Male/Female Manifestations of Narcissistic Personality and Behavioral Disorders.

Specifically, this paper will address the following topics : 1. The history of psychoanalytic thinking onnarcissism will be discussed, leading up to more recent ideas on the narcissistic personality disorder. 2. Drawing on historical and current ideas, an integrated definition of the narcissistic personality disorder will be presented and elaborated upon, including an examination of differing male/female narcissistic compensatory styles. 3. To foster an understanding of the development of narcissistic defenses and of differing gender styles of defense, various theories relating to gender differences in the narcissistic personality disorder will be explored: self/object relations theories, Kohut's theory on narcissism, psychosexual development theories, behavioral manifestation theories, and bodily development theories.4. The role of preoedipal development, as it relates to the formation of the male/female narcissistic personality disorder, will be examined. This section of the paper will propose that, in the narcissistic personality disorder, a pathological arrest occurred during the second or third year of life in response to trauma experienced at that time. The degree and timing of the trauma and the degree of structuralization preceding the trauma all contribute to the rigidity of the narcissistic disorder and the severity of the pathology. 5. The role of oedipal development in the male/female narcissistic personality disorder will be discussed. This discussion will address the intrapsychic configurations which arise during the oedipal period, after narcissistic defenses have solidified during the preoedipal years. While narcissism can be seen as a developmental line, with narcissistic defenses arising at any time during development, this paper will focus primarily on defenses which arise during the separation/individuation phases of development.

Convention, Tradition, and the New Wave : Assessing Clinician Identity within Behavior Therapy

In the first wave, behaviorists questioned the conventional wisdom that inner experience was relevant to understanding human behavior. In the 1970s, cognitive-behavioral theories emphasized the importance of the cognitive element, not just the environment, in explaining and modifying behavior. The third wave is drawn from advances in basic and applied behavior analysis of language, Eastern mystical traditions, and less empirically oriented therapeutic approaches. Examples include Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP), and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (IBCT). This study reports a survey of clinicians and non-clinicians who self-identify with second or third wave approaches, and a group of undergraduate psychology students intended to represent a layperson or folk psychological approach. Their preferences, in the context of 10 clinical vignettes, among 5 different therapeutic responses or interventions that included "ACT-like," "cognitive," and commonsense or "neutral" options were measured. Third wave-oriented respondents exhibited more consistency than others in their preference for interventions that match their self-identified theoretical orientation, however the author suggests that construction of the vignettes may have influenced this result.