Narcissistic Rage

Most of us, at one time or another, have probably used the term Narcissist to label somebody who is somewhat egotistical and arrogant etc. however from a clinical perspective there are several more characteristics that have to be present for someone to be correctly diagnosed as suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The DSM-5 describes nine character traits associated with the disorder (a person having to exhibit five of them, in order for a diagnoses to be made), these are: a grandiose sense of self-importance, a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success/power, a belief that he/she is “special” and unique, a requirement for successive admiration, a sense of entitlement that leads to automatic compliance, an exploitative attitude to others (taking advantage of others for personal gain), a lack of empathy, envy towards others (and believes others are envious of them), and displays arrogant/haughty behaviors and attitudes. Whilst an egotistical person may have a grandiose sense of self-importance and fantasize about unlimited success, this doesn’t by default mean that they lack empathy, or are exploitative towards others etc. In this article I want to look at something known as “Narcissistic Rage”, as this can be common in other personality disorders, such as Paranoid Personality Disorder (Narcissism can be comorbid/exist with other disorders) , and also will hopefully help us to understand, why those individuals who don’t have an identifiable and definable disorder, may sometimes emotionally erupt in a manner that seems disproportionate to the situation they are in. Before we look at this, we have to get a feeling/understanding for how the Narcissist sees the world.

We all have a view of who we are, and a belief – to some extent – of how the rest of the world sees us. For many of us this is somewhat flexible, and we may not really care much about what the rest of the world thinks about us; as we get older most people tend to care less about the opinions of others e.g. in our teens and early twenties our “image” is of paramount importance, but as we age this becomes less and less important. For most of us the idea of who we are is realistic e.g. we recognize that we are not the best at everything, and possibly not even the best in our chosen field of employment etc. and we are happy with that. Our identity is built upon many facets of our life, and we are confident about who we are. This doesn’t mean we don’t lack ambition, or don’t believe that we have something to contribute to society and others etc. but rather that we understand and recognize the scope of the influence we have, and we work within that. The Narcissist doesn’t want to look inwards and recognize their limitations, but instead creates a persona, that mirrors who they want to be and how they want to be seen, and this becomes their personality. Narcissism and Psychopathy are often classed as “immature” disorders, as on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they can never reach the level of “Self-Actualization”, because this requires introspection and self-examination. The Narcissist wants to avoid this altogether, as to look at who they actually are would mean that they would have to recognize that they aren’t “special”, which would result in a psychic breakdown, and a shattering of the mirror of how they want to be seen. The Narcissist is not in love with themselves as many think they are but are in love with the image they have created for themselves (or the reflection of themselves as with the original Narcissus). Instead of looking inwards and at who they are, their efforts go to maintaining the image they want to present to others – and it is important to note that this is for their own benefit, not that of others.

However, it is hard not to engage in introspection from time to time, especially if your accomplishments don’t seem to marry up with who you think you are, or what you believe you should have achieved e.g. if you believe you are the greatest painter in the world, and nobody’s buying your paintings, at some point you might begin to question the persona you have created for yourself etc. It is always important to remember that this image that has been created is for the Narcissist’s benefit alone; it is a form of self-delusion/fantasy that allows the individual something else to look at rather than who they really are. There may also be times when another person directly or indirectly questions the Narcissist’s projection of this image e.g. by asking them how many paintings they have sold recently etc. This genuine question may be seen by the Narcissist as an attack on the personality/persona they have created for themselves and so they will have to defend it/themselves. The way they do this is through “Narcissistic Rage”, an extreme emotional response, that seems out of proportion and/or out of place to whatever stimulated it. One characteristic of Narcissistic Rage is that it is directed at an individual, not at any issue. If the rage were in response to a disagreement with somebody, even if the Narcissist had the better arguments and facts, they would discard these, and instead attack the character of the person they were dealing with. The rage is for the benefit of the Narcissist alone. Its role is to protect the image the Narcissist has created, and avoid a complete psychic breakdown, where they would have to look at the “real” them. By “destroying” the other person(s), their image remains intact, in a way that wouldn’t occur if they simply attacked the argument(s).

One of the reasons that it is important to understand Narcissism and Narcissistic Rage is that it gives us an insight into bullying. Whilst it would be generally true to say that all Narcissists engage in acts of bullying, it would be wrong to say that all bullies are Narcissists (there are many reasons why people engage in such activities), however bullying often contains components of Narcissistic Rage. Whilst many victims of school bullying are told by their teachers that their bully suffers from low self-esteem etc. to make them feel better about themselves, the truth is that like Narcissists, bullies suffer from a sense of specialness and “grandiosity”, and when they start to question this, they engage in acts of aggression in an attempt to restore their image of themselves. This is sometimes referred to as having high but unstable self-esteem. Often, the aggression is directed at the child/teen who they believe/feel has seen through the façade.

When we understand that a lot of incidents of social violence center around the idea of “respect”, and what is demanding of respect is that of an image/persona the person has created for themselves, then we can see how Narcissistic Rage exists not as a “stand alone” feature, but as a type of rage relating to respect (for the created delusional self-image) that exists at the end of a spectrum. We should also recognize how our own self-image may be subject to disrespect and recognize that this may not be directed at the real us, but the us we want to believe that we are. There are those that study martial arts and self-defense, and systems like Krav Maga because it helps to create and maintain an image of power, dominance, invincibility etc. However, this may be a projection of who we want to be rather than who we are, and we need to consider what our response(s) may be when this is questioned.