Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Empathy and lack of compassion for others
By: Karen Kaye
Hollywood Happenings
INTRODUCTION:
What is a narcissistic personality disorder? It is a sense of self-importance of unrealistic inflated sense of self lacks empathy and is hypersensitive to the opinions of others. The onset of this disorder is usually in early adulthood.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder 301.82 as found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (DSM-IV-TR). For a person with NPD, to diagnose this disorder a person must possess at least 5 of the 9 criteria.
It is a Behavior or a fantasy of grandiosity, a lack of empathy and a need to be admired by others. As indicated by at least five of the following: (DSM IV TR)
A person with Narcissistic Personality Lacks empathy towards others, they have fantasies of and preoccupied with beauty, brilliance, ideal love, power, or unlimited success. and they tend to use others to achieve his or her goals as well as having an unreasonable expectation of being treated with favor or excepting an automatic compliance to her or his wishes.
According to recent studies it is said that 75% of the people with this disorder are men, but there are a lot of women with this disorder. An excellent example of this would be Joan Crawford, “Mommy Dearest,” she does not want her children ever to defeat or be better than her. She is obsessed with power and control.
Now the movie “Mommy Dearest,” brings us to the point of how parents control their children. They want them to come into their world and will not enter the child’s world.
What is conditional Love? It is where parents give their love as a reward but withdraw it as a punishment. When a parent nurtures their children they do so by touching them and telling them that they are wanted and loved. If a child receives conditional love they feel as if they must earn their parents love, and parents feel as if owe giving their love to the child.
The other keys are respect, encouragement, being consistent, having good social connections, giving children their emotional freedom, and keeping communications open. If a child feels as if they are valued and have the right to express their own opinions and given their own emotional freedom. A child who does not have any of these can cause a child to have a lot of problems later in life. If they are denied their inner self, they lack compassion for themselves, and it keeps them from being curious and their family atmosphere feels stilted or chaotic. (Neuharth, Dan Ph.D.; If You Had Controlling Parents, Harper, 2002)
If a child receives an honest type of love and nurturing while keeping the lines of communications open between parents and child by giving them the chance to succeed or fail at real responsibilities. If a child does not receive nurturing love, gets no respect and parents keep the child from expressing their emotions then the child will have problems later in life.
As a parent it is important to remember to love, respect, keep communication open, and do not over control your child by not giving them the right to succeed or fail on their own. A parent who does this are not in touch with their own inner self, and therefore the child will grow up lacking his own sense of identity.
In the movie “Love Story,” the father was very controlling and never thought the girl was good enough for his son. He even went as far as disinheriting his son if he chooses to be with someone below their high status.
“All eight styles of controlling parents share an unhealthy narcissism. The eight styles of controlling parents are: Smothering, Depriving, Perfectionists, Cult like Chaotic, Using, Abusing, and Childlike. Each controlling parents of each of the styles with anywhere from one to three predominating their parenting.
“Depriving parents, and the key characteristics of depriving parents are control through withdrawal, disapproval, or banishment, they become emotionally unreachable, and view happiness and good fortune as scarce, and see love as a commodity to be withheld when the parent is displeased.” Some of the potential consequences of this style of parenting could lead self-doubt, depression, lowered expectations, and confidence, feeling unloving and unlovable, and slowed development of social skills.”
“Using parent’s key characteristics include control through demands for loyalty admiration, and obedience, terrified of losing or feeling one down, emotionally immature, and insensitive to others’ needs and feelings.” “Some of the consequences of a Using upbringing are feeling used, poor self-image, mistaken ideas about love, and difficult in developing good emotional self-care habits.” The style of the using parent is most like what we call unhealthy narcissism.”
:” Abusing parents key characteristics include control through brute force, blame their children for making them abuse, feel they have the right to abuse, and have poor impulse control.” Potential consequences of an abusive upbringing include depression, addictions, hyper vigilance, assumption that abuse is deserved and difficulty in trusting others.” (Neuharth, Dan Ph.D. Harper Collins Publishers, 1999 p. 22–30)
In controlling families, they offer conditional love, disrespect, stifled speech, emotional intolerance, ridicule, dogmatic or chaotic parenting, denial of an inner life and social dysfunction. In these types of families, the children are told that people are out to get them, that their relationships are driven by approval-seeking, they give their children truly little privacy, criticize, are told feelings are dangerous, communication is hampered by rules, and parents tell children that they have to earn their love.
In contrast, in healthy families' parents nurture their children, give them respect, and let them know that it is okay to have feelings of emotions, and they encourage their children.
For narcissistic controlling parents they may tell their children, “I love you because you reflect well on me” may still be love, however sullied. (One might argue that love in the service of selfish needs is not really love — but the line between selfish and unselfish love is a fuzzy one indeed if you consider “selfish gene” theory, and the fact that even normal parents have a “healthy” amount of narcissism.” (http://www.voicelessness.com/loveenough.html) Grossman, Richard A 2009)
It is important to note that if we as parents are going to raise healthy children, “If you want to raise emotionally healthy children, you must give them the gift of “voice.” “However most narcissistic parents feed, shelter, and, at the least, provide basic necessities for their children.”
It is interesting to note that most narcissistic personalities are not able to handle nor are they equipped for love or friendship. What most narcissistic personalities choose their friends is they base it on what the person can do for them. When choosing romantic partners they prefer non-narcissists.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder resembles histrionic personality disorder, as well as shares conspicuous similarities with antisocial personality disorder, which raises the question to whether the two should be in separate categories.
(Alloy, L.B., Rskind, J.H. Manos, M.J. (2004) Abnormal, Current perspectives, 9th edition Chapter 11 Psychodynamic Perspective, p. 297)
PERSPECTIVE:
In Psychodynamic Perspective theorists interpret what they also call character disturbances that stem from the parent child relationship. Narcissistic personality disorder has been the subject of intense study and controversy in psychodynamic circles. Otto Kerniberg, (1975) along with namic DSM-IV-TR, sees the basic pattern as a combination of grandiosity and feelings of inferiority, with the inferiority being primary; the grandiosity is merely a defense against childhood feelings of rage and inferiority. Heinz Kohur (1966, 1972, 1977), on the other hand, sees grandiosity as primary — the expressions, has evaded the neutralizing efforts of the ego. When narcissistic personality shows rage and wounded self-esteem, these are reactions to blows to the grandiose self-image. (Alloy, L.B., Rskind, J.H. Manos, M.J. (2004) Abnormal, Current perspectives, 9th edition Chapter 11 Psychodynamic Perspective, p. 303–304) Pathological narcissism was first described by Freud.
A prominent theme of current object relations theory is that the self-image is the product of the child’s introjections, or incorporation, of the parents’ attitudes, particularly their attitudes toward the child.
(Alloy, L.B., Rskind, J.H. Manos, M.J. (2004) Abnormal, Current perspectives, ninth edition Chapter 11 Psychodynamic Perspective, p. 304)
The children whose parents flood them with lots of praise and attention when they do something their parents are proud of. These children tend to grow up wanting attention and convinced that the only way to get it is through success. The child will never be satisfied until it heals the original wound from their parents. This is where the indifference comes from and despite all of the constant attention of the narcissist personality. (Alloy, L.B., Rskind, J.H. Manos, M.J. (2004) Abnormal, Current perspectives, 9th edition Chapter 11 Psychodynamic Perspective, p. 304)
A person who becomes involved with someone with NPD will constantly put you down with insults. A major factor in domestic abuse and chronic fighting and we have gone public with our experience to help others learn to recognize and deal with this all-too-common problem.”
The person whom you are involved with will treat you differently in private than in public. When he is in public, he may ignore you and give all his attention to others, or he may pretend to be the perfect mate or father. Behind closed doors he becomes very sarcastic, haughty, and insulting and shows little or no regard for your wellbeing or your feelings.
The criticism, insults and lack of involvement or concern for your well-being and feelings may cause you and/or your children to feel rejected, hurt, humiliated, powerless, ashamed, and angry and can also lead to mental health and psychological problems and addictions within your family.” (Cooper, Kim http://narcissismcured.com/Narcissism_Cured.html)
In doing my own research for this disorder I have found different therapists who have all said that if you are all involved with a narcissist that you should run and get as far away from the narcissist as you could. When you are involved with a narcissist you are dealing with a person who has a lot of vegetative emotions, and energy. She passionately asserts that we have the power to transform negative emotions and achieve inner peace. She offers practical strategies to overcome frustration, stress, and worry and teaches people how to quiet overactive minds that won’t shut off.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxTddQM-d08) (http://www.drjudithorloff.com/)
TREATMENT METHODS:
Currently there are nine different types of Psychotherapy forms of treatment. The types are as follows: Adlerian Therapy, Behavior Therapy, Existential Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Person-centered Therapy, Psychoanalytic, Rational-emotive Therapy, Reality Therapy, and Transactional Analysis. Also the DSM-IV-TR shows another type of treatment method known as (Pharmacotherapy. (APA 2004) and from http://psyweb.com/Mdisord/jsp/napd.jsp.
In the treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Freud would recommend the Psychoanalytic, from the Psychodynamic Perspective. Freud was the one that first described what we know as Pathological narcissism. .
According to the DSM-IV-TR, the Psychoanalytic form of “Psychotherapy focus on the unconscious and believes it influences human behavior.” “Repressed conflicts from childhood lead to personality problems later in life.” “Anxiety is a direct result of the repression of conflicts Psychotherapist believes that the unconscious motives along with unresolved conflicts lead to maladapted behavior.” “It’s focus mainly on the first six years of human life and how the events of this time period determines later personality”
Oral — Birth to 1 year: Sucking.
Anal — 1 to 3 years: Holding and releasing urine and feces.
Phallic — 3 to 6 years: Pleasure in genital stimulation.
Latency — 6 to 11 years: Sexual instincts develop.
Genital — Adolescence: Sexual impulses return.
“Inadequate resolution of any of these stages leads to flawed personality development.’ The client with the therapist help will make repressed conflicts conscious, making the unconscious conscious.’ Making these conflicts conscious to the client will help them in working through them, awareness.”
(http://psyweb.com/Mdisord/MdisordADV/AdvPsych.jsp )
Despite the fact that a narcissist will be hard to cure, it can be done by a lot of intense psychotherapy.
PERSONAL INSIGHTS
I can relate to this topic because for the lat 13 years, I have been in an out of a relationship with Narcissistic person, but what I found in doing the research is that “Genetics significantly influences personality genetic factors account for 50% of the variation in many personality traits. (Liveskley W.J. Jank K.L., Jackson Vernon PA AMJ Psychiatry 1993 150 (12) 1826–1831)
I remember watching the movies “Love Story,” and “Mommy Dearest,” when I was younger but I never realized what narcissism really was about. I never dreamed that parents could control their children so much, that they would disown their children if they did not do what was expected of them by their parents.
Much like the movie “Love Story,” his father told him that if you married someone beneath your status that he would disinherit son. That line made me think of what my boyfriend’s father at one time said to me. “He is not my son as long as he is with you.” It’s hard for me because we never broke up, but we were forced apart.
I remember that his mother would always call us so many times in one day. She would ask things like what you guys are going to do today, what you ate, walk the dog, and feed the cat and dog. If her son were not at home, she would call repeatedly asking where he was at. She would demand that I call around and look for him because she had not a clue where he could be.
Usually at times when no one knew where he was at, he would be out partying and using drugs with friends. They want to place the blame on other people and do not want to face the fact that they were to blame. We had to be over there every weekend for dinner, and to play games.
If we even dared to tell them that we had other plans, then we knew that all checks would break loose. They would not come to us we always had to go to them. She was the one who had to fix dinner, and even put the dinner own everybody’s plate.
She would call us to see if we were in bed and call us to see if we were up and ready for work in the mornings. When we went out to do something he would have to report in with his parents. If he saw something that he liked he had to call his parents.
They make up lies and make people that they are the victim and go around telling people that his entire son’s ex-girlfriends had done so many mean and crazy things to their son. Why does she even have to call the girls that he is interested in and tell them that my son really does like you, and all those other girls have done so many mean and cruel things to him?
I know what I must do, and that is to go on with my life, try to continue to grow and make my dreams come true. I am currently in therapy to help me learn to deal with the years of emotional and verbal abuse, which at times it felt as if it could have turned physical.
I know that for myself being involved with a narcissist who was raised in a narcissist home has really affected him. He runs to his own private world of addition of drugs and other risky behavior all to rebel against his parents and his upbringing. I have found that it to be true that if you go against a narcissist, they will do whatever it takes to try to destroy you at all costs. They have very little if no respect for other people’s feelings.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Neuharth, Dan Ph.D.; If You Had Controlling Parents, Harper, 2002)
(Neuharth, Dan Ph.D. Harper Collins Publishers, 1999 p. 22–30)
(http://www.voicelessness.com/loveenough.html) Grossman, Richard A 2009)
(Alloy, L.B., Rskind, J.H. Manos, M.J. (2004) Abnormal, Current perspectives, 9th edition Chapter 11 Psychodynamic Perspective, p. 303–304)
http://psyweb.com/Mdisord/jsp/napd.jsp.
(http://psyweb.com/Mdisord/MdisordADV/AdvPsych.jsp)
(Liveskley W.J. Jank K.L., Jackson Vernon PA AMJ Psychiatry 1993 150 (12) 1826–1831)
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (DSM-IV-TR) 4th edition 2000
