The Narcissist Test: How to spot outsized egos ... and the surprising things we can learn from them. Dr Malkin Craig

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      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

       Dedication

      Introduction

      The Myth of Narcissus

      PART I: WHAT IS NARCISSISM?

1 Rethinking Narcissism: Old Assumptions, New Ideas

2 Confusion and Controversy: How Narcissism Became a Dirty Word and We Found an Epidemic

3 From 0 to 10: Understanding the Spectrum

4 The Narcissism Test: How Narcissistic Are You?

       PART II: ORIGINS: HEALTHY AND UNHEALTHY NARCISSISM

       5 Root Causes: The Making of Echoists and Narcissists

       6 Echoism and Narcissism: From Bad to Worse

       PART III: RECOGNIZING AND COPING WITH UNHEALTHY NARCISSISM

       7 Warning Signs: Staying Alert for Narcissists

       8 Change and Recovery: Dealing with Lovers, Family, and Friends

       9 Coping and Thriving: Dealing with Colleagues and Bosses

       PART IV: PROMOTING HEALTHY NARCISSISM

       10 Advice for Parents: Raising a Confident, Caring Child

       11 SoWe: The Healthy Use of Social Media

       12 A Passionate Life: The Ultimate Gift of Healthy Narcissism

       Resources

       References

       List of Searchable Terms

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       About the Publisher

       Introduction

      My mother was the most wonderful and infuriating person I’ve ever known: she was a narcissist.

      I wasn’t aware of it for the longest time, not until I was in college and immersed in an introductory psychology text. There, printed in bright bold letters just below a picture of the Greek youth Narcissus staring at his reflection in a pool of water, was the word narcissism. When I read the accompanying description, I remember feeling relieved and horrified all at once. The term perfectly captured the paradox of my mother.

      She was the incandescent figure of my childhood, irrepressibly outgoing, infectiously funny, and wonderfully caring. The world seemed to revolve around her. A striking nearly six-foot-tall blonde, with a thick English accent from her upbringing in Great Britain, she seemed to make connections everywhere she went—the grocery store, the coffee shop, the hair salon. She was devoted to friends, buoying them through illness and hardships, and dedicated to improving her community, whether the project was cleaning up a playground or organizing a bake sale. And as wife to my father and mother to me and my brother, she was always there, generous with her love and counsel.

      But her glow gradually dimmed as I, and she, grew older. She seemed to become more self-involved. She bragged about her accomplishments as a young ballet dancer, sometimes making the point by demonstrating—awkwardly—a split or plié. She name-dropped, boasting of brushes with celebrities (though I could never tell if the encounters were real or imagined). She grew obsessed with her looks, frantically charting wrinkles and chasing spots around her body and starving herself to stay thin. She interrupted people when they spoke, even when they were in the midst of sharing their pain and anxiety. Once, when I tried to tell her of my anguish over a romantic breakup, she dreamily muttered, “I never had any trouble finding dates.” I was stunned by the non sequitur.

      What had happened to my mother? College gave me the word narcissism. But I really didn’t understand what it meant. I had so many questions. Had she always been a narcissist and I hadn’t recognized it? Was she suddenly pushed to it by circumstance, namely getting older? Could I do anything to get back the loving, unselfish woman I remembered from my childhood?

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