Reboot Your Relationship Radiojoe-and-savannah-blog-talk-radio-300x150

May 2013

Joe Whitcomb & Savannah Ellis

“Personality Disorders & Relationships” – Narcissistic Personality Disorder

 

We are talking about Personality Disorders, we have been talking them for the last several weeks. Last week, we were focused on Borderline Personality Disorder. And the week prior, it was Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. There are ten different Personality Disorders that exist in the Diagnostic Manual for Psychiatrist and Psychologist. And we’re going to talk probably five or six of them, the more common ones that I see in my practice and that exist in society. And we’re going to talk about how they affect people’s lives, the focus for today is on Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That’s our personality disorder for the day. And we’ll talk about what it is, the definition of it, the criteria that you have to have in order to actually be diagnosed with that disorder. And then we’ll talk about some of the causes and risk factors that are associated with that particular disorder. The impact that that disorder has on people’s lives. And lastly, we will cover treatment, the treatment strategies. What do you do if you’re married to someone who is a Narcissist? What do you do if one of your best friends, someone that you’re really close to is a Narcissist? How do you interact with them, how do you relate to them, and how do you help them? Some of the material that I use for this is based on my clinical experience and training. And some of it is based on some of the material that I get from the American Psychological Association which I certainly encourage you if you have any curiosity about some of this material to look at their website. It’s americanpshychologicalassociation.com. I also will use psychcentral.com, webmd.com and the mayoclinic.com which all of those are different resources to gather some of the information. So I throw those out to you, so that you can look and maybe gather more information if you have an interest.

 

So let’s talk about Narcissism. Now, this is one that I see a lot of, I see a lot of Narcissistic people in my practice and like I’ve mentioned before, I see people that have been highly successful in their careers and it’s not uncommon for people that are in position, positions of power, positions of authority, positions of control, it’s not uncommon for them to have some Narcissistic Personality traits or tendencies and in some cases have a full-blown disorder. Remember what I said in the beginning of the series, everyone has a personality and everyone has aspects of these different personality disorders. You might have two or three that you can identify with, that you can relate to. When it becomes a disorder, is when it interferes with your ability to function either at work, or in your relationship. In your marriage, when it affects your social functioning, when it really interferes and negatively impairs or impacts your life. That’s when it becomes a disorder. And as I go through the criteria, a little later on, you might see if you can identify with at least five of the criteria that I mention and that would be an indication that maybe you or someone that you love or know has this particular disorder.

 

So Narcissism, what is it? Well, it’s a term that’s been used to describe someone who is completely self-absorbed, self-focused and has this tremendous amount of self-admiration that’s taken to an extreme. So where the word comes from? Narcissism comes from a Greek myth in which a handsome, young man named Narcissus sees his reflection in a pool of water and falls in love with it. So that’s where the word originated. Now Narcissism is someone who has this exaggerated sense of superiority and self. And in the process, they tend to have intense, unstable emotions and they have a distorted self-image.

 

Some of the symptoms include: believing that you’re better than others, exaggerating your achievements, your talents. Feeling that you’re special, that somehow you should receive (and the word that is used commonly with Narcissist is ‘entitled’) that they’re entitled to receive special treatment. It’s all about them, that are what a Narcissist believes. It’s all about me, they’re easily hurt, but may not show it. They have trouble keeping healthy relationships. They usually set unrealistic goals for themselves, and they may appear tough-minded or unemotional. They have real difficulties in handling criticism, and may react with either rage, shame or humiliation. So those are some of the characteristics of what a Narcissist looks like. They’re self-absorbed, they’re defensive, they do not forgive easily and they have difficult time committing to relationships. Now the irony is, that Narcissistic people, in spite of the fact that they may appear arrogant, and superior, that façade is a way of concealing a deep sense of insecurity and a fragile self-esteem. So that’s their way of keeping themselves protected. It’s like this armor or the shield that they put around themselves. They don’t want anyone to know that inside, they may feel inadequate or insecure. So they pump themselves up, they boost up their ego by over-exaggerating their abilities and their talents. And someone that meets them for the first time might think they’re extremely self-confident. And maybe even full of themselves but the reality is that if you dig a little bit and if you get into what’s underneath that veneer, these individuals are extremely fragile, insecure and have low self-esteem. So let me go through and give you the criteria for a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And this is again used as a Diagnostic Manual, the DSM4, and it’s used to diagnose personality disorders.

 

First let me give you the basic pattern with a Narcissist. It’s a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a need for admiration and a lack of empathy. Those are the three key elements with Narcissism, typically beginning by early adulthood. So I’ll go through and read the criteria, in order to actually be given this diagnosis, you would need to meet five of the following. You need to have five of the following. Remember what I had said early on in this series, that diagnosing a personality disorder is more difficult than diagnosing depression or anxiety. Because these are characteristics that are more saddle, and these are characteristics that are well-ingrained in the individual. And sometimes, people don’t always share a whole lot about their persona when they’re with a stranger or in a setting like, in a therapy setting. So you’d have to work with a person for a period of time. Typically when I meet with someone for the first time, or the second time, I would not at that point necessarily, unless it was blatant and obvious, I would probably not assign a personality disorder. I might have ideas about it or have some inclination, but I would probably wait a little bit before actually defining that person as having a disorder.

 

So giving you the criteria:

 

  1. They have a grandiose sense of self-importance.  
  2. They’re pre-occupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love.
  3. They believe that he/she is special and unique and can only be understood by or should associate with other special or high status people.
  4. They require excessive admiration.
  5. They have a sense of entitlement, which I was referring to earlier.
  6. They feel like they should receive special treatment because of who they are.
  7. They tend to be interpersonally exploitive. So they tend to take advantage of others.
  8. They lack empathy. They’re unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and the needs of others. And they’re often envious of others or believe that others are envious of them.
  9. They show arrogance in their behaviors and their attitudes.

 

So those are some of the criteria for a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. There’s a lot written about Narcissistic Personality Disorders and certainly, this is an area that I have special a interest in because I do see many individuals in my practice, that have, if they don’t have a full-blown personality disorder, they may have characteristics of Narcissistic Personality. They may have traits. So from my perspective, it’s important to make people aware of their personality, traits or characteristics so that they then can get a feel for how they impact the people around them. It’s so helpful to be able to be direct and upfront and honest with these individuals by telling them exactly the ways in which they might affect loved ones. And it’s not uncommon for me to say to a person in my office, “You know what, based on what you’ve just said, this is how it impacts me. This is how it affects me.” It may be as an example, maybe that’s someone interrupts all the time and they do it with me. And they do it in my office. And to be able to say it to them, “You know what, it really frustrates me when you interrupt me all the time. And my guess is that your partner gets equally, if not more frustrated than I, and it doesn’t allow for a good communication.” So part of my job is to give people feedback about their personality, about their behaviors and their characteristics as it relates to their relationships.

 

So in essence, I am like a mirror where I reflect back what the person that I’m talking with is sharing. And I reflect back in a way that might be more direct and more honest than they’ve heard before. It maybe that no one has ever really told them that, because maybe they’re too intimidating, maybe they’re too aggressive or domineering. And maybe people are concerned about how they might react if they were to be completely candid or honest. So what I do is instead of giving them that feedback, they just detach from that person. So it maybe that this Narcissistic Personality Type is finding that people don’t want to be around them. And people are avoiding them, and they don’t understand why. And part of my job is to help them understand, what it is that they do or say or how they do or say it, or what they don’t do to give them that feedback about themselves, so that they can make a change. They can modify the way they interact with people.

 

So what are some of the causes, and some of the risk factors associated with Narcissism. Where does it come from and what are the things that might either perpetuate it or contribute to it. Well, they don’t know for sure. There’s no one known cause. It could be related to child-rearing. It could be related to extremes in child-rearing. And the extremes maybe this child as when they were growing up, they were excessively pampered or enabled. Maybe there was no consequence to their actions. You know, like someone who is treated with kid gloves. And sometimes, and I’ll say something that’s stereotypic but sometimes an only-born child maybe receives some of the special treatment and because they’re the only child. Not always but sometimes, that’s the case. So it could be that their parents were overly accommodating. It could be that their parents have over-indulged them and over-valued everything that they did. That’s one possibility.

 

Another possibility is that their parents either neglected or abused them and that had of a way of causing them to fixate on themselves and not on anyone else. And you know I say parents, it could be any authority figure in their lives. It could be parents, it could be older siblings, it could be their teachers, their peers, but usually it’s someone in authority. It’s usually less likely the peers but more an authority figure. It maybe that they grew up with extremely high expectations. Or maybe they grew up with an over-sensitive temperament as a young child. Their parents may have been unpredictable or unreliable and their care-giving. And maybe they learned from their parents to be manipulative because maybe their parents tended to be manipulative. Now again with personality disorders, I mentioned this in the beginning of our series, “Is there a genetic component to it? Or “Is it purely environmental, is it purely learned behavior?” and “Does it have more to do with their upbringing and their childhood, and some of their experiences or is there a genetic component?” Well, they’re not certain about that but I’ve said before, with personality disorders, they feel that there is more of an environmental, a bigger, a larger environmental component. But there is some connection between the brain, one’s behavior and one’s thinking. So they’re not ruling out that there isn’t some psycho-biological or genetic component to the various types of personality disorders.

 

Narcissistic Personality typically affects more men than women and some adolescence have traits of Narcissism even though it typically doesn’t develop until early adulthood. They have done studies recently, and they have found that there is a rise in Narcissism. They did a study of college-aged students, and they did a questionnaire and they found back in 1985, one out of seven had these characteristics and these tendencies. And today, they did it recently and found that one in four. So the incident of Narcissism is on the rise. Now I know that you probably see and read about people in the paper or on TV and you recognize how many of these celebrities have Narcissistic Personality Traits. There’s so many out there that it’s so obvious that they’re Narcissistic individuals. And the studies have shown that celebrities do have significantly more narcissistic tendencies. And ironically, reality television stars were the most Narcissistic of all. Now that was an interesting piece of data.

 

So Narcissism, being self-absorbed, being self-consumed, self-focused. What does it do to a person’s life? Well, again, you can read about it every single day and you can see how these tendencies can impact a person’s marriage, it can impact a person’s work because a lot of times these individuals will use their power, their wealth, their status to manipulate. They will use it in a way that is self-destructive, and obviously it will get them in trouble either with the law, cause many times these individuals feel that they’re beyond the law. Or that somehow there’s going to be an exception made because of who they are and that people will be understanding. They have the expectation that almost like they deserve to be released of any responsibility or consequence to their behaviors. And we see it with politicians, we see it with celebrities, we see it with professional athletes. And part of being successful is having a certain amount of self-confidence. And with that success comes a certain amount of arrogance and how people assimilate that, how people are able to adjust and adapt to that can contribute to whether or not they have problems down the road in their relationships or in their work. It can affect their financial affairs too because a lot of these individuals may over extend themselves financially. And they may want to surround themselves with all sorts of toys and material possessions and not really focus or be even cognizant of the consequences of some of the decisions that they make. They tend to be impulsive in their decision making and don’t think it through a lot of the time. Now another complication with people who are Narcissist is that it’s not uncommon for them to abuse substances whether that be alcohol or drugs. It’s not uncommon for them to experience depression and in some cases have suicidal thoughts, and or have an eating disorder. So it’s not uncommon for these individuals to have other mental health problems above and beyond their Narcissism.

 

I do want to mention to you two books that are out there, that are written on Narcissism that are very good. The first book is called ‘Trapped in the Mirror’. How appropriate of a title is that. And it’s by Elan Golomb, very good book. And the second book is called Narcissistic Family Diagnosis and Treatment, and it’s by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and also Robert Pressman. Those are two excellent books that if you have interest over one additional information about this particular disorder, you would benefit from getting a hold of one of those books or both of those books and reading up on it.

 

So Narcissistic Personality Disorder, what do you do with someone who has this disorder and how do you help them in changing?

 

There are several different types of personalities that each of us have and we could probably relate to at least two or three of the ten disorders that exist. And this particular personality disorder, Narcissism is one that seems to be rampant in celebrities, in highly successful people, and people that are in position of power and authority, people that have high status and I was mentioning that sometimes it’s a politician, maybe it’s a professional athlete or someone that a celebrity, or someone that a physician, or an attorney or a CEO. Characteristics that enable this person to be successful in their career, in their business, may not work so well in other aspects of their lives and again that is the population in which I work with.

 

So we were moving into not only talking about these individuals and talking about how you can have aspects of this personality and it can consume you and it can overwhelm you but what do we do with individuals that have some of these traits?

 

Now, as I mentioned earlier when I was going through and talking about the causes and I had said a lot of times the way in which we bring up our children, the parenting skills that we have can affect the Narcissistic Personality Type. It can provide an environment in which this trait can emerge. So the way we raise our kids and we’re all guilty of it, myself included. When we over-indulge our children, maybe we give them too much. Maybe we are so afraid of them failing that we over-protect them or we catch them before they fall and they never learn from failure, because we don’t allow that to occur in their lives, and then they expect someone to save them each and every time. And maybe when the parents are gone, maybe they expect their significant other to rescue them or save them. Or maybe when they screw up or when they make mistakes and do something inappropriate, they expect to be bailed out like their parents did when they were kids, and that doesn’t happen in their lives as adults. So we as parents need to be really careful about the way in which we raise kids. And I think some ways of preventing Narcissism in our kids, one would be that they should have clear responsibilities and tasks and chores to help around the house. Kids need to have things that they are responsible for other than going to school and doing their homework. Their needs to be some task or chore or responsibility whether it’s cleaning their room, whether it’s doing the dishes or vacuuming, cleaning the pool, we as parents need to give them responsibility. They need to learn that. Narcissistic people don’t feel that they have to abide by the same responsibilities that others abide by. Again, if you don’t learn it as a kid, then you may not learn it as an adult. Or you will suffer the consequences of not learning it as a child. Also, another way of preventing Narcissism in our kids is make them, or take them to some sort of community service activity. Something where they’re giving back to the community. Some sort of volunteer activity, maybe feeding the homeless, or cleaning a particular area where people are struggling and having them exposed to that and giving back because a lot of Narcissistic people do not give back. A lot of these individuals just give to themselves and maybe they might give to someone that they’re close to or someone that they love, maybe. But the focus is more on them satisfying their own needs and being inattentive, unaware of other people’s needs. So maybe by exposing our children to these community service and volunteer work that may help them in understanding the importance of giving back. Third thing that we can do for our kids, is limit their screen time, because the time that they spent watching TV, or even on the computer that some of those images and some of those things that they are exposed to may influence their thinking and they may have this distorted perception of what reality is. They may believe that some of what they see and some of what they hear, like they can be one of those individuals on the TV show. And that’s going to be their life. They may not fully incorporate or become cognizant of the fact that this is TV but it’s not reality. I think it just cracks me up that some of the shows, they call reality TV, and when it’s so far from what reality really is. But they call it reality TV show. The next thing that we can do for our kids is we can allow them to fail. We can let them fail and we can support them through their failures. And we can encourage them through their failures. But if we don’t allow them to fail, if we are constantly trying to prevent them from failing, then they will never learn how to overcome failure. And they will expect someone else to catch them, to bail them out, to rescue them. Kids learn more from failure than they do from success. And a lot of times what I see is parents are working way, way harder on the children’s success, than the child is working on it. They’re working so hard that the child feels like they don’t have to work very hard at all. An example might be a Science Project, or the parent is doing way more than the child is doing. And that’s not a good example and that’s not a good way to teach the child to be able to, not only be responsible, but to take ownership. That’s also another key in this preventing Narcissism in our kids, is to teach them ownership. Ownership means that they do it on their own, and they’re rewarded for it. Maybe it is that they really want this toy or in the case of my daughter, she really wanted to purchase a laptop computer. Well, she’s saved, and she’s saved, and she’s saved. And it took her several months. She used some of her money that she received from Christmas or from her birthday, from baby-sitting and doing some other things, and eventually, she purchased the computer on her own. She was able to experience the joy of ownership because it was hers, she saved up for it and she bought it. And it wasn’t something that Mom and Dad gave to her. There’s so much value in ownership. And lastly, along the same lines of what I’m talking about is these individuals, these children that we’re raising need to have some sort of accountability. They need to know that if they do acts, then the consequence is going to be why. That they need to be accountable for their actions and for their behaviors, and for them to know that this is what will happen is you do x, y or z. All of those things that I mentioned are ways to prevent Narcissism in our children. And we all need to work at it because I believe in today’s society the way it exists and yes it is changing some because we don’t have the resources that we might have a year ago because of the economy and other things, but the mind-set is still there. The mind-set of over-indulging, over-compensating and over-investing in our children’s lives. So we need to shift that focus and now is the time to make that shift.

 

So let me move into the area of treatment. Well, there’s no particular medication specifically for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Then no medicine that’s going to change an individual’s personality. Now if the person has depression or they have anxiety, that might be tied to the Narcissism. Then medication can be of benefit for the depression or anxiety. But there’s no particular medicine that exist to help a person with this particular disorder. So what are the other options? Well one other option is cognitive and behavioral therapy and this is a form of therapy that I use in my practice, is basically, to help the person change the way they think. That’s the cognition, that’s the cognitive part of it. because the way they think maybe distorted, it maybe irrational, it may be twisted, a lot of times these Narcissistic individuals have a way of perceiving and thinking of things that are not necessarily reality-based. So changing the thought process, and some of the techniques that I use are self-talk and thought-stopping, cognitive restructuring but changing the way they think about things. The behavioral side of this is changing some of their actions and some of their behaviors. It maybe that a Narcissist is overly-aggressive in their communication style, maybe they’re domineering, maybe they are passive-aggressive, giving them ways of modifying their communication skills. So teaching them assertive communication. Teaching them ways to communicate in a less offensive way, in a less intimidating way. That’s part of the behavioral therapy. Another part of the behavioral therapy is teaching them ways of feeling good and confident and self-assured from the inside out. Many of the Narcissistic patients that I see are focused on external ways of feeling good about themselves. Their self-esteem is externally focused. So achievement and praise from others, and status and power, material possessions, physical appearance, children’s success. Those are all external ways that these individuals might feel good about themselves. But if at any point, those go away or they are threatened like they are today with the way the economy is, then their self-esteem starts to crumble. And if you remember from the beginning I said that many of these Narcissistic individuals are insecure on the inside. On the outside, they may appear self-confident, but on the inside, they’re extremely insecure and don’t have the self-worth or the self-esteem that they really need. So part of my work is teaching them how to develop self-esteem and self-confidence from the inside-out. And what does that look like? Well, part of it looks like being able to have self-acceptance, self-praise, be able to feel good about yourself independent of other people’s reactions or responses, being sensitive to what other people say, being aware of their reactions. But not necessarily absorbing it. Teaching them how to be assertive, how to have good boundaries, how to forgive themselves and others. Again part of internal self-esteem is what I said earlier, being able to give back, being able to volunteer, being able to do for other people. So there are several ways that people can develop internal self-esteem and that’s part of the cognitive behavioral therapy. Now, for many of the individuals that I see, I’m doing a lot of couple’s work, and sometimes the Narcissistic person will not even come into the office because, remember, they don’t have a problem. The problem is not about them from their perspective. Their spouse may have a problem from their perspective, and their spouse may have all of the problem. But they don’t perceive themselves as having a problem. So it’s not uncommon for me initially to just work with one party, one individual. And the hope is that as I help this individual in coping or in dealing or interacting with their Narcissistic partner, that over time, as they change, their partner will see the benefit and be motivated to find out more about it. And maybe enter the therapy with their spouse and then we can do some couple’s counseling. I do a lot of couple’s counseling in my practice. And a lot of times, couples want to blame each other, want to point the finger which is not uncommon for someone with a Narcissistic Personality because they have such a hard time accepting that they could possibly be a part of the problem. And I will often say to them, you’re part of the problem, and you’re part of the solution, but it’s going to require you to take responsibility for change. Couples often want to change their partner. And they expend so much energy trying to change their partner and are often very frustrated because you can’t another person. So my comment is the best way to change someone else is to yourself. And that’s where your focus needs to be.

 

Something else that I do with couples and with individuals is I try to help in learning more about their personalities, so education is an important part of this process of change. Sometimes I’m like a coach, and I’m trying to tell people what their strengths are, and what their weaknesses are. And then give them ways to improve on their weaknesses. A technique that I use would be called personality modification, but the technique whereby I actually sit down with an individual and go through five or six different aspects of their personality. And then look at where that personality trait came from? What’s the source? And what perpetuates that trait? And then the last part of this exercise is what are the solutions? You can’t completely revamp the whole personality and that wouldn’t be what the person probably would desire. Most of the people that I see, want to keep aspects of their personality, they don’t want to change their whole personality, which would be unrealistic anyway. So changing certain aspects of their personality, modifying it, can be very helpful. If a person, if one of their personality traits is that they’re overly-critical, and on a scale of 0-100, they’ll  probably at like a 90. If I can help them bring that overly-critical nature down from a 90 to like a 70, then we are successful. And that 20-point difference will have an impact on their relationships and on their lives. So looking at modifying their personality is part of what I do in therapy.

 

Many of these individuals also have a hard time interpersonally. Not just with their spouse, but in friendships. Many of these people have a hard time committing to friendships, but more importantly, they have a hard time in nurturing deep and intimate friendships. So they might have a ton of acquaintances, but many of these individuals have a hard time actually going to that next level. To  going to a more intimate, and a deeper connection with people. Part of my work is helping people have the skills to be able to have those kind of connections. Maybe they grew up in an environment, where there wasn’t a whole lot of intimacy, affection, connection. Maybe there wasn’t a whole lot of emotional expression as a kid. So, for many of these individuals, that’s what they know. Their relationships are limited. Their ability to communicate on an emotional level is limited, and it’s sad when you think about it because these people miss out on some really solid, close and intimate relationships.

 

Another part of the treatment for me in my practice is helping people unpack boxes, and what I mean by that is helping them resolve conflict from the past. It maybe that they have a lot of emotional pain and turmoil that they’ve never dealt with. And because of it, they have a hard time letting people get close, they maintain their armor, their wall. Some people build a moat around them, as a way to protect them. Because they’re so afraid of being either hurt or embarrassed or humiliated. Maybe they’re afraid of being exposed and maybe that’s what’s contributing to their keeping people at arm’s length. Whatever it is, whatever the pain is, it needs to be addressed if it’s going to go away. It needs to be confronted and resolved. And that’s part of what therapy is all about – is helping people in confronting and resolving their pain.

 

So that gives you a good understanding and it captures some of what Narcissism looks like. And it also gives you a sense as to what are some ways to help these individuals. I hope that you can use some of this information in your relationships and in your life.

 

Next week, we will move to a different personality disorder and we’ll finish up over the next few weeks. And I hope that you get something each time that you listen in. something that you can apply in your life and something that can be of help to you.

 

 

 

 Thoughts

 

  • People with Narcissistic Personality think too much about themselves. They believe that they are of primary importance to other people’s lives and that the world revolves around them, characteristics which may be considered as inappropriate for ordinary people of today. They try to uphold an image of perfection and personal invincibility for themselves and exhibit it to others as well. They have this notion that they are superior and that they can work and perform better.

 

  • They are indifferent of other people’s feelings, they have this craving to keep the focus on themselves all the time and they have this desire to be always in the lime-light. They may also be convinced that because they are too good, they therefore deserve special treatment. They often monopolize conversations or may belittle or look down at people who they think are inferior.

 

  • They often display snobbish, intimidating, disdainful or patronizing attitudes. They may have a hawk-eye for the tiniest mistakes of the works of other people just to feed their self-confidence that they can do better. They may sweat over small stuff and make it a big deal just to show that they are greater. Doing these things gives them a constant reminder and the assurance that they are on a higher-level than anyone or everyone else.

 

  • A person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, at some situations do not want to think that anything could go wrong or else their self-image of power of perfection will be threatened and that is where their insecurities will come in.

 

  • It is believed that there is no ‘one’ known cause for this Personality Disorder, instead, it may be due likely to either one of these three factors:
    • Biological and genetic factors
    • Social factors (such as how an individual interacts during his early developmental years with his family, friends and other children)
    • Psychological functions (which is the person’s personality shaped by the environment and learned coping skills to deal with stress)

 

  • Some traits of people with Narcissism may have the same features with that of having confidence or self-esteem since they are indeed in no doubt about themselves, but it is not the same. For it crosses the boundary of healthy confidence and self-esteem into thinking so highly of themselves that they put themselves on a pedestal. Compared to this, a person with a healthy and strong confidence and self-esteem do not value himself more that he values other people.

 

  • Other severe cases might end up with “malignant narcissism” which is identical to the selfish and remorseless use of others that is seen in psychopaths. Since they lack empathy and are indifferent with regards to the feelings of others, they may eventually become unconcerned about how their actions harm or upset other people.

 

  • I think that both individuals that have heard excessive praises and those who experienced lack of affection or praise during their childhood years might be at risk of having this personality disorder. Excessive praises in a way that it has boosted their ego and their confidence way too much, thinking that they are good at anything because their parents have told them so. Lack of affection or praise may result to children proving themselves even more so they can get the recognition that they want. Then if they still haven’t received it from their parents, they will then build their own self-esteem that they can do things their way even without being acknowledged by their parents.

 

  • I believe that families must also imbibe in their family members the core value of humility and kindness. Children must also learn sensitivity to other people’s feelings and condition. It all starts during their childhood years, when they are still in the umbrella of their families or their primary caregivers, the time when most of their traits and characteristics are starting to be molded. Most of the things can be magnified or triggered whether positive or negative within the context of the family.

 

  • Individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder also find some difficulties in maintaining good and lasting relationships with the people around them. Since they demonstrate characteristics like feeling superior, always needing to be admired and often monopolizes conversations, people around them, even those that are close to them might one day find that they no longer enjoy the Narcissistic Personality’s company.

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