Narcissitistic Personality

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Who coined the term narcissitic personality?

-- J C. Conger (conger@insightbb.com), September 28, 2003

Answers

According to the reference works available to me, narcissism was first used in relation to auto-eroticism. Apparently the term was coined by Paul Näcke, who applied the term narcissism in 1899 to patients who take their own bodies as their principal source of sexual gratification. He is generally cited as the first person to use the term in this way. Richard von Kraft Ebing (probably in Psychopathologia Sexualis) used the term to describe a person masturbating before a mirror (I don't have a date on that book). The famous sexologist Havelock Ellis also applied the term to sexual perversion in a 1927 paper in the Psychological Review, which may be the best place to look for the early literature review and references(pp. 129-153). Freud used it first in a 1914 paper. You can find a lot on the internet using the words narcissism and the names of these people.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), September 29, 2003.

P. S. The phrase "narcissistic personality disorder" would of course have a later origin. You might look at histories of the DSM and ICD to see the origins of the specific personality disorder.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), September 29, 2003.

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