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How to Debug Narcissistic Negativism in Relationships
Research on how narcissism and personality impacts positivity, self-esteem and well-being through how past events are interpreted and how partners are viewed in relationships.
Narcissism is one of the single most important concepts we think about in trying to understand ourselves and others.
As they ask in the computer world, is it a feature or a bug? In fact, it’s both! Most of us are somewhere in between feature and bug, which usually works well enough to get us through the day, balancing our own needs with those of others without splitting into all-good or all-bad (what psychoanalysts call “part-object” relationships, rather than whole, full ones).
Feature: Healthy narcissism is the idealized holy grail of emotional health in many ways-representing security, compassion for oneself and others, and a great lifelong relationship with oneself. Narcissism is a core component of the human operating system, one of the building blocks of who we are, comprising “sense of self”-the apparatus which keeps us afloat in the social and physical world.
We are born narcissists, and especially as children live in a myopic world in which we are the center of reality. How we get…
