My personal interest comes from my T's recent (retrospective) diagnosis of my mom as NPD. So far she does seem to fit the bill. But she was so, so SMART! well in the article i posted, there is a "cerebral narcisist" maybe that fits her to a "T"!!! No kidding at all. While she was alive no one could pin any negative diagnosis like this on her. With an IQ the size of Rocky Marciano's weigh-in number, she could and did (over and over) talk her way around any bad news. Didn't help her kids though. One heroin addict, one life-time alcoholic, one seven-year, five-day-a-week old-fashioned full psychoanalysand and one completely dissociated nut case (me), not to mention a husband she drove into the ground twenty years too soon. Just want to yatter about that. No particular points of view or grudges (save for her). Take care!