I too believe that people with NPD and psychopaths share a common factor - this is based on personal experience and some research evidence. Below is a summary of something I posted a few weeks ago.
Hope it helps.
Below I have cited the characteristics for NPD from the DSM-IV and also cited the characteristics of psychopathy (the two factors of psychopathy from The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry). The characteristics of NPD and Factor 1 of the psychopathy characteristics seem, at least very similar.
- SUE
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (DSM-IV)
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.
1. An exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. Believes he is "special" and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement
6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends
7. Lacks empathy
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him
9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes
Psychopathy factors (The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry).
Factor 1
Aggressive narcissism
1. Glibness/superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Cunning/manipulative
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. Emotionally shallow
7. Callous/lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Factor 2
Socially deviant lifestyle
1. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
2. Parasitic lifestyle
3. Poor behavioral control
4. Promiscuous sexual behavior
5. Lack of realistic, long-term goals
6. Impulsiveness
7. Irresponsibility
8. Juvenile delinquency
9. Early behavioral problems
10. Revocation of conditional release
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MY RESPONSE (using this criteria to analyse my mother from an anecdotal point of view):
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (DSM-IV)
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.
exaggerated sense of self-importance (1) -- I definitely think that she does think she is the leading authority on everything, because if she doesn't know something she will go find out and then be happy to sit back and interrupt a perfectly normal and fun conversation with what she has learned, and you are expected to listen even if you are totally uninterested in the subject because she is telling this wonderful advice for your own good and if you don't listen to her it's very offensive. If you don't listen to her and take what she says as gospel, for heaven's sake if you have your own opinion, well, that just means you hate her and she will sulk and argue. Don't resist or it gets worse for everyone because she will make you pay somehow.
If anyone dares to have their own opinion, she will tell others that there is something wrong with that person mentally, or that they don't agree with her because of their religion, or because they were raised incorrectly, or because you are weak, unintelligent, strange, rude, unwell, etc.
Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love -- (2) She definitely has some odd ideas about things, certainly. She tried to get me to dump my fiance and tricked me into coming to see her at brunch one day so I could meet up with a fellow named Greg who was our family car fixer-upper. He was slightly embarrassed, as well, I am sure, because he came in his rattiest sweats with holes in them, like he maybe had just gotten up or came for brunch while working on the car (his shirt was quite dirty as well).... I reminded her that I was engaged, but thanks anyways. She does have a tendency to act like she knows everything and must have something wrong in her head because she's thought she's had more authority to hand out drugs to patients at work than she should (she got into trouble for that)...
Requires excessive admiration (4) Not sure about this one, she seems to have a low opinion of her looks, but I suppose she has to be in control of every situation and conversation and relationship. Must be exhausting! lol
Has a sense of entitlement (5) DEFINITELY. Revenue Canada (tax evasion at least 2X); Health/Rentalsman (why should she get something fixed properly when she can hire the neediest worker, wheedle and talk him down to the lowest pay and therefore the shoddiest work; cut corners, avoid getting people with certification, etc); Labor Board (why should I pay my employees at my care home the proper amount? She was sued 2X and had to pay back-wages 2X so she ended up selling the care home); she always comes first -- for shame that my brother married and moved to another city. My mother hates her daughter-in-law. She also seems to hate my husband, but at least I told her off a few times about things she said about him in front of me or to my brother. Who knows what she says when we aren't around, but to our faces she tries to be very nice.
Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends (6) ABSOLUTELY!! See #5; she had my brother and I (excluded one sibling because she believes him mentally incapable) all sign with her on properties that we would 'share.' We were never given 'full disclosure' or in other words didn't know exactly what those land titles meant we were responsible for. So my dad, me and my mom were on a property together, and my brother and my mom and dad on another. My mother got in trouble with Revenue Canada about at least one property, and wheedled my brother into 'owning up' to Revenue Canada about 'his part' in the matter, and he didn't even HAVE anything to do with it. He didn't realize that by doing so, it would leave a nasty black mark on his records for God knows how long. This is just one of the reasons he hasn't spoken to my parents in 6 years.
More recently, my mom decided to move to BC because she had run out of friends here, so she sold her property. Before she left (I had tried several years to get my name off that land title with her and my dad) I again attempted to find out what would happen. She got all fast-talking and alarmed and pleaded with me not to take my name off the title or somehow, in her mind, all three of us were going to lose thousands of dollars.... Somehow in her mind she thought that because I lived there and paid 'rent' on my own property (untraceable cash payments) to my mom that somehow if I got out now, it would wreck the past. I didn't see how something I did in the past could affect my present, so I made an excuse to see a Real Estate lawyer (and of course I was accused of going behind her back, not protecting myself) and figured out a LOT; and then because I knew everything she HAD no choice but to be very civil about the matter and cooperate and take my name off the title with her cooperation. At one point I asked if she could speed up the process and help pay part of the fees, and she said she would, but then she said, just as she was handing me the cheque, "Since I am paying for this, can you now please tell me why you are taking your name off the title?" At which point I gave her back the cheque and said if that was how it was going to be I would pay for the fees myself. So she back-tracked and paid for it anyway out of shame or something.
Lacks empathy (7) Oh definitely. She's so fake. She does NOT understand people. Might as well be an alien visiting the planet. Doesn't quite fit in... Almost gets away with her disguise, but always something slips.
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him (8) Definitely jealous of people who try to talk to my dad. She controls the conversation always. My mom won't let my dad call his own mother, and once told her (my 93 year old Gramma) that they wouldn't be calling anymore, simply because my Gramma stood up to her on the phone. She is always saying how wasteful other people are in our family because they bought a large house, or they have nicer things than us, or if they are striking out in their own business she calls them a 'bum.' But we aren't supposed to tell them what she thinks.
Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes (9) Definitely. Always. And gets pissed off when other people are pissed off that she does that. And she doesn't even seem to see that SHE is the cause for people's reactions. It's always someone else's fault. They misunderstood her (again), they always team up against her, they're on their period, they aren't very rational, etc. She's excellent at recognizing her own traits in other people, but doesn't see those same traits in herself.
Psychopathy factors (The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry).
Factor 1
Aggressive narcissism
Glibness/superficial charm (1) Yes
Grandiose sense of self-worth(2) Yes
Pathological lying (3) Either she isn't aware that she is being deceptive, or actually DOES have a bad memory as she claims or she is a very very very good actress. And I am starting to think she is the actress who pretends that she has a bad memory. Or she says WE have the bad memory.
Cunning/manipulative (4) Same thing here. I suspect she is more cunning than she lets on. She has always given me the impression of having a cold, hard logical mind. She is brilliant with numbers, so how could she have such a bad understanding of real estate when she at other times seems to be so expert on how things work??
Lack of remorse or guilt (5) Nothing is ever her fault. It's everyone else. Which right there would indicate she isn't right in the head. If it's NEVER you and it's ALWAYS the world, something is wrong with YOU! lol
Emotionally shallow (6) She never could understand my cartoons and jokes. My dad always had to explain things to her. She always seemed to have a fake laugh and fake tears.
Callous/lack of empathy (7) Well, if everything revolves around you, how could anyone else be important? She keeps saying she is sorry for things she does but goes ahead and repeats the same behaviours over and over and over in different ways.
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions (8) Exactly.
Factor 2
Socially deviant lifestyle
Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom (1) Has to travel all the time, has to create drama, has to be doing something something something all the time. Can't sit still, can't focus on one thing at a time. Especially irritating when I am trying to talk to me and she starts ordering my dad around to get her something, fiddles with the TV remote, just flits off on whims of conversation. I will be talking and she takes part of what I said and goes off in a completely different direction from what I was talking about.
Parasitic lifestyle (2) If you mean she has to have others to feed off of in order to live, then this could be the case. She orders my dad around and he is her puppet. I don't think he's used his own brain in years. When us kids used to live with her, she was trying to get us to live like that too. She seems to survive only if she can suck the emotional and mental energy out of you on a constant basis.
Poor behavioral control (3) Hm, throwing a drawer of cutlery, following us kids around when we were trying to get some space in our rooms away from her, getting 3 cm from my face and gritting her teeth and spittle hitting my face, screaming and yelling, panic, causing ME to point out that SOMEONE has to be the adult here... lol I would say yes.
Promiscuous sexual behavior (4) Don't think she is promiscuous, perhaps she used to be, but to hear it from her she was a demure and compliant Catholic. Also claims she was sexually abused, but I have my doubts about that, because she also said she had cancer and she did not. Oddly, she tried to encourage ME to do promiscuous things -- I had a crush on a much older man in my teens and she suggested I write to him and tell him so. She also took us kids to the jail where she worked as a nurse on a Sunday lay service because apparently we need to be taught about love and compassion this way. She let me sit on a pedophile's lap and then told me later on during the trip home what a pedophile was and what they do and why he made me so uncomfortable and why he was always profusedly sweating when I held his hand during Prayer Circle. I was molested by a much older cousin who was her sister's son and she always was much more sympathetic to him, and how rough he had it, and also thought I might have had something to do with attracting him to myself when I was 6 years old and he was in his late teens.
Lack of realistic, long-term goals (5) Actually she always seems to have very planned-out and methodical ways of thinking. Well, unless you mean she has all those schemes and doesn't think that anyone will figure her out or see what she's doing and that she will get away with it. She's had several run-ins with authorities that went wrong for her where she was sued or in trouble (I've mentioned Revenue Canada for instance).
Impulsiveness (6) Sometimes. Especially for instance if she thinks she can just take it upon herself to invite herself over or tell others they can come to our house... Case in point, we were just going to a movie and they just came out of the movie... My brother was with them and she said "Oh why don't you take him to this movie again? He really liked it!" I mentioned thanks but we were on a date. So my brother was all embarrassed and my mother had to take him back to his house. lol Classic.
Irresponsibility (7) Well, it depends on who you talk to. My brothers got all the attention and I think because I was most like her, or competition for dad's affection, I usually got made the example, had to look after my brothers, had the strictest rules and punishment while the other two boys could do what they wanted either because they could do no wrong (youngest) or because they didn't know any better/were mentally incompetent (middle brother - I think she made him her special project)... I was somewhat neglected, and definitely more criticized, emotionally and also (rarely) physically abused.
Juvenile delinquency (8) More than likely. I don't have a lot of anecdotal information about this. Just some bits and pieces from when us kids were growing up. However she certainly acts juvenile NOW, and she sure treated US all like we were juvenile deliquents.
Early behavioral problems (9) She probably did have issues, because she always said she never felt she did good enough in her parent's eyes.
She was never institutionalized (10), but she has more than once gotten into trouble with other authorities.
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