I am the greatest.

Ah. Maybe it ceased to be dysfunctional because the society is more egocentric as a whole.

Actually, they aren’t happy about the elimination of the other four disorders either, and they’re not shy about saying so.

One of the sharpest critics of the DSM committee on personality disorders is a Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. John Gunderson, an old lion in the field of personality disorders and the person who led the personality disorders committee for the current manual.

Asked what he thought about the elimination of narcissistic personality disorder, he said it showed how “unenlightened” the personality disorders committee is.

“They have little appreciation for the damage they could be doing.” He said the diagnosis is important in terms of organizing and planning treatment.

“It’s draconian,” he said of the decision, “and the first of its kind, I think, that half of a group of disorders are eliminated by committee.”

He also blamed a so-called dimensional approach, which is a method of diagnosing personality disorders that is new to the DSM. It consists of making an overall, general diagnosis of personality disorder for a given patient, and then selecting particular traits from a long list in order to best describe that specific patient.

This is in contrast to the prototype approach that has been used for the past 30 years: the narcissistic syndrome is defined by a cluster of related traits, and the clinician matches patients to that profile.

The dimensional approach has the appeal of ordering à la carte — you get what you want, no more and no less. But it is precisely because of this narrow focus that it has never gained much traction with clinicians.

It is one thing to call someone a neat and careful dresser. It is another to call that person a dandy, or a clotheshorse, or a boulevardier. Each of these terms has slightly different meanings and conjures up a type.

And clinicians like types. The idea of replacing the prototypic diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder with a dimensional diagnosis like “personality disorder with narcissistic and manipulative traits” just doesn’t cut it.

My guess is that the term "narcissistic" has been so over used/misused that its become meaningless.

My guess is that the term "narcissistic" has been so over used/misused that its become meaningless.

I am the greatest.

Narcissism No Longer a Psychiatric Disorder
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Scott Menchin

Narcissistic personality disorder, characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and the need for constant attention, has been eliminated from the upcoming manual of mental disorders, which psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness.

As Charles Zanor reports in today’s Science Times, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — due out in 2013 and known as D.S.M.-5 — has eliminated five of the 10 personality disorders that are listed in the current edition. The best known of these is narcissistic personality disorder.