Moving the field forward: commentary for the special series "Narcissistic personality disorder--new perspectives on diagnosis and treatment"

Abstract

Comments on the articles by A. E. Skodol et al. (see record 2013-24395-001), E. Ronningstam (see record 2014-42878-005), D. Diamond et al. (see record 2014-42878-004), and A. L. Pincus et al. (see record 2014-01439-001). These articles in this special issue, "Narcissistic personality disorder--new perspectives on diagnosis and treatment", provide useful guidance for all clinicians working with patients with narcissistic pathology, particularly those who may not have considered narcissism as an underlying cause of a patient's presenting difficulties or as a contributor to therapeutic impasse. Taken together, they offer a more conceptually sophisticated approach to NPD than the constraining criteria of the DSM, and make a compelling case that it is time for NPD and pathological narcissism to receive greater clinical and research attention.