by Dish Staff
Katy Waldman examines the nature of narcissism:
[T]o qualify as pathological, narcissistic tendencies must impair functioning in real and painful ways. The self-absorption must not be explicable by age (toddlers are notorious tyrants) or socio-cultural environment (football stars are encouraged to act like Roman emperors). A true narcissist is all ego, unfettered and clumsy—he sees only himself, and yet the vision is opaque to him. He thrashes around in desires he can’t understand. Perhaps he loves No. 1 uncomplicatedly, or perhaps there is loathing mixed in. In her Harper’s piece “Me, Myself, and Id,” Laura Kipnis writes that the narcissist “lives as though surrounded by mirrors, but he doesn’t like what he sees.”
As Waldman explains, narcissism’s classification remains contested:
For psychiatrists, the question isn’t really “do narcissists exist” or “are narcissists any different from the rest of us.” It’s “are narcissists mentally ill?”
Behind this question lurks another one: What do we gain, and lose, from picking out a psychic phenomenon and declaring it “sick”? Are we needlessly stigmatizing ordinary behavior? Absolving jerks of responsibility for their trespasses? Conversely, given our more advanced understanding of mental illness as biological—a complicated interweaving of genetic, developmental, and environmental factors—are we being more humane? Making it easier for people who are suffering to find treatment? …
[I]t seems strange to insist that, because small-N narcissism lives in everyone, narcissistic personality disorder can’t inhabit its own pathological real estate on the far end of the continuum. Anxiety disorders exist, though we all get anxious. And just as mental illness itself has undergone a transformation from perceived moral failing to medical ailment, perhaps we can begin to see certain persistent dispositions as disabilities rather than spiritual flaws.
(Photo by Andrew Fysh)
The Dish 