Grandiosity in children with narcissistic and borderline disorders. A comparative analysis

I draw a distinction between two clinical pictures in children, borderline and narcissistic disorders. Both belong to the realm of personality disorder--or, perhaps, disorders in the development of the personality--but only the former has been widely reviewed and thoroughly investigated in the professional literature. I raise the question how and when these disorders emerge, stressing that both derive from the early, preoedipal period, and precede completion of the separation-individuation processes. Both disorders reveal manifestations of grandiosity which I view as a defense against the two underlying emotional experiences of the disorders: the experience of feeling alone in the borderline case, and the experience of "worthlessness" in the narcissistic personality.