Is “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” a thinking problem?
Thinking is a spectrum. Narcissistic dysfunction in the thinking of people is not unusual. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) specifically, is a serious psychological disorder that involves patterns of self-centered thinking. People with NPD typically have a lack of empathy and consideration for other people. An excessive need for affirmation, admiration, or acknowledgment is also often present1. The disorder is sometimes also refereed to as delusional narcissism. If thinking requires rationality, NPD creates a thinking problem.
Narcissists are irrational
When an afflicted individual exhibits extreme narcissistic symptoms, they are likely correspondingly irrational. Narcissists shed their rationality in order to create and protect a false and exaggerated sense of self. The narcissist can readily accept new beliefs only if the new beliefs do not threaten (or diminish) his current sense of self. Critically, he adopts the beliefs of another without personal challenge or reason in order to acquire the legitimacy of the other individual or group. These new beliefs are like an article of appearance enhancing clothing. The narcissist chooses them for how they make him look or feel, and not for their veracity. We “thought” this way as children.
Psychologists believe narcissism is treatment resistant
Later, the narcissist will undermine and sabotage external reasoning of another if that person challenges the veracity of the narcissist’s identity enhancing beliefs. The narcissist surrenders their identity enhancing beliefs only when offered access to better ones. Moreover, the narcissist cannot now, nor ever, be wrong. One cannot therefore make an argument to alter the narcissist’s position. Instead, the narcissist embraces irrationality to defend their new, identity defining, beliefs. The narcissist thus descends into delusion2. He lives in a fabricated world where make believe facts underpin his exaggerated sense of self. For the narcissist, this is a horrible and lonely place to be.
If thinking is rationality, then the narcissist has a thinking problem.
- EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER — careersinpsychology.org
- Delusion: an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder. — Google Dictionary
- Is Narcissism Treatable?
