It’s a personality buzz word doing the rounds on social media, but what exactly is a narcissist?
Boiled down, narcissism is being utterly and completely self-obsessed with one’s self, and a lack of empathy for others – but there are varying degrees and differences between the personality traits they exude.
Clinical psychologist, Dr. Ramani Durvasula broke down the characteristics of a narcissist, saying it’s a personality style and not a diagnosis – as many people think.
‘People think that this is like a clinical disorder, you shouldn’t be saying that if you’re not a doctor,’ she said on Emily Ratajkowksi’s podcast HighLow.
‘[Narcissism] is a personality style, [I] consider myself sort of agreeable and conscientious for example, those are my personalities they’re not diagnosis.’
Clinical psychologist, Dr. Ramani Durvasula (pictured) broke down the characteristics of a narcissist, saying it’s a personality style and not a diagnosis
She outlined four types of narcissism that exist, and some of the qualities they exude – as well as detailing how to avoid raising a narcissist as a parent
The four different types of narcissist revealed
Dr. Ramani Durvasula outlined four types of narcissists, and their characteristics:
- Grandiose narcissists: confident
- Vulnerable narcissist: irritable and anxious
- Communal narcissist: validation from others
- Self-righteous narcissist: controlling
She outlined four types of narcissism that exist, and some of the qualities they exude – as well as detailing how to avoid raising a narcissist as a parent.
‘The classical narcissistic person, that everyone thinks about, is the grandiose narcissist,’ Dr. Ramani explained. ‘The show off, the arrogant, “look how great I am.”
‘I mean you see that a lot celebrity culture right the sort of attention seeking kind of a person,’ she added.
Dr. Ramani described this type of person as ‘slick,’ meaning they exude a certain confidence and like would be relatively unrattled by most things – until you’re alone with them.
‘They just sort of feel like they’ve got the goods,’ she simply said. ‘Until you you’re in a closed in room with them and they’re mad at you and they take it out on you.’
The next type of narcissist is a vulnerable narcissist, whom Dr. Ramani classifies as someone who ‘look more’ irritable and anxious.
‘Sometimes [they’re] even shy but they’re sort of always resentful and always victimized,’ she explained. ‘How come things don’t go my way way why is the world out to get me how come things don’t go the way I want.’
The third type of narcissist is called a ‘communal narcissist’ – someone, Dr. Ramani explained thrives from validation from other people.
She told podcast host Emily Ratajkowksi (pictured) that doing some ’emotional exploration’ as a parent is important in helping them get in touch with their feelings and vulnerability
‘The communal narcissist gets [their] validation from being perceived as somebody who does all these good things,’ she explained on the podcast.
‘[They’ll do seemingly good things then say] “look at me rescuing people, look at me raising all this money complex,”‘ she said.
There are also self-righteous narcissists, which she characterizes as someone who could be ‘controlling and cruel.’
‘[This could be with] money, they can be weird about time,’ she listed. ‘They can feel discriminatory but they are rigid, rigid, rigid.’
Dr. Ramani explained that a self-righteous narcissist has the façade of someone who works very hard and is highly successful – but pointed out its often to the detriment of others.
Dr. Ramani also spoke to younger generations seeming more narcissistic than those before them. She hypothesized that parenting styles may have sometimes to do with it – although stressed the importance that different forms of communication play a part, generationally as well.
‘[The younger generations] like Generation Z grew up with different things right?’ she said.
‘Digitally they grew up differently, and so how they interact with each other we have to be careful not to pathologize a young person modifying themselves to how people communicate in a generation.
‘I think parenting practices pendulum over so I think that in whatever the hell generation I’m Gen X, I guess the Boomers [and] Gen X probably had parents that were more authoritarian, and not as warm, not as validating,’ she theorized.
‘Millennials and Gen Z got a lot more of this parental attention I think,’ she pointed out. ‘In some cases probably too permissive – and that’s where we might see some of those chickens coming home to roost.’
The psychologist also said social media plays a huge part in how younger narcissists get validation.
‘Once upon a time for a narcissistic person to get validation they actually had to leave the house, they had to get up take a shower, shave, do a this do a that, put their clothes on and go out to where other people are,’ she explained.
‘That took effort so you weren’t getting validation at three in the morning, you actually had to put some effort into getting that validation.’
Dr. Ramani suggested reading age appropriate books to children from a young age and encouraging emotional exploration.
‘I tell parents to read books with kids age appropriate books and stop and ask them how do you think the bear felt the end of it,’ she said.
‘Those as moments whatever it is; a bear or a zebra, [ask them] how do you think that zebra felt when the other zebra kids wouldn’t play with them,’ she suggested.
She said doing the ’emotional exploration,’ – especially to parents of boys’ – is important in helping them get in touch with their feelings and vulnerability.
Dr. Ramani also revealed ‘one big mistake’ parents make when their kids are growing up is not wanting them to to fail at all.
‘A lot of parents [don’t] want their child to experience distress, and that’s one big mistake,’ she said.
”The the bad thing is where the good stuff happens ,’ she said. ‘It’s about how they learn to cope right like you said self-regulate yeah it’s very important.’