The Cracked Mirror: Features of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in Children

The notion of character disor-der in children remains highly controversial given unanswered questions regarding personality forma-tion. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition,1 personality is defi ned as “enduring patterns of perceiving, relat-ing to and thinking about the environ-ment and oneself … when they are mal-adaptive and infl exible, they constitute Personality Disorders.”1 Currently, such disorders are “generally recognized by adolescence or earlier. ” DSM-IV con-tinues, however, by emphasizing cor-responding diagnoses given to children and adolescents, such as Conduct Dis-order, as an earlier equivalent to Anti-social Personality Disorder. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) has no such equivalent despite the acknowledgment that it develops earlier than 18 years. The ambivalence and ambiguity regarding personality disorder in children are fur-ther highlighted by the suggestion that one can apply the diagnosis of personalit