A History of Narcissism and the 5 Varieties

Broadcast 1/3/2021 at 6:59 PM EST (11 Listens, 8 Downloads, 2736 Itunes)
The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show Podcast

Check out More Podcasts

Gary Rosenthal is a licensed marriage and family therapist with master's degrees in clinical psychology and transpersonal counseling, initially studying at the Jung Institute-Zurich. He is also the author of the book, Re-Visioning Narcissism: Healing Heresies for Polarized Times.

His website is RevisioningNarcissism.com

Focusing on 3 narcissistic themes: Why it's timely and necessary now to re-vision it. Exploring the multiple ways it could be re-visioned. And a more extensive evocation of some helpful things we can do to heal our own.

We'll start by exploring the history of narcissism.
Narcissism is arguably the oldest, and earliest recognized personality disorder.
The Greeks tried to criminalize itakin to our version of an impeachment trial. For they considered hubris so detrimental to the health of society that it was both prosecuted as a civic crime against other citizens, while also considered as a violation of archetypal, spiritual relationsa crime against the gods. Perhaps for both reasons, hubris was commonly also the fatal character flaw in the protagonists of ancient Greek drama.

Asian, Eleusinian, initiation ritualsprobably involved entheogens/psychoactive compounds. Described by Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliades


These spiritual rites were outlawed when the follower of a new mystery religion (Theodosius I, after Constantine became crowned as the leader of the Roman Empire. For he feared the old myths, their deities, and ritual practices could hamper the spread of Christianity.


Or Freud, humbly confessing: Wherever I go, I find that a poet has been there before me). What about poetry's description of Narcissism.

narcissism is as much a spiritual problem as it is a psychological one.

Narcissism simply can't be fully addressed when psyche and spirit remain divorced from each other.

For even a clinically valid view of narcissismone that references the correct number of diagnostic criteria to properly give the diagnosis-- can still remain blind to what the complete opposite of narcissismand thus its full healing--even looks like
"the narcissism of everyday life" I

t may be at least as useful to see narcissism as a cultural epoch's developmental and evolutionary challenge, as it is to view it as a personality disorder only suffered by a minuscule fraction of the population.

when even the current edition of American psychiatry's official manual (DSM-5) estimates that the prevalence of narcissism in Americans could be as low as 0 percent, it might be evident to even a moderately observant layman, that narcissism has been, and still is being narrowly conceived. And hence, badly in need of a "re-visioning."

Sociopath, Psychopath, Antisocial Personality Disorder - What's the Difference and Why Does This Matter?

Developmentally stunted or arrested

There's no mention of "malignant narcissism" in the DSM, nor of any
of the other distinctively different narcissistic styles evoked in my book.

And psychopaths and sociopaths were pretty much thrown out of the manual in 1980, and blanketed under the American Psychiatric Association's self- invented construct of Antisocial Personality Disorder.

And in 2010, as DSM was preparing to launch its 5th and current edition, they'd announced they were also about to banish NPD from its pages. After a lot of blow-back, they reversed their stance in May of 2013 when the manual finally appeared in print--while then estimating its prevalence as so low, they nearly disappeared it that way.

Cleckly wrote The Mask of Sanity, the first book on Narcissism.

And today, even most psychological professionals wouldn't be able to discern between the following similar, but different constructs: sociopath, psychopath, antisocial personality disorder.

And the last brings me to the only thing I had any quibble with in "The More Dangerous Trump Plague." It occurred near the end. Not all narcissistic styles are malignant. And so, I wouldn't agree that all narcissists are predators who get pleasure out of using, exploiting, hurting others.... Your depiction IS great for malignant narcissism, which Erich Fromm portrayed as "the quintessence of evil.

Our culture has what looks like a narcissism virus

There are five styles of narcissism, first four inspired by James Masterson
" Devaluing narcissism
" Empty Unit Narcissism
" Closet Narcissism
" Exhibitionistic Narcissism
" Malignant Narcissism

Recent study found that over 20 years narcissism increased by 35% and two thirds scored higher on the narcissism index.

Size: 83,534,912 -- 0 hrs, 58 min, 0 sec