Personality and Personal Growth:
​ Narcissistic Personality Disorder

When you are watching television, you often hear someone refer to another person as a narcissist, but you do know what this means? It typically refers to a person who need to be admired and someone who significantly lacks empathy. However, when someone has this personality disorder, their narcissism is more than just a personality trait. This personality disorder can affect people of all personality types and it can severely hinder your efforts at personal development.

Those with this disorder are not able to properly handle relationships, school, work or their financial affairs due to this condition causing significant problems in relating with other people. Those with this disorder experience disappointment and unhappiness whenever they are not getting admiration or special favors. This makes people not want to be around you.

There are treatments for this disorder regardless of someone's personality type. A personal development plan can be a beneficial part of treatment and you want to create a plan for each area of your life that this disorder is causing problems with.

Exploring the Symptoms of this Personality Disorder

The symptoms of this disorder are numerous and most patients do not experience all of them. The severity will also range among patients. The following are possible when someone has this personality disorder:

• Exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Exaggerating talents and achievements
• Thinking you are superior to other people
• Expecting special favors
• Expecting unquestioning compliance with what you want
• Being unwilling or unable to recognize the feelings and needs of others
• Behaving an a haughty and ignorant manner
• Expecting others to view you as superior
• Frequent fantasies of power, beauty, success and brilliance
• A strong sense of entitlement
• Taking advantage of other people to meet your needs and goals
• Being envious of other people

Knowing the Causes of this Disorder

Experts do not know why some people develop this disorder. However, they do know that it is likely a complex combination of factors. This disorder might be linked to:

• Child-parent relationship mismatches, including excessive criticism or excessive pampering
• Psychobiology or genetics, meaning the connection that exists between a person's thinking and behavior and their brain

Males develop this disorder more often than females do and it typically starts to rear its head either in early adulthood or the teen years. Some children seem to be more vulnerable to parental actions, leading to this disorder, as well as other personality disorders.

How this Personality Disorder is Diagnosed

Diagnosing this personality disorder begins with ruling out any potential physical causes for the symptoms. Your primary doctor will perform a thorough physical examination and look at all of your medications. If none of these are responsible for your symptoms, your doctor will do a psychological examination. This works to see if there is a basis for diagnosing this condition. Your mental healthcare provider will look at your symptoms, your overall lifestyle and similar factors to see if you meet the criteria in the DSM-5 to be diagnosed with this disorder.

The Treatments Used for this Disorder

There are treatment options for this disorder that can help to keep your symptoms under control and help you to cope with the symptoms that you experience. A combination of treatments is most commonly used so that you can learn to live with this disorder and its effects in a relatively normal manner.

Psychotherapy is the most common treatment and one that everyone with the disorder receives. It helps you to learn how to relate with other people so that you can develop better relationships. You will also learn about the underlying cause of your emotions so that you can work to counteract the negative aspects.

Medications might be used to treat this disorder, depending on the symptoms that you are experiencing. Not everyone receives medications because not everyone is a good candidate. The people who experience anxiety or depression might benefit from anti-anxiety or antidepressant medications.

Understanding this personality disorder gives you important information about what it can do to people of various personality types. Learning about the symptoms and treatment helps you to see how working on your personal development can be more beneficial. Your mental healthcare provider can help you when it comes to creating a personal development, as well as when you are ready to execute it. They will help you to set the right goals and work on the right things so that it works along with your treatment plan to make a difference.

References:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/basics/definition/con-20025568

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-schenker/conscious-relationships_b_5232940.html