Narcissistic traits in psychiatric patients

This paper reports a first step towards identifying the descriptive characteristics of what is called pathological narcissism by clinicians. Twenty-three patients with various forms of narcissistic disturbances were evaluated with a semistructured interview for the presence of 27 putative signs of pathological narcissism. They were compared with patients with other psychiatric disorders (n = 28) to determine what features characterize and discriminate them. Fifteen statements proved to be useful in identifying patients with narcissistic disturbances. An additional two discriminate certain narcissistic patients. Implications for differential diagnosis and future research are noted.