I think I said that person's with NPD are almost psychotic. I checked with my wife, a very experienced clinician, and she says that is not correct. But she also says that there are not two types. One interesting thing that she said is that her mentor, a training analyst, said that after treating a narcissist for many years you can uncover a severe obsessional personality at which point you have to start again to treat that. That implies a treatment length that only someone like Woody Allen can afford. I'm not saying that he's a malignant narcissist.
I am speaking over my head but obviously DSM-V may oversimplify. My wife says that the book I mentioned, "Analysis of the Self" by Kohut is not as good as "Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism" by Otto Kernberg. --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Mon, Apr 27, 2020, 12:12 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <[email protected]> wrote: > Waco > https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/waco/s01 > > I don't know much about Koresh or the Branch Davidians. I remember > watching it (and the Ruby Ridge coverage) on TV back then. (I was pretty > libertarian back then ... but that was back when the word "libertarian" > meant something ... it's a useless word these days. So my understanding of > these events was heavily biased by that.) This TV show does a good job, I > think, of showing Koresh simply edit out his abuse of the flock while > maintaining an air of authenticity in other domains. And the supporting > character (Paul Sparks/Steve Schneider) states it explicitly when he says > something like "I wish God had chosen someone else" or somesuch ... because > Koresh was such a jerk. > > My conscious attempt to empathize with everyone, in every context, no > matter how deplorable it might be, prevents me from accusing someone like > Koresh of *rational* manipulation. I tend to think his manipulation of > others is the *same* as his manipulation of himself. In programming, we use > the term "reflection" or "introspection" to talk about an object > manipulating itself in the same way it manipulates other objects (and vice > versa). In some circles, it's called "reflexive", which I think is > misleading. The idea is that you treat yourself as other or you treat > others as yourself. > > When I hear descriptions of narcissism, this self-other mixing seems > absent, which makes all the descriptions of narcissists seem cartoonish and > wrong. They portray narcissists as hyper-rational, manipulate others to get > what you want, sociopaths [†]. But if all people do a little bit of > self-manipulation as well as other-manipulation (and it's the same > tools/anatomy that does the manipulation), then narcissists are *not* > hyper-rational sociopaths. They can't be if they *feel* hurt by the words > of others, insecure, self-important, grandiosity, etc. If they have > feelings at all *and* they manipulate their self like they manipulate > others, then they can't be these hyper-rational sociopaths. It's either a > contradiction or a paradox that needs resolving. > > We can see this in the DSM 5 _Alternative_ model. The 1st two trait > categories (section A, 1-4) are other-centric, whereas the 2nd two are > self-centric. Section B's categories seem to flip too, where grandiosity > seems self-centric and attention seeking seems to be other-centric. It > leaves me wondering if there are really 2, fundamentally different types of > narcissism, that driven by an external locus vs. that drive by an internal > locus, where the former cares deeply what others think/feel and the latter > is totally apathetic to (or denies outright) others' thoughts/feelings. If > that's plausible, then former-type narcissists would (as Frank said last > week) live horrifying lives, but the latter-types might get a bit > frustrated by the complexity of the machine they have to live inside, but > could live very happy, solipsistic lives. > > > [†] By "sociopath", I mean something like: someone who doesn't mirror the > feelings of others in themselves. Sorry if that's non-standard. I'm using > it because I don't have a better word for such a person. > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> > http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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