title: Grandiosity in children with narcissistic and borderline disorders. A comparative analysis.
abstract: I draw a distinction between two clinical pictures in children, borderline and narcissistic disorders. Both belong to the realm of personality disorder--or, perhaps, disorders in the development of the personality--but only the former has been widely reviewed and thoroughly investigated in the professional literature. I raise the question how and when these disorders emerge, stressing that both derive from the early, preoedipal period, and precede completion of the separation-individuation processes. Both disorders reveal manifestations of grandiosity which I view as a defense against the two underlying emotional experiences of the disorders: the experience of feeling alone in the borderline case, and the experience of "worthlessness" in the narcissistic personality.
authors.affiliation: B'nai B'rith Women Children's Home, Israel.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cohen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D009289:Narcissism; D009769:Object Attachment; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D011606:Psychosexual Development; D012649:Self Concept