Examples of Narcissistic Personality Disorder Symptom Manifestations

Video Description

This video describes Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, a preoccupation with unlimited success, feeling too special to be understood by regular people, needing excessive admiration, a sense of entitlement, being interpersonally exploitative, having a lack of empathy, being envious and others and believe others are envious of them, and being arrogant. Oftentimes an individual with Narcissistic Personality Disorder wants to be recognized as superior, believes they are so complex and amazing that they can only be understood by special people, has low self-esteem, devalues the contributions of others, and is condescending. Criticism is not well received by most people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Comorbid disorders include other personality disorders (e.g. Antisocial Personality Disorder), Anorexia Nervosa, and substance use disorders (especially cocaine use disorder). The prevalence of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is about 1%. Common goals in mental health treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorder include adjusting behavior to improve relationships, developing skills resolve employment and career issues, and increasing insight. Clinically significant distress is required for a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder as stated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). It's important to remember that NPD is a serious mental health disorder and necessitates treatment. Although we know that a lot of times when people have MPD they do not come in for treatment. A number of the treatments that we see for NPD are somewhat effective particularly if people stay in treatment for a long period of time. We know of course that NPD is a personality disorder and we expect the symptoms to be chronic and long-lasting, so getting sufficient treatment sometimes involves a longer duration of treatment. Also, it's important remember that we think of NPD as being protective. It's a mechanism we believe comes about, in part, to protect a fragile sense of self. People with NPD are genuinely suffering even though they may not realize why or they may not even realize they have a disorder. When working with NPD, as is the case when working with any mental disorder, it's important as mental health professionals that we show compassion and try to deliver effective treatment.