October 28, 2009

Narcissistic Rage in the White House

By James Lewis
The term "narcissistic rage" gets 26,000 citations in Google Scholar. It is a common feature of extreme or pathological narcissism. While psychiatrists often say they can't do long-distance diagnosis, it really isn't that hard if you have a lot of information about a person and can watch how he operates from day to day. Intelligence agencies around the world have psychiatric staffs for exactly that purpose. While most people are pretty hard to predict, extreme narcissists are comparatively simple. They constantly hunger for ego gratification, they are immature, constantly need to demonstrate their own superiority, often need endless sexual conquests (like Bill Clinton), are manipulative, constant liars, are completely cold about the human beings they harm (like John Edwards), and they deal with frustration by uncontrollable fits of rage. I think that's what we saw last week with the White House lashing out at Fox News. According to the New York Times, "Speaking...(Read Full Article)