Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy. People with narcissistic personality disorder have an inflated sense of self-importance and an excessive need for praise and recognition. They often take advantage of others to achieve their own goals. One common question that arises is whether narcissists experience fear of abandonment in relationships. In this article, we will examine the evidence around abandonment fears in narcissism.
What is narcissistic personality disorder?
Narcissistic personality disorder is one of several types of personality disorders. Personality disorders are mental health conditions that cause people to have an inflexible pattern of thinking and behaving that differs significantly from cultural expectations and leads to distress or problems in their lives.
Some key characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder include:
- Exaggerated sense of self-importance
- Preoccupation with success, power, beauty, etc.
- Belief they are special and unique
- Sense of entitlement
- Exploitation of others
- Lack of empathy
- Envious of others or believing others envy them
- Arrogant behaviors
These characteristics typically lead to problems with relationships, work, and other aspects of life. Narcissistic personality disorder affects about 6% of the general population. It is diagnosed through clinical assessment by a mental health professional.
Do narcissists fear abandonment?
Whether narcissists experience fear of abandonment has been debated among psychologists. Early psychoanalytic theories focused on narcissists maintaining inflated self-worth by eliciting admiration from others. This led to a view of narcissists as relying on others for self-esteem regulation, making them vulnerable to rejection and abandonment fears.
However, more recent research has challenged this perspective:
They have a high need for control
Narcissists have a strong desire for power and dominance in relationships. They seek to control people and situations to feed their sense of grandiosity. This need for control makes them less likely to depend on others for emotional sustenance. They are less afraid of losing people because they objectify them as sources of validation.
They have detached emotional experiences
One of the hallmarks of narcissistic personality disorder is a lack of emotional empathy. Narcissists struggle to identify with other people’s emotions. Research shows their emotional regulation relies less on social bonding and more on internal, self-focused tactics. They are less reliant on relationships for emotional needs.
They have a dismissing attachment style
Attachment theory proposes that people develop different attachment styles with caregivers in childhood that shape emotional patterns in adulthood. Those with a dismissing style avoid depending on others and defensively deny needing close relationships. Studies show that narcissists gravitate towards a dismissing attachment style.
They derive self-esteem from themselves
Healthy self-esteem relies on internal sources, like self-acceptance, competence, and moral values. Narcissists are more likely to base their self-esteem on external validation of their superior status. However, research suggests they supplement self-validation through internal sources like arrogance and inflated self-views. This reduces reliance on external sources.
So in summary, current research favors the view that narcissists are less dependent on relationships and less prone to abandonment fears compared to other personality types. However, some nuance exists.
Are vulnerable narcissists more prone to abandonment fears?
There may be individual differences among people with narcissistic tendencies. “Vulnerable narcissists” are thought to represent a subset of narcissists who act arrogant and entitled but secretly harbor insecurities and fears of failure. Some research suggests vulnerable narcissists have higher attachment anxiety and thus stronger fears of rejection. However, findings are mixed. More research is needed comparing abandonment fears across narcissistic subtypes.
Might narcissists fear abandonment but handle it differently?
Even if narcissists are less afraid of losing relationships, they may still negatively react to breakups and rejection in other ways. For example, research shows that narcissists often respond to romantic rejection with rage, insults towards ex-partners, threats, and aggression. These hostile reactions may reflect efforts to rebuild their wounded self-image rather than fears of abandonment per se.
Do narcissists fear abandonment from some people more than others?
Context may matter. Narcissists may be less afraid of losing relationships with people they view as inferior. However, they may be more sensitive to rejection from individuals they admire and envy, such as authority figures or high-status peers. Losing the company of people they look up to may more deeply threaten their grandiose self-conception.
More research is needed on whether abandonment fears vary across different types of relationships for people higher in narcissistic traits.
Could narcissists suppress conscious awareness of their abandonment fears?
Narcissists may invalidate and suppress vulnerable emotions that contradict their grandiose self-image. It is possible they consciously dismiss abandonment worries even while subconsciously fearing rejection. Defense mechanisms like denial could enable them to consciously disavow attachment needs. More indirect research methods may be needed to assess unconscious fears of abandonment in narcissism.
Conclusion
In summary, classic psychoanalytic theories characterized narcissists as relying heavily on relationships for self-esteem regulation, making them prone to abandonment fears when rejected. However, contemporary research favors the view that narcissists are less afraid of losing relationships due to their high need for control, detached emotional functioning, dismissing attachment tendencies, and inner-focused self-validation.
Nevertheless, narcissists may still struggle when abandoned in less overt ways, such as through hostile retaliation, even if they don’t admit to consciously experiencing abandonment fears. Additionally, vulnerable and grandiose narcissistic subtypes may differ in their relational anxieties. More research is needed to understand the nuances of how narcissistic traits relate to fears of abandonment.