Association between pathological narcissism and emotion regulation: The role of self-mentalizing?

Pathological narcissism (PN) is a common psychopathological issue leading to maladaptive strategies to cope with self-esteem threats, including self-enhancement and exploitation (grandiose strategies) or internalized shame, depression, and social withdrawal (vulnerable strategies). Mentalizing is a key process for regulating self and other representations and their associated emotions. Patients with PN further struggle with emotion dysregulation (ED), which during development is intertwined with the growing capacity to mentalize. We seek to contribute to emerging empirical data documenting the associations between PN and ED and between PN and mentalizing, and to provide information on the nature of their mutual relationships. In the present study, we assessed PN, ED, and three mentalizing dimensions (mentalizing self, other, and motivation to mentalize) in 183 patients consulting in our outpatient unit specialized in ED. We found that narcissistic vulnerability was negatively associated with self-mentalizing and positively associated with overall ED, both even after adjustment for borderline and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. However, the association with ED was not maintained after further adjustment for self-mentalizing or overall-mentalizing, which suggests that mentalizing may play a mediating role in this relationship. On the other hand, narcissistic grandiosity was positively associated with other-mentalizing and ED and negatively associated with self-mentalizing in bivariate analyses, but these last two associations were not maintained after adjustment for comorbid borderline and/or ADHD symptomatology. This study provides new information on the link between PN and ED and on key mentalizing dimensions meaningfully relating to PN, notably through a potential role of self-mentalizing processes between PN and ED.

Adult ADHD and pathological narcissism: A retrospective-analysis.

Adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is often associated with personality pathology. However, only few studies have been conducted on the link between ADHD and pathological narcissism (PN), with or without a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). In order to fill this gap, PN and NPD were assessed in 164 subjects suffering from ADHD, with several other measures including ADHD severity, quality of life, depression, anxiety, impulsivity, and emotion dysregulation (ED). We found that a significant proportion of ADHD patients suffered from NPD, and that both narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability were associated with ADHD hyperactivity and impulsivity symptoms, but not with inattentive symptoms. These two dimensions seemed to be negatively associated with well-being and positively associated with most of the other studied psychiatric dimensions except ED, the latter being only associated with vulnerability, even after adjustment on borderline symptoms. Overall, despite important limitations that limit the generalizability of our findings to the overall ADHD population (notably linked to selection bias), we believe that this exploratory study sheds light on the potential clinical relevance of narcissistic pathology in adult ADHD patients.

[Towards a pragmatic cohabitation of theoretical and clinical models: The example of "Good Psychiatric Management" in the treatment of borderline personality disorder]. / Pour une cohabitation pragmatique des modèles théoriques et cliniques : l'exemple du « Good Psychiatric Management ¼ dans le traitement du trouble de personnalité borderline.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a common disorder in general and clinical populations and is related to potentially severe medical and socio-professional consequences. Treatment of BPD is based on evidence-based psychotherapies (such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Mentalization-Based Therapy, Schema-Focused Therapy or Transference Focused Psychotherapy), which have been shown effective but are poorly available in France. Pharmacological treatments, which are more easily available, are not effective in treating symptoms of the disorder but can be useful in management of comorbidities. In this context, recently called "generalist" models have been developed, which every well-trained psychiatrist can implement in their daily practice, combining practical elements from evidence-based psychotherapies and elements of pharmacological management of symptoms and comorbidities. The purpose of this article is to present one of these models, the Good Psychiatric Management (GPM) and its basic principles and its applications, and to provide one of the first French-speaking resources about this model. In addition, beyond the practical elements proposed by the GPM, we discuss the deeper question that it raises, namely the question of a pragmatic integration of different theoretical and clinical models. Indeed, the treatment of BPD patients is at the junction of different conceptualizations of mental pathology (psychopathological, neurobiological) and different modalities of practice (psychotherapy, biological psychiatry). In a French context, that sometimes separates these two models, and in our opinion GPM constitutes an example of clinical collaboration which shows the interest of the combined role of psychiatrist-psychotherapist.