Narcissistic Personality Disorder
What Is It?
A personality disorder in which a person feels an inflated sense of self importance.
Symptoms
Symptoms include excessive need for admiration, disregard for others' feelings, an inability to handle any criticism, and a sense of entitlement. They often show during teens or early adulthood, and are found more commonly with men. There is no cure but treatment would include therapy, specifically psychotherapy. The exact cause is unknown, speculated to be because of genetics and neurobiology. Some complications include relationship problems, drug and alcohol misuse, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts/behavior. They also have difficulty empathizing with others. Some famous characters with this disorder: Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind, Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray, Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. The prevalence of this disorder is more prevalent in 20% of the people in the military and 17% of first year medical students.
Stats
About 15% of people with narcissistic personality disorder also have depression, 13.5% have anxiety and around 17% have another mood disorder. About 14% of people with narcissistic personality disorder also have an alcohol use disorder, while 24% misuse other types of drugs. Estimated about 0.5-5% of the US population has this disorder.
4 types of Narcissists:
Covert narcissist: tend to be shy, self-effacing, hypersensitive to how others perceive them, and chronically envious.
The Cerebral Narcissist: derive their self-importance from their intellect, believing they’re smarter than everyone else
The Somatic Narcissist: obsess over physical appearance and weight
The Spiritual Narcissist: use religion or spirituality to intimidate or justify harmful behaviors to others