Narcissism vs Narcissistic Personality Disorder: How to Spot the Differences

[Music] dr. Romani describes narcissism as the second-hand smoke of mental health but why and why is narcissism more dangerous than just being self-confident what exactly narcissistic personality disorder is what is it okay all people with narcissistic personality disorder are obviously narcissistic okay not all people are narcissistic may have narcissistic personality disorder so it's a fine point but it's an important point since everybody's throwing this word around these days right you know it's not unlike other diagnoses that have different meaning to them this one's sort of this is like a character assassination right so when we talk about narcissistic personality disorder there's a long list of patterns and they have to have five of the nine on that list it has to be something we call pervasive meaning it cuts across situations with a variety of people in at work at home it's not just like their narcissistic to only you and they're nice and nice to everyone in the world tends to be pervasive but here's the rub it has to involve what we call social and occupational impairment and subjective distress that's a fancy way of saying it is messing up that person's life they're aware it's messing up their life and they're uncomfortable with it and that's where you don't see as many people with narcissistic personality disorder so if their style of not having empathy of being entitled of being grandiose of being arrogant and superficial all that is working out for them they're not going to walk around saying I'm having a problem they're not going to walk around saying this is causing me problems so if they don't acknowledge that piece of it then really they're a narcissist which is sort of a clinical term for being a jerk and we don't get to diagnose people for being a jerk we may not like them but that's not a condition we diagnose we diagnose people because they're bringing in something that they're uncomfortable with or that's causing them problems the best example I can give you is let's say somebody's been using drugs for two years and their drug use results in duis and other problems in their lives okay when that happens they may themselves say I know I'm a problem with drugs but I do have five DUIs and they did find me in the gutter and from my mom's house so I guess mom maybe there's a problem in narcissism they may they may recognize that yeah sure I got in trouble at work and I was called out on this and that problem and I did cheat on my wife several times but it's working out for me is that distressing these are being a jerk so dr. Alan Francis dr. Francis is actually one of the architects of this diagnosis originally in the DSM and he he himself has come out very clearly and said we don't get to diagnose somebody because we don't like them that's not what this diagnosis is for it's for somebody who's actually having discomfort and distress because they're behaving in this narcissistic manner it's a fine point but it's an important point and here at Med circle I really want to be careful as we use these two terms because I think a lot of the listeners don't know if their friend family member or boss has the diagnosis and may never find out unless that person that other person gets into treatment and their friend family member boss might just be a jerk there might be a jerk and they may say why should I go get a diagnosis nothing wrong with me and if they're walking around saying there's nothing wrong with me and I'm fine then PSM they're not they're not they're not an art they don't have any ID no that's it and so and that's where people get upset I get emails every day will you talk to my husband and tell him he has a narcissistic person here I'm like no please I would love to do that no win there so that's a lot of the struggle here is that and you know what the pattern of narcissism it's awful they may be fine with it but you as the recipient of that pattern it's not it's you you're gonna struggle with it it's uncomfortable it's one of those patterns that's really unhealthy for the people around it I call it the second-hand smoke of psychiatry like being near a person who's narcissistic it's as unhealthy as doing it yourself whoa that is a great metaphor NPD is the second-hand smoke of psyche hi and I'd say narcissism is the second here most of our time of our time you stand close enough to it you're gonna get sick even that's a huge deal for people because somebody might not get the diagnosis but there's still have all these toxic behaviors that are effective absolutely and you know what in some ways the diagnosis is irrelevant because all it is all that's doing is saying the person that's having problems because of it but if they're lying manipulating exploiting raging at you who cares if they have a diagnosis that's not good for you to be right in the presence of and then it takes us back to that more critical issues why are people like this or like this because they're insecure and that makes people feel guilty well if he's in securing this is why he's doing this and that's what we're gonna have to get to the core of when does normal self confidence cross the line into grandiosity self confidence is a healthy state and people who are self-confident don't need to blast their achievements from every rooftop in every social media platform people who are truly self-confident don't need to talk over other people and their achievement people who are self-confident don't require who their achievements to be front and center and ahead of everybody else's people who are self-confident are so confident in them their sense of self and their achievements that they actually can stay quiet about it in another video in this series we'll talk about the different types of nurse NPD but I'll give everyone a preview from the original video we did the communal nurses when you said it's that person who goes and volunteers on a Saturday but takes selfies the whole time and a full perfect face of makeup I go oh I so know that person you know and yeah it's also the person who you say like let's throw a gala and you're like but the gal is gonna cost ten thousand and you're only gonna make five hundred for the charity why not just write the full ten thousand for the charity like but I need the gala they need galas celebrations and you know what I'm smiling when you say that because I think smiling is one of my coping mechanisms by the way like laughter and smiling because these are very deep and heavy topics and they're affecting a lot of the everybody who's in a relationship with a narcissist which is almost everybody which is almost everybody and in a lot of cases there are narcissists or in people with MPD who who are suffering well I think if you want to get down to the core of it they are suffering because they're deeply insecure yeah and that's where you know I mean what do they experience it as suffering I'll tell you this like I said with the people with NPD or narcissism where we start peeling back the layers by the time you get down to layer 10 and you start looking in the gaping hole it's not comfortable for them and you do a your heart does ache for them because there's such there's almost a childlike emptiness to them I'm not saying I'd want to be in a relationship with them now I can tell you that right now I mean I can handle it for an hour at a time but my god for a person who actually has to live with that day in and day out it's a nightmare are there common co-occurring disorders with PPD people who have narcissistic personality disorder or even narcissistic traits there are several co-occurring patterns we can see that are more likely to happen all forms of substance use disorders you know a lot of times its to fill the emptiness or to enhance the grandiosity so alcohol use cocaine use you know stimulant use that kind of thing so you'll see some of that depression interestingly narcissism and depression can hang out together a lot of it is that insecurity and that emptiness it's not unusual to see those two kind of hanging out together but are they getting diagnosed with depression sometimes they're getting diagnosed with depression because they might be very irritable we'll see that in men what will happen is you'll sometimes confuse the two as well because the type of narcissism we're going to be talking about today is called covert narcissism people who are covert narcissists they're a little bit like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh it's like woe is me no one understands me how come the world is so unfair to me and they seem so downtrodden that they look depressed and then all of us will treat them as though they're depressed and we're making absolutely no headway and then one day you dawns on you're like oh this isn't depression at all so actually quite frankly we'll often treat the depart well we'll think they're depressed now for we'll think there's no wrong wrong yeah again just highlighting how important is to get the right diagnosis it really is because these personality patterns also make treating other mental health conditions for example it's not unusual for narcissism to also be found coexisting with bipolar disorder which is also a very messy kind of issue to treat because the grandiosity of the mania and the grandiosity the narcissism collide so you'll see that too and I when I've worked with families of when they have adult children who are substance abusers and the adult child goes into rehab I'll also know that adult child has narcissism and I'll I'll be I'll eat for them because I'll their thinking their child's gonna go to rehab not only come out sober but sweet they come out sober but they're still as irritable invalidating sort of mean as they always work that part's not gonna go away that's the narcissism maybe even more so even more so I'm you see this a lot in substance abuse treatment circles that you see a lot of it to get yes exactly because the the substance use was sort of helping them kind of shore up their defenses yeah and so it can make treatment much much more complicated you'll also see a greater likelihood of for example like patterns that are sometimes labeled love and sex addiction kinds of like compulsive sexuality compulsive like relationship patterns you'll see that it so existing with narcissism as well it just makes everything that much harder to treat yes that's what it is because you don't tend to get as much motion there's a lot more defensiveness I know more than the doctor there is a lack of empathy there's a lot of projection all this stuff really makes it hard to do really deep psychotherapy with somebody how many different types of NPD are there well there's there's different kinds of narcissism okay whether those translates into subtypes of narcissistic personality disorder I once said there's nine possible symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder which means there's thousands and thousands of possible combinations right but if we were really to look at it in five patterns that I've sort of broken down in my book and this is based on the theoretical work on narcissism drawing from other people's work when we talk about the types of narcissism they're not really subtypes of narcissistic personality disorder but there are different kinds of patterns we see of narcissism and I think it's important see the differences because it shows us this doesn't look the same across everyone and then some people say well that's not narcissism the person I know acts like this and I'll say ah but it's a similar pattern let's get down to the brass tacks of what all narcissists look like in all narcissism we tend to see a lack of empathy grandiosity entitlement superficiality chronic seeking of validation outside of them arrogance and a real tendency towards rage as well as a tendency to manipulate or exploit other people those you tend to see across the board to varying degrees so let's start at the top with what I consider the most severe and problematic narcissistic pattern and that's the malignant or the toxic narcissist these are the folks that almost look like Psychopaths they are they'll exploit other people they take advantage of other people they lie they cheat they they work the system to their advantage they can often be quite successful you might wonder why am I not calling them Psychopaths they can sometimes feel remorse for what they're doing they're like this isn't cool but I just got I just got to get this part done and I'll make it right whereas the Psychopaths wouldn't need to make it right so there's just a really manipulative mean-spirited edge to them that can be very unsettling but but when you first meet them they're extraordinarily charming extraordinarily charismatic confident successful so that's sort of your malignant toxic type you'll often see these folks running big companies you know at the heads of government all of that like they had they really know how to work a system well the next in the in the group is what I call sort of your classical grandiose narcissist and that's what most of us think of the person who's braggy who really is entitled I'm special I deserve special treatment it's almost like your celebrity narcissist that's what your grandiose narcissist they brag a lot they show off a lot look at my new car look at my new this look at my new girlfriend it's a lot of Show and Tell they suck all the oxygen out of the room all the usual traits but they don't tend to be as exploitative and as mean as a malignant narcissist but they are sort of your classical kind of narcissist the next narcissists on the listen this is probably the most mysterious one and maybe the most revealing to med circle listeners is the covert or vulnerable narcissist these are the woe-is-me narcissists you know if the world could see how great I am I'd be one of the great ones but nobody gets me because I'm ahead of my time and so they'll you'll often find them sort of at home huddled over their computer being like a troll or like coming up with their next big plan but they almost have a failure to launch a lot of the time they can often look depressed there's a real they seem vulnerable because they almost feel like the world doesn't get them they're hyper hyper sensitive to criticism there but they lack empathy and they can be very entitled like I deserve special treatment because you know the world doesn't know this but I'm the best what's interesting about that is I listen to that and I when you would first meet somebody like that you think oh they just have low self-esteem I've been go but all narcissists have low self-esteem that's why they're doing exactly so the covert narcissist they lead with that but it looks like it's almost like they they feel like they're they have this sort of strange I always say that the covert narcissist has this sort of weird pause they'll say yeah I went to that College but I guess nobody cares and they'll do that weird thing you know like okay was a little bit strange but it's a they're like yeah I already read that book but why would you care you know it's like there's there's an edge it's almost like you're sticking your hand into a bucket of barbed wire it doesn't feel good it's like even with those examples even though they were just you know yeah random examples I still feel the pain for that person oh they're there they feel the world pass them by yeah but I don't feel the same way with a grandiose narcissist you know they the covert narcissist though ultimately will get to the point where they feel the world owes them something mm-hmm the world owes me and there'll be a real edge to them you know because they but it is they seem really sad and you'll often try to help them and you'll wonder why they're so ungrateful well that's why that can feel really uncomfortable for other people who are so sympathetic to them and wonder why are they not ever saying thank you or recognizing all we did yeah now number four is the communal narcissus the communal narcissus can be very confusing because they're out there volunteering and flying all over the world and doing their own personal rescue missions and you know after every hurricane they're posting online hurricane goals hashtag hurricane gulls and like let's all raise enough money and let's send lots of stuff down there's a hashtag narcissist but like it's all about their their goals for helping the world and and like you'll see them I'm in your net you know about animal rescue people like they're always holding their rescue dogs but then they go home and they're really mean to their husbands yeah they love going to galas and they want buildings named after them and if they do give a donation they have to hold 20 gold shovels and have lots of pictures taken like it's all about the they do all these things to get validation that's their tool for getting validation are often really unkind to the people their faith their immediate family or the people who work under them there can be absolutely awful to them and people say oh my gosh are still lucky you work with him he's so charitable and the people are just like oh no this is that's one of many characteristics he is so so the communal narcissus is a very it's a it takes a while to sort of on to peel off that layer and then just sort of that's why I always say pay attention to how a person treats the person who don't have as much power as them in that situation because that's going to teach you a lot so they'll be really sweet to the recipient of the charitable dollars but really mean to the person who's working with them and that doesn't add up the last narcissist is sort of kind of a good nature I'm gonna call them the benign narcissists the benign narcissus is like this sort of clueless an insightful person who just says really vapid things very superficial only cares like all I want is like a fast car and you know you're driving a piece of junk like they'll be really dismissive others this sounds like every 16 year old in many ways if there's an adolescence there's an immaturity but they really aren't that mean-spirited and you can actually kind of say that's not a nice thing to say they're like yeah I guess so but then they'll go back and say it the next day I always say it's nice to have a few benign narcissists on deck because they're fun to have at a party you know like just keep them on that list but never turn to them at a time of need just because I'm curious and I get to ask questions which you know somebody put me in charge to do this who would you most want to be in a relationship with those are your five oh mama you know and and just solitude and the cabin isn't because I'm gonna take solitude in the cabin is my option I'm going with that okay so it's not an option I don't think you have to choose you have to choose one I might choose the communal narcissist and just be glad they're doing nice things for my god they're nice to me yes but I have to tell you that can be exhausting because when the whole world is saying you're so lucky he's so charitable like oh my gosh he hasn't said something nice to me in 15 years they're all painful maybe the benign one but even that you feel like you're forever in a relationship with your highschool boyfriend right that's not nice right so if you're if you're if I if the cabin by myself for the rest of my life is it's a possibility I'm going communal I get it I can have the cabin from you like two acres away yeah and we can just meet when we want to hang out I don't recommend any of these types for a relationship what about my idea I'll have a cabin 1 Acre away from yours that I'll do okay because you're shaking I won't be a narcissist you have to be if you don't know we're talking about ghosts in the previous episode okay out of those five types is there one that's most common I would have to say probably the grandiose the classical narcissus okay what am I not asking you about a narcissistic personality disorder as it is defined from understanding it that I need to be asking you know all that all the patterns I gave you or what are what you see of the nine characteristics that a diagnostic manual like the DSM would require what's really interesting is that our diagnostic manuals are now taking sort of a new direction in how we think about these personality patterns and in the most I mean not to make to put to kind of bookish a point on it but the DSM now views narcissism and all of the personality disorders through a new kind of a lens and it looks at for example how a person views their own identity and the narcissus identity is very much caught up in how they're viewed by other people so they don't have a core sense of self their sense of self is governed entirely by the world outside of them that's actually a terrifying feeling like the only way I'm good is if everyone tells me I'm good today that's very unstable we also look at goal-setting how do they how do they set their goals and narcissus set their goal in a way that will get them approval from the world so either they set their goals unrealistic hi so they can talk about the big goals they have which I'm never gonna meet or they set their goals a little too low so they know they're always going to surpass them mm-hmm so but no matter what their goal setting once again is based on how they can talk to the world about these things then when we look at other areas we look at empathy and their lack thereof so now DSM is looking at this across all personality patterns and people with narcissism don't have empathy they look at people as existing to serve their needs what can you do for me and then I'll make a relationship with you so that's why a lot of people say but that narcissistic guy was really nice to me I'm like yeah because he needed you as a sales contact like Oh or they like the fact that you live in the right neighborhood in town there's a need being served and then finally DSM is looking at narcissism through the lens of intimacy and that's one thing that narcissists are not good at they're not good at intimacy they're not good at close relationships by and large their relationships are superficial and are really engaged in for personal gain so they might get a very attractive partner because that makes them look good to the world they might get a wealthy partner because that will make sure they have lots of money they might get a famous partner so that they look good to the world I mean the the the characteristics on which they choose the partner are deeply deeply superficial and so that's how a narcissist chooses and so when we look at those areas self goal-setting empathy and intimacy that's another way to view narcissism no matter what it's just really that's but it comes down to that core insecurities that sense they cannot regulate themselves from the inside out they they don't have a good sense of identity and that they're really reliant on the world for telling them what they're about which makes them actually quite resentful yeah really really fascinating in our next video we are going to dive deep into what causes narcissistic personality disorder [Music] you

Channel: MedCircle

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Keywords: narcissistic personality disorder, narcissism, narcissist, narcissistic, personality disorder, npd, narcissistic personality disorder (disease or medical condition), medcircle, dr. ramani, dr ramani, difference, self esteem, interview, discussion, expert, psychology, psychologist, personality, signs, education, ramani durvasula, differences, narcissistic abuse, signs of narcissism, gaslighting, how to spot a narcissist, kyle kittleson, video, educational videos, ramani, manipulation, mental health

Id: IEfS-_a21kk

Length: 21min 57sec (1317 seconds)

Published: Tue May 19 2020