Narcissism and NPD

Many people misuse the words Narcissism and NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder). The Narcissism concept covers a spectrum of presentations, some of them normal, some very concerning. Here we are going to briefly look at the original myth that the name is derived from, look at four position on the Narcissism Spectrum, take a peek into the mind of the Narcissist, and debunk Narcissistic Psychopath.

Narcissus’s Origin Story

Narcissus is a figure from Greek Mythology. He was a a hunger from Thespiae in Boeotia, known in our modern day as Karaburun. He was well regarded as beautiful and would turn heads as he passed. This power over others was certainly noted by Narcissus. Narcissus rejected all suitors who wished to marry him.

One day, Narcissus was hunting and passed a river. Thirsty, he bent to drink from a still part of the stream, noticing his reflection and finally falling in love – with himself. Some versions of the myth have Narcissus die of thirst as he cannot disturb his own image, nor can he be torn away from it, another has him beat his own chest purple to represent his emotional agony, other’s gloss over what happens next.

This overly powerful self interest is at the heart of how Narcissus inspired the naming of a mental disorder where the person appears to have an overly inflated sense of themselves, prioritising their own needs over anyone else’s.

We will cover the variants below.

Understanding The Narcissism Spectrum

There are four layers to the Narcissism Spectrum.

• Situational Narcissism
  • Exaggerated self promotion in limited reasonable situations
• Narcissistic Traits
  • Often self promoting, often serving self first, may occasional leave others out or lead to accidental minor harm
  • Also reasonably considerate of others
• Narcissism
  • Has a core of selfishness that leads to minor harm of others
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder
  • Pathologically self interested and very harmful to others

Situational Narcissism

We’ve all had that time when we are trying to do a bit of self promotion, and perhaps you exaggerate your ability to do something. Perhaps you were shameless in the way you presented yourself on a first date, or in a job interview. This self promotion is effectively Situational Narcissism and is considered to not be problematic.

In job interviews, this is expected – that you will exaggerate your ability, but not outright lie about it. If you do tell the pedantic truth about how good you are, or avoid bragging, you will seem inadequate compared to other’s, who did exaggerate. Similarly, if you are sell yourself in courtship, you often do not get a second date.

This situational self serving, self promoting, exaggerated confidence in yourself is perfectly fine.

When you do this, if it is an anomaly to how you would normally relay your ability to others, then this is not an indicator of Narcissism.

The vast majority of humans will have times where self promotion is essential for reasonable progress, and so long as upselling yourself is honest in its exaggeration, this is not a concerning behaviour.

Narcissistic Traits

A person can have a few Narcissistic Traits and not quite fit into either Narcissisms or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). This person frequently is self interested, but isn’t predominantly so – that is, often selfish, but not harmful.

• This person is self interested above others, but not dangerously so
• They may be thoughtless about others getting less, and not care so much about minor injustice, but will care if someone is harmed
• Believes they have greater worth than many other people
• This person is often arrogant about their abilities
  • Being quietly or dispassionately accurate about your abilities is not arrogance
• This person will often exaggerate their ability and not be able to meet their claims of ability
• Is reluctant to admit they are wrong, but will do so with some coaxing
  • This may be a side effect of often actually being correct, or often not being taken seriously when they do have the correct answer

This is not Narcissism that psychologists often refer to a concerning. This person just defaults to selfish and self serving rather than communal and conscientious.

Narcissism

People often mix up Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Narcissism is considered a personality trait, which may now seems confusing considering the prior “Narcissistic Traits” category. Unfortunately, the English Language is confusing in how people use it, and more confusing when you look at how specialists use it differently to what you would expect. Someone with Narcissistic Traits will occasionally or semi frequently exhibit a few traits listed above, but that isn’t a core nature trait.

Narcissism has at least a core persona trait of self interest that is damaging to others. The Narcissistic person either cannot change their harmful behaviours, or doesn’t see why they should, so won’t.

The Narcissistic person does not meet the criteria for NPD, and while they are not as harmful as someone who does qualify for NPD, they certainly are not harmless. This person is more callous in their disregard for the incidental harm they do to others than you will find in people who exhibit Narcissistic Traits, but neither does it seem to be their goal to harm or hold power over others.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

NPD is a diagnosis given to people who meet the specific diagnostic criteria within the DSM 5 TR for NPD. The ICD 11 does not list NPD, but does have a listing for DPD (Dissociality Personality Disorder) it suggests, however the criteria for this are quite a bit different to NPD.

NPD is an order of magnitude greater / worse than Narcissism. While you may suspect that someone you know is NPD or perhaps that you are, there is a marked distinction between indifference to how others may be affected by self interested versus enjoying the feeling of how others are negatively affected by the self serving actions.

It is important to wonder “what is a Personality Disorder?” A Personality Disorder refers to a deeply ingrained pattern of behaviour of a specific kind that deviates significantly from generally acceptable behaviour. This fits for NPD, but other than noting that someone’s behaviour is not acceptable by the mainstream, it doesn’t inherently mean anything useful. I have some strong opinions about that, that I’ll cover elsewhere. For now, just see NPD as a diagnostic thing that tells us some interesting things about those who meet the criteria.

The diagnostic criteria for NPD in the DSM 5 TR (text revision) are:

It is not possible to have five of these criteria and continue to be a nice person. That doesn’t mean the person won’t do the occasional nice thing, but that thing will be undermined by a self serving agenda.

This leads us to the Richard Dawkins Selfish Gene problem.

The Selfish Gene Problem

Technically speaking, many NPD people seek to gain power and dominate, which often includes creating children, and so their particular corrupted selfish gene is passed on. This is not the Selfish Gene that we are referring to here.

Richard Dawkins, an ethologist, published the book “The Selfish Gene” in 1976, which postulated that the closer two people are genetically related to each other, the more it makes sense for them to be cooperative as this promotes their continuation. This was a new take, at the time, on evolution, from a genetic perspective. Unfortunately, this prompted people to see all actions as selfish and for some, effectively killed the notion of altruism.

Altruism was a term created by French philosopher Auguste Comte in the mid 1800s (Lit. “for others”, Latin roots). The idea of altruism is that an altruistic person will do something for others without regard to oneself, or more precisely, the needs of others may outweigh your self interest.

Dawkins’ argument about evolution benefitting the selfish gene has shown way to reengineer the perception of altruism as being selfish for the promotion of your close relations – redefining altruism as selfish. Richard Dawkins stated “We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes” (1976).

Both of these, in extreme, are errors. As with most things, balance is the important part. Extreme altruism leads to early death as your own needs go unmet, which ultimately means you can do less good for others and do little good for yourself. Extreme selfishness destroys the society that nurtures you as your actions benefit yourself without regard to the benefit of others, leading to harm and damage to that society (at many scales), leading to the harm to yourself.

In balance, you see to your own needs and to others needs seeking the path of least harm, where you will occasionally and briefly take a hit for the good of others, but seek to address the situation before it leads to great harm or long term harm to yourself.

NPD and Narcisistic people will seek to redefine the term altruism or common good as a corruption to justify their own self serving nature. Most people are not self serving the majority of the time, although most people will do a minor cheat if they think they can get away with it.

Inside the Mind of NPD

Why this is Not Possible

There are two reasons why it is hard to understand the Mind of NPD. Firstly, studying NPD is complicated, and secondly because the motivations of NPD are so alien to most people that it doesn’t really make sense.

Studying NPD is hard. Due to the nature of NPD, people who fit the criteria often do not seek help, do not seek to be understood and do not participate in experiments and examination. The few who are involved in experiments are either prisoners, making them a subgroup of NPD as most NPD don’t get punished, or a fringe group of NPD who have some interest in being studied (attention seeking or soft NPD who want to help society). There is a good argument that soft NPD isn’t real, since if you want to help society understand NPD, then you aren’t really NPD, as altruism isn’t part of the NPD type. Of those who do participate in experiments and examination, most directly lie (a common feature of NPD), distort the story (another common feature) or indirectly lie (because they don’t know why they do what they do).

NPD is an extreme divergence from most neuro types that it is hard to understand what it is like. This brings us to the Theory of Mind, where Thomas Nagel argues that you cannot know what it is like to be bat. You may understand the basics of echolocation, but you don’t know what it is like. Further, even if you learn to echolocate (it can be learned by humans), you only know what it is like to echolocate for yourself, not as a bat. Another test, what does pear taste like? Try to explain what it tastes like to someone, as if they have never tasted a pear. You know what it tastes like to you, but you don’t know what it tastes like to them.

If you are not an NPD person, you can’t know what it is like to be NPD. That means you can’t really know why they do what they do, because you wouldn’t do that.

The Closest we can Get

As hard as it is to truly know and get inside the mind of NPD, we are going to try to give you a bit of an insight. This model helps explain many NPD and abusive people, but it isn’t perfect and relies on speculation, analogy and some story telling.

The Mind of the NPD is mostly a deeply dissatisfied individual trying to feel good. That dissatisfaction is in themself, and it cannot be sated. The attempt to feel good is incredibly harmful.

I differentiate between two cohorts of NPD, the Reactives and the Calculators.

Most NPD people struggle to think, plan and create long term strategies. I refer to these as Reactives. They don’t have a long term plan – certainly not one that they actually work on or often even recall. They have vague wants, and will occasional spout an inspiration. Other’s often mistake these inspirations or ambitions as long term plans, rather than a current whim. They others then carry out that whim, making it a reality as if that were the plan, which it wasn’t. Reactives, without lots of others putting in effort, are terrible at making things happen. Reactives underplay who else is doing the work, so that you may think you are just helping them, not realising you are actually just one of many people making their whim a reality, with almost no input from the Reactive. Reactives will then take all of the credit for the thing, after all, it was their plan.

The other cohort of NPD are the Calculators. They do have a plan, and they do remember and keep track. They often are competent at many things. They can be very scary.

Reactives are very good at taking advantage of any situation that they fall into. They instinctively know how to minimise the harm to themselves (Apple founder Steve Jobs was said to have a “reality distortion field“) and gain the most from the situation. Their general modus operandi is to Dismiss awkward evidence, Devalue other’s expertise, Deflect the focus from them (to someone else via real or imagined faults), Denigrated opponents, Distract from what actually happened, Disadvantage anyone else who might gain and then Fleece Free goods, Favours, Future benefits and or Funds.

Calculators are also excellent at the above, but they often also come into these situations with a plan. Reactives generally can’t make a plan, even with warning, so they rely on the above strategy. Calculators are harder to catch in lies, because they are more consistent, more meticulous, more logical and smart enough to consistently justify things.

To undo the Reactive’s distortions, generally you just need to write things down as they happen and compare their new statements for this new incident with what you wrote in the past – while at the same time disabling your Presumption of Good and Principle of Charity by taking the Rose Tinted Glasses off. The Calculator won’t be caught this easily. Even so, there is a distortion in them that can be spotted.

NPDs hide behind a character, a false persona. I call this the FIGJAM character.

NPD Reactives know they are a monster, and they know that they aren’t very intelligent or capable. While they may have a specific skill or two that they excel in, they don’t want you know that is all that there is of them. To hide their monstrous side and their lack of general ability, they will construct a character – FIGJAM. FIGJAM is an acronym credited to Kevin Bloody Wilson, meaning “F*ck I’m Good, Just Ask Me”.

Take a moment to think of the people whose very persona loudly screams this.

The Calculator also needs to hide their true nature, the monster. Even if they are actually quite capable at many things, they don’t want you to know what they aren’t good at, so they’ll conceal their deficits too. They too will try to convince you that they are the Gods’ Gift to Earth. Their FIGJAM persona is a bit more subtle, but just as much a character.

Part of the FIGJAM persona is to know everything and never be wrong. Even when you show them evidence that what they said was wrong, they’ll either say they never said that, downplay how wrong they were, or claim the evidence is bogus. There are some

Both will modify their FIGJAM to meet the current situation, the Calculator will do so a bit better, the Reactive more crudely. Most people do this to a lesser extent, modifying their behaviours to suit the situation, but most people are trying to be mostly their genuine self. The NPD is just modifying their fake character for maximum survival and personal gain.

It is important to distinguish between the Book from the Cover, or the Actor from the Character. The contents are what is important here, not the cover or the act. The FIGJAM persona is captivating, charming, competent, and confident … but it is a charade. We can fall in love with the character / cover, but hate the contents.

I frequently hear victims tell me “but I love them“.

No you don’t.

You love the character they pretended to be when they met you.

That person isn’t real, it is a character.

Now you’ve met the actor who plays that character, and you hate them.

You know the actor based on their actions – not their hollow, distorted claims.

NPDs are miserable creatures. They only pretend to be happy and wonderful.

They know that they are monsters, inherently unlovable, and generally incompetent. They are lonely, since no one can know them, because to know them is to see the monsters, and upon seeing the monster, they know you have to destroy the monster – it’s the rules. Nothing you can say will convince them that this is not true. Once they know that you know, or suspect that you know, they must destroy you, so you don’t destroy them. That’s the way it has to be (for them).

From the NPD perspective, destroying them can include disrupting their plans, corrupting their followers, or declaring truths to their lies.

This is why the NPD creates the FIGJAM. They hide their true self and give you FIGJAM so that you can think that they are wonderful. This false character is what gave them the name Narcissism, reflecting on the self-absorbed character from the Greek Myth, who thought he was so darn wonderful and perfect. While that does reflect the FIGJAM character, it is the exact opposite of who they truly are.

NPDs seek to make themselves feel better. There are three major strategies they have for this.

1. Love / Awe : The more people they can convince that FIGJAM is true, the better. They do this by counting up how many people claim to love them, or owe them, or will perform service for them, or are in awe of their pretended qualities.
2. Power : This is more about finances, assets, hierarchical position, fame, dominating another and anything else they need for society to say “that person is powerful”.
3. Fear / Anger / Pain : There are two parts to this, both to do with the first two listed.
   • Love testing: The people who profess love and admiration for the NPD need to be tested. How much do they truly love or admire the NPD? What if the NPD does this hurtful thing, will they still profess love for the NPD? Can the NPD make them do this thing that they said they’d never do, proving that the victim loves the NPD more than themself?
   • Dominating the enemy: The people who are not falling for their FIGJAM must be put in their place, and so long as they can be contained and hurt, the NPD feels powerful.

Often the NPD wants to directly see the outcome of their actions. They get the most satisfaction seeing the fawning, fear or financial winfal. The NPD also gains satisfaction in imagining the reaction to an act when they can’t see the outcome, just not as much as seeing it in real life.

Testing for Toxic

Most civil people assume the best intentions of others, and that the other people are thinking mostly about things in a similar way to oneself. This works well enough in most cases, as most people are good, and most people have the standard social expectations of civil interactions. This falls down badly when dealing with someone who is using a very different system for deciding their actions, mostly toxic, abusive, self centred individuals which certainly includes the latter half of the narcisistic spectrum.

Take a look at our Testing for Toxic page, where we outline:

• The “No” Test
• Reflecting on Your Limits
• Trapped Test
• Comfort Test
• Traffic Light System

Narcissistic Psychopathic isn’t a thing

The definition of Psychopathy has changed a bit over the decades and it has also been somewhat warped by television. Psychopathy has been folded into the DSM as part of AntiSocial Personality Disorder – ASPD.

In a nutshell, a Psychopathic Person is someone who cannot intuitively pick up what someone else is feeling. The other person is an empathic blank slate, a void of emotion. Thus Psychopathic Person cannot pick up if the other person happy, sad, feeling love, awe, joy, disgust, anger or fear. Other people are no different to toys, robots, furniture or computer game characters. The Psychopath can feel their own emotional responses to things, just not that of others. The Psychopath can learn to work out what you are feeling by observation of clear signals and working out the logic of the situation.

It is important not to mistake someone with reduced empathy as Psychopathic. Someone with reduced empathy can still detect the feelings of others, they just may not do so as quickly, or they may not care as much about someone else’s feelings as most people. Sociopathic describes someone who has learned to disregard the feelings of others, often in order to survive. The Sociopath can also learn to diminish their own awareness of someone else’s feelings. A Sociopath go all the way to effectively being Psychopathic, but often doesn’t, and they can learn to come back to moderately full empathy and care.

The emotions of others are of core importance to the Narcissist. They need to know that you love them, are in awe of them, and have bought into the FIGJAM persona. They need to know that you are hurt, angry or scared. The ability to detect what you are feeling is not the same as caring about the effect it has on you. Narcissists don’t care that you are hurt or happy, they care how you feel about them, or what you feel in response to what they are doing. Generally, the Narcissist has a keen ability to detect your mood, often pre-empting your choices because of their ability to detect your feelings.

As the Psychopath can’t directly detect your feelings, and not only the Narcissist can, but has to – it is a contradiction in terms to call someone a Narcissistic Psychopath. You can’t both sense how people feel and have no ability to sense what they feel at the same time. The Narcissistic Psychopath is just a jumble of psychobabble by media to make two scary things seems combined into something worse.