The NPA Theory & Narcissistic INFJs

So I so far I've read that there seems to be a strong connection between Narcissism and INFJ's for two reasons.

The first and most common one is the case that INFJ's seem to be the most likely people to attract narcissists. Two polar opposites, the empath and the anti-empath.

The second one is the more important one. There seems to also be the notion that INFJ's are infact narcissistic? Covert narcissists to be exact. I don't know how it made me feel but I wanted to keep investigating to find out whether I could possibly be a narcissist.

From what I've read the INFJ and the narcissist share a common childhood, that their parents were infact narcissistic. I don't know how common or how true this is for INFJ's but I can atleast say for myself I believed it was true. Perhaps I was too young to really know what a narcissistic parent was. I was around 14 when I sat my mum down and explained to her how I felt about her being narcissistic parent.

As you can see this really took my interest, I wanted to know if I could possibly be a covert narcissist. The covert narcissist can also be known as the introvert narcissist - they differ from the extrovert narcissist in that they don't have the extroverted, aggressive, arrogant, attention seeking qualities that people normally associate with narcissism.

In contrast to the Arrogant/Overt Narcissist,1 the Shy/Covert Narcissist is characterized by vulnerability and sensitivity which manifests itself in defensiveness and hostility. Like the Arrogant/Overt Narcissist, the Shy/Covert Narcissist has grandiose fantasies, feels a sense of entitlement, and is exploitive. However, the Shy/Covert Narcissistic personality is characterized by worry, ineffective functioning, unfulfilled expectations, and vulnerability to stress.
Cooper summarizes the distinguishing features of the Shy/Covert Narcissist as follows:

�Covert narcissistic individuals are those whose fantasies, whether conscious or unconscious, are indeed grandiose, inflated, unrealistic, and self-centered. They may be preoccupied with fantasies of grandiose achievements, imagining themselves as world heroes, centers of attention, and acclaimed by all. However, for one of several dynamic reasons, these fantasies are not expressed in overt behavior and are regarded by the individual consciously as beyond attainment. The grandiose desires are not matched by a conviction of personal efficacy. These individuals are conflicted and guilty over their overweening exhibitionistic, competitive, and aggressive desires, and their defensiveness often leads them to suppress or repress any awareness of the existence of these qualities. Most often, a barrier is imposed by a severe inner conscience that finds these fantasies unacceptable, demanding both that they should be suppressed and that the person should feel guilty for harboring unacceptable wishes. In effect, the superego accurately detects that within these self-inflating ideas lie self-centered, aggrandizing desires to attribute all goodness and power to oneself and relegate all weakness and badness to others, an aspect of the angry envy that probably is involved in the genesis of all narcissistic pathology.

I can definitely relate to this, but to me it seemed asif it's almost natural for a person (especially an introvert) to exhibit this to some extent? so I felt like understanding it wasn't enough to conclude myself as this covert narcissist. Like how would I really know. So I stumbled across the NPA personality theory which sets out to type individuals based on the 3 traits sanguinity(narcissism) (N), perfectionism (P) and aggression (A). I did the test and the results were intersting...

I managed to score very highly on narcissism and highly on perfectionism and very low on other traits, including aggression and temperament. My S score, which is a measure of anxiety, depression or submissiveness in social relations - was 53, which was moderate and apparently that is actually high for an individual but the most common reasons are inhibited aggression or suppressed narcissism and in this case I think it's clearly inhibited aggression.
My type is the Narcissistic-perfectionist type (NP). To be clear here, the measurement of narcissism doesn't necessarily indicate whether or not a person has a narcissistic personality disorder (as they explain it, everyone has each trait to a degree, they are natural traits part of genetic expression) BUT when someone scores very very highly (I'm talking like 100%) and is a dominant type I guess it is an indicator.

This makes me feel that the original conjectures could really be true, atleast for me in this case, but I still need to find out how it relates to INFJs as a whole so I am really curious to see what you guys get in this test, it will help me reach a conclusion about this. I feel like I can't do my work until I nip this itch in the butt.

NPAtest09.xls for PC

NPAtestxx For mobile

Online NPA personality test Information on the theory

http://npatraits.homestead.com/nptype.html Personality types on the left of the page.

The NP description describes me dangerously accurately. There are just certain things about me and I've always wondered why I do it. It's almost asif I really care about you but I also completely don't at the same time. I feel very selfish but everyone will tell me I'm unselfish. When I'm with you, I'm fully with you - but I often choose not to be with you because I'm doing something for myself.

The NPA Theory & Narcissistic INFJs

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