Cynthia Lechan Goodman

This book about narcissistic personality disorder seems to be targeted at those who suffer from paranoid personality disorder. Which comes depressingly close to being a double whammy....

Let there be no mistake: A person with narcissistic personality disorder (hereafter NPD, to save my fingers) can be both difficult and uncomfortable to work with. By definition, they have a tendency to exaggerate their achievements, to fantasize about unlimited success, to believe that they are somehow "special," to want extreme admiration, to have a sense of entitlement, to be exploitative, and to be envious, arrogant, and lacking in empathy. (That's a one sentence summary of the criteria for NPD in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.)

But this leaves us with several problems. First, the personality disorders are one of the most poorly defined areas in psychiatry -- as of this writing (2015), the American Psychiatric Association is still trying to figure out how to revise the old definition of NPD based on what has been learned in the last forty years. Personality disorders overlap and intertwine and vary in their characteristics; most people with NPD won't have all the traits described above. Second, relatively little research has been done on NPD. And third, this book isn't really about NPD; it's about narcissists, which is rather different.

It is true that NPD is very hard to treat clinically, so that the best way for ordinary individuals to deal with NPD is to simply try not to get entangled with those who suffer from it. But this book devotes vast amounts of space to strategies for surviving someone with NPD. This isn't really dealing with the situation. Nor does the book really try to understand what NPD is. It simply talks about the things narcissists do -- and talks about it at rather excessive length. I'd really rather have a good discussion of what makes people with NPD act as they do, even if it were speculative, and then get into the treatment options. This really feels like an article from some popular magazine, along the lines of "How to break up with your boyfriend and then have a nice breakfast." It's that shallow.

Bottom line: People with NPD deserve our sympathy, not our condemnation -- in the long run, they usually end up lonely, unsuccessful, and very often plagued by depression or substance abuse -- but this book really seems to me to be far too heavy on the condemnation.… (mehr)