“The Narcissism We Refuse to See”
Narcissism lives inside all individuals. Overt or covert, subtle or profound, extreme or temperate. It’s there.
I had a friend tell me once, during one of my moments of decompensating, swirling in the familiar “woe is me” around my life, “Jenny, this sounds kind of narcissistic.”
I was aghast at first. And yet, no defense came from me. I wasn’t offended. Rather, I was relieved. She had named the wound running my inner world: “Me, me, me”. The self just selfing out.
Narcissism is fundamentally misunderstood in our culture. It is not simply a personality disorder reserved for a select few (even though a slight misunderstanding will cast a label upon you); it is part of the human psyche, existing on a spectrum, and in many ways it is essential to our survival. Children need to be the center of the universe. It’s how they get their needs met—think of a baby crying when it’s hungry—and how they develop belief in themselves: “Look at me and what I just did.”
As we mature, ideally, we learn to gather these resources internally rather than seek them externally. When that developmental process is interrupted, the traits of narcissism can overdevelop—or under develop—appearing overtly or covertly. For the sake of brevity, and because I’m not speaking here about malignant narcissism (the most extreme and often treatment-resistant form), I’ll simplify it this way:
Overt narcissism is the version we usually mean when we throw the word around. Grandiosity, entitlement, charisma, dominance, a need for admiration, an inability to account for their actions. (what many think ‘they’ have)
Covert narcissism is quieter. It can look sensitive, self-effacing, or deeply wounded, while remaining preoccupied with being unseen, misunderstood, uniquely burdened, and the ability to over account for their actions (Oh, how I identify with this one, and what many suffer with).
To stay with the theme of our collective narcissism on a spectrum, recognize that some of us are minimally narcissistic, some moderately, and some maximally. I would argue our culture itself has become increasingly narcissistic to a maximum degree. Writing this may even be evidence of my own. After all, who am I to think I know enough about this to write it and ‘show’ it? And yet, I do know through my work, my study, and my own personal encounters with It.
In its deepest understanding and impact, narcissism is directly related to our capacity to love. The more narcissistically organized we are, the more difficult it becomes to love. The less narcissistic, the greater our ability to encounter another person as they are, rather than as an extension of ourselves. Rather than just an object of love.
Lest we forget the old myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection and could not escape it.
The issue with narcissism is not merely the ex, the parent, the boss, or the politician. It is our collective tendency to locate it everywhere except within ourselves. How often are we preoccupied with our own visions of grandeur, our own self-importance, our own entitlement, our own uniquely painful story? How often do we organize our lives around our own victimization at the hands of “them”?
To be clear, I am not minimizing the very real trauma people endure, nor the suffering caused by those with malignant narcissism. I know that suffering personally. But I have also taken seriously the project of understanding myself and my projections. Depth psychology and psychoanalysis have helped me uncover my own narcissism and recognize the ways it shapes my capacity to love both my Self and the Other. And, it’s difficult.
Perhaps my effort is simply to normalize a word that has become both weaponized and misappropriated. We use it so casually now, often with the certainty that we know exactly what we mean. But consider this instead: narcissism is less a diagnosis and rather a developmental challenge—a structure of the psyche that each of us is working with in some way, invited to outgrow, integrate, and transform on the long path toward wholeness.