French poet Charles Pierre Baudelaire once said: “The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that he doesn't exist.”
Well, now, the ever-corrupt and anti-therapeutic psychiatric establishment has decided that narcissism doesn't exist! Or more accurately, that it is so pervasive, maybe even "useful," that we should no longer consider it a personality disorder.
I'm not kidding!
The new edition being put together of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM V), the Bible of psychiatric diagnoses used by mainstream therapists who want to get insurance reimbursement, no longer includes "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" as a disorder. Why? Well, if you read the comments of the narcissists putting the manual together, it basically boils down to a schoolyard-level argument that goes something like this: Since so many people have it, it can't be a disorder.
I repeat: I'm not kidding!
Following the questionable logic, I guess, then, since so many people have cancer or are morbidly obese, we should declassify those manifestations of illness as well, no?
Oh, but wait! There's more! One Peter Freed, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, goes even further:
“Narcissism is not a disease,” says Freed. "It’s an evolutionary strategy that can be incredibly successful — when it works.”
When it works?!
When narcissism "works," Professor Freed, it's effect is to gut the afflicted individual of empathy, first of all, which turns all others in their lives into mere objects and sources of supply, and therefore makes having loving, mutually gratifying relationships impossible. Furthermore, narcissism condemns this deeply insecure person to a lifetime of relentless pursuit of validation and proof of value and importance, a fruitless endeavor because as soon as someone does give credence to the worthiness of the narcissist, the person giving the support is devalued. It's the old Groucho Marx joke: "I'd never wanting to belong to a club that would have me as a member." Or as a narcissistic patient of mine once put it: "I want to be the special person of a special person." (Problem is if said "special person" ever chose my patient, their specialness would dissolve.)
Thus is the actual life of a narcissist.
Anyway, I'm disgusted. Anyone who knows me and reads this blog knows that the rampant growth of narcissism has been one of my pet issues over the years. Just do a search for the word here and you'll find any number of posts on the subject. But we are at a dividing time on planet earth, folks. Linear, dualistic, 3rd-dimensional reality and 4th-density vibrational living are moving apart at an accelerated rate, and the fault line of the divide is becoming clearer and clearer. On one side, greed and need, isolation and separation - and narcissism - are solidifying as the human experience; on the other, oneness, conscious creating, self-actualization and harmony are taking root as the nature of reality.
Hey everyone - there's a window of opportunity right now to make the big leap across the divide with some extra support from the collective consciousness. You can always go later, but now would be a good time. I'll meet you over there.
Smart, smart, smart. And your patient's quote -- "I want to be the special person of a special person" -- is just brilliant. I say this as a person who struggles with his own narcissistic impulses, which for me are only rarely "self-helpful" (useful or adaptive)... Thanks for sharing that.
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