Narcissism At Work

This book explores the damaging effects of personality disorders in corporate leaders, particularly in regard to organizational variables including employee productivity, motivation, well-being, retention, and ultimately, the organization’s bottom line. While helping employees recognize and understand the overt and covert characteristics of malignant narcissism, Narcissism at Work offers solutions and coping strategies vital for employees, industrial psychologists, human resource professionals, and organizational leaders in order to optimize business functions and increase employee well-being.

Possessing a positive self-attitude, being self-confident, and having high self-esteem are worthwhile attributes in both work and personal life; some take these positive attributes to the extreme and become self-absorbed, self-adoring, self-centered, and show little empathy for the problems and concerns of others. In brief, they are narcissists and they can be especially problematic in business settings. This book presents information about narcissism in the workplace that is based both on empirical research and on opinion derived from systematic observation. The author uses case studies and real life examples to shed new light on workplace narcissism. The author describes both the positive and negative features of narcissism and presents strategies and tactics for dealing constructively with narcissistic traits and behaviors in oneself and in others. Self-tests and questionnaires found throughout the volume enable readers to reflect on their standing on a variety of behaviors and attitudes associated with narcissism. Each chapter includes a section labeled 'Guidelines for Application and Practice' that provides practical advice for applying the research and theories presented within. Further, each chapter concludes with a case history of narcissism, accompanied by a brief analysis of the narcissistic aspects of the case's subject. Narcissism in the Workplace serves as a manual for capitalizing on the positive aspects of narcissism and minimizing its potential negative effects. Intended for human resource professionals, researchers, and students and scholars of organizational behavior, organizational psychology, human relations and leadership, this book will also appeal to a broad range of serious minded readers who wish to learn more about, combat the difficulties of, or employ the benefits of narcissism.

Sufferers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder may be bosses, fellow workers, or employees, but whatever their status, they can make working anything from a headache to a nightmare. Brown, a psychologist, now provides a no-nonsense, hands-on approach to coping with such people without losing integrity or self-control.

In this volume, Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation, Daniel Shaw presents a way of understanding the traumatic impact of narcissism as it is engendered developmentally, and as it is enacted relationally. Focusing on the dynamics of narcissism in interpersonal relations, Shaw describes the relational system of what he terms the 'traumatizing narcissist' as a system of subjugation – the objectification of one person in a relationship as the means of enforcing the dominance of the subjectivity of the other. Daniel Shaw illustrates the workings of this relational system of subjugation in a variety of contexts: theorizing traumatic narcissism as an intergenerationally transmitted relational/developmental trauma; and exploring the clinician's experience working with the adult children of traumatizing narcissists. He explores the relationship of cult leaders and their followers, and examines how traumatic narcissism has lingered vestigially in some aspects of the psychoanalytic profession. Bringing together theories of trauma and attachment, intersubjectivity and complementarity, and the rich clinical sensibility of the Relational Psychoanalysis tradition, Shaw demonstrates how narcissism can best be understood not merely as character, but as the result of the specific trauma of subjugation, in which one person is required to become the object for a significant other who demands hegemonic subjectivity. Traumatic Narcissism presents therapeutic clinical opportunities not only for psychoanalysts of different schools, but for all mental health professionals working with a wide variety of modalities. Although primarily intended for the professional psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, this is also a book that therapy patients and lay readers will find highly readable and illuminating.

Narcissism is a modern epidemic, and it’s spreading rapidly. But how do you know if you are in a relationship with one—and, what can you do about it? We live in a world of romance and rescue, where many believe love will conquer all, and that the more we endure unacceptable behavior, the more likely that we can “fix” our relationships. It doesn’t always work that way—despite what the fairy tales tell us. There are a few hard facts about pathological narcissism that most people don’t know and most psychologists will never tell you. Should I Stay or Should I Go? uses checklists, clinical wisdom, and real stories from real people to prepare you for the real terrain of pathological narcissism. It raises the red flags to watch for and provides a realistic roadmap for difficult situations to help you reclaim yourself, find healing, and live an authentic and empowered life. Whether you stay. Or go.

A four-step method for handling the increasingly-outrageous behavior of narcissists and high-conflict people at work: customers, employees, managers and business-owners.

The basic text for the understanding of patients with pathological narcissism.