Narcissism Traits

These are a few of the traits of narcissism.

Please note that the image below shows a male.

Women can also have this personality disorder.

A few of the traits I want to point out are:

* Exaggerating self abilities (believing they can do it better than anyone)

* Craving admiration (this can create a Martyr Syndrome as well)

* Exploiting, or lying, about others

* Lacking empathy (this is a BIG one)

* Exerting control over everything

* Craves attention and validation

There is also two different kinds of narcissist.

Covert and Overt.

Covert narcissists are only different from overt (more obvious) narcissists in that they tend to be more introverted. The overt narcissist is easily identified because they tend to be loud, arrogant, and insensitive to the needs of others and always thirsty for compliments.1

Their behaviors can be easily observed by others and tend to show up as "big" in a room. When we think of an overt narcissist, we could say they demonstrate more extroverted behaviors in their interactions with others.

Researcher and author Craig Malkin, PhD suggests that the term "covert" can be misleading. In his work he states that the term covert is often used to suggest that the covert narcissist is sneaky or that their strive for importance is not as significant as an overt (more extroverted) narcissist. In fact, he reports, the traits of the overt narcissist and the covert narcissist are the same.