He's such a narcissist. My boss is so narcissistic. You're clearly dating a narcissist.

I think my whole family is narcissistic. Does that sound familiar?

Narcissus has become one of the most searched psychology terms on the internet and one of the most casually

deployed. It floods breakup forums, workplace vent threads, family estrangement communities,

and I understand the impulse. It feels like a word that means something real about a particularly

painful experience. But here's the problem. When a precise clinical term gets applied to everyone who's

ever been selfish, difficult, or hard to be around, it stops meaning anything. And more importantly,

we lose the ability to accurately identify the people who actually meet clinical criteria

for narcissistic personality disorder. So today, we're doing a full reset.

I'm going to tell you what narcissism actually is, the two types most people don't know about,

and how this shows up in forensic and legal settings, which is work I do directly as a forensic

neuropsychologist. Also, we'll talk about what to do if you're genuinely dealing with it.

Hi, I'm Dr. Judy Ho, clinical and forensic neuropsychologist, professor, author, and your host here

on the Savvy Psychologist podcast. This show exists because I believe everyone deserves access

to real psychology, not watered down, not buried in jargon, just honest,

science-back insights you can actually use in your everyday life. We'll help you face life's

challenges with an evidence-based approach, a sympathetic year, and zero judgment.

Let's start with what narcissism is not. It's not being confident, ambitious, or occasionally

putting yourself first. It's not wanting appreciation, loving attention, or having standards

that are higher than the people around you. All of those things exist on a perfectly normal

human spectrum. When we use the term narcissists, it's become problematic because in everyday use,

this has become a shorthand for anyone who is selfish or difficult, like a toxic ex, a demanding

...