Re: Negative vs Positive Attention


One occaisionally hears of Histrio-Narcissisism, or Narci-Histrionism: HPD/NPD combos?

And how does sex itself rate as positive or negative attention?

One example of Narcissistic developmental theory:
NPD women are apparently very close to their NPD mother...they are adored/manipulated by their NPD mom and have no choice but to model themselves after their mom: the NPD mom's idea of raising a child is simply making a little NPD copy of themselves. Dad is often weak when compared to this NPD mom, but throughout the competition with his wife he nevertheless continually tries hard to love his daughter - which only reinforces her sense of entitlement. The girl grows up grandiose, thinking she is special, and men are expected to go to huge efforts to adore her and satisfy her considerable ego. If a man (at least for a while) should meet her nearly impossible standards, sex can be used to secure him, but for her, sex implies intimacy, which reminds her of emptiness and of her original narcissisitic injury, so sex might be actually distasteful to her, in which case she only uses it as a carefully applied tool to control the man (or men) who come through her life, adoring her - positive attention- at least for the duration of the relationship..

In contrast, one example of Histrionic developmental theory: HPD women are distant from their mom, and (if there is a dad) compete with mom for the attention of dad; additionally dad is often authoritarian and therefore also emotionally distant, although he gives his daughter superficial male, sexualized attention (since his wife is also unavailable to him). But the father usually backs away from his daughter during puberty, though, and then the HPD girl thinks she's been abandoned by him (and ultimately, by both parents). She follows the script she hashed out with dad of being seductive with men in order to feel valued as a person. Again, like the NPD woman, sometimes not for sexual satisfaction...some HPD women are so confused by the flirty affection they received from dad, vs. the shame of the incestual implications...so they have mental blocks preventing sexual satisfaction.

How all this stuff could combine?.

Maybe phasic and temporal: NPD happens during one period in childhood, HPD in another period (?)

Or, maybe the genetic precursors for NPD and HPD are the determinants. People with stronger domineering temperments becoming NPD - with the confidence to demand positive attention only, while those who are less demanding become HPD, and lacking that supreme confidence, they take either negative or positive attention. And those with intermediate temperments doing both/either, depending on how they rank with their partner, in terms of dominance or submission.