ABSTRACT
This chapter explicates how narcissism, when it becomes “malignant”, links to the behaviours and attitudes which constitute what is described as psychopathy and to consider its connection to sexual perversion. The relevance of malignant narcissism as a concept to psychopathy becomes clearer when the nature of the internal world it connotes is appreciated. Psychoanalytic writers and researchers have long identified the relevance of narcissism to serious crime. While Freud did not write extensively on psychopathy, he observed that some offenders, because of their narcissism and aggression, had ego disturbances which made them incapable of being honest and therefore unsuitable for treatment. Meloy regards the identification with others in malignant narcissism as quite different from that of the borderline or the narcissist. In conclusion, the sexual perversions inherent in juvenile sexual offending appear to be at least as varied as the attachment styles of juvenile sex offenders and are accounted for by different object relation constellations.
