ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in this book. The book highlights paranoia and describes the life of those particularly vulnerable to narcissistic injury. It addresses schizoid, paranoid, shame-prone, grandiose, hysterics, obsessive, and depressive styles of coping, and focuses on psychotherapy and analysis of these disorders. The book discusses some of the voluminous debates about differences between the concepts of character and personality, as well as the controversies that swell around the utility of diagnostic categorization. It also describes the relationship between grandiosity and depression. In stories such as The Dilettante, and The Blood of the Walsungs Mann portrays what it is like for those who hold themselves as superior to fall from their pedestals. Studying these works of fiction can be rewarded with an enhanced understanding of both high and low self-regard. Finally, it explores stories of aging gracefully, aging bitterly, raging against the fading of the light, and finding new ways of seeing.
