With the syndrome of malignant narcissism, which is characterised by narcissistic personality disorder, anti-social behaviour, sadism and a marked tendency to paranoid reactions, Kernberg (1985, 1996) describes an independent form of pathological narcissism. According to Stone (1996) this is found in many mass-murderers and serial killers. On the basis of the example of Jack Unterweger the conn...

The core features of narcissism have been thoroughly discussed in the preceding chapters. What stands out from this discussion is the apparent importance of interpersonal processes in the development and maintenance of narcissism. The interpersonal nature of narcissism stands in sharp contrast to other conceptualizations of self, such as global feelings of self-esteem, that largely involve inte...

Scores on the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS) were positively related to measures of healthy narcissism and inversely related to empathic distress, anxiety, and depression. Partial correlational procedures controlled for the tendency of healthy and unhealthy forms of narcissism to be linked together and revealed the RAS to be inversely associated with maladaptive narcissism. This same basic...

This paper provides a consideration of a broadened scope of pathological narcissism, with particular attention towards the hidden and vulnerable aspects of this clinical phenomenon. The narcissism construct is briefly reviewed, along with contemporary issues in understanding the different presentations of narcissistic dysfunction. Selections from the theoretical literature are then explored in ...

"Narcissism and Self-Esteem among Homosexual and Heterosexual Male Students," states as its aim: Acknowledging the changes both homosexuality and narcissism went through, the present study aims at empirically reviving the discussion about the association between these two phenomena. Based on the Freudian assumption that homosexual individuals develop on a narcissistic basis and look for a young...

IVERY MUCH APPRECIATE the opportunity afforded me to participate in the panel on the prognosis and treatment of narcissistic disorders. I hope to illustrate how the work of Heinz Kohut directly follows from and expands upon the basic knowledge given to us by Freud in his work on narcissism. The title of this panel is somewhat slanted, insofar as it seems to regard narcissism as a disorder in ne...

Can an assessment of individuals’ narcissism help explain the quality of a respondent’s ethical judgment? How is the relationship between religiosity and ethical judgment moderated by the effects of narcissism? With a sample of 385 undergraduate business majors, this study uses a taxonomic approach to examine the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity as well as orthodox Christian belie...

A recent review of the self-esteem literature suggests that high self-esteem (HSE) is a heterogeneous construct with adaptive and harmful aspects. One promising solution to addressing this heterogeneity is to consider two types of HSE: secure and insecure. Operationalized here as the interaction of self-esteem and narcissism, insecure HSE should predict maladaptive outcomes. Two studies explore...