I was - a few years ago - reading three "clinical" criteria of Aspergers.
Highly talented, takes interests that are really abstruse and is "incable of seeing the big picture" since "drowning in detail". And "lack of empathy", see below, since also a criterium proposed as clinical for "narcissism.
The diagnosis - if still based on these three criteria - is clinically worthless, since "highly talented" is disputable, its assessment about either oneself or someone else is subjective, the evaluation of what interests are abstruse is so as well (Scholasticism may seem more abstruse to a Protestant or Atheist than to a Catholic, Medievalism is more abstruse to a Mexican than to a Swede, Geocentrism is more abstruse to an Evolution supporter than to a Creationist, Tolkien is more abstruse in France to an older than to a younger generation - while Sweden and US are already past that stage or partly reversing it).
In other words you have "subjective criterium with rubber definition"+"subjective criterium with rubber definition"+"subjective criterium with rubber definition".
In other words, you have no objective criterium at all.
Now, I just found the criteria for "narcissism" in an article comparing - perhaps not quite congenially - Kent Hovind and Jim Jones.
And for that matter, to single out Jim Jones as an "archetypal narcissist" is a way to actually demonise those having or risking the diagnosis. So much depends, not on what diagnosis you get, but how you handle it. However, certain stampings of people make them socially less capable of handling a situation well.
It's like taking a "schizophreniac" gore murderer while discussing schizophrenia (where some symptoms are more often faked than subjectively evaluated, though that too).
- "Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)"
Note, grandiose does not simply mean "great" or "greater than usual". It means "greater than appropriate". Well this leaves the question open who decides for someone else what self importance is appropriate for him.
- "Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love"
Even someone having an unusual opportunity could by considered as fantasising about the opportunity being "unlimited".
The more bourgeois and humdrum the expectations of someone doing the evaluation, the more he is engaging himself in grasping for "unlimited success" in diagnosing people out of their rights.
Or out of normal social expectations. A man gets stamped as a narcissist, he will be definitely treated worse on things important to himself than if not so stamped.
- "Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)"
There is a very huge difference between "can only be understood by" and "should associate with".
If I write Creationist stuff, as in Creation science, it stands to reason I should fact check scientific claims with those who know. That is I should associate with them, in some manner or degree.
I most definitely do NOT think I can only be understood by them, or hope it is not the case.
I am writing for the common man. As little as I am writing primarily for the specialists I try to consult (when normal works of online reference, like wikipedia are insufficient), as little am I writing primarily for the type who is looking out on my blogs whether I am a narcissist or not.
- "Requires excessive admiration"
This assessment also involves the category of "excessive" and therefore also depends on who is assessing.
Even a behaviour like "requiring admiration" is definitely, very definitely, sth which spiteful people could easily stamp someone about.
- "Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations"
Again, who decides what is "unreasonable"?
Who decides whether the expectation is "of automatic compliance"?
If it is the doctor, he can be biassed in favour of those bringing him in. Or have a "token bias" in favour of the one assessed, but insofar as he shows very great modesty. Hence, the situation of such assessment can be occasion for very unreasonable demands on one particular person's modesty.
- "Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends"
Someone in some kind of need or distress is by default so in some degree. He takes without being able to give in return. The diagnosis can thus be a way of further limiting the possibilities of someone whose possibilities are already limited.
There are employers who would admit I am no narcissist if I:
- a) give up every pretention of being a writer
- b) give up every attempt to spread my blogs
- c) try instead to get a job with them. As their employee, and, in a work other than writing, as their apprentice.
In other words, this criterium is too favourable for employers, too unfavourable to unemployed seeking sth other than employement. It biasses the labour market in favour of the employers - like much else on the psychiatric diagnosal activity spectrum.
- "Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others"
Any network lacking empathy with a person would very willingly stamp him as lacking empathy either with them as a whole, or with weaker individuals which he could otherwise reach and which they pretend to protect against him.
A girl can at times if flustered or wounded take "he has no empathy" or "he is sick/ill and has no empathy" (US/UK) as a satisfactory explanation.
- "Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her"
In some cases such a belief about others is fully justified. AND someone making these diagnoses is NOT automatically qualified in assessing if that is the case. More likely, he is already disqualified.
- "Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes (DSM IV-TR Axis II Cluster B)."
Arrogant, haughty are also moral assessments, not medical ones.
That "DSM IV-TR Axis II Cluster B" deals with a moral category, not a corporeal one like fever or blisters or such, shows in flagranti, doctors trying to play pastors.
That is why a dignosis such as "narcissism" is once again NOT a question of medical expertise.
Even morally, it is morally "very questionable," or rather, to speak like a Christian, plain wrong, to make a set up to ask whether someone morally fulfils the criteria of narcissism.
Narcissism as such is not a Biblical category, nor a Thomistic one.
Thomism does not specify you must trust "experts" on things they reasonably cannot be experts on, as in whether someone is a narcissist. If your cobbler is an expert on soles, the leather pieces that are parts of shoes, you trust him on soles. If someone pretends to be an expert on souls, you should first ask about his criteria of Orthodoxy. When it comes to souls, such do exist. No one is interested in inventing heresies about soles in the shoes, plenty are inventing heresies about souls with eternal destinies. And, arguably, shrinks are some of them.
If some other disciple of Chesterton is saying this louder and clearer and more successfully than I, he is definitely more important than I - but if there is one, I have missed him. Among Catholics. It seems some L. Ron Hubbard has favoured this position, but unfortunately for Catholics, he is somewhat discredited among Catholics by not being content with being a good essay writer, but wanting to found a "Church" of his own. One which is not Catholic.
This however is NOT sth which Chesterton can be blamed for also doing. He converted to Catholic. So did I.
Now, read a happier Catholic than I became:
MANALIVE, by G. K. Chesterton
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/manalive/man_toc.html
If you want a book to turn the pages of, or prefer US over UK spelling (I presume), here:
Manalive (Dover Edition)
$7.95
by G.K. Chesterton
https://www.chesterton.org/shop/manalive-dover/
The article, which I am not linking to, but you can definitely search on google, so far, ends on these words:
…it is imperative that we are able to identify and control these dangerous sociopathic narcissists before they become powerful enough to do too much damage.
That is what they said of Innocent Smith too, his enemies, in Chesterton's novel. The one "narcissist" which really should be controlled*, is the one who organises psychiatric witchhunts about narcissists : the shrink, or the worst kind of shrink (not sure how many there are of the less bad kind, if any).
Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Lucian of Beauvais
with companions Maximian and Julian
Martyrs**
8.I.2017
* If any. ** I wonder how many have considered me as pretending I am St John the Gospeller, just because I date an article from 27.XII with the religious feast before the numbers with the year. Here we have three martyrs, and they are not the name of me, they are the name of January eighth! Example two thirds down on this link. If you read French.
PS: I was just discussing with some guys pretending - one of which at least - I am narcissist. This just happened:
Previous in the discussion she said she had blocked no publication.
What I was talking about was in fact such a quasi automatic "block" and her not validating the comment which I and she can see and others cannot. If she is my friend, she has no business to prefer FB automatic blocks over my having sth to say, right?/HGL
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