So many people claim their ex or current partner is a narcissist or psychopath, but referring to the statistics, this is actually impossible. 🧐
Rigorous clinical and academic studies estimate that the clinical diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) affects only about 0.5-6.2% of the general population, with psychopathy estimated at around 1-1.2%.
Studies show NPD is much higher among men (approx 7.7%) than women (4.8%) and is a lot higher in young adults aged 19-34 compared with the elderly.
A large number of people (around 20-30% of the population) also exhibit many narcissistic traits without meeting the clinical criteria for NPD.
The range of estimates depends on the assessment tools used.
For example, the gold standard tool for psychopathy, the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), estimates the clinical prevalence of psychopathy in the general population as at 1.2% (and around 0.3-0/7% of women) whereas less restrictive tools push the community prevalence rate higher to 4.5%.
Obviously, the rate in prisons is much higher. When I worked in Corrections with many dangerous people, I generally saw NPD and psychopathy in a lot of my clients.
Approximately 15-25% of people in prison meet the criteria for psychopathy.
Large-scale, cross national studies show psychopathy remains relatively low at around 1% across the globe, whereas NPD traits and expressions fluctuate much more worldwide, with higher rates correlating to a country’s economic prosperity and cultural values.
The number of people I meet or see online who call out their partner or ex as a narcissist or psychopath – they actually can’t all be right. 🤷🏼♀️
We ALL have traits of narcissism – especially in the western world.
So yes, they might be showing those traits, but that doesn’t mean they have NPD.
They may just be a total wanker. 🙄
And yes, they can still do a lot of damage.
Something to think about…
If you need support to heal the shit lumped on you by someone with shitty traits, drop me a message and let’s chat about how coaching and/or energy work can help.
Much love,
