Earlier in the year, Lovefraud submitted a comment giving our views on the draft of the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, DSM 5. We commented on the proposed new term for antisocial personality disorder, “antisocial/psychopathic type,” and the diagnostic criteria.
One of the changes that the DSM 5 committee proposed was eliminating the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. According to an article in the New York Times, not everyone is happy about it.
Read A fate that narcissists will hate: being ignored on NYTimes.com.
I think this article highlights the problems within the mental health professional community.
I see narcissism as a symptom, like fever…it shows something is wrong, but it isn’t the disease itself, just one of the symptoms of the disorder in this case. I realize I don’t have MD or PhD after my name, but I have professional mental health exerpeince and personal experience there as well.
I think the “personality disorders” have been cut up into too many pieces, that over-lap in symptoms.
It would be like if a patient had what we now call pneumonia (one disease) but it was divided into fever, cough, producing sputum, poor oxygen exchange—each one of these things is either a symptom or a result of the disorder but is not a SEPARATE disorder in itself.
Psychopath: can have narcissistic traits very high, or less high, but it is like the “fever” it goes along WITH PERSONALITY DISORDER.
Just like you can have viral pneumonia that has the same symptoms as bacterial pneumonia, there may be a few sub types like what they call “borderline PD” but I don’t think BPD is different enough from PPD or NPD that they are 3 different disorders, I think they are variations on the same THEME of personality disorder with maybe havingmore anxiety issues or abandonment issues in the BPD part, but still the bottom line is PERSONALITY IS DISORDERED.
You can have little horses, and black horses and red horses, and white horses, and big horses, and medium sized horses and ones with long tails and ones with short tails, or curly hair or straight hair, tall thin ones or big solid muscle draft horses, but they are all horses.
To me a personality disorder is a personality disorder is a personality disorder with or without a bunch of narcissistic traits, grandiosity, patholigical lying, violence, criminality…but it is still a personality disorder.
Simplify, rather than make more complex.
But just my opinion. For goodness sakes though I wish they would agree on something, like starting with a NAME. “ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER “SOUNDS LIKE A HERMIT. LOL
Hmm… I have mixed feelings about this. While i agree that NPD is a subset of sociopathy/psychopathy ( IE : all N’s are sociopaths/psychopaths … Lack of empathy being the underlying trait) .. sometimes it helps to put that “grandiosity” thing into perspective. Then it gets confusing because psychopaths/sociopaths are by NATURE grandiose… but yeah, still gotta think about it.
oxdrover said :
“ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER “SOUNDS LIKE A HERMIT. LOL
lololol yep
this has been coming for a long time and many of those psychopahthic sociopathic types as they call them whatever the label also have narcissistic traits. Steve Becker has long been suggesting that there is a new breed of sociopath. Look up his previous post on the narcissicopath.
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2009/07/16/the-narcissiopath/
If you go the actual criteria most of the traits they have put in the new list called the “psychopathic type” fits well into the narcissist traits. I have just actually been writing an article today about it for a new website if anyone is interested. Its just my own personal view but people can make up their own minds.
http://www.waking-you-up.com/redundant-narcissists.html
What about “psychospathic perthonality dithorder”?
(Okay, that wath jutht plain nathty of me…)
(thorry everybody)
(I thtand corrected)
I’m not sure what to think of the change. It’s nice to be able to label something so we can go “ah ha” that’s what is wrong, now we can treat it. But not everyone fits into the box. I think the main label should be personality disorder with sociopathic traits.
I have been trying to quantify the problem for a long time to find a way to properly deal with it. Spath wouldn’t be a spath on the scale because he is responsible with his obligations. He isn’t grandiose per se but is highly manipulative. All of the emotional traits on the scale, he is defincient in. He would score a 2 on all of them.
So what can I take away from the diagnosis, he is personality disordered to start with. Huge fear of abandonment which is more BPD. But it’s time to start living and stop analyzing things beyond my control.
thank you aussiegirl – your post gave me a really good chuckle this morning!
Dear Ho0pe4,
The only way to “TREAT” it is treat it like a LEVEL 4 CONTAGIOUS DISEASE, isolate it (in prison sometimes) and STAY AWAY from it and don’t expose yourself to it. TOTAL NC.
We have to treat them like contagious diseases because they ARE and they rub off evil on everything and everyone they touch!
LOL @Ox Drover contagious diseases. Hence my references to Darks souls and Black holes. Don’t go there or we’ll never come back again
I would like to see a link or whatever it is that gives you further information on what disorders were taken out, and what disorders were added, if this isn’t too much trouble.
And to add to the conversation, I don’t neccessarily think Antisocial Personality Disorder should be a disorder. From what I know about sociopathy it is something that can not be changed, so why consider it a disorder. Most personalitites can’t be changed, they are personalitites. I don’t want to go as far as saying that ALL personality disorders should be taken out, but there are quite a few that just seem like labels created to place a person who is different in a box for others to understand better. Antisocial does sound like a person who is a hermit when in fact they are everything BUT that.
Dear Snowflake,
I think they ARE just labels created to place a person who FITS THAT DESCRIPTION in a “box” for others to understand better. We can’t fix them or change them, but we can label them so we can somewhat UNDERSTAND THEM, and how to protect ourselves from them. Can’t “fix” a cobra snake from being poison either, but we can label them so that when we see one we know to RUN! LOL