title: Notes on the developmental pathogenesis of narcissistic personality disorder.
abstract: Narcissistic personality disorder is considered here as a higher-order borderline personality disorder: Both share related pathogeneses in terms of impaired parent-child relationships. The author develops his view of these disorders as arising from impaired separation-individuation, drawing on both "classic" and object-relations concepts as expressed in the contributions of Mahler, Kernberg, Kohut, Gerald Adler, Masterson, and himself. Emphasis is placed on pre-Oedipal developmental arrest as fundamental to the separation-individuation failure that characterizes these cases.
authors.affiliation: University of Kansas School of Medicine, Topeka.
authors.forename: D B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Rinsley
mesh_terms: D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D005619:Freudian Theory; D006801:Humans; D009289:Narcissism; D009769:Object Attachment; D010553:Personality Development; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000523:psychology*