ABSTRACT
A mature person has learned how to evaluate, respect, and treat himself kindly. This kind of self-esteem is healthy, and stands in contrast to the unhealthy aspects of pathological narcissism. Gaining such maturity of identity requires the kind of integration of self and relationship schemas suggested by the concepts of supra-ordinate person schemas. These integrative constellations of meanings pertaining to self and others advance functional capacities within the personality. Pathological narcissism involves more dichotomous thinking and binary attitudes than over-arching integration of attitudes. The pathology involves a habitual defensive position of quelling a dread of vulnerable self-isolation and inferiority by activating attitudes of irrational grandiosity, and schemas that use other people as mere extensions of the self.
