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(The use of gender pronouns in this article reflects the clinical facts: most narcissists and most Asperger's patients are male.)

Asperger's Disorder is often misdiagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), though evident as early as age 3 (while pathological narcissism cannot be safely diagnosed prior to early adolescence).

In both cases, the patient is self-centered and engrossed in a narrow range of interests and activities. Social and occupational interactions are severely hampered and conversational skills (the give and take of verbal intercourse) are primitive. The Asperger's patient body language - eye to eye gaze, body posture, facial expressions - is constricted and artificial, akin to the narcissist's. Nonverbal cues are virtually absent and their interpretation in others lacking.

Yet, the gulf between Asperger's and pathological narcissism is vast.

The narcissist switches between social agility and social impairment voluntarily. His social dysfunctioning is the outcome of conscious haughtiness and the reluctance to invest scarce mental energy in cultivating relationships with inferior and unworthy others. When confronted with potential Sources of Narcissistic Supply, however, the narcissist easily regains his social skills, his charm, and his gregariousness.

Many narcissists reach the highest rungs of their community, church, firm, or voluntary organization. Most of the time, they function flawlessly - though the inevitable blowups and the grating extortion of Narcissistic Supply usually put an end to the narcissist's career and social liaisons.

The Asperger's patient often wants to be accepted socially, to have friends, to marry, to be sexually active, and to sire offspring. He just doesn't have a clue how to go about it. His affect is limited. His initiative - for instance, to share his experiences with nearest and dearest or to engage in foreplay - is thwarted. His ability to divulge his emotions stilted. He is incapable or reciprocating and is largely unaware of the wishes, needs, and feelings of his interlocutors or counterparties.

Inevitably, Asperger's patients are perceived by others to be cold, eccentric, insensitive, indifferent, repulsive, exploitative or emotionally-absent. To avoid the pain of rejection, they confine themselves to solitary activities - but, unlike the schizoid, not by choice. They limit their world to a single topic, hobby, or person and dive in with the greatest, all-consuming intensity, excluding all other matters and everyone else. It is a form of hurt-control and pain regulation.

Thus, while the narcissist avoids pain by excluding, devaluing, and discarding others - the Asperger's patient achieves the same result by withdrawing and by passionately incorporating in his universe only one or two people and one or two subjects of interest. Both narcissists and Asperger's patients are prone to react with depression to perceived slights and injuries - but Asperger's patients are far more at risk of self-harm and suicide.

The use of language is another differentiating factor.

The narcissist is a skilled communicator. He uses language as an instrument to obtain Narcissistic Supply or as a weapon to obliterate his "enemies" and discarded sources with. Cerebral narcissists derive Narcissistic Supply from the consummate use they make of their innate verbosity.

(continued below)

Not so the Asperger's patient. He is equally verbose at times (and taciturn on other occasions) but his topics are few and, thus, tediously repetitive. He is unlikely to obey conversational rules and etiquette (for instance, to let others speak in turn). Nor is the Asperger's patient able to decipher nonverbal cues and gestures or to monitor his own misbehavior on such occasions. Narcissists are similarly inconsiderate - but only towards those who cannot possibly serve as Sources of Narcissistic Supply.

More about Autism Spectrum Disorders here:

McDowell, Maxson J. (2002) The Image of the Mother's Eye: Autism and Early Narcissistic Injury , Behavioral and Brain Sciences (Submitted)

Benis, Anthony - "Toward Self & Sanity: On the Genetic Origins of the Human Character" - Narcissistic-Perfectionist Personality Type (NP) with special reference to infantile autism

Sounds like they've never met even one high functioning aspie.

Maybe we have special interests because we ummm... you know... ENJOY them? Why the person who wrote this can't fathom that possibility is a mystery to me.

I can guarantee this person that "social rejection" doesn't CAUSE us to have special interests. Rather it's the fact that we have strong interests and don't like "partying" or "hanging out" that causes NT's to reject us. This guy's got it all completely backwards.

At least he's got the narcissist down. Then again, I'm not sure he's even got that completely right. Not all narcissists are outwardly rude and nasty to people who they perceive as "below" them. Most can easily fake social courtesy when they need to. They're only nasty when it's "safe" for them to be that way, such as when they're in a position of power over others.

Last edited by marshall on 04 Jun 2010, 12:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i feel like a bit of both. i would say it is pretty innacurate but still better than most descriptions. i feel although there are stereotypical behaviours of both that the conditions that evoke them and the thoughts/feelings involved are quite individual.

it is impossible to describe what someone is feeling from the observers point of view so i cut them some slack on this. it seems like a problem in describing anything relating to another persons thoughts.

Whilst I agree with the general tone of the article I disagree with most of the conclusions. It appears to be a piece written by someone who has no idea of what AS is apart from what they have read on Wikipedia.

Vanilla_Slice

Agreed, "nilla.

I agree with some points, it's definitely a stereotypical male Aspie profile though. Many Aspie women and some men can learn to be skilled communicators by imitation and often have Aspie traits that are less obvious, possibly making them look more like narcissists because they seem more socially adept than other AS patients. One might think their behavior is deliberate.

It's important to point out the differences between the two but an AS patient could also develop a narcissistic personality based on he/she's experiences. I wouldn't be surprised if many Aspies are a little bit of both, but the narcissists being described in this article sound more like sociopaths, which is dangerous because there seems to be some confusion among NTs about the differences between Aspies and sociopaths.

I think it's important to clear up misconceptions about what Aspies are and what they are not, but at the same time I think it's important for people to realize that not all Aspies are the same and can be very different people based on their experiences.

I can't read and process all that right (only because there's some other pressing matters which need my attention) now thus I can't say whether I agree with it or not.

All I can say for now is that one psychologist told me I have a Narcissistic
personality disorder. This "diagnosis" was merely based on his own observations
and my self-reports. He never administered any psychometric personality tests like
MMPI or Rorschach.

I have never received that DX on any of my neuropsychological evals which did include
MMPI, Rorschach and other personality tests. In terms of personality disorders, I was
Dx-ed with Schizotypal on four of my evals and Borderline on one. Based upon my own
self-observations, i'd say that Schizotypal fits me pretty well though I just think it's really
the personality characteristics typical of those with NVLD.

As far as I know....a Schizotypal PD Dx should not be given to those with an official PDD
diagnosis which would include Asperger's ofcourse. Since I was never formally Dx-ed
with a PDD/AS, Schizotypal is legitimate for me I suppose. According to all my
neuropsych evals, I do fit the general NVLD profile.

But I believe NVLD and AS are somewhat different manifestations of very similar neurological abnormalities.

I think there are some interesting truths and observations in the article but that the author is missing the true core differences. There are overlapping behaviors and motivations, but on the deepest level I believe the two disorders are very different. An Aspie could have narcissistic tendancies, and I've sure seen some posts around here that made that clear. Narcisists do tend to have excellent social perception, the problem is in how they imagine the universe exists for their own personal pleasure. Aspies can come off that way but it's generally through lack of perception and response to other people's feelings.

It's a lot more complex than that article lets on.

I'm not even sure the author has done that much research, but its apparent he got all his information on AS from a single inaccurate source. The whole thing sounds like the kind of regurgitation you'd expect from a high school student who took one article on AS, one article on NPD and just shuffled his note cards together.

Its pathetic how much misinformation is circulating among so-called experts who have no actual face-to-face experience with Autism.

The name of the site i got my source from is called http://samvak.tripod.com/journal72.html. You should read it there are many other interesting articles and case studies about narcassicm and other pesonality disorders. Unfourntatly there is only one article on aspergers.

Some aspies can get angry like narcassists when thier views or 'fantasy' world are threatend by another person.

I am vey confident that aspergers people as well as developiing phytriactic disorders can for sure develop narcassicm. In fact some aspergers people like narcassists can develop a sense of 'enititlement' because of the negative way people have treated them in the past. Even though an aspergers person feels enititled to special consideration and treatment by people unfourtantly like the naraccasist he rarely ever gets it unless of course he achieves things using his talents which many aspies are gifted in. Like naracassists aspies can feel that they are 'special' because of their conditon, other people may not see them in that way though. People with AS as well are probably a lot more gifted and have more talents than narcassits. Quite a few narcassicts can be talentless yet still think they are 'special' probably becasue they were spoiled as children.

I'm not a patient. I'm a productive member of society.

True, but that's a matter of similar behavior with different causes. If anything (like you said), narcissistic PD may develop due to early overindulgence/"spoiling," not negative treatment.

Of course, sometimes it just happens, anyway. All of the personality disorders are still not that well-understood.

As for the article itself, I agree that there are too many stereotypes/generalizations, and the overall tone makes it sound like it was written in the 19th century.

Apparently narcassists do not realise they even have it.

Apparently narcassists do not realise they even have a condition.

This is my opinion on this.

I can see how people could think someone with AS / autism is a narcissist. Some of us are very controlling and like to have things our own way, just like narcissists. However, unlike narcissists the reason we're this way isn't because we think we're "better" than others. It has much more to do with the whole "rigid thinking", "narrow focus" aspect of autism. I don't think NT's always appreciate how hard it is for some of us to be flexible. They might think we're being that way because we don't care about other people, when in reality we're just struggling with our own perceived needs, needs that go right over most NT's heads.