Narcissism at the crossroads: Phenotypic description of pathological narcissism across clinical theory, social/personality psychology, and psychiatric diagnosis
Section snippets
Clinical theories of narcissism
In the last 35 years, the expanding clinical literature on narcissism and narcissistic personality pathology has led to a marked proliferation of labels implying variations in the phenotypic expression of narcissism. We identified over 50 distinct labels describing variability in the expression of pathological narcissism. While each individual conceptualization has unique clinical value, neither future classification systems (e.g., DSM-V), nor intervention models, are likely to sustain such a
Narcissism in social/personality psychology
The publication of NPD on DSM-III Axis II also stimulated research on narcissistic personality traits in social and personality psychology. The publication of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin and Hall, 1979, Raskin and Hall, 1981) followed on the heels of DSM-III and provided a self-report measure derived from criteria presented in DSM-III. For over two decades, the NPI has dominated social/personality research on narcissistic personality traits. We conducted PsychInfo
DSM narcissistic personality disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) was first included in DSM-III due to its use by psychodynamically informed clinicians. However, despite two major revisions since its inclusion, the clinical utility of the NPD diagnosis remains questionable. It is unclear whether the DSM NPD diagnosis serves its original purpose, i.e., to facilitate the accurate diagnosis of patients with pathological forms of narcissism. This problem is not unique to the NPD diagnosis. Livesley (2001) noted that many of
Narcissism at the crossroads
In our review, we found two broad themes of dysfunction in the phenotypic descriptions of pathological narcissism across clinical theory, social/personality psychology, and psychiatric diagnosis. One theme reflects an emphasis on grandiose aspects of narcissism and a second theme reflects an emphasis on vulnerable aspects of narcissism. As noted in our review, support for the two descriptive themes of emphasis has been found in clinical theory and social/personality psychology. Clinical
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