Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. I don't know if you've ever heard the

term before but I think most listeners have. It's a diagnosis in psychology that we call

a narcissistic personality disorder.

This is a diagnosis that psychologists use to label a certain personality type that is considered psychologically unhealthy.

And we're going to explore that personality disorder and see what we can learn from it, because

there is a lot to learn from, narcissists.

Let's begin by talking about what is a narcissist.

The term derives from a Greek legend about a god named narcissist

who is so infatuated with the way that he looked that the other gods put a curse on him,

so that when he looked into the water and saw his reflection, he fell in love with his own image.

And that is what really a narcissist is about.

They are so infatuated with their gifts

that it's all about them when we spend time with them.

So there are certain factors that have to be present in order to meet

the diagnosis of a narcissist personality disorder. What are they? There are three things

mostly that are present. The first thing is they are really good at something. I'm talking

really good because it stands out because they need to have something that they can

focus on and that focus is going to be on themselves. So what they do is they develop some skill, maybe it's an artistic skill, a political skill, an acting skill, a financial skill, whatever skill they've developed, they're really very good at it, better than most. And so what they do

is with that skill is they focus on that skill. And so when you're with them, it's all about

their success or achievement and how good they are.

They are not very interested in how good you are and actually they're pretty intimidated

by competition.

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