Pathological Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder

We review the literature on pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and describe a significant criterion problem related to four inconsistencies in phenotypic descriptions and taxonomic models across clinical theory, research, and practice; psychiatric diagnosis; and social/personality psychology. This impedes scientific synthesis, weakens narcissism's nomological net, and contributes to a discrepancy between low prevalence rates of NPD and higher rates of practitioner-diagnosed pathological narcissism, along with an enormous clinical literature on narcissistic disturbances. Criterion issues must be resolved, including clarification of the nature of normal and pathological…