Diagnosing NPD

[Scrapheap]

 According to the DSM-IV, only about 1% of the general population has NPD (narcissit personality disorder). To me, based on my own experience, this number seems low. My estimation would be more like 5% or so.

Are people with ASD more likely to view NT's as being NPD ??

[Pyraxis]

I think everybody (well, almost) is more likely to view a person they dislike as having NPD. It's a lot easier to write off somebody's behavior to narcissistic selfishness than to try to understand its real motivations. A lot easier to stick them with an unflattering psych label. A lot easier to decide they're crazy than to see if they're justified.

Also, the average person's mental definition of narcissism is likely far less strict than the DSM-IV, so a higher percentage of the population would fit it.

[McGiver]

i think that most people in upper management are NPD.





the other day i took a crap, and it resembled NPD.

i sometimes wonder if i am NPD.

[richard]

that number does seem low, it has to be a mistake. i know way to many ugly people that are in love with themselves

[Litigious]

i think that most people in upper management are NPD.





the other day i took a crap, and it resembled NPD.

i sometimes wonder if i am NPD.

I think most politicians and authority people are more or less psychopaths.

[Teejay]

According to the DSM-IV, only about 1% of the general population has NPD (narcissit personality disorder). To me, based on my own experience, this number seems low. My estimation would be more like 5% or so.

Are people with ASD more likely to view NT's as being NPD ??

The only person I know who could have NPD is Alex Plank.

[The_P]

I have my own show, I'm always in the right, so I guess you could say I'm a bit of a Narcissist King.

[odeon]

Lots of people have narcissist traits but few have the actual disorder.

[Scrapheap]

Lots of people have narcissist traits but few have the actual disorder.

Do you know how to distinguish between haveing narcissistic traits and having the disorder ??

I've worked with several people who have the traits (I work with one right now as a matter of fact) and I don't know how to seperate narcissistic assholes from actual NPD.

[odeon]

Lots of people have narcissist traits but few have the actual disorder.

Do you know how to distinguish between haveing narcissistic traits and having the disorder ??

I've worked with several people who have the traits (I work with one right now as a matter of fact) and I don't know how to seperate narcissistic assholes from actual NPD.

I know what it says in the DSM-IV, and from what I gather, checking five or more symptoms off that lists isn't easy. Most people are self-centered and quite a few are assholes, traits that can go a long way if you can mix these two with some kind of social issues, too. The dx won't be NPD but some traits will fit.

I'm not saying that 1% is correct, what I'm saying is that most of us have no way of knowing.

[Nomaken]

What if somebody qualifies for most of the symptoms but it isn't maladaptive?

[Pyraxis]

I believe the general guideline is that it's not a disorder unless it significantly impairs your life.

[Scrapheap]

Is it possible to have both NPD and ASD ?? ?? ??

[Callaway]

Is it possible to have both NPD and ASD ?? ?? ??

I'm not sure, but people with AS are often misdiagnosed as having NPD.  I found this, which might help explain some of the differences better than I can:

http://personalitydisorders.suite101.com/article.cfm/misdiagnosing_asperger

Misdiagnosing Asperger

Asperger's Disorder is often misdiagnosed as a Personality Disorder

Asperger's Disorder is often misdiagnosed as a cluster B personality disorder, most often as the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
Personality disorders cannot be safely diagnosed prior to early adolescence. Still, though frequently found between the ages of 3 and 6, Asperger's Disorder is often misdiagnosed as a cluster B personality disorder, most often as the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

1. The Asperger's Disorder Patient
The Asperger's Disorder patient is self-centered and engrossed in a narrow range of interests and activities. Social and occupational interactions are severely hampered and conversational skills (the give and take of verbal intercourse) are primitive. The Asperger's patient's body language - eye to eye gaze, body posture, facial expressions - is constricted and artificial, akin to patients with the Schizoid, Schizotypal, and Narcissistic Personality Disorders. Nonverbal cues are virtually absent and their interpretation in others lacking.

Yet, Asperger's and personality pathologies have little in common.

2. Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Asperger's Disorder

Consider pathological narcissism.

From my book "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" :

"The narcissist switches between social agility and social impairment voluntarily. His social dysfunctioning is the outcome of conscious haughtiness and the reluctance to invest scarce mental energy in cultivating relationships with inferior and unworthy others. When confronted with potential Sources of Narcissistic Supply, however, the narcissist easily regains his social skills, his charm, and his gregariousness.

Many narcissists reach the highest rungs of their community, church, firm, or voluntary organization. Most of the time, they function flawlessly - though the inevitable blowups and the grating extortion of Narcissistic Supply usually put an end to the narcissist's career and social liaisons.

The Asperger's patient often wants to be accepted socially, to have friends, to marry, to be sexually active, and to sire offspring. He just doesn't have a clue how to go about it. His affect is limited. His initiative - for instance, to share his experiences with nearest and dearest or to engage in foreplay - is thwarted. His ability to divulge his emotions stilted. He is incapable or reciprocating and is largely unaware of the wishes, needs, and feelings of his interlocutors or counterparties.

Inevitably, Asperger's patients are perceived by others to be cold, eccentric, insensitive, indifferent, repulsive, exploitative or emotionally-absent. To avoid the pain of rejection, they confine themselves to solitary activities - but, unlike the schizoid, not by choice. They limit their world to a single topic, hobby, or person and dive in with the greatest, all-consuming intensity, excluding all other matters and everyone else. It is a form of hurt-control and pain regulation.

Thus, while the narcissist avoids pain by excluding, devaluing, and discarding others - the Asperger's patient achieves the same result by withdrawing and by passionately incorporating in his universe only one or two people and one or two subjects of interest. Both narcissists and Asperger's patients are prone to react with depression to perceived slights and injuries - but Asperger's patients are far more at risk of self-harm and suicide."

3. The use of language

Patients with most personality disorders are skilled communicators and manipulators of language. In some personality disorders (Antisocial, Narcissistic, Histrionic, Paranoid) the patients' linguistic skills far surpass the average. The narcissist, for instance, hones language as an instrument and uses it to obtain Narcissistic Supply or as a weapon to obliterate his "enemies" and discarded sources with. Cerebral narcissists actually derive Narcissistic Supply from the consummate use they make of their innate loquaciousness.

In contrast, the Asperger's patient, though verbose at times (and taciturn on other occasions) has a far more limited range of tediously repetitive topics. People with Asperger's fail to observe conversational rules and etiquette (for instance, let others speak in turn). The Asperger's patient is unaware and, therefore, unable to decipher body language and external social and nonverbal cues and gestures. He is incapable of monitoring his own misbehavior. Psychopaths, narcissists, borderlines, schizotypals, histrionics, paranoids, and schizoids are similarly inconsiderate - but they control their behavior and are fully cognizant of reactions by others. They simply choose to ignore these data.

[Scrapheap]

I've already read something similar.

I'm not concerned with the similar symptoms, rather, can these two be co-morbid, or are they mutualy exclusive ??