{"id":378,"date":"2010-12-12T10:09:48","date_gmt":"2010-12-12T17:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/?p=378"},"modified":"2010-12-12T10:09:48","modified_gmt":"2010-12-12T17:09:48","slug":"labelling-people-thinking-about-narcissistic-personality-disorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/labelling-people-thinking-about-narcissistic-personality-disorder\/","title":{"rendered":"Labelling People – Thinking About Narcissistic Personality Disorder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Recently, the New York Times reported that the mental health diagnostic “bible,” the DSM is going to drop Narcissistic Personality Disorder<\/em><\/a> in its 5th Edition.\u00a0\u00a0 Laura Smith, Ph.D. provides a good explanation for why this was done, here<\/a>.\u00a0 While an interesting development in its own right, the move brings to mind an overriding concern about the easy use of labels like “narcissistic.”\u00a0 Many, many<\/em>, times have I heard people in recent years label someone as “narcissistic.”\u00a0\u00a0 It’s not that “people who believe the world only exists if seen through their own eyes” don’t exist – and it’s not that these folks don’t cause a lot of distress to those close to them. (I remember hearing in my training that the only way you see a person with NPD in therapy is if their spouse or family basically says, “Get help on this or we’re outta here!”)\u00a0 San Diego mediator Bill Eddy identifies people struggling with NPD as one of a handful of “high conflict personalities” who challenge helping professionals mightily<\/a>.\u00a0 But here’s the problem – it’s easy to label, isolate and dismiss another person, losing sight of the fact that this rigid shell of a personality they present to the world covers enormous, old pain.\u00a0\u00a0 Eddy has suggested that the 4 major “high conflict personalities” at their core, are protecting themselves from the pain of early, constant violations to their developing, tender personalities.\u00a0 The “borderline” personality is driven by the Fear of (emotional) Abandonment, suffered so early.\u00a0 The “antisocial” personality is driven by the Fear of Being Dominated.\u00a0 The “histrionic” personality is driven by the Fear of Being Ignored.\u00a0\u00a0 The “narcissistic personality” is driven by the Fear of Inferiority.\u00a0 In fact, these people with hugely (over)inflated views of themselves have buried within their hearts a glass shard of failure to measure up – of not being good enough.\u00a0 When we almost cavalierly label others as “narcissists” (or any other thing<\/em>) we rob them of their humanity and pain.\u00a0 Of course,\u00a0 in their striving to protect themselves from the ancient, overwhelming wounds that are long-buried within,\u00a0 they may often overwhelm and deeply injure their intimates.\u00a0 But as with all injuries which we suffer at the hands of others, our own healing comes in part through our own halting efforts to understand and even hold compassion for the other. It’s not necessary to label the other so that we don’t take on responsibility for our own injuries.\u00a0 It was never our fault anyway.\u00a0 To humanize ourselves without dehumanizing the person who wounded us is an ongoing challenge and, I think, righteous goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, the New York Times reported that the mental health diagnostic “bible,” the DSM is going to drop Narcissistic Personality Disorder in its 5th Edition.\u00a0\u00a0 Laura Smith, Ph.D. provides a good explanation for why this was done, here.\u00a0 While an interesting development in its own right, the move brings to mind an overriding concern about Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[25,11,8,21,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}