The following are my blog posts which are also posted on my groups website. To view the posts on the original website, you can go to this link: https://narcissism.commons.gc.cuny.edu/blogs/

What is the best way to deal with a narcissist?

Are you in a relationship with someone who either does not seem to have any concern for your emotions or seems to exhibit an artificial concern for you? Do their emotions seem to be fake and are they very good at manipulating others? If so, they may suffer from a psychological disorder known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder. When someone is classified as a narcissist it simply means that they lack sympathy, which is the ability to feel happy or sorry for others. Simply put, they view humans other than themselves as objects which they can use to obtain pleasure or meet their own goals. They have no regard concerning what they do to others and how they may hurt them, whether it be physical or emotional. They have a very high ego and believe that they themselves are infallible.

Due to this, it is highly likely that they put the blame on you for whatever calamity or tragedy they may face in life. Any individual you come across can be a narcissist, whether it is your friend, sibling, romantic partner, or even a parent. When you successfully conclude that a certain individual in your life is, in fact, a narcissist, most psychologists recommend that the best course of action to take with such a person is to simply cut them off from your life.

As stated before, narcissists are highly egotistic individuals, so confronting a narcissist will be a fruitless effort. They will simply deny any shortcoming you state of theirs, and throw the blame back on you. If they are already a grown adult, it is simply too late to try to change them. Removing them from your life is the only viable option because if you allow them to remain in your life they will continue to add toxicity to your life and may even cause mental instability.

Is it possible to stop the development of narcissism at the outset?

As mentioned in our previous blog post entitled “What is the Best Way To Deal With a Narcissist?,” there is no solution when one finds themselves in a relationship with a narcissistic individual except to completely cut them out of one’s life, as it is near impossible to reason with them and get them to understand that their disregard for the emotional well-being of others is wrong. However, certain studies show that it is possible to stop the development of narcissism at its outset, ie during the years of childhood and adolescence.

In a study conducted in 2014 entitled, “Adolescent Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism: Associations with Perceived Parenting Practices.”, researchers concluded that it may, in fact, be possible to prevent the development of narcissism in children. They found that there were certain variables which can predict the likelihood of the development of narcissism within children. If those variables which positively correlate with the presence of narcissism in children are removed, it may be possible to stop the progression of narcissism. In other words, it was a viable solution to the problem of narcissism.

Researchers concluded that a certain form of narcissism, known as grandiose narcissism, had a positive correlation with two parenting practices known as positive reinforcement and parental involvement. They also concluded that another form of narcissism, known as vulnerable narcissism, was had a slight correlation with poor supervision and parental inconsistency. A simple solution to the problem of narcissism would, therefore, be to educate parents on the causes of narcissism in children, with the hope that they adjust their parenting techniques in order to eliminate narcissism from the very outset.

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