by Lee Farrand

Created on: April 16, 2010

Having never come across anyone with full-blown narcissistic personality disorder before, it took me a year of frustration, desperation and bewilderment before I finally realized that it wasn’t just a difference in personality. As a molecular biologist PhD student, one is obliged to spend long hours in a laboratory in close contact with a small group of people. This produces remarkable results when the inter-personal chemistry is right. But just one bad egg can poison the environment, making your scientific career a love-hate relationship. Working with a narcissist is nearly an impossible task, but it can be done if quitting is not a fair alternative. In this article, I hope to convince you of the importance of maintaining your own integrity, and how that can help you and others when dealing with a narcissist.

Words cannot accurately describe how tragic the story of a full-blown narcissist is. If you don’t know much about narcissism in general, then I highly recommend you do some background reading on the issue before you continue. 

Narcissism, in its very essence, is deceptive. This can make it difficult to identify and it will take some time before you can be sure. Eventually though, it is possible to observe a pattern of abnormal behavior that becomes increasingly difficult to excuse as just ‘part of his character’. Metaphorically speaking, the roar of the train begins as a distant rumble, and as it gets louder you become more and more aware of the magnitude of the problem. It’s an undeniable pattern of self-centeredness; a disregard for the rights of others and at times childish behavior that borders on the comical. Our narcissist is 35 years old and is relatively intelligent, but has the emotional abilities of a very young child. I have been working with him for one year and am not in a position to quit my degree because of him. What I know, is the result of an extended period of time having to work in close quarters with him. I hope to offer some insight to others in a similar situation.

The important thing to remember is that there are different levels of severity in narcissists. It seems highly plausible that people with mild narcissistic symptoms can improve under the right conditions. However, a review of the available literature suggests that those suffering from more developed versions of the disorder are beyond hope of improvement. From personal experience as a relatively stable and rational person who has attempted

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