissists view feelings as weakness and vulnerability. They think everyone is a predator like they are, so they armor themselves by repressing their feelings (and conscience) and refusing to empathize — throwing the switch into Brutal Mode. They must do this with the same willful and obdurate stubbornness they do everything else, compulsively.

How long can one do this before it becomes a habit? perhaps even a conditioned reflex? In any case, it's like Brutal Mode is their default setting. They must be so used to it that they wonder why the rest of us feel and emote the way we do.

Anything repressed can surface to consciousness, however. But if it does, you can bet that your narcissist won't tolerate it there: he or she will bury it in the subconscious again immediately.

Since no one but the narcissist is worthy of any attention/regard in his version of the world, the narcissist hates it when reality intrudes on this delusion. He is typified by the wicked queen on the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" Like her, the narcissist is consumed with pathological envy. He projects this distressing emotion off onto the one he envies. That is, he fantasizes that the victim envies him. That gives the narcissist all the excuse he needs to "protect" himself by attacking.

Malignant narcissists are troubled little children in adult bodies. We normally think of little children as sweet and innocent. But, when you think twice, you realize that it's a good thing they're so small, inexperienced, and controllable. (See Now We Are Six by Joanna Ashmun.) Indeed, it is often (and truly) said that the most terrible thing in the world is a grown up child. Take these malignant narcissists for example: Adolph Hitler, Nero, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin. Power without conscience or accountability.

So, if you are dealing with a malignant narcissist, never forget for a moment that you are dealing with a mind that works exactly as a little child's does. A mind as impulsive as a little child's is. A mind as irresponsible as a little child's is. Reason and morality will have no more influence on it than they have on a little child's mind.
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Diagnostic Criteria

The official diagnostic criteria are of limited value to the lay person, because they but encapsulate reams of medical doctrine.

"[NPD is] a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), 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:
1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. 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)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes."

The narcissist strives to maintain and protect his concocted self-image at all cost. The pathological narcissistic syndrome may be likened to a wheel in which the grandiose false self is the hub, to which are affixed spokes. The spokes have a specific purpose, which is to maintain, protect, and sustain the "hub" of the grandiose false self. Attributes 3-9 of the DSM-IV checklist constitute some of the spokes.

To begin with, the pathological narcissist uses people as tools of self-aggrandizement to affirm and maintain his false self -- others are used for a perverse kind of "mirroring" to reflect the narcissist's ostentatious self-regard. This accounts for why the narcissist "requires excessive admiration" (DSM-IV attribute 4), seeks to associate with "special or high-status people or institutions" (DSM-IV attribute 3), and is "interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends" (DSM-IV attribute 6). Like a vampire who must feed on others' blood in order to live, the narcissist basks in the admiration, love, approval, and compliments he elicits from others. If the other person ceases to provide him with "narcissistic supply," he no longer has much use for that person and the relationship will markedly cool, if not end altogether.

To lure people into his web, the skillful narcissist puts on an attractive social mask. The narcissist not only has a counterfeit self-image, he literally dons a false façade of physical appearance and demeanor. He can be charming, gracious, and socially adept. He must also be a consummate actor, skilled at simulating the whole range of human emotions, especially those of love and kindness. The more successful he is at simulation, the greater the circle of friends and acquaintances who can be his primary and secondary feeding sources.
— Maria Chang, A Study in Evil

Features associated with NPD are:
• Depressed Mood
• Dramatic/Erratic/Antisocial Personality

See also: Narcissistic personality disorder in The Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, from which I quote:
Most observers regard grandiosity as the most important single trait of a narcissistic personality. It is important to note that grandiosity implies more than boasting or prideful display as such—it signifies self-aggrandizement that is not borne out by reality. For example, a person who claims that he or she was the most valuable player on a college athletic team may be telling the truth about their undergraduate sports record. Their claim may be bad manners but is not grandiosity. On the other hand, someone who makes the same claim but had an undistinguished record or never even made the team is being grandiose. Grandiosity in NPD is related to some of the diagnostic criteria listed by DSM-IV-TR, such as demanding special favors from others or choosing friends and associates on the basis of prestige and high status rather than personal qualities. In addition, grandiosity complicates diagnostic assessment of narcissists because it frequently leads to lying and misrepresentation of one's past history and present accomplishments.

Other symptoms of NPD include:
• a history of intense but short-term relationships with others; inability to make or sustain genuinely intimate relationships
• a tendency to be attracted to leadership or high-profile positions or occupations
• a pattern of alternating between unrealistic idealization of others and equally unrealistic devaluation of them
• assessment of others in terms of usefulness
• a need to be the center of attention or admiration in a working group or social situation
• hypersensitivity to criticism, however mild, or rejection from others
• an unstable view of the self that fluctuates between extremes of self-praise and self-contempt
• preoccupation with outward appearance, "image," or public opinion rather than inner reality
• painful emotions based on shame (dislike of who one is) rather than guilt (regret for what one has done)

The European description of NPD differs in some particulars from the American one.

It is a small step from malignantly narcissistic behavior to the aggressive-sadistic behavior of a psychopath. In fact, many authorities on the subject view narcissistic personality disorder as a "milder" form of psychopathy. Perhaps the root of it. They also believe that those severely affected are prone to psychotic breaks.

Yet even those mildly affected are not harmless. Consider what hilarious Hyacinth on the British comedy Keeping Up Appearances does to the lives of those around her. She makes her husband dreary, her son pathetic, and her next-door neighbor a nervous wreck. Not really so funny.
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Are NPD and Psychopathy the Same?

There's increasing debate about whether narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy are the same thing. Though I don't know enough to be sure, the more I learn about psychopathy, the more I find it indistinguishable from NPD.

We know from the research that psychopaths have a core, aggressive narcissism that is fundamental to their personality. If you remove that narcissism, you don't have a psychopath.
— forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy, author of The Psychopathic Mind, as quoted in Hollow Men: Ted Bundy Discusses Possession.

I think you may find a continuum of pathology among those with these disorders. But different disorders? No difference has been established.

Indeed, follows The Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R). How much do you see here that doesn't fit a malignant narcissist to a "T"?

Factor (cluster) 1: Aggressive narcissism
• Glibness/superficial charm
• Grandiose sense of self-worth
• Pathological lying
• Conning/manipulative
• Lack of remorse or guilt
• Shallow affect
• Callous/lack of empathy
• Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
• Promiscuous sexual behavior

Factor (cluster) 2: Socially deviant lifestyle
• Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
• Parasitic lifestyle
• Poor behavioral control
• Lack of realistic, long-term goals
• Impulsivity
• Irresponsibility
• Juvenile delinquency
• Early behavior problems
• Many short-term marital relationships
• Revocation of conditional release
• Criminal versatility

Not much there that doesn't fit the narcissist to a "T," I'm afraid. And when you remove the three items included to make this checklist diagnostic for the prison population, you see virtually no clear difference between psychopathy and malignant narcissism.

One cluster [factor] appeared to be defined largely by aggressive behaviors, the other combined with items from the narcissistic personality disorder. "This [latter] cluster was named psychopathic, because the inclusions of the exploitative narcissistic personality features and the removal of the overly aggressive antisocial aspects creates a syndrome reminiscent of the older psychopathic concept" (Morey, 1998, p. 319).
— Handbook of Psychopathy, by Christopher J. Patrick (p. 162)

Of the traits listed under "aggressive narcissism," only "promiscuous sexual behavior" is merely common among aggressive narcissists and not an actual manifestation of aggressive narcissism. Similarly, of the traits listed under "socially deviant lifestyle," only "many short marital relationships" and "criminal versatility" are merely common among antisocials but not an actual manifestation of Antisocial Personality Disorder.

A person is scored on each of these 20 items with a score of 0, 1, or 2.
0 = item doesn't apply
1 = item somewhat applies
2 = item definitely applies
A normal person scores 3-5. A score of 25-30 or more (out of a possible 40) is used to diagnose psychopathy.

Narcissistic personality disorder has a theoretical and clinical literature that is quite independent of PCL-R studies of psychopathy (Cooper, 1998; Gunderson, Ronningstam, & Smith, 1991; Hare, 1991, 1998; Kernberg, 1970). Nevertheless, psychodynamic views of narcissism do suggest common features (Gacoma, Meloy, & Berg, 1992; Kernberg, 1998; Perry & Cooper, 1989). Antisocial and psychopathic tendencies are conceptualized as being on a continuum with narcissism, with both involving a motivation to dominate, humiliate, and manipulate others. As noted by Stone (1993), "all commenters on psychopathy . . . allude to the attribute of [pathological] narcissism—whether under the rubric of egocentricity, self-indulgence, or some similar term" (p. 292). He went so far as to suggest that "all psychopathic persons are at the same time narcissistic persons" (Stone, 1993, p. 292). Kernberg (1970) has similarly stated that "the antisocial personality may be considered a subgroup of the antisocial personality" (p. 51). Hart and Hare (1998) generally agree that there is a close correspondence between psychopathy and narcissism but suggest instead that "psychopathy can be viewed as a higher order construct with two distinct, albeit related facets, one of which is very similar to the clinical concept of narcissism" (p. 429).

Some of the features of DSM-IV narcissistic personality disorder are explicitly suggestive of psychopathy, notably a grandiose sense of self-importance and arrogant, haughty behaviors (comparable to psychopathic arrogant self-appraisal), lack of empathy and being unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others (closely related to psychopathic lack of empathy), and interpersonal exploitation (corresponding to psychopathic manipulativeness, deceitfulness, and antisocial behaviors). It has even been intimated that narcissistic personality disorder is closer to Cleckley's conceptualization of psychopathy than APD is (Hare et al., 1991; Harpur et al., 1989; Harpur, Hart, & Hare, 2002).
— Handbook of Psychopathy, by Christopher J. Patrick (p. 162)

Yes. That's obvious.

Another reason I am skeptical of there being any real difference between NPD and psychopathy is because the shoddy thinking of the American Psychiatric Association is breathtaking. It really hoses their credibility. In fact, they not only make distinctions where there are none in evidence (between NPD and psychopathy), they obliterate distinctions where there are (between psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder)!

In Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder: A Case of Diagnostic Confusion, Dr. Robert Hare points out that the American Psychiatric Association has confused Antisocial Personality Disorder with psychopathy in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Yet anyone can see that there is a world of difference between your typical street criminal (antisocial) and your psychopath.

Most of the prison population (about 80%) would easily meet the diagnostic criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder, scoring high in the Factor 2 traits. But only about 20% of the prison population meet the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy, scoring high in both factors. And that 20% are responsible for at least 50% of the most serious crimes committed. Psychopathic convicts include virtually all serial killers, 50% of all serial and repeat rapists, and 44% of those who murder police officers.

What's more, psychopaths have an astronomical recidivism rate = are repeat offenders. Their recidivism rate is at least 3-5 times higher than the recidivism rate for antisocials (your typical street criminal). And that rate counts only those who get rearrested within a year or two of their release from prison. Presumably that is but a fraction of the actual recidivism rate.

Moreover, the suicide rate among psychopaths is very low, whereas it is high among antisocials.

So how can the American Psychiatric Association see no distinction between APD (sometimes referred to as ASPD) and psychopathy? Give me a break. They thus obscure that difference, dumping the pond of psychopaths into the ocean of antisocials. What better way to make psychopathy go away?

Why should they want to do that? Presumably to preserve a cherished myth — namely that bad people are just good people with bad parents, bad upbringing, poverty, etc. and that by caring for them you can talk these poor victims back into being good. To hell with the 30 years of scientific evidence that this just isn't true and that wealthy psychopaths emerge from wonderful, wealthy families to do horrendous things.

"There's still a lot of opposition — some criminologists, sociologists, and psychologists don't like psychopathy at all," Hare says. "I can spend the entire day going through the literature — it's overwhelming, and unless you're semi-brain-dead you're stunned by it — but a lot of people come out of there and say, 'So what? Psychopathy is a mythological construct.' They have political and social agendas: 'People are inherently good,' they say. 'Just give them a hug, a puppy dog, and a musical instrument and they're all going to be okay.' "

If Hare sounds a little bitter, it's because a decade ago, Correctional Service of Canada asked him to design a treatment program for psychopaths, but just after he submitted the plan in 1992, there were personnel changes at the top of CSC. The new team had a different agenda, which Hare summarizes as, "We don't believe in the badness of people." His plan sank without a trace.
— "Psychopaths Among Us," by Robert Hercz

In other words, again we get "a powerful sense of psychiatry as a profession out of control. Cut off from what ought to be its roots in the basic research community, and at the mercy of the strongest political factions of the moment."

Hare also points out the American Psychiatric Association's insidious switch from defining a disorder as a set of character traits (e.g., egocentricity, deceit, shallow emotion, manipulativeness, selfishness, and lack of empathy, guilt or remorse) to a set of behaviors = getting into trouble with the law.

Consequently, NPD and psychopathy are defined as a bunch of behaviors — a short, select list out of many possible ones. So, for example, let's say we have 24 behaviors common to people believed to have a mental illness. We take 6 and make it our definition of the disease. Then we can take another six and make it the definition of a different disease. We can get four diseases out of one that way.

No wonder only 9-60% of diagnoses agree. No wonder up to 94% of diagnoses error in applying the diagnostic criteria. No wonder so much evidence of bias appears. No wonder clinicians seldom diagnose just one personality disorder in a patient. And no wonder the most popular personality disorder checked off on the diagnosis is "other."

For example, NPD is defined by grandiose conduct. Okay, but how does grandiosity figure into the psychopath? The short list for psychopathy says nothing about grandiosity. Oh, so psychopaths do not say and do grandiose things then, right?

Wrong. Their grandiosity just isn't mentioned on the official list, that's all. So, how can you compare NPD and psychopathy and find a difference then? Answer: You can't, because American Psychiatric Association has their lists of criteria set up so that you are comparing apples with oranges.

Is the psychopath's vaunting grandiosity any different a narcissist's? Do different narcissists vary in their grandiosity? Indeed, all psychopaths are malignant narcissists. So, where is the difference in their grandiosity, pray tell?

Consideration was given in the development of DSM-IV criteria for APD [specifically, psychopathy, because here the authors aren't distinguishing between psychopaths and antisocials -KK] to include the components of PCL-R psychotherapy that are not already contained within the APD criterion set; notably glib charm, arrogance, and lack of empathy (Widiger et al., 1992). The DSM-IV APD field trial focused specifically on this proposal (Widiger et al., 1996). However, one concern was that these features are also central to the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder and there inclusion within the criterion set for APD would increase markedly their diagnostic co-occurrence and undermine their differential diagnosis (Widiger & Corbitt, 1995).
— Handbook of Psychopathy, by Christopher J. Patrick (p. 162)

What a crock! That doesn't mean you set up your criteria to make psychopathy and NPD look different: that means you tell the truth and show that there may be no difference! Boy, these guys are glib.

Again, for example, some say that psychopaths have no feelings, whereas narcissists merely lack the full range of normal human feelings. First, that's wrong. Second, it's just a difference in how successfully feelings are repressed; it isn't a different character trait. Narcissists vary in this respect.

In fact, psychopaths are capable of feeling. They are capable of putting themselves in someone's else's skin. They prove that in their sadistic acts of mental cruelty, which show that they do empathize to figure out how to morally demolish their victims. For example, no unfeeling robot would think to reduce the victim to a slave who, in spite of himself, offers himself to be tortured for his killer's pleasure. It takes knowing how that will make the victim feel to dream up such a sick way to be cruel. No robot thinks of making a statement by tossing a victim in a trash bin after he's done with them. Only someone who knows how that would make the dying victim feel would do that.

That's empathy. Perverted empathy, but empathy nonetheless.

The truth is that both narcissists and psychopaths just repress all feelings but the ones they want. By doing this habitually, they may come to experience no feeling except when consciously contemplating how something would feel (rather like the Christian mystic is encouraged to sit and "contemplate" the five wounds of the Christ).

Therefore, some narcissists and psychopaths may simply have gotten better at repressing their feelings than others. They may get better at repressing their feelings over time, and thus become less susceptible to having unwanted feelings surface to consciousness on them. In other words, they could become more unfeeling and thus more closely fit the current description of the psychopath.

You can imagine the same progress with conscience. And likewise with how far an individual pushes the envelope in risk-taking with criminal behavior.

That agrees with those who regard psychopathy as an extreme form of narcissism, as based on a popular model of interpersonal relations.

But it's more complicated than that. For one thing, not all defined personality disorders fit into this model, like borderline, schizotypal, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders.

Moreover, things besides the disease itself affect its fruit. Things like opportunity, power, status, and environment are other factors that affect how far into criminal behavior a particular individual may go. For example, a factory worker can't get away with as much as a President-for life like Saddam Hussein. So, though he may be sicker, that factory worker probably won't attempt as much. Doubtless, Hussein's pathological narcissism was worsened by his own acts, blurring cause and effect. Also, someone who can prop up his ego on mental cruelty to his family won't be as tempted to become a serial killer as someone who has no family. He may be just as sick in the head though.

So, I question whether the people on either end of this continuum are actually suffering from a different disease (or any "disease" in the medical sense). It's hard to see where you draw the line between narcissism and psychopathy, though much more research is needed to be sure either way.

Those who say there's a difference often seem to be grasping at straws, making out mere individual differences in style as representative of the whole group and then conveniently finding that there are only two kinds, narcissists and psychopaths.

Here's an example of a common stretch that seems an effort to arrive at a preconceived conclusion: Some say that psychopaths are violent criminals like Ted Bundy, and that narcissists look down on evildoers like killers because narcissists are pharisaical.

Well, it's safe to say that Ted Bundy portrayed himself as morally superior to violent criminals whenever he was at a dinner party or on a psychiatrist's couch — before he got caught. How much do you want to bet that was pharisaical? The egregious error here is letting it slip your mind that he talks differently in jail than he does before conviction while free and successfully fooling everyone.

Both narcissists and psychopaths are different people in the dark than in the light of day. Therefore, you must compare the one in the dark with the other in the dark or the one in the light of day with the other in the light of day. But it's invalid to compare the one in the dark with the other in the light of day. Ted Bundy in the dark doesn't compare with himself in the light of day!

Furthermore, the vast majority of psychopaths never commit a physically violent crime, and many narcissists aren't pharisaical. In fact, since all psychopaths are known to be narcissists as well, it doesn't even make sense to describe them as contrasting in any way. That's an egregious error in logic.

In my book, Without Conscience, I argued that we live in a "camouflage society," a society in which some psychopathic traits — egocentricity, lack of concern for others, superficiality, style over substance, being "cool," manipulativeness, and so forth — increasingly are tolerated and even valued. ...Psychopaths have little difficulty infiltrating the domains of business, politics, law enforcement, government, academia and other social structures. It is the egocentric, cold-blooded and remorseless psychopaths who blend into all aspects of society and have such devastating impacts on people around them who send chills down the spines of law enforcement officers.
— Dr. Robert Hare

So much for the idea that a psychopath is a violent criminal. In fact, see Snakes in Suits about psychopaths in the corporate world, by Dr. Paul Babiak and Dr. Robert Hare.

Here's more clutching at straws. 'Narcissists are usually more grandiose, while psychopaths are more exploitative and have a superficial value system.'

Huh? Psychopaths aren't extremely grandiose? Just look at what the criminal psychopath does to his victims. It's all a way of acting out that 'I am God Almighty, and you are dirt.' That isn't any lack of grandiosity: it's grandiosity pumped up to an extreme. What do these people think rape is for? sex? It's about power and domination, and anyone with any sense sees that. What's more, most narcissists and psychopaths camouflage their grandiosity behind a facade of false modesty. The only time you see it is when Mr. Hyde comes out of them. So, the people clutching at this straw know little of real narcissists or psychopaths.

And what is more exploitative? Materially exploiting someone or morally exploiting them? Materially exploiting them for money or for the physical pleasure of beating them up? Morally exploiting them sexually or morally exploiting them psychologically? And how about exploiting people both materially and morally through character assassination to get their job and to seem holier-than-them? That's exploiting a person for the rest of their life! Again, what we see isn't any lack of exploitation: it's exploitation pumped up to an extreme. And what about driving people to suicide? That isn't as exploitative as shooting them dead?

How simple-minded.

Indeed, these sloppy thinkers think that sexual exploitation is material exploitation. Wrong. It's a moral assault much more than a physical one. They also think this (and other violent criminal behavior) is not done to enhance the psychopath's self-image. Ridiculous. The criminally violent psychopath is just going to the ultimate extreme to enhance his self-image. He loves the image of himself as a titan who tramples others. He gets tons more high from that than he would from merely verbally insulting someone. And, again, anyone who thinks knows that.

Yes, there may be a difference, or at least a dividing line, between a malignant narcissist and a full-blown psychopath, but no one has established such a difference.

There are as many styles of narcissist and psychopath as there are narcissists and psychopaths. They aren't clones. In fact, I have that from a narcissist herself. She assessed another narcissist as not a murder threat, not because he'd have any inhibitions about murdering the particular person who felt at risk, but simply because "that isn't his style."

Indeed, many narcissists find it safer and more fulfilling to murder by driving the victim to suicide. That's absolute power. Much grander than just plain, old-fashioned murder.

Similarly, Lee Harvey Oswald wrote in his diary that his persona was created to adapt to his particular environment. And since every narcissist lives in a different environment, every narcissist adapts differently to it. In fact, narcissists don't just have two faces: they have many faces, each a face prepared to meet a certain type of face they meet. Sometimes they want to stand out for attention, and sometimes they want to blend in for approval. So, the same narcissist may have a wildly different persona in a tavern than in church than at home than at work. He's a he-man, a pious and devout church-goer, a bully, and a regular guy all rolled into one.

In this report in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Doctors Hare, Hart, and Harpur of the University of British Columbia address criticisms of the current diagnostic criteria for psychopathy, which have wheedled their way into people's heads as a definition of it. The approach focuses on "antisocial behaviors rather than personality traits central to traditional conceptions of psychopathy." Okay, these behaviors are supposed to indicate the underlying personality traits. But sloppy thinking has made people view the behaviors themselves as the disease.

Hence "Psychopaths are those who commit violent crimes" translates in effect to "Psychopathy is committing a violent crime." Right, so up to the day he assassinated President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald was a narcissist. Then he suddenly became a psychopath. Absurd.

But that's exactly what this confusion forces them to say...
People with narcissistic personality disorder sometimes behave irresponsibly because they do not feel that normal social constraints should apply to them; at such times, their behavior may turn antisocial.
— Abnormal Psychology: Chapter 12 - Personality Disorders by Nietzel, Speltz, McCauly, and Bernstein (PDF, 595 KB)

Jeez! OK, what are they then? Narcissistic except while in the act of breaking a law?

In short, Doctors Hare, Hart, and Harpur are absolutely right: you can't define a mental illness as a behavior = an action. It is a kind of THINKING. How can such highly educated people fog up the picture so completely unless they are doing so deliberately? One is forced to question either their IQ or their honesty.

Others cling to assumptions about narcissists made by therapists and researchers taking these pathological liars at their word about themselves. In fact, until recently, they did that about psychopaths too. They believed that psychopaths have a conscience, love their families, don't mean to do evil, and yadda yadda yadda.

Why? Because the psychopaths on their couches said so. That is, the pathological liars on their couches said so.

In the same Journal of Abnormal Psychology article, doctors Hare, Hart, and Harpur cite the same problem:
...clinicians are generally forced to rely to a large extent on patients' memories and self-reports of their past conduct (Widiger et al., 1989) – a state of affairs that is particularly problematic, given that untruthfulness is one of the disorder's symptoms...

Thanks in large part to Dr. Hare himself, studying all those convicted axe murderers in prisons during the past few decades has helped most folks see that psychopaths are lying their heads off when they claim to have a conscience, love their families, not mean to do evil, and yadda yadda yadda.

Yet why have many social workers and other professionals failed to learn that lesson? They prove they haven't by not applying it to anyone not convicted of a violent crime that proves them lying about themselves.

Another egregious error in logic: "If we can't prove they're lying (via a criminal conviction on their record), they're telling the truth." Right. So, Ted Bundy wasn't a psychopath throughout all the murders he committed until he got caught and convicted for one = in effect, psychopathy is getting caught. Absurd.

They make the same mistake with narcissists. They get no information about narcissists' behavior from people who live and work with narcissists. They receive information only from the already diagnosed narcissist in treatment. Of course he says he has a conscience, loves his family, doesn't mean to do evil, and yadda yadda yadda.

When you know someone is a pathological liar, don't assume that he is telling you the truth. What can we expect him to say? — "I like hurting people and just prey on them. I have no conscience. No feelings. No love. No humanity in me at all."

He ain't gonna say that. Nobody would. He only knows it himself in an unwanted moment of self awareness that he quickly re-buries. And, frankly, I actually don't blame narcissists for lying about that. That amounts to saying "I'm evil." Everyone has the right to pursue happiness and therefore to not incriminate themselves.

Therapists and researchers have to get out there and find additional information from other sources to compare these self reports with. And something besides prison time only.

Narcissists are sadistic. The famous narcissist Sam Vaknin admits that (though he seems to contradict himself on the subject). In the absence of experience, pure logic should make anyone realize that narcissists are sadistic. If you need to vaunt yourself on others to feel good about yourself, the more you hurt and humiliate them, the better you'll feel. So, you're gonna wanna hurt and humiliate them as much as you can. That's sadism.

The narcissist's choice of victim is another fact that gives their sadism away: they target the most vulnerable, those they can wound most deeply. That's sadism.

Since long before I knew anything about psychopathy or heard about this debate, I became convinced that narcissists have no conscience. There is not one iota of doubt in my mind about that, because I have seen them do many things, abhorrent or sadistic things, that no one with a conscience could possibly do. And such things do not always leave blood and body parts lying around.

In fact, many normal people have an unconscience about some things. So, a conscience deficit isn't exclusively a trait of the personality disordered.

Most of what weighs on a conscience is loaded there by the moral norms of religion and society. Some of these things aren't even moral. When religion and society are removed, conscience is stripped down to its pure form and we are left with the core human values that people of all religions and cultures embrace. Things like personal honor and integrity and uprightness. Don't lie, cheat, or steal. Don't kill just to kill. And so on. All these moral walls that form our innate and natural conscience are built of empathy.

No empathy? Then you have a psychopath or other narcissist. No conscience at all. Someone capable of doing anything to anyone as lightly as you'd brush a crumb from your sleeve.

Another fallacy you hear is imagining distinctions where there are none. Here's a guy at FAQ Farm trying to distinguish between narcissism and psychopathy...

NPD specifically manifests as a pathological craving for attention. Socio/psychopathy manifests as a pathological disregard for anything but self gratification. To compare the two would be rather like comparing a goal with a methodology.

Took the words right out of my mouth. So, why did he torpedo his own assertion by pointing this out?

Craving attention is craving self-gratification, which is what we get out of attention. So, where's the difference? The criminal psychopath gets no attention out of the person he torturing? or out of the homicide detectives? or out of the press? And, craving something is just the flip-side of having total disregard for anything but. There's no distinction there.

What does change on a continuum through these indistinguishable disorders is the risk taking. Like any drug, or anything that affects us like a drug, we develop a tolerance to it. It takes ever increasing doses to get that high. To "stimulate," if you will. For example, history shows that the ancient Roman arena spectacles steadily increased in barbarity. That was because it took ever-more-stimulating spectacles of torture to sexually excite the spectators and generate the mass sexual orgy that took place in the stands. (Good for business.)

The same thing happens with abusers. The more they get away with, the more they need to get away with. The further they have to push the envelope to get that exhilarating high from having gotten away with something bold and risky.

One narcissist I know of, while trying to drive her sister to suicide, said to her, "I'm to the point of robbing a bank." The pretty school teacher didn't have so much as a traffic ticket on her record. But here she was, attempting murder. For, doing it left-handedly doesn't transubstantiate attempted murder into anything but attempted murder.

It's the same with the brutality and violence (either physical or moral) of the abuse. That too must escalate to keep giving the narcissist satisfaction.

So, some narcissists/psychopaths get to the point of taking greater risks than others. But that isn't a function of how sick they are. It's a function of how addicted they are.

It's also largely a function of how much power they have or what environment they're operating in. Some narcissists get to the point of being more brutal than others. Some get better at repressing their feelings. Some succeed in distancing themselves from themselves better, some get to the point that they don't even feel bodily sensations. That happens to some extent in all narcissists/psychopaths.

But this may be just natural variation within the group. The underlying personality traits seem to be universal among narcissists/psychopaths.

It doesn't even make much sense to say that one is more severe than the other. A powerful person who can't be held to account (e.g., Saddam Hussein) will always go farther than someone whose brother is an FBI agent.

Besides, if you say that those who commit a physically violent crime are the sickest, we're then lead to deduce that the severity of mental illness is a function of the criminal penalty imposed on its expression. Therefore, those who drive others to suicide are mentally healthy! Absurd. They are just sneakier, that's all.

In fact, I see nothing in the profile of a psychopath (as explained in "Predators" for Psychology Today) that isn't in a narcissist, though a narcissist's need for excitement seems to depend on the circumstances and not be constant. I sure see excitability, hypertension, and an almost drunken giddiness with risk taking, though. They seem to be "on" or "off" and are suddenly really dopey when off. But again, this difference could well be just variation of the same personality trait along that continuum though.

Bottom Line: Are NPD and psychopathy the same? No one can say for sure yet, but no legitimate distinction has been found. Just a lot of theorizing by academics and clinicians who haven't backed up their guesses with real science.

Quoted: The Mask of Sanity by Hervey M. Cleckley, 5th edition, revised 1984 (PDF download).
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Seriousness of NPD

The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
— Sigmund Freud

Just because narcissists seldom get arrested doesn't mean they are harmless. It doesn't even mean that a narcissist has committed no crime.

What's more, people in general, and many healthcare professionals (who have no excuse for such ignorance), seem to think along the lines of that old childish chant Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Hence, toward even the most sadistic mental cruelty, they seem to take the referee's stance: No harm, no foul.

No harm, eh? I agree with Sam Vaknin (see below): I think people are so callous because they (nearly everyone) is guilty of being a bystander for bullying. By pretending that humiliation is no big deal then, they "cleanse" their consciences.

One of the Oldest Tricks in The Book: Make light of a weighty matter.

Perhaps you have done it too. In the schoolyard, the family, the workplace, and the public forum. Nearly everyone has been a participant in abuse by consent to it; virtually everyone has blamed and alienated the victim, for fear of the bully's wrath. So, I too think this marvelous collective obtuseness is an outward sign of suppressed collective guilt.

For whatever reason, most people, including many mental healthcare professionals, think mental cruelty is nothing compared to a physical blow, which they duly abhor, even if in self-defense by a victim. That notion is deplorably simplistic.

Recently, advocates of the sexually abused have won some consideration of its victims, but society's marvelous obtuseness has somehow managed to unsee that sexual abuse is just a form of psychological abuse. Result? They still make nothing of psychological abuse, unless the abuser touches you sexually.

I know of a high school counselor who blamed the victim for it. Whenever a teacher came to him about a student being picked on and alienated from the rest of a class, his reply was that he would "have a talk with" the ringleaders but that we had to understand that there wasn't much he could do about it because the victim was . . . you know . . ."vulnerable."

That attitude is all too common in schools. The moral fault found is in the victim's vulnerability, not the abuser's conduct.

Because hard evidence and witnesses are lacking, making prosecution impossible, people conveniently act as though psychological abuse is just something people have a right to do to you. Wrong, denying you human treatment is denying you a human right.

Whether it can be prosecuted or not, it should be punished with opprobrium, not winked at, by those who know it's going on

Anyone who has been the victim of both physical and psychological abuse (emotional and verbal abuse) will tell you that the psychological abuse is worse. It does damage. Psychological injuries are real, and they often require treatment. Much more treatment than a broken nose.

If insurance companies had to pay for that treatment, and pay for quality treatment (= treatment by practitioners as highly qualified as those who treat the body must be), psychological abuse would stop being nothing, and bullies would lose their de facto right to psychologically abuse others, even to the point of driving their prey to suicide.

Let's hear what a narcissist himself has to say on the subject:
Is sexual abuse worse than emotional abuse? Is verbal abuse less deleterious than physical abuse (beatings)? Somehow, the professional literature implies that there is a hierarchy with sexual mistreatment at its nadir. ...Yet, these distinctions are spurious. One's mental space is as important to one's healthy development and proper adult functioning as one's body. Indeed. the damage in sexual abuse is hardly corporeal. It is the psychological intrusion, coercion, and the demolition of nascent boundaries of the self that inflict the most damage. Abuse is a form of long-term torture usually inflicted by one's nearest and dearest. It is a grievous violation of trust and it leads to disorientation, fear, depression, and suicidal ideation. ...The abused are deformed by the abuser both overtly - many develop mental health disorders and dysfunctional behaviors - and, more perniciously, covertly. The abuser, like some kind of alien life form, invades and colonizes the victim's mind and becomes a permanent presence. In a way, psychological abuse - emotional and verbal - is harder to "erase" and "deprogram". ...Social attitudes don't help. While sexual and physical abuse are slowly coming to the open and being recognized as the scourges that they are - psychological abuse is still largely ignored. ...Abusers find refuge in the general disdain for the weak and the vulnerable which is the result of suppressed collective guilt. ...The professional community is no less to blame. Emotional and verbal abuse are perceived and analyzed in "relative" terms - not as the absolute evils that they are.
— Sam Vaknin, The Gradations of Abuse

So, it's time to start appreciating the seriousness of NPD.

Besides, many, if not most, narcissists are physically violent. But physical abuse in the home, or by siblings, seldom gets reported.

Furthermore, NPD makes those who have it predators who bully, slander, calumniate, and otherwise use others to feed on, like the mythical character of a vampire does. Not harmless. NPD is a serious threat to the health and well being of others, especially any children or employees at the narcissist's mercy.

Psychopaths and other narcissists leave a trail of human wreckage in their wake.

First let's notice what they do to their own children. The way they treat their children can pass the curse of this disease to the next generation, often leading one or more their children to become malignant narcissists. In addition, they leave deep psychological scars on all their children, scars that do real damage to their whole lives.

They also abuse their spouses and friends. They are love thieves. They con people, parasitize people, get siblings disinherited, and commit all kinds of theft and extortion, inflicting psychological injury that others end up needing treatment for.

They vaunt themselves on others for the same reason a drunk drinks: to feel better. And like a drunk, they develop a tolerance for their drug. The more powerful they are on you, the more they humiliate you, the better they feel. So they are wanton. They go hog wild and ruin whole lives and careers. They make people social outcasts by spreading vicious lies about them. In positions of power they don't just bully and fire, they blackball. Their bullying or slander in the school or workplace are often crimes but seldom reported.

Your pedophile and child molester are usually a malignant narcissist. And, like all narcissists, they are con artists who get away with it.

For, these spiders commit the perfect crime — the one so incredible nobody believes it. Because it's wanton, bizarrely evil, and targets the last people you'd think the narcissist would want to hurt. So, nobody believes Angelface would do such a thing.

Thus people with NPD enmesh their prey in a web that is a Catch-22: Nobody will believe the victim. In fact, a narcissist often taunts the victim by daring him or her to try to get anyone to believe their complaint.

Indeed, when a victim does report the bizarre brand of unprovoked abuse narcissists dish out, she is sorry. Minds and ears slam shut in her face, because, as she feared, she is assumed to be the crazy one. Unless there is a dead body, rape kit, or X-ray evidence that cannot be ignored, even police dismiss the complaint with a "Now why would anyone do that?"

Unknowing they've ever heard of a motive called "malice."

But they know very well that many people need no reason to commit a crime, that they just do it to do it and even do it for anti-reasons, such as to "punish" the good deed of loving them or being their benefactor.

We all know that there are many twisted people in this world and that twisted people have twisted motives that make no sense to the rest of us. Indeed, the judicial system would get nowhere with the most serious crimes if it didn't acknowledge that malice/predation alone is sufficient motive, an ancient principle of jurisprudence.

In fact, malice is the only motive authorities can ever propose for many purely predatory acts, such as rape or serial murder. When they discover a corpus delicti or a raped woman walks in the door they don't ask, "Now why would anyone do that?" They wouldn't dare. So why don't they stop acting too stupid to know that some people need no real reason to hurt others?

Narcissists can and do control themselves when someone's good opinion is sought — in front of a judge, for instance — and are skilled at presenting a respectable, even admirable, public face; some are actually meek and mild in public. Most of us who've lived with narcissists have had the experience of being disbelieved when we dared to tell what goes on in private; in some ways, we can hardly believe it ourselves. Life with a narcissist is like a bad dream that you can't wake up from. As a child, I used to be dazed by my narcissistic parent's public demeanor — I wanted to take that person home with me or else live our entire family life in the protection of the public eye — so attractive, modest, and sweet that even I could hardly believe that this same person could be the raging fiend I knew at home and had seriously thought, for a while when I was about ten, might be a werewolf. But truthful reports about narcissists' private behavior are often treated as symptoms of psychological problems in the person telling the tale — by naming the problem, you become the person with the problem (and, let's face it, it's more gratifying to work on changing someone responsive than it is to tackle a narcissist). And I'm talking about the experience many of us have had with "the helping professions," including doctors, teachers, clergy, counselors, and therapists. This stuff is hard to talk about in the first place because it's weird, shameful, and horrifying, and then insult is added to injury when we're dismissed as overreacting (how many times have we heard "You're just too sensitive"?), deluded or malicious, as inventing stories, exaggerating, imagining things, misinterpreting — it goes on and on.
— Joanna Ashmun, Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Aftermath

Psychiatrists are in a position to rectify this deplorable state of affairs. First, by treating NPD whenever it walks in their door and, second, by educating law enforcement and the professionals of other 'helping' agencies.

People within the mental health profession are finally speaking out against the failure to take malignant narcissism (NPD) seriously, conveniently con-fusing it with mere (benign) narcissism that is acquired and cultural or situational.

How serious is NPD?
- A person with NPD driving an old beater may run a stoplight and blame the victim. How? Because the victim didn't yield the right of way to God Almighty just because of who he is or how old he is or what sex he is or whatever. Why did he bash the victim's car? Because it is a luxury car, not worse than the narcissist's old beater. Next, the big child flees the scene to escape responsibility, heedless of the likely consequences. For, like any child, he cannot think past lunch. - A person with NPD may abuse his wife until she leaves him and then murder her for doing so.
- A surgeon with NPD may walk out of surgery to do some banking.
- A person with NPD may burn down her house to kill one of her children for insurance money, framing the other for her crime, without a twinge of empathy or conscience.
- A 19-year-old may murder his parents when they discover he has gotten 13 credit cards in his father's name and plans to go on a spending spree abroad with them.

Those examples are not fiction: they all have happened. NPD is no minor matter.

I get the impression that psychiatry is stumbling in the dark with NPD. That is understandable with such a mysterious disorder that puts anyone who tries to deal with a narcissist in Catch-22. Also, there has been very little research on NPD to guide mental health workers. But I do not understand how authorities can know that narcissists are two-faced pathological liars and yet be unaware that their self-reports are unreliable.

Consequently, different psychiatrists often diagnose the same patient differently. Also, they tend to look for and find attention-getting behavior in women and diagnose them as histrionic rather than narcissistic, because they do not notice the abusive denial of attention that distinguishes Narcissistic Personality Disorder from Histrionic Personality Disorder. On the other hand, in men they tend to miss the attention-getting behavior altogether unless it's overtly childish. Moreover, they sometimes attribute several personality disorders to the same patient. All this clouds the picture. And, I'm sorry I can't demystify it. Let's hope that someday someone does.
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