Narcissism

Narcissism is a personality style centred on the self, marked by an excessive preoccupation with one's own image and needs, often at the expense of others. The term comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, the young man who fell in love with his reflection in water and died consumed by that passion. From the myth the notion became a psychological category, studied with particular intensity since the late nineteenth century.

In psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud developed it in his 1914 essay "On Narcissism: An Introduction" as the direction of libidinal energy toward the self. He distinguished a primary narcissism, a normal phase of early development, from a secondary narcissism in which interest is withdrawn from the external world and turned back onto the ego. Lou Andreas-Salomé understood it as a double direction of love, toward oneself and toward the other. Otto F. Kernberg studied it as a pathologically invested structure of the self, marked by grandiosity and aggression.

Contemporary psychology holds that narcissism exists on a continuum, from an expression healthy enough to support self-esteem to a pathological form. Many authors regard a moderate degree of narcissism as normal in human beings. When the tendency becomes rigid and causes functional impairment, it may correspond to narcissistic personality disorder, a diagnosis found in clinical manuals. Researchers usually distinguish two expressions: grandiose, or "thick-skinned," narcissism, with arrogance, a craving for admiration and the exploitation of others, and vulnerable, or "thin-skinned," narcissism, with fragile self-esteem, sensitivity to criticism and social withdrawal. Both share a core of antagonism and a sense of entitlement.

Outside the clinical field the word is often used pejoratively to mean vanity or self-centredness, and it is sometimes applied to social groups or to situations of inequality. Its broad use in popular culture has raised debate over whether the concept is being applied precisely or as an indiscriminate label.