A Study of Malignant Narcissism Personal and Professional

Insights - 1st Edition

Visit the link below to download the full version of this book:

https://medidownload.com/product/a-study-of-malignant-narcissism-personal-and-pr
ofessional-insights-1st-edition/

Click Download Now

‘A Study of Malignant Narcissism is an essential contribution to the growing lit-
erature on dangerous personalities and the destruction they cause. Courageous,
searingly honest, and deeply moving … A rare combination of compelling bio-
graphy and crucial work of science, this is essential reading for our disordered
times. An invaluable work of wisdom and experience.’
Ian Hughes, Senior Research Fellow, MaREI Centre at University
College Cork, Ireland

‘This fine book offers a marvellous combination of often hair-raising raw

experience with thoughtful, illuminating reflection and insightful commentary.
Dr Wood throws much needed light on character formation and function,
defensive deformation of personality, … and resilience. This is a courageous,
timely, well written, important book.’
Dr Brent Willock, Founding President of the Toronto Institute
for Contemporary Analysis, Canada

‘With superb prose, Dr. Wood provides a scholarly and informative description of
the characteristics and behaviors of individuals with narcissistic personalities …
For anyone wanting to learn about psychopathy and malignant narcissism, and
how this knowledge might apply to autocratic leaders, this is the book to read.’
Graeme J. Taylor, MD, FRCPC, Psychoanalytic Fellow of the American
Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry and Professor
Emeritus, University of Toronto, Canada
A Study of Malignant Narcissism

Personal and Professional Insights

Richard Wood
Cover image: Colin Anderson Productions pty ltd / Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Richard Wood
The right of Richard Wood to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wood, Richard (Psychologist), author.
Title: A study of malignant narcissism : personal and professional insights / by Richard Wood, Ph.D.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and
index. |
Summary: “A Study of Malignant Narcissism offers a unique insight into malignant narcissism,
exploring both its personal and professional aspects and constructing a theoretical framework
which renders its origins and manifestations more accessible. With reference to his own family
dynamic and to 45 years of professional experience, Richard Wood explores the psychology of
malignant narcissism, positing it as a defence against love. The book first offers an overview of
existing literature before examining relevant clinical material, including an analysis of Wood’s
relationships with his own parents. Wood presents vignettes illustrating the core dynamics that
drive narcissism, illustrated with sections of his father's unpublished autobiography and with his
patient work. The book makes the case for malignant narcissism to be considered a subtype of
psychopathy and puts forth a framework setting out the key dynamics that typify these individuals,
including consideration of the ways in which malignant narcissism replicates itself in varied forms.
Finally, Wood examines the impact of narcissistic leadership and compares his theoretical position
with those of other clinicians. This book will be of interest to clinical psychologists, psychoanalysts,
and psychotherapists, as well as all professionals working with narcissistic patients”-- Provided by
publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022004625 (print) | LCCN 2022004626 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032160597 (paperback) | ISBN 9781032160580 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781003246923 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Narcissism. | Psychology, Pathological.
Classification: LCC BF575.N35 W66 2022 (print) | LCC BF575.N35 (ebook) | DDC 616.85/854--
dc23/eng/20220511
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022004625
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022004626

ISBN: 978-1-032-16058-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-16059-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-24692-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003246923

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Taylor & Francis Books
To my spouse, Mary Walton, whose inspired love made this book
possible and to my mentors, Dr. Kenneth Davidson, Dr. Paul Lerner,
and Dr. Ray Freebury whose warmth, gentleness, and wisdom helped
me become human.
Contents

Preface viii
Acknowledgements xv

1 Establishing an Attitude of Skepticism 1

2 Literature Review of Malignant Narcissism and Related Constructs 7
3 Mother 42
4 The Face of Narcissism – Father: Foundational Ideas 52
5 The Face of Narcissism – Father: The Nature of Relationships 71
6 The Face of Narcissism – Father: There Can Only be One God 82
7 The Dark Side – Father: Cruelty 89
8 The Cost of Narcissism: Clinical Depression and Complex Post-
Traumatic Stress Disorder 100
9 Origins of Narcissism – My Father’s Autobiographies 114
10 The Case for Narcissism as Psychopathy 139
11 Formulation of Narcissism 146
12 Legacies of Narcissism – Impact on the Psyche 169
13 Legacies of Narcissism – Malignant Narcissistic Leadership and
the State as a Narcissistic Entity 182
14 Reflections 196

Index 204
Preface

This is a book that I have known I would have to write eventually. While
most of the ideas that inform this book declared themselves to me in my 40s
as I struggled to make sense of my own experience with my family and, of
course with my patients, it was always a book I planned to dedicate myself to
once I had substantially retired. This is a piece of work that I have both
looked forward to and dreaded. I knew that if the book was to be understood
it would require me to share my inner life with frightening candor. While I
am very open with my friends and my loved ones, finding deep sharing very
meaningful and sustaining, my circle of intimates is relatively small and very
familiar to me, allowing me to navigate my way through my world in a way
that feels mostly manageable.
A work of the kind that I am embarking upon, however, requires me to
open doors to any who would choose to read what I have written. Doing so
feels like an enormously uncomfortable venture and a very unsafe one. Off-
setting what I can only describe as an imposing sense of trepidation is my
hope and – compellingly – my conviction that what I have come to under-
stand will better enable others to more deeply appreciate the human condition
that defines us.
After some deliberation, I have had to admit to myself that I cannot ade-
quately disguise case file material in a way that would ensure, to my satisfac-
tion, that not only would patient identity be protected, but that patients could
not recognize themselves when they read this book. I appreciate that many
other authors have quite usefully and instructively included case or clinical
material in their discussion of clinical entities. Much of this material has been
helpful to me personally in my learning journey. Now that I am faced with
the task, however, of incorporating my own work with patients into my text, I
cannot conceive of doing so in a way that would not cause potential harm to
a patient who comes to realize that I am talking about him or her. Even given
prior permission/approval and a chance for a previous patient to review
material I have written; I am well aware that with the unfolding of any
attention this book receives there may be unintended consequences for such
people that neither I nor they can foresee. As a consequence, I will only talk
 Preface ix

about broad patterns or generalities that seemed to typify the two major
groups of patients that I worked with – narcissistic personality disorders and
the people that they impacted.
Finally, I have deep concern about the impact such an intimate look at a
psychologist’s personal struggle and his inner world might have upon those
many people with whom I have worked over 40 years of practice. Inevitably,
alarming and disconcerting for some, possibly shattering idealizations that
people relied upon to help them heal and, perhaps simultaneously, affirming
of their own humanity and the many variegated forms through which
humanity expresses itself. Equally prominent for me is my awareness of those
people who might choose to seek help for themselves in the future who might
be dissuaded by a frightening view of a therapist’s pain.
So, all in all, not such an easy work to consummate.
Psychotherapy itself, in my view, is an immensely personal undertaking,
requiring a therapist to repeatedly draw upon their own experience and their
own trauma to better understand a patient. Doing so demands endless – and
probably always flawed – self-examination side-by-side companion personal
therapy that punctuates the life of a therapist. The process is necessarily
messy, ambiguous, and imperfect. Even with the support of intermittent psy-
chotherapy of one’s own and peer collaboration, a therapist can expect that he
or she will inevitably lose their way many, many times during the course of
their work. Sometimes patients evoke counter responses in a therapist that the
therapist finds too deeply disconcerting to contain. Sometimes patient trauma
activates the therapist’s own traumatic experiences, immersing the therapist in
a process called vicarious re-traumatization. Or sometimes the therapist’s diffi-
culty with their own lives at a particular point in time means that doing their
job – listening, empathizing, understanding – becomes exceptionally challen-
ging. Potential sources of compromise for a therapist are endless. Not all of
them, even with extensive training, can be anticipated. Unless a therapist is
possessed of exhaustive self-knowledge and exhaustive knowledge of the human
condition – which none of us can be – a continuing commitment to try to know
ourselves as well as we can is the best that any of us can do. This is the work of a
lifetime and it is always incomplete, but without it there is little chance that we
can recover ourselves and help the people we are meant to help when we get in
over our heads. Getting in over one’s head with greater frequency than one
would like, I would maintain, is a constant of therapeutic work.
Even with a reasonable (but certainly always imperfect) understanding of
who we are, where we come from, and what we have come to be, any of us,
whether we are therapists or not, must still face a profoundly challenging
struggle as we attempt to alter patterns and defenses that define us. Absent
such an imperfect understanding – and for many people all but the most
superficial look at the self is too painful to bear – relative blindness renders
the possibility of becoming more caring, more generative, and more loving
human beings that much more remote.
x Preface

I believe that because the imperfect and messy process of looking at the self
can be so disruptive, much of modern mental health initiative has become
variably programmable, relieving therapists of at least some of the uncertainty
and discomfort more extensive investigation of the self can create. Within the
context of programmable work, therapists enjoy the benefit of more or less
knowing what they are to do during each session. Therapist focus is on
objectively reproducible technique. Programmable interventions also seem to
be particularly amenable to numeric evaluation of therapy success. Both
therapist and patient, then, have the reassurance of being able to confirm
progress, session by session, towards realization of certain identified goals.
Because programmable therapy tends to be short-term in nature, there is
often not time to get stuck in the intricacies of either the patient’s or the
therapist’s psyches. Therapeutic intervention is highly replicable and is
ordained by clearly elucidated steps that define process. It is a good compa-
nion to an age that demands declarative answers and numeric verification.
It is argued by many in our contemporary surround that which cannot be
quantified cannot be science; that that which cannot realize objective ver-
ification through vigorous research paradigm cannot produce real scientific
data. But unless we look at what is happening inside us, we ignore who we
are. Numbers can only capture some of these realities; words, it seems to me,
do far better. Words, then, become the core tools and the essential means that
we have to rely upon to make sense out of the self. Words can capture nuance,
variegation, and complexity of thought and feeling in a way that still eludes
algorithms and quantification. Imagine trying to construct even a relatively
brief interaction with a friend that encompasses ambiguities of intent, feeling,
and thought that play themselves out through gestures, facial expressions, and
spoken words with a series of numbers or formulas. How does one assign a
number to insouciance? Or to irony? And how would one convey the poten-
tially complex mix of emotions implicit in eye rolling? To my mind, words
represent the best means that we have – and the most precise – to approx-
imate, to share, and to explore phenomenology. And even with the wonderful
precision and explanatory power of words, we can never fully describe or
define our internal realities – not until even more effective tools than words
present themselves to us. Using words, we construct models and suppositions
of what we think takes place in people, displacing them with better models
and better suppositions as we seem to deepen our awareness of ourselves. The
study of phenomenology progresses, much like any other science, through a
series of insights, reappraisals, missteps and new clarifications. It may feel
more ungovernable, more chaotic, and more elusive than other branches of
science, particularly the physical sciences, but I’m not sure that it is. In the
end, as Mark Twain famously suggested, what we know may ultimately be
limited by our inherently flawed capacity to be honest with ourselves.
Our best but inevitably continuously changing grasp of phenomenology will
have to marry itself to wonderfully, spellbindingly complex interactions with
 Preface xi

epigenetics, genetics, brain function, biochemistry, and the dynamics of dis-

ease and healing.
As an aside, I should emphasize that I do feel programmable and evidence-
based psychotherapeutic interventions, like cognitive behavioral therapy
(CBT), make a significant contribution to mental health remediation, though
perhaps not to the extent that we once believed that they did. Importantly,
they offer an alternative to the risks of intense self-exploration that render
intensive, extended self-awareness work unsuitable for many people; they
create a therapeutic milieu that is more tolerable for many therapists; they
facilitate training of greater numbers and greater varieties of therapists; and,
not inconsequentially, they make a more affordable form of psychotherapy
(because it is generally shorter-term in nature) available to greater numbers of
people than extended self-awareness work can. Programmable work also
affords people the opportunity to engage in limited self-exploration within the
context of a relatively safe paradigm. Its major drawbacks are its capacity to
address mental health problems characterized by severity, chronicity, and
long-term risk. I would also say that it is less well equipped to provide us with
the full range of tools and conceptualizations that we need to more mean-
ingfully extend our understanding of who we are. Intensive self-awareness
work is better equipped to do the latter, but it can produce painful, dis-
organizing confrontations with the self that may be catastrophic for an indi-
vidual to bear. Great care has to be taken in its application. Because it is
often (though not exclusively) long-term in nature, it also tends to be much
more costly than various forms of programable symptom relief intervention.
Both approaches are valuable, then, and both are possessed of limitation.
And both approaches, of course, represent legitimate approaches to science. It
also has to be said that, at present, there are many forms of mental health
challenge which neither approach can adequately address, even with the help
of psychotropic medication.
The microcosm of the two therapeutic worlds I have just referenced offers
us a portrait of what I think we see in the larger world around us. I would say
that we appear to live in an age in which problems – particularly human
problems – demand simplistic conceptions consisting of soundbites that belie
the extraordinary complexity of the issues we are trying to make sense of.
Binary thinking and binary choices seem to reassure us. Truth can only be
true if it is simple and, one might add, visceral and therefore easily accessible.
Problems must be actionable and solutions realizable through a series of
declarative steps imbued with moral imperative. We must have the one right
or true way to do a thing rather than admit the bewildering array of alter-
natives and ambiguities which real-life complexity creates for us. Complexities
and ambiguities confuse us and frighten us. We’d much prefer the comfort
and reassurance which “simple truths” seem to afford us – even if, in adher-
ing to them, we cause damage to ourselves, to others (including other spe-
cies), and to our planet. Voices which cry for change and for a more accurate
xii Preface

representation of reality are often met with outrage, indignation, denuncia-

tion, and even attempts to obliterate.
We cling to the truths we create for ourselves with ferocity and tenacity.
Those who favor ceaseless exploration and curiosity about the self and about
the world around them (and much of humanity does) are felt to create jeo-
pardy for those who don’t. The inherent tension between these opposing
forces within human nature has the potential to be constructive, enhancing
either growth or stability in orderly turns. When appreciation of nuance and
complexity becomes too prominent or moves ahead too rapidly or in a see-
mingly ungovernable fashion, human nature finds itself locked in combat with
its fractious parts. Combat is real – moral, psychological, economic, and
physical. Old forms of thought and being which define old identities face
compromise. Safety is forfeit. Means of distinguishing friend versus foe and
good versus bad are rendered more tentative. And the self loses the under-
pinnings and moorings that it relies upon to insulate itself against the inher-
ently chaotic and disordered inner world we must all somehow find a way to
live with. It seems that more of our inner lives we wall off to make ourselves
safe, the more dangerous it becomes to tolerate knowing the self. The struggle
to find ways to feel safe with our inner world appears to be a core human
conflict.
I would suggest the war we wage within ourselves has escalated in modern
times. I would also say that we risk annihilation if we do not find the means
to know ourselves better – however imperfectly, but better. Every age prob-
ably perceives its struggles in epic proportions and every age might wish to
say of itself that it is the best and the worst of times. Never, it seems to me,
has humanity shown such promise and never has it been so close to its own
end. It is my hope that in sharing some of the darkness in my own soul and
the souls of those close to me in my family of origin I can help – even if only
in a very limited, incremental way – to extend our willingness to examine who
and what we are. I can make no claim that the models of the human psyche I
piece together here are necessarily accurate representations of the phenomena
I have attempted to capture. At most - assuming they are possessed of any
value at all - they can only be approximations that, hopefully, will give rise to
further discussion which refines and elaborates them in a more useful manner.
This is a book about phenomenology – the study of our inner worlds - that
treats me and four members of my family of origin as the objects of its study.
The subject of this book is narcissism or, more accurately put, narcissistic
personality disorder (NPD). NPD may express itself in a variety of ways and
with varying degrees of severity; my exclusive focus in this work is on one
particularly virulent or extreme form of NPD, which has sometimes been
referred to as “malignant” narcissism. My clinical experience tells me that
NPD is a continuum; it is my view that less virulent forms of NPD can be
seen to share many of the characteristics and psychodynamics of malignant
narcissism, differing largely in the degree to which they manifest themselves. I
 Preface xiii

recognize that many clinicians might disagree with my perspective. I’m also
very cognizant that my clinical experience, while extensive in terms of years,
necessarily represents only a small clinical sample of the ways in which nar-
cissism expresses itself and the causes that lead to its development.
For ease of reference, I will use the terms malignant narcissism, narcissism,
and NPD interchangeably, though I am very much aware that not all narcis-
sism and NPD, though destructive to self and others, is imbued with the
measure of malevolence l am attempting to investigate. It must be emphasized
that some people who qualify for a diagnosis of NPD appear to be capable of
leading relatively successful and productive lives, depending upon the metric
that one applies. I also very much recognize that healthy narcissistic experi-
ence has its own constructive contribution to make to the human develop-
mental process. In entitling my book “A Study in Malignant Naarcissism,”
I hope to remind the reader that I am looking at an extreme variant of NPD.
Malignant, unfortunately, carries with it connotations of pejorative judge-
ment, but it is so compelling as a descriptive term I have decided to use it.
I am not the first clinician to employ the diagnostic construct malignant
narcissism (see, most prominently, Eric Fromm and Otto Kernberg, among
others). Like other writers, I have constructed my own understanding of what
malignant narcissism means based on both personal and clinical experience.
The reader will see for him or herself whether my grasp of this particular
facet of the human condition is possessed of any value.
As I noted earlier, this is a book I have always known I would have to write
and that I had planned to write some time in my early-ish 70s. From my point
of view, the center stage that Narcissistic Personality Disorder has occupied in
recent years did surprise me, though perhaps, in retrospect, it should not have.
It was never my intention to write about a particular individual or series of
individuals, but rather to try to more deeply investigate what narcissistic per-
sonality disorder is. My preference was that I could have written a book about
narcissism without it finding itself center stage in the midst of a maelstrom of
controversy. But Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a profoundly important
human phenomenon that has both served humanity well in some respects
during the course of its evolution and, much more latterly, created potentially
devastating future outcome for virtually our whole planet. Whether I would
wish it so or not, it is timely that we intensify our efforts to understand such a
pivotal variation of the human character.
From one perspective, malignant narcissistic personality disorder must
surely be seen as a core form of human evil. It would appear to play a very
important and at times central role in the various forms of suffering that we
cause one another. In addition to as yet poorly defined biological and genetic
factors, I would maintain that it can be a consequence of devastating early
suffering that gives rise to terrible distortions of the human character. From
this vantage point, it is neither good nor bad, but, rather, a variation of the
human character, like any other, that demands respect, compassion, and
xiv Preface

perception. Indeed, the devitalization of the human spirit it occasions imposes

a lifelong agony and spiritual deadness upon those who must live with it.
While an individual enduring NPD would rarely describe themselves as
damaged, preferring instead to portray their destructiveness as strength, the
torment that endlessly invades their day-by-day life must eventually become
acutely transparent to any who would look.
I will not personally reference contemporary figures in this book. There are
many contemporary figures, I believe, to whom the term Narcissistic Person-
ality Disorder could be applied. To make the book about one or a select few
individuals would defeat its purpose. The reader will see, however, that
aspects of the literature on malignant narcissism and related concepts does
engage clinicians’ assessment of Donald Trump. My focus when I review this
portion of literature will direct itself towards a description of the formulations
that clinicians propose rather than on commentary they make about Trump.
Side-by-side the rest of the literature review, the review chapter will help set
the stage for the reader to critically evaluate my ideas. It also permits me, in
the final chapter of the book, to compare and contrast my ideas with those of
other clinicians.
And so, I begin, for me, a perilous journey.