Narcissism vs Narcissistic - Here's The Important Difference

Narcissism is not a diagnosis. It’s a psychological concept that helps explain or define human behavior. It’s defined as love of the self.

The name comes from the Greek mythological character, Narcissus. Narcissus was a handsome hunter who fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water. When he leaned down to kiss his reflection, he couldn’t see the face, so he continued to stare at the reflection until he died of thirst.

In its most basic form, narcissism as we use the term today, is neither good nor bad. It’s on a spectrum of healthy to pathological. Healthy narcissism is the ability to take pleasure in yourself and your accomplishments. You develop a healthy level of narcissism in childhood when you have parents who allow you the freedom form your own opinions and express your most vulnerable emotions in a supportive environment without criticism and shame.

So in essence, you’re supposed to love yourself. If you have a strong core of self-love and joy, you can sit in a job you hate and take the arrows that are thrown at you. The arrows may damage you superficially like making you unhappy at work, but you can withstand it because you still have your core that allows you to feel satisfaction with life on the inside.

Therefore, when you leave your job at the end of the day, you have the capacity to move on to something else that makes you happy and restores your damaged outer covering.

Pathological narcissism moves down the continuum in the direction of over-inflating your self-worth and doing things that are exclusively for your self-gratification and often to the detriment of others. For some people, this can look like the need to take from people to feel a gain, you tear people down to feel built up, someone else’s win is experienced as a loss for you.

Disclaimer: All of the information on this channel is for educational purposes and not intended to be specific/personal medical advice from me to you. Watching the videos or getting answers to comments/question, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. If you have your own doctor, perhaps these videos can help prepare you for your discussion with your doctor.

[stevechoi]

I feel parenting makes a big difference. “2 cookies given with love is all the child ever needs. Any amount of cookies given without love will never be enough.” I feel a child needs to feel loved in order to have self love growing up. I really appreciate this video and learned a lot.

[RainxOnxMex]

Haha this turned into the classiest clap back ever 😂

[jcortese]

It sounds like the difference is that healthy narcissism is "I matter." Unhealthy narcissism means, "I matter. You don't."

[level_ken]

I have analyzed over 20 years of my life in under 10 minutes. What a gift you have there, Dr. Marks. The evidence of your gift and impact on others is irrefutable. Peace and blessings!

[LBCTexas]

This was spectacular. The analogy of minimizing oneself in order to maintain relationships has definitely been me, and doing it because I felt I would lose people. Thank you for addressing this topic. I needed this listen this morning. Going to continue to work towards having a healthy level of narcissism.

[ikaikatorres]

Omg this feels so important. I went from zero self-esteem to having just enough to be called a narcissist, and I knew that I was on the right path and refused to go back into my shrinking hole, lol. Okay, so I have to keep validating myself! Got it! Thank you

[BBFCCO]

You just shed light on my father's behaviour. His life goal is to keep me unstable so I can't go too far from him, which he might actually win. How sad he is.

[thulimsezane]

This video just broadened my perspective about narcissism, thank you💞

[kristinastukalenko]

As the daughter of a narcissist, I think it's dangerous to conflate the term narcissism with vanity or assertiveness. A malignant narcissist has sadistic traits. They don't mind hurting and even killing people to maintain their false self. When people use narcissism interchangeably with the true clinical meaning, they retraumatize victims of abuse. I heard that someone has proposed the term "sadistic personality disorder" to describe the clinical variant of the term. I think that this is a more apt description then malignant narcissism, as it's less inclined to be confused with the less pathological definition, which can simply be described as run of the mill vanity. A person can be vain, but not sadistic. A certain amount of vanity is essential, because everyone of us deserves to have a core identity that we can be proud of.

[thomasalegredelasoujeole]

Thanks a lot for all the great, on-point teachings !
It reminds me of a little French joke :
An adult asks a kid : « what is a selfish person ? »
and the kid answers : « someone who doesn’t think about me ! »

[wms]

No one needs narcissistic pathological, destructive self-love. Everyone needs authentic self-love and the belief that every person has equal dignity and worth. ... Subscribed. 😊

[mzchocolitt]

This explains the sour faces or silence when I mention an accomplishment even if it’s small. I don’t make a big fuss about it, but the looks and competition that comes from those I mentioned things to said a lot. This year I started dealing with people differently especially family, I noticed people I am happy for do not reciprocate the happiness.

[halfmanhalfamazing]

I am glad you informed us about the positive aspect of narcissism within the aspect of self love. A lot of people classify it as all bad. But they are levels. And this was very responsible way of introducing this teaching. I look forward to more of your videos relating to this topic .

[matheusfigueiredofeitosa]

I straight up thought narcissism was a exclusively bad thing

[ennvee]

I’ve always wondered why, after I chose my line of work (Janitor ) why it made me feel so happy, retired now, but I loved every minute of it, thanks Dr Marks.

[belovedchild]

My fortress was chipped away by one parent. I've been working hard on building my self esteem, celebrating accomplishments, knowing my self worth and focusing on healthy relationships. It has been very hard work, but 3 years later, and I'm seeing solid results. I feel good. Thanks for this video, and congratulations on your award. I'm happy for you. :-)

[le_th_]

This is one of the most nuanced explanations I've seen (oh, and I've seen HUNDREDS lol) of the narcissistic spectrum and the distinctions between healthy narcissism and personality pathology. So very well done, and you're going to reach so many people outside the clinical realm due to the conversational language you carefully chose. I believe even school aged children could understand this, and this is not an easy topic to make "simple" (because it is so complex); impressive.

I appreciate you~

[jellicle_kitten]

Wow, thank you for such a humane description of narcissistic traits, where they come from and how to fix them. Society portrays narcissists as 100% abusers who won't change and don't even want it, so a lot of ppl w/narcissistic traits have no faith in themselves and may give up on relationships all together! (same w/borderline).

Ppl who don't have this won't GET that it's much less about being "in love with yourself" and more about having this gaping hole where a Self should be. If a person is an abuser and an asshole, just call them THAT. Not every narcissist is abusive, and not all abusers are narcissists. I cringe every time people put an equal sign between those two.
V good video.

[pilotintrainingify]

Thank you I've worried about being a narcissist for a while now. I have been damaged and have a lot of self doubt/ self esteem issues. I can put others down but I feel bad after especially knowing I can't take it back other then apologize. Sometimes I've dug myself to large a whole. I usually feel destroyed after a relationship goes south. I need to learn to love myself as you described because I would like a life feeling better about myself and being capable of having a loving relationship. I love go help other but I feel I need to help myself first and thats what im trying to do.

[ladybaabaa]

I think if someone had zero narcissism, they'd have no ego, no self esteem, no confidence, no self love and no pride.

If you have too much narcissism, you appear to have an inflated sense of self confidence (arrogance), excessive self esteem (which is really very low), selfishness and a huge expectation or demand for entitlement (insecurity).

So I guess, like everything else, it's all about balance.

Woah, that "Joe" person seemed very angry! Why does he feel he, or anyone else, deserves an award for appreciating your videos enough that 100K people chose to subscribe to your channel? Huh?!