Narcissism, Reconsidered: The Personality Trait That Might Either Protect You—or Hollow You Out (opens in new tab)

At some point—and no one issued a formal correction—narcissism became shorthand for a “bad person.” Nowadays I hear it often. “He’s a narcissist.” “She’s narcissistic.” What people usually mean is: my life partner hurts me because they too much focuses on themselves. Which is fair. But scientifically? It’s incomplete. Because narcissism is not a single trait. It is a structure with competing psychological forces, and depending on which force dominates, it can function as either: * psychologic...