Jump to content

Grandiosity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jacobisq (talk | contribs) at 11:01, 17 June 2013 (dequote, detag, reshape). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Not to be confused with grandiose delusions.

Grandiosity refers to an unrealistic sense of superiority - a sustained view of oneself as better than others that causes the narcissist to view others with disdain or as inferior - as well as to a sense of uniqueness: the belief that few others have anything in common with oneself and that one can only be understood by a few or very special people.[1]

Grandiosity is chiefly associated with narcissistic personality disorder, but also commonly features in manic or hypomanic episodes of bipolar disorder.[2]

Narcissistic criteria

The grandiosity section of the Diagnostic Interview for Narcissism (DIN) (Second edition) is as follows:[3]

In mania

In mania grandiosity is typically more pro-active and aggressive than in narcissism. The manic character may boast of future achievements[4] or exaggerate their personal qualities.[5]

They may also begin unrealistically ambitious undertakings, before being cut down, or cutting themselves back down, to size.[6]

Reality-testing

Grandiosity is distinct from grandiose delusions, in that the sufferer has insight into their loss of touch with reality (they are aware that their behavior is considered unusual).

The distinction is however not always clear-cut, with transitions from daydreaming of being president or king to delusions of the same, if the capacity for reality testing is lost.[7] Although these daydreams can become reality, they often are not on the grand scale envisioned by the sufferer.

Psychoanalysis and the grandiose self: Kernberg and Kohut

Otto Kernberg saw the unhealthily grandiose self as merging childhood feelings of specialness, personal ideals, and fantasies of an ideal parent.[8]

Kohut saw the grandiose self as a normal part of the developmental process, only pathological when the grand and humble parts of the self became decisively divided.[9] Kohut's recommendations for dealing with the patient with a disordered grandiose self were to tolerate and reflect back the grandiosity and so gradually re-integrate it with the realistic self.[10]

See also

3

References

  1. ^ Ronningstam, Elsa F. Identifying and Understanding the Narcissistic Personality (2005)
  2. ^ Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth edition Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) American Psychiatric Association (2000)
  3. ^ Gunderson J, Ronningstam E, Bodkin A The diagnostic interview for narcissistic patients Archives of General Psychiatry, 47, 676-680 (1990)
  4. ^ Erving Goffman, Relations in Public (Penguin 1972) p. 421
  5. ^ Goffman, p. 413 & n
  6. ^ Robin Skynner/John Cleese, Families and how to survive them (London 1994) p. 168-9
  7. ^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 444 and p. 421
  8. ^ Otto F. Kernberg, Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism (London 1990) p. 265
  9. ^ Josephine Klein, Our Need for Others (London 1994) p. 222
  10. ^ Allen M. Siegal, Heinz Kohut and the psychology of the Self (1996) p. 95
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grandiosity&oldid=560280238"