Narcissism is becoming more common, especially among younger generations, part of the responsibility for this phenomenon comes from the media, which promote this personality trend by deploying narcissistic characters, no doubt social media has become the ‘flagship’ in that sense. There is a continuous exposure of our private life, where we show strengths and weaknesses.
Sigmund Freud defined narcissism as the “libido of the self”, that is, as attraction by itself. Everyone has libido, but there are people where narcissism is more pronounced than in others. People of this kind are not in love with themselves, but they show great self-confidence, have a subjective view of reality and are taken as a reference to look at the world, so they find it harder to deal with frustration.
“He was like a rooster who thought the sun had come up when he heard him sing. – George Eliot-
As experience shows us, there is rarely excess or absence of anything good; we must and tend to seek balance. The healthiest option is to love yourself, but without forming a distorted or unrealistic view of who you are.
In the world of fiction there are many narcissistic characters, we will talk about 5 examples that almost everyone knows, and we will propose some solutions of the psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut, who has contributed greatly to the study of this topic.
HBO’s famous gangster cares about maintaining the highest degree of power within the group, plus he doesn’t have an objective view of reality, but he judges everything from his point of view, which is always the best, this gives him moral protection. to exercise maximum violence without the slightest ceremony. In addition, on several occasions his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi, identified him as a sociopath.
We can’t separate Tony Soprano from his crimes, but we prescribe the practice of creativity, to see that there are many different ways of doing things, of dealing with a problem, makes us realize that it’s much easier to act than to get frustrated. . Concentrating energy on a creative activity allows us not to feel such a strong need for other people’s attention or to think about ourselves.
Joffrey loves everything about himself and has no doubt that he is doing well, in this case his position on the throne further reinforces his desire for power and people’s attention, is independent of external factors, aggressive and has the ability to act quickly.
We don’t know if our jokes would be funny for this character, but we recommend humor. Humor is an advantage in the face of adversity; Laughing at ourselves or something else relaxes you and makes you feel good, as a result, things become less important and we forget about everything.
Lucretia’s narcissism is the most typical, because it likes to show its physical beauty at all times, and its behavior is sometimes very sexual, and at that time, women had no vows or vows and were considered only for their beauty. a certain status, which often allows him to behave safely and superiorly to others.
One of the best ways to overcome narcissism is wisdom, if you learned what is important in life, you would not get carried away by greed and corruption, so you would have a more peaceful and happy life.
Jack is an English army captain and enjoys exercising his power, he doesn’t care about the rules, he’s arrogant and he sees everything from his point of view, besides, he’s very aggressive with people, he belongs to a certain social class. certainly makes him feel a sense of unreal superiority, which leads him to narcissism.
Empathy is a way to combat that. Connecting with other people, or putting ourselves in place, makes us forget about ourselves, allowing less selfish and friendly feelings to manifest.
Part of this character’s charm is that he is often not impulsive. The ability to make decisions is quite common in a narcissistic personality. This impulsiveness or rebellion makes you not wonder if everything is okay, assumes that you are doing the right thing.
Ross doesn’t care much about his physique, but that’s not why he doesn’t know he’s attractive. We tend to attribute this concern to women, but the truth is that it is present in both sexes and is not always related to being well dressed, because there are many ways to look good.
We recommend that Ross accept himself so that his mistakes don’t do him much harm. All of us, one way or another, have to face this mission of accepting our shortcomings. We can achieve our goals with our limitations in mind.
Surely you have thought of other examples of narcissistic characters from series or movies, or even some acquaintance or friend. Being narcissistic is part of the personality of many, and it is not negative, as long as it is not something exacerbated. Nor should narcissism be, confused with good self-esteem. If you notice that someone is overly narcissistic (causing problems), or if you identify that trait within you, you can find help with the tools we talked about.