Narcissism theories - Topics

Ego ideal vs ideal ego: the distinction Lacan made Freud's 1914 essay separates primary from secondary narcissism: what the distinction was meant to explain Sam Vaknin self-published his way into being cited as both an expert and a patient Kernberg built the pathological grandiose self for borderline patients before applying it to narcissism Kohut's mirroring selfobject need is not the same thing as fishing for compliments Freud's ego ideal: where the concept came from and what it was meant to explain The New Science of Narcissism reads very differently from the epidemic book its author co-wrote a decade earlier Kernberg wrote for analysts: can a general reader finish Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism How parental expectations shape a child's ego ideal Ego ideal and superego: when self-observation becomes self-punishment Twin studies put narcissism's heritability near half: what is the other half doing Attachment research traces narcissism to inconsistent early care rather than to spoiling Kohut blamed empathic failure and Kernberg blamed drive aggression: the two schools never reconciled Mask model vs scar model: do grandiose narcissists secretly feel worthless or genuinely feel fine How vulnerable narcissism develops from early emotional neglect The Narcissistic Personality Inventory explained in plain language Do narcissistic traits run in families? Threatened egotism theory traces narcissistic violence to insult rather than to low self-esteem Millon's evolutionary model treats narcissism as a strategy for getting others to enhance you Social learning accounts still cannot say where a child learns to feel entitled Craig Malkin puts narcissism on a healthy-to-extreme spectrum and clinicians call that too generous The role of early trauma in turning normal self-interest into pathological narcissism Why psychoanalysis kept the theory of narcissism and academic psychology kept only the scale The agentic and communal narcissism distinction explained The neuroscience of pathological self-focus: what the default mode network does Every generation calls the next one narcissistic: the complaint is older than the diagnosis Childhood causes of narcissistic personality disorder: what the evidence supports Kohut on the idealized parent imago and the ego ideal Transference-focused psychotherapy for NPD: how it works Evolutionary accounts call self-enhancement a short-term mating strategy that never gets audited