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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ trampling noisily in his path. Soon, he sensed he was being followed.

      “Who’s there?” he called.

      Echo tried to answer, but she had no voice of her own—the result of an ancient curse by the goddess Hera (Echo had distracted her with incessant chatter one too many times). She tried to call out, but could only repeat his words.

      “Who’s there?” she replied sadly.

      “Come out now!” he demanded.

      “Out now,” she answered, tearfully.

      Growing angry, perhaps feeling mocked, Narcissus shouted. “Show yourself!”

      “Yourself!” cried Echo, leaping out from behind the trees. She reached out, throwing her arms around his neck.

      But Narcissus’s heart remained cold. “Get away!” he barked. Then, as he fled, he yelled cruelly over his shoulder, “I’ll die before I love you!”

      “Love you!” Echo called, sobbing. Humiliated and heartbroken, she disappeared into the thickest part of the woods. She refused to move, refused even to drink or eat, and her body slowly withered away, until only her voice remained.

      Meanwhile, the gods grew tired of the wreckage Narcissus had been leaving in his wake. One man, Ameinias, had become so distraught when Narcissus spurned his advances that he drew a sword and ran himself through. But before he did, he whispered a prayer to the goddess of vengeance, Nemesis. She quickly answered with a curse befitting the cruelty she’d witnessed. Narcissus himself was to know the pain of unrequited love.

      One afternoon soon after, while strolling through his beloved woods, he came upon a cool, clear spring, so eerily still that it looked like a mirror. Thirsty from the walk, he bent down to drink, and when he did, he caught a glimpse of a beautiful face. He was so clouded by Nemesis’s curse he didn’t realize he was staring at himself. His heart hammered in his chest. He’d never known a feeling like this before, the depth of longing, the sheer joy of being in a person’s presence. Maybe this is love, he thought.

      “Come join me!” he cried.

      Silence.

      “Why won’t you answer me!” he bellowed, gazing at his reflection. “Don’t you want me, too?”

      He bent down to kiss the water and the face, briefly, seemed to fade from view.

      “Come back!” He tried to approach the man again, to touch him, to feel his embrace. But each time he did, the face seemed to retreat, disappearing into the still waters of the spring.

      Hours went by, then days, until at last, Narcissus stood up and dusted himself off. He finally knew what to do.

      “I’ll come to you!” he called out into the water. “That way we can be together!”

      With that, he dove into the pool, plunging down into the darkness, deeper and deeper, until he disappeared from sight, never to surface again.

      Moments later, at the edge of the pool, a fantastic flower sprang up, a nimbus of white petals ringing a bright yellow trumpet. It leaned over the pool, forever gazing into the waters beneath it.

      

       1

       Rethinking Narcissism

      Old Assumptions, New Ideas

      The silent killer of all great men and women of achievement—particularly men, I don’t know why, maybe it’s the testosterone—I think it’s narcissism. Even more than hubris. And for women, too. Narcissism is the killer.

      —BEN AFFLECK

      Narcissism. The word has soared to such dizzying heights of fame that Narcissus himself would flush with pride. Scan a newspaper or magazine, watch the nightly news or daily talk shows, eavesdrop on commuters on their cellphones, gossip with your next-door neighbor, and the word pops up again and again. Everyone’s using it: average citizens, actors, social critics, therapists, a US Supreme Court justice, even the pope. Add in that we’re allegedly in the midst of a “narcissism epidemic,” and it’s easy to see why the term has become ubiquitous. Nothing gets people talking like a disease on the rise, especially if, as Ben Affleck seems to worry, the condition is terminal.

      But what does narcissism mean exactly? For a word that gets hurled about with such frequency and fear, its definition seems alarmingly vague. Colloquially, it’s become little more than a popular insult, referring to an excessive sense of self—self-admiration, self-centeredness, selfishness, and self-importance. The press is apt to slap the description on any celebrity or politician whose publicity stunts or selfie habits have spiraled out of control.

      But is that all narcissism is? Vanity? Attention-seeking? In psychological circles the meaning is no less confusing. Narcissism can either be an obnoxious yet common personality trait or a rare and dangerous mental health disorder. Take your pick. But do it soon, because there’s a strong sentiment among mental health researchers that it shouldn’t be considered an illness at all.

      As slippery and amorphous as all these views seem to be, they all share a single assumption: narcissism is wholly destructive.

      Too bad it’s wrong.

      Narcissism can be harmful, true, and the Web is rife with articles and blogs from people who’ve suffered at the hands of extremely narcissistic lovers, spouses, parents, siblings, friends, and colleagues. Their stories are as heartbreaking as they are frightening. But that’s just a small part of narcissism, not the whole picture. And until all the pieces are in place, we have little hope of understanding how and why narcissism becomes destructive, let alone protecting ourselves when it does.

      Today, in contrast, a surprising new view has begun to emerge, one that points to all the ways narcissism seems to help us, too. It even offers some hope for change when our loved ones, just like Narcissus, are in danger of disappearing into themselves forever.

      Narcissism is more than a stubborn character flaw or a severe mental illness or a rapidly spreading cultural disease, transmitted by social media. It makes no more sense to assume it’s a problem than it would if we were speaking of heart rate, body temperature, or blood pressure. Because what it is, in fact, is a normal, pervasive human tendency: the drive to feel special.

      Indeed, for the past twenty-five years, psychologists have compiled massive amounts of evidence that most people seem convinced they’re better than almost everyone else on the planet. This wealth of research can only lead us to one inevitable conclusion: the desire to feel special isn’t a state of mind reserved for arrogant jerks or sociopaths.

      Consider, for example, the findings from a research tool called the “How I See Myself Scale,” a widely used questionnaire devised to measure “self-enhancement” (an unrealistically positive self-image). People who fill out the scale are asked to rank themselves on various traits, including warmth, humor, insecurity, and aggressiveness (“Do you think you’re average or in the top 25 percent, 15 percent, or 10 percent?”). In study after СКАЧАТЬ