All About Me: Loving a narcissist. Simon Crompton

on those currently close to them, but also dependent on those who have created a sense of order for them in the past, such as parents and educators. This gives them their sense of security. They are generally systematic people who want to help others, but worry about being loved.

       Erotic narcissists

      Perhaps the most common group, where the contrasting attitudes of narcissists and obsessionals towards love and dependence cancel each other out. They are generally creative people who are poor on the details.

       Narcissistic obsessionals

      Culturally very valuable people, because they have a resilient independence, but act out of conscience, and do so with great vigour. They are generally people who at their best can be charismatic yet practical, and at their worst are controlling and paranoid.

      You’ll see a lot in this personality-typing that tallies with the characteristics of narcissists pinpointed in our earlier checklists. What’s different here is that narcissistic characteristics are very much integrated into the human personality as a whole. Freud and his followers in the field of psychoanalysis and psychology have not necessarily viewed narcissism as bad. It simply exists. Indeed, the leading American psychoanalyst and business consultant, Michael Maccoby (to whom I should acknowledge a debt for inspiring the above questionnaire), believes that the natural energy and individuality of narcissists is the key to much industrial progress and innovation. As we’ll see in Chapters 6 and 7, narcissism is a strong and sometimes positive influence on society.