Listen instead:
In the US, our collective interest in narcissism and its tactics of control, judging by YouTube video prevalence alone, is super high right now. A quick search into qualifying “super high” brought me a March 2023 news article, Gaslighting, narcissism are the most searched terms in the U.S.
People are interested in understanding narcissism, and thank goodness! Because that mess is destructive; the sooner we can recognize it and put in boundaries, the better off we are.
It’s one thing to recognize narcissistic patterns in family members, coworkers, celebrities, and/or real-life political nightmarish figures, but what about feeling like you’re a narcissist?
Do you ever wonder if focusing on healing is, ultimately, just narcissism? And maybe, just maybe, you — like — shouldn’t?
Let’s look into the yes and no of it all.
Healthy Narcissism v. Problematic Narcissism
It’s a very important truth that I am not a mental health professional. I have a graduate degree in Chinese medicine, not a PhD or an MD. The comments I make in this post about narcissism are either well-known generalities, come straight from sources I cite, or are questions I’m posing.
For more detailed information and to go down the narcissism rabbit hole with a (licensed!) digital guide, follow this footnote for some handy resources.1 Please remember that unhealthy narcissism is a minefield of manipulation and gaslighting, y’all. Don’t go at it alone.
If you’re not familiar with the myth of Narcissus, from whence comes the term narcissism, the bottom line is that he was a gorgeous Greek man who fell in love with his own reflection when he happened to see it on the surface of a pond. He never left the pond shore, staring fixedly at his own beauty, where he died from — this is the best part — thirst. For the love of Pete, how perfect.
According to Britannica, narcissism as a mental disorder entered into psychology in 1898. Today, in 2024, it’s all over all the media.
But there is such a thing as healthy narcissism, meaning there’s a difference between narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). A basic way to understand this is to think of an intact self-esteem and self-regard as healthy narcissism. This is in stark contrast to problematic, pathological unhealthy narcissism.
The Narcissistic Spectrum
Dr. Craig Malkin, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, describes narcissism as a spectrum. The left side of the spectrum is a lack of healthy narcissism, called Echoism. (Fun fact: He calls it Echoism as a reference to the myth of Echo and Narcissus. Echo is a nymph who falls in love with Narcissus. It doesn’t end well for her.)
Echoists are highly concerned about appearing narcissistic in any way, and as a result, they attempt to erase their needs. Spoiler alert, this causes problems.
According to Dr. Malkin’s Narcissism Spectrum Model, people with unhealthy narcissism on the right side of the spectrum have problematically high levels of narcissism. The Narcissism Spectrum Scale (NSS) describes these people as “entitled, approval-seeking, disagreeable extraverts.”2
That’s not to say that narcissists are extraverted by nature. Mental health professionals split narcissists into types. There are many classifications, but the most common ones I found were overt (also known as grandiose) narcissists and covert (also known as vulnerable or fragile) narcissists. Some mental health professionals consider covert narcissists to be introverted, while overt narcissists are extraverted.
Regardless of typing, Malkin asserts that disordered narcissists have an unstable self-esteem that’s incapable of creating a sturdy sense of self. Rather than turning to true connection, these people seek to self-soothe through feeling special or exceptional. They become addicted to that feeling. Other people (alas) exist in service to that addiction, to feed that need. The other bad news is that it’s an inexhaustible, bottomless, black hole kind of hunger. There’s never enough praise to fill it.
Thus, narcissists employ a number of psychologically manipulative and exploitative tactics3 to ensure that the people in their lives stay in line and feed that pervasive, unyielding, relentless need. Other people’s “feeding” of the need to feel special is called narcissistic supply. If a supplier leaves the relationship, the narcissist identifies and pursues a replacement supplier through efforts like love-bombing, charm, victimhood, or misleading self-effacement.
But, in the middle of Malkin’s spectrum is a balanced place. Here we find that “moderate levels of healthy narcissism are associated with many positive attributes and few indicators of psychopathology.”4
Unhealthy narcissism sounds terrible because it is. Yet in a high-performance culture like ours, narcissistic behavior can be rewarded. Pushy, competitive, demeaning, abusive behavior is often excused, especially in men. These traits can even be held up as desirable leadership qualities, despite the evidence to the contrary.
A fun 2018 paper on the NIH website states that individualistic cultures have more instances of pathological narcissism than collective cultures — another way, usually, of saying Western v. Eastern. And this brings us to the Dao.
The Dao, the Self, & the 10,000 Things
Chinese medicine has deep and wide roots, with any number of philosophies and trends affecting its shape over the course of its 6,500-(or fewer?)-year history. One of those undeniable influences is Daoism. Because we (the Huwe we, I mean) learned in a school that emphasized Daoist traditions in particular, much of our approach and style stems from this lineage.
Daoism values spontaneity, human nature, and non-infringement. It isn’t overly burdened by dogma; it doesn’t worship the written word; it looks askance at authoritarianism. Along with Confucianism, from which it is very distinct, Daoism is one of the most influential Chinese philosophies.
The Dao translates as the way, and what that means isn’t going to be pinned down like a dead insect on a collection board. There are lots of ways to understand these concepts, and I’m taking a light approach here. Essentially, the way means there’s a singular undercurrent, through-line, or path that may appear differently to different people, and is a harmonious orientation to (and through) the fabric of life.
We all come from the Dao, remain connected to the Dao, and to the Dao we return. It’s our source text, in a sense.
And speaking of source texts, Daoism has its own: the Dao de Jingand Zhuangzi. The Dao de Jing, in particular, is well-known in the West. Some people love it; some people are confused by it; some people find its seemingly simplistic language irritating and contradictory and annoying and vague.
It’s hard to write about the universe in any time period, and estimates place the writing of this text in 400 BCE. Yet despite the challenging nature of its content and the age of its commentary, the Dao de Jing continues to be relevant. An ancient 2013 Guardian article puts it beautifully:
“What the Tao Te Ching does, time and time again, is attempt to show us how we might see things if we could spend more time in awareness… [T]he central thing the Tao Te Ching asks us to be aware of is not the world, but our self. Self-awareness.”
The book consists of 81 single-paged chapters, which essentially read as poems that reveal an aspect of the Dao. For example, Chapter 1 says (among other things) Free from desire, you realize the mystery / Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.5
Chapter 42 states The Tao gives birth to the One / One gives birth to Two / Two gives birth to Three / Three gives birth to all things. (The all things here is sometimes translated as the 10,000 things, which I enjoy for its poetic universality and inaccurate specificity.)
In other words, we’re all individuals, connected to the Dao, and, as a result, connected to each other through the Dao. You’re special, sure, says Daoism. And so is everybody else. In this way, Daoism is the inverted opposite of problematic narcissism.
With that in mind, can people with unhealthy narcissism exist within Daoism? Of course. Sure. Any healing philosophy, profession, or modality is bound to attract power-hungry, emotionally abusive people looking for a birch rod to hide behind and smack others with. Whether it’s the Dao de Jing, the Bible, or the DSM, any book can transform from a tool of understanding into a weapon. It’s all about the wielding.
Self-Awareness v. Self-Obsession
We’ve uncovered, at least partially, what narcissism is. We’ve examined Daoism and its admonishment to become self-aware. So now let’s get back to our starting question: What’s the distinction between being devoted to one’s healing — being self-aware — and being devoted to one’s unhealthy narcissism — being self-obsessed?
In a healing modality like Chinese medicine, we encourage self-awareness at every stage of the operation. What that means and how it shows up ranges from the minimal to the revolutionary. Many, many people have been trained to deny, abandon, and/or completely ignore their own needs.
Whether it’s from a societal pressure, a family system structure, or both, some people feel guilt or hesitation around prioritizing their own healing needs.
Things like when (and how!) to say no, when (and how!) to ask for help, when (and how!) to back out of an unhealthy commitment, when (and how!) to insist upon accommodations are not second nature for most of us in modernity. Changing our habits is no small potatoes, and doing so will have a direct effect on the people in our lives. They may or may not like this effect.
Another aspect of self-awareness, especially at the beginning, is a feeling of novelty. Self-discovery is exciting. It can absorb a fair amount of our attention, and we can feel like new vistas of self-understanding are opening all around us. This is because they are.
For many of us, though, doing these things can feel very uncomfortable, as if — what was it Dr. Malkin said? — we’re “entitled and disagreeable.”
Walking the Line
The line, then, between self-awareness and self-obsession can be viewed from a variety of angles. True healing, supported by self-awareness and self-possession, usually looks something like this:
1. Things Calm Down
Should your healing experience become all-encompassing, rest assured that it usually calms down. As you integrate your initial revelations and update how you care for yourself, everything becomes more manageable. Your ability to focus on other things will continue to grow with time.
2. Needs Aren’t Bottomless
When you’re radically following your heart, the experience isn’t a bottomless craving that others must fill for you. It’s more peaceful than that. If you’re feeling insatiable or anxious, you’re probably not quite hitting the mark when it comes to your needs.
3. Coercion Doesn’t Arise
Healing is a claiming of the self. Truly taking care of yourself doesn’t involve psychological warfare to make other people do your bidding or soothe your fears.
4. Relationships Adjust
When we’re figuring out how to love ourselves or care for ourselves through an illness, we make changes. Changes don’t typically go unnoticed. They may ruffle feathers or shake up the status quo. In these cases, we find ourselves renegotiating relationships — and sometimes, reevaluating them entirely. Not all relationships survive these shifts.
This is an entirely different thing from actively destroying your relationships through narcissistic abuse.
by Mary Beth Huwe
These writings are an exploration of what it means to be human – to be sick, to be well, and to heal – viewed through the lens of classical Chinese medicine. My words aren’t medical advice, and these essays don’t constitute a practitioner-client relationship. They also aren’t meant to be the final word on… well, anything. Rather, I hope they are the beginning of a conversation you have with someone in your life. Thanks for reading!
Footnotes:
- Legit, credentialed, thorough, online resources regarding disorders of narcissism:
–Dr. Les Carter
-Dr. Ramani Durvasula
–Dr. Emily Grijalva, University at Buffalo
–Barbara Heffernen, MSW
–Dr. Craig Malkin
–Dr. Tracy Marks: Narcissism vs. Narcissistic (video)
–Patrick Teahan, LCSW ↩︎ - Development of the Narcissism Spectrum Scale: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pqUX9mitTH9ahEDqZveC3TBqPnBay19V/view ↩︎
- See here for a fun, NSFW example of some of these tactics. ↩︎
- Development of the Narcissism Spectrum Scale: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pqUX9mitTH9ahEDqZveC3TBqPnBay19V/view ↩︎
- Tao Te Ching (S. Mitchell, Trans.). HarperPerennial. (1988). ↩︎
