Welcome to our module on narcissism. Off for the last century, lived experiences of mental distress and behaviors deemed to be abnormal have been named, defined and cataloged. The two major mental illness manuals, the DSM and OCD, currently catalog hundreds of mental disorders. The cataloging can be parsed in various ways. One common approach is to distinguish the different categories and classifications by grouping disorders of emotion and mood, thinking and cognition and personality. Our course explores cases from each of these groupings of mental distress. Neurasthenia and depression are disorders of emotion or mood, attention deficit disorders or disorders of thinking. Our final case, narcissism, is a personality disorder. Narcissism verges from the other cases we have seen in several ways. While the name itself has a long history, it has received most attention during the last 75 years. Further, what is understood about the narcissist personality late as much in theoretical writings as in empirical studies. Finally, unlike disorders of mood and cognition, the idea of personality disorders is contested by some experts, some of whom believe a focus on personality to be misleading and instead advocate other approaches to understanding personal aberrations of self thinking, acting, and interacting. Let's start our excursion into the history of scientific project to identify, study and explain narcissism with the origins of its name. From the Myth of Narcissus. With origins in Greek myth, the story of Narcissus tells of a handsome young man who shunned others affections. Upon gazing at himself in the pool, fell deeply in love with himself. It is a tale richly depicted in both art and narratives across the centuries. The myth found a new place in late 19th century when psychological experts were developing the concept of personality. The concept is new, but was applicable to all. Everyone has a personality, yet the notion of personality also opened way for identifying types of personalities. Then further for detecting and measuring distinctions between normal and pathological personalities. Havelock Ellis use the term narcissism in 1898 describing persons who were sexually attracted to themselves. In 1914, Freud's essay, On Narcissism, An Introduction, presented narcissism as taking two forms. One as a normal phase of infant development and two as an adult pathology personality. The latter form, the pathological narcissist exhibits grandiosity, omnipotence, excessive self adoration, an even megalomania and paranoid delusions on occasion. Freud held that this form of narcissism resulted from childhood deprivations of healthy emotional relations with their caretakers. The pathology originates from a personal underlying psychic wound. Later, analyst introduced variations of Freud's theory. Some experts claim the higher frequency of narcissism in women. Seeing narcissistic thinking as resulting from women's lack, her recognized lack of a penis. Others focused on inadequate mothering, notably excessive mother love. Even in these early years of the concept's development, some experts argued that not all narcissism is pathological. In fact in 1933, Viennese psychiatrist Paul Federn proposed healthy narcissism. He argued that attributes like self-assurance, satisfaction with life and well-being, as well as ideals of ambition are core to the healthy personality. In the 1960s, this dual picture of healthy and unhealthy narcissism gained significant attention through the theoretical and diagnostic work of two psychiatrists, Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg. Kohut viewed narcissism is primarily desirable dimension of adulthood and emphasized it's constructive foundation in moderation for individuals flourishing creativity and productivity. Kernberg focused on narcissism, darker attributes. He noted their charm and success, yet underscored narcissist exploitation of others, rage, manipulativeness and destructiveness. Their work, historian Elizabeth Lundbeck, notes heralded of what she calls the Americanization of narcissism. Both in terms of the way their theories had cultural resonances with American life and also in ways in which the terms of subsequent popularization of ideas about narcissism spread through our culture. We shall return to these cultural features in the later sections of our module on narcissism. The third edition of the DSM added narcissistic personality disorder to its catalog of mental disorders. The diagnosis of NPD, as it was called, four traits must be observed. Grandiose sense of self-importance, fantasies of success and power and brilliance, exhibitionism or requiring constant attention and negative feelings of rage, inferiority, and shame or indifference to others. The fourth edition of the DSM included a list of nine criteria. Around the same time, advances in what is now called evidence-based medicine foster development of empirical tests that would measure traits of narcissism. The robust theorizing, DSM categorizing, and quantified measures were accompanied by classification of different subtypes of narcissism. Researchers identified a variety of these subtypes. Let's summarize today's class. Narcissism emerged in the early 20th century as one of the new kinds of personalities and personality disorders and captured the attention of psychoanalysts and psychodynamic experts. It gained significant attention and 1970s and since then has been submitted to numerous quantified measures, diagnostic criteria, and a number of subtypes. Throughout its life as a scientific object, narcissism has been studied not only as a pathological personality trait, but also as a healthy condition when exhibited in moderation. Our next class will consider the treatments of pathological narcissism.
