Anonymous asked this question on 4/9/2000:

What is narcissism?

samvak gave this response on 4/10/2000:

Dear Anonymous,

Narcissism is a healthy regard for ourselves, our needs and our wishes. It goes through evolutionary stages starting in very early infanthood.

But I suspect that what you really wanted to ask is "What is PATHOLOGICAL NARCISSISM?"

Pathological narcissism has gradations all the way to the Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

You can find the DSM IV (the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual) criteria for NPD here:

http://samvak.tripod.com/npd.html

More about narcissism:

http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/index.html (The main Gate to all my sites - download more that 5 Mb of material about Pathological Narcissism, NPD and Personality Disorders FREE)

http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/faq1.html (67 Frequently Asked Questions regarding Pathological Narcissism, NPD and Personality Disorders - upon accessing the page, please scroll down to review a complete list)

http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/msla.html (A psychodynamic study of Narcissism, using a new vocabulary - a bit difficult if you haven't gone through the FAQs first)

http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/introduction.html (The introduction to the print edition of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited")

http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/narclist.html (The Narcissism Discussion List page)

http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/archive01.html (Excerpts from the Archives of the Narcissism List)

(This is the first page. At the bottom of each page, there is a link to the next page of excerpts - there are currently 31 such pages but pages are added periodically).

You can also search my entire site:

Go to: http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/index.html and click on the words "Search My Site" (in blue text).

The full archives of the Narcissism List (thousands of articles) are available at: http://www.listbot.com/archive/narcissism

Philosophical essays, some of them concerned with mental health, can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/culture.html

Thank you again,

Sam

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. palma@unet.com.mk or samvak@briefcase.com

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