Impossible. I think she's a legit, diagnosable malignant narcissist. They don't get better. Their very characterological abnormality fights treatment tooth and nail.
Not a hill I want to die on, but it's not a character defect. It's literally mental illness. I know narcs, grew up with one. Had many conversations with mental health experts and therapists on why they'll never change, and you can either learn to cope, or leave.
I would not consider it under the mental illness umbrella as if this is out of their control entirely, like schizophrenia, depression, etc. I understand it's in the DSM and used to know that forward and back. It's characterological vs. psychosis vs. neurosis. Next thing, the APA will be pushing for narcissists and sociopaths to get disability compensation!
I think the whole nature vs. nurture debate is never going to get this resolved. However, one of the most telling longitudinal studies I had ever run across involved studying sons of aggressive (possibly psychopathic) fathers. Longitudinal studies aren't typical done or as successful to pull off as cross-sectional because of the difficulty in keeping up with the subjects over the years....or enough of them. However, in this one study (sorry, I don't know the citing any longer), it wasn't a simple direct correlation, that, highly aggressive dad produced highly aggressive future adult. It came down to, in short, that if the son was able to identify with his father, he had less of a chance to then become an aggressive adult himself. So as you could imagine, fathers largely absent physically and/or emotionally from these sons in turn produced men more like them than not. I would wager that this model probably gets reproduced somewhat with the other more severe characterological disorders (narcissism and borderline, especially). I had a colleague once say something brilliant to me. He said it doesn't have to be a nature vs. nurture argument....behaviors occur in nature.
Fixed.
Not a hill I want to die on, but it's not a character defect. It's literally mental illness. I know narcs, grew up with one. Had many conversations with mental health experts and therapists on why they'll never change, and you can either learn to cope, or leave.
I would not consider it under the mental illness umbrella as if this is out of their control entirely, like schizophrenia, depression, etc. I understand it's in the DSM and used to know that forward and back. It's characterological vs. psychosis vs. neurosis. Next thing, the APA will be pushing for narcissists and sociopaths to get disability compensation!
I disagree, but again, not a hill I want to die on. My views on it are colored by my personal experiences with it.
Isn't Primary Psychopathy a genomic disorder?
I have no horse in this race.
I think the whole nature vs. nurture debate is never going to get this resolved. However, one of the most telling longitudinal studies I had ever run across involved studying sons of aggressive (possibly psychopathic) fathers. Longitudinal studies aren't typical done or as successful to pull off as cross-sectional because of the difficulty in keeping up with the subjects over the years....or enough of them. However, in this one study (sorry, I don't know the citing any longer), it wasn't a simple direct correlation, that, highly aggressive dad produced highly aggressive future adult. It came down to, in short, that if the son was able to identify with his father, he had less of a chance to then become an aggressive adult himself. So as you could imagine, fathers largely absent physically and/or emotionally from these sons in turn produced men more like them than not. I would wager that this model probably gets reproduced somewhat with the other more severe characterological disorders (narcissism and borderline, especially). I had a colleague once say something brilliant to me. He said it doesn't have to be a nature vs. nurture argument....behaviors occur in nature.
Some of these characteristics run through my family and I believe there is a genetic component, but choice always enters in as well