ABSTRACT
As noted earlier (see Point 7), narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is perhaps the quintessential example of a personality disorder based on an overcompensating coping style. The patient ``turns the tables'' on other people by adopting a superior, arrogant, devaluing stance, which serves to compensate for underlying schemas such as Defectiveness and Emotional Deprivation. Many authors have theorized that NPD develops as a result of the parent's egoistic use of the child (Ronningstam, 2009). The parent overvalues the child's ``special'' qualities such as beauty, talent, or intelligence, which af®rm the parent's own sense of specialness, while ignoring the child's basic emotional needs such as warmth, nurturance, and acceptance. As a result, the child's identity coalesces around a grandiose self-image, which masks underlying feelings of emptiness, loneliness, or inferiority.
