Making meaningful distinctions between different types of "narcissists".

 There are three different common meanings of narcissism,

per how people currently use the word.

1. Clinical Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

2. General narcissism, where the person may-or-may-not be NPD but are habitually demonstrating toxic psychology (per attitude and behaviors) indicative of that disorder.

Everyone is somewhere on the spectrum.

We all have what could be fairly described as an "inner narcissist" that sometimes surfaces.

For some people, it's severe enough and frequent enough that it warrants being recognized as such.

Meanwhile, even if the badly behaved person wouldn't qualify as NPD per some technicality that only a well-trained clinician would be able to discern,...

That's of no concern to victims (or "targets") and observers.

 Such a distinction would be irrelevant to the context.

Besides that,
the formula for identifying a true NPD
is really not all that complicated.

The list and guide for diagnosing NPD really doesn't take special training.

 It just takes sufficient knowledge of the person being evaluated.

 They either strongly meet the criteria, or rest right on the fuzzy border between is-and-isn't (in this case, there are certain questions which can resolve this uncertainty), or they simply don't qualify.

The most common "technical" disqualifier for an NPD diagnosis, is this:

If their toxic behaviors aren't causing themselves any significant distress.

This may seem like a strange clinical distinction used to rule out that major personal disorder.

But this is considered diagnostically crucial for clinicians, because:
The people around the possible-NPD are not "the patient".

So for the sake of clinical care, the clinician isn't going to base a diagnosis how the patient's psychology and behaviors affect other people; but rather: only on how the patient's psychology and behaviors are affecting themselves.


The entire reason that distinction matters to clinicians is for the purpose of a treatment plan (which is generally pointless for nearly all NPDs anyways; since they don't respond well to treatment) and for research statistics.

Within that context, there is no functional benefit or cause, for the layman to make such a distinction, except for this:
to make an educated guess about whether or not a badly-behaving person is worthy of further patience or efforts to help them.

No matter if the badly-behaving person is a true NPD or not,
a layman identifying that person as a "n/Narcissist" is not wronging the abusive person to recognize or categorize textbook NPD behaviors, to say "Damn. what a narcissist. I (or you, or they) need to get away from this person".
-Nor are they practicing psychiatric medicine without a license, to draw or express such conclusions.

3. (3rd common use of the term "narcissist"):
These people are generally harmless,
 and genuinely in love with themselves.

ie.
A hot girl who fills up her phone's memory with selfies, and tries to surround herself with people who will worship her for her physical beauty, or a brilliant scientist who is addicted to recognition for their brilliance.

This is different from clinical Narcissists and non-clinical abusive narcissists, in this way:
This type of narcissist really is enamored with themselves.

Whereas
NPDs and almost-NPDs
are not truly enamored with themselves.

They wrestle with a secret lack-of-self or contempt-of-self.

Their need for praise is to ease that pain
 and to protect their perpetually raw and vulnerable ego from the shame of being recognized as empty or terrible.

This is why they can't accept responsibility for their crap; because ~in that moment~ they'd feel finally exposed as awful; not just to other people, but also exposed to themselves.

They need that perpetually clean-slate of guiltlessness, so they can keep self-identifying with the wonderful mask they wear.

Ironically, many facets of their wonderful mask ... are (in most cases) true and meaningful things about who they are.
But they never really feel self-identified by those things. They want to be. They pretend to believe these things identify who they are. 

But they can't get past that feeling like the true self is blank-or-worse, and that their best skills, traits, etc are somehow separate from who they are.