THE TWO FACES OF NARCISSISM
It's getting a lot of attention in conversation and on-line, but what is it really?
Quite a few years ago, a friend told me angrily that some of her work colleagues were “total narcissists.” It was funny. I hadn’t heard anyone use that word before and it was a clever, acerbic and vivid way to describe self-absorbed egomaniacs without calling them self-absorbed egomaniacs, which isn’t very original.In the past few years, something changed. I started hearing the word used more and more often. “My ex-spouse was a narcissist,” a friend complained to me. “My boss is a complete narcissist,” said another. It was widely theorized that a certain public official was a “malignant narcissist.”
The accusation is certainly a powerful weapon in the arsenal of personal put downs. It’s so comprehensive too that about the only thing you could say to make it harsher would be to add, as the old joke goes, “and you’ve got bad breath, too!”It’s probably no surprise narcissism is all over the internet. On one website, I found a proliferation of “how to” articles, with headlines such as:
IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO THE NARCISSIST IS DATING NOW The New Person Will Meet The Same Fate As You Soon EnoughTHE THREE THINGS YOU MUST DO AFTER BREAKING UP WITH A NARCISSIST
HOW TO MAKE A NARCISSIST FEEL WORTHLESS
HOW TO NEUTRALIZE THE NARCISSIST’S FAVORITE WEAPON: THE SILENT TREATMENT
IF YOU THINK YOU’RE DATING A NARCISSIST OR SOCIOPATH, YOU PROBABLY ARE ONE (wow!)Pretty grim. You may be tempted to conclude there’s an epidemic of narcissism now loose in the land. But, I wondered, could it really be all that common? I don’t doubt there are genuine narcissists out there, but it seemed to me the term was increasingly being tossed around so loosely, it began to lose currency. It reminded me what George Orwell said about the misuse of the word fascism which, he said, had come to have no meaning except to signify something “not desirable.”
Words do have meanings. Narcissism is both a real word and a real psychological syndrome or illness. The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses (DSM-5) defines narcissist personality disorder as a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), a constant need for admiration and a lack of empathy.”
It comes, of course, from the Greek myth by Ovid which tells the tale of a beautiful young man, Narcissus, who s out hunting and became thirsty. He leans over a pond to take a sip of water and sees his own reflection, unaware it’s himself. He falls so deeply in love with his own image that he can’t tear himself away. He dies and is turned into the flower of the same name.
Narcissus by Caravaggio
I wanted to learn more the reality of narcissism, so I contacted Pascal Wallisch, a New York University psychologist, who has studied narcissism.
Wallisch turned out to be high-energy guy with an easy laugh, off-beat sense of humor and the too rare gift of being able to translate academic jargon into easily understood language.
Professor Wallisch told me that there are actually two very different kinds of narcissism. One is vulnerable narcissism, which is characterized by an overbearing, incessant bragging or, as he dubbed it flexing, from the slang expression for showing off.
They tend to go on and on ... and on ... about how much money they have, their big house, their expensive car, their brilliant, beautiful family, the important people they know, their Ivy League education (“The Ivy League is overrun by these people,” he said). They often feign a deep interest in art or opera to project an air of refinement. Sound familiar?
NYU Professor Pascal Wallisch
I don’t know if you’ve ever interacted with a genuine, hardcore, full blown narcissist, but it’s very — for lack of a better word — annoying because they keep putting it in your face, how better than you they are, all the time,” Wallisch said. “It’s really, really grating.”
So, why are they called “vulnerable” if they’re braggarts?
Because deep down, he says, they are profoundly insecure. The frenetic flexing is compensation for a stultifying inferiority complex.
“It’s not excessive self-love,” Wallisch said. “It’s the opposite of self-love. It’s self-loathing.”
Credit: Getty Images
Even worse, the vulnerable narcissist is trapped in a spiral: their barrage of flexing annoys other people and makes them want to get the heck away. When their listener recoils, the narcissist reacts by flexing even more.
“It cuts to the core of their personality,” said Wallisch. “They get triggered and they have to do some kind of self-soothing. I do believe the self-soothing behavior of choice is flexing.”
I suggested to the professor that most, maybe even all of us are riddled with insecurities yet don’t flex, or at least minimize it. What’s the difference between them/us and a narcissist?
Wallisch said that a well-adjusted person with insecurities (which sounds at first almost oxymoronic) manages theirs.
“In narcissists, the insecurity is a gaping wound,” he said. “It trumps everything else, all other considerations. Who knows why? Maybe early childhood.”
For his 2021 report Narcissism Through The Lens of Performative Elevation, the participants took a number of written tests, including one called the Authentic vs. Artificial Appearance Scale. Here are three of the questions that were posed:
Would you rather…
a) Receive an award for work that you’re not proud of?b) Do work you are proud of, but goes unrecognized?
a) Pretend you’re interested in something you’re not in our to fit inb) Explore your genuine interests, even if others think they are strange?
a) Donate money anonymously for disaster relief?b) Post a donation link for disaster relief to your social media account?
(The vulnerable narcissist would answer a, a and b)The other form is grandiose narcissism, characterized by high self-esteem and self-satisfaction.
Professor Wallisch said people in this category don’t waste a lot of time flexing. Why? Because, he theorizes, they’re actually psychopaths who don’t care what anyone else thinks.
“They don’t do these things,” he said. “They know they’re better than you.”Wallisch argues that this kind of narcissism includes behavior, such as emotional callousness, more properly categorized as psychopathy.
“Narcissism has been misunderstood,” he said. “The real narcissist is inherently vulnerable in nature.”
Interestingly, the two different kinds of narcissists may share certain behaviors, such as showing no empathy or cultivating jealousy in a mate. They just do so for quite different reasons., according to Wallisch The vulnerable narcissist is “seeking reassurance to compensate for low self-esteem,” while the grandiose narcissist is doing it to “gain power and control in the relationship.”*
Luckily, real narcissism is rare. So, there’s a good chance your boss, colleague, ex-spouse or current one who you’ve been casually labeling a narcissist isn’t one. Sometimes a jerk is just a jerk.
*Narcissism through the lens of performative self-elevation, July 2021,Mary Kowalchyk, Helena Palmieri, Elena Conte, Pascal Wallisch
Credit: Getty Images