What is the Difference Between Pathological Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder

The key difference between pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder is that pathological narcissism is a mental condition that causes severe disturbances in interpersonal functioning, while narcissistic personality disorder is a mental illness that takes place due to a severe condition in pathological narcissism.

Personality is the parameter that makes humans different from each other in terms of how they feel, think, and behave. Life experiences, situations, inherited characteristics, and environmental conditions influence the personality development of an individual at different levels. The disorders associated with personality include mental health conditions characterized by unhealthy patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder are two types of unhealthy mental conditions related to humans.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Pathological Narcissism 
3. What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder
4. Similarities – Pathological Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder
5. Pathological Narcissism vs Narcissistic Personality Disorder in Tabular Form
6. Summary – Pathological Narcissism vs Narcissistic Personality Disorder

What is Pathological Narcissism?

Pathological narcissism is a mental condition that causes severe disturbances in interpersonal functioning. In other words, pathological narcissism causes individuals to feel obnoxious, where they feel superior to others and do not see any wrong in that feeling. Individuals with pathological narcissism are not in a mentally ill state with regard to clinical terms. They just show little or no empathy for the conditions, situations, feelings, and behavior of others.

Individuals with pathological narcissism always feel entitled to the best of everything, and they look down on people who show admiration and appreciation for them. They show no difficulty in exploiting others and obtaining what they want. The characteristic feature of pathological narcissism is that such individuals have no awareness and no insight into what they do, and hence they feel no remorse or any shame. Pathological narcissism in extreme conditions leads to different mental disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder, malignant narcissism, and antisocial personality disorder.

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental illness that takes place due to a severe condition of pathological narcissism. This personality disorder causes many problems in life in different areas such as work, relationships, professional, and personal affairs. Such individuals remain unhappy and disappointed when they lack special favors and admiration, which they believe that they deserve.

Symptoms related to narcissistic personality disorder vary in severity and from individual to individual. The most common symptoms are the presence of an exaggerated sense of self-importance, exaggeration of achievements and talents, believing they are superior and can only associate with equally special people, taking advantage of others to achieve what they desire, and insisting on having the best of all the things, etc. They also show impatience and anger when they do not receive special treatment, show difficulty in regulating emotions and behavior, show major issues when dealing with stress and adapting to change, become moody and depressed over small shortcomings, etc.

Causes for narcissistic personality disorder include inherited characteristics, mismatches in parent-child relationships, and neurobiology abnormalities leading to mental instability. There is no known pathway to treat the condition in terms of medication. But the condition could be controlled with therapy and counselling sessions.

What are the Similarities Between Pathological Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

• Pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder are mental conditions with significant features.
• Both conditions lead to many difficulties in day-to-day functions.
• Individuals show similar types of symptoms for both types.
• Pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder could occur at all stages of life.

What is the Difference Between Pathological Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Pathological narcissism is a mental condition that causes severe disturbances in interpersonal functioning, while narcissistic personality disorder is a mental illness that takes place due to a severe condition in pathological narcissism. Thus, this is the key difference between pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder. Pathological narcissism develops into subtypes such as malignant narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder, while narcissistic personality disorder does not contain any subtypes. Moreover, there are fewer or no complications of pathological narcissism, whereas there are diverse complications associated with the narcissistic pathological disorder.

The below infographic presents the differences between pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder in tabular form for side by side comparison.

Summary – Pathological Narcissism vs Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder are two types of unhealthy mental conditions related to humans. Pathological narcissism is a condition that is not regarded as a mental illness, while narcissistic personality disorder is a condition that is regarded as a mental illness. Pathological narcissism cause individuals to feel obnoxious when they feel superior to others and do not see any wrong in that feeling. Whereas, a narcissistic personality disorder is a mental illness that takes place due to a severe condition of pathological narcissism. Symptoms are also slightly different between the two conditions. So, this summarizes the difference between pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder.

Reference:

1. “Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 18 Nov. 2017.
2. Wright AG; Pincus AL; Thomas KM; Hopwood CJ; Markon KE; Krueger RF; “Conceptions of Narcissism and the DSM-5 Pathological Personality Traits.” Assessment, U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Image Courtesy:

1. “Seesaw narcissism megalomania model” By Krebcrabtree – the placard is sourced from the London sign holder (1864).svg file by 6birc;The stickfigures are sourced from Man (13780) – (CC0) via Commons Wikimedia
2. “Signs of NPD” By MissLunaRose12 – Own work (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia