“Narcissism refers to the sense we all have of ourselves — the regard we hold ourselves in, the ways that we focus — and sometimes fixate — on ourselves,” Matt Lundquist, a Columbia University-trained psychotherapist and founder and clinical director of TriBeCa Therapy, tells Entrepreneur.
Narcissism isn’t inherently pathological for an individual or other people, Lundquist says, but the term is so frequently used “as a pejorative” that the idea that narcissism can be normal, healthy — and even underdeveloped in some instances — falls by the wayside. One need look no further than so-called “#NarcTok,” where people use the diagnosis “as a stand-in for all manner of unpleasant behaviors and character traits.”
In reality, classifying someone as a “narcissist” in a clinical psychopathology context implies “they have an impairment in narcissism that is severe enough to cause problems in how they’re operating in the world,” Lundquist explains. They may have narcissistic traits or what is termed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, he adds.
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