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Jolyon Jenkins examines empathy and narcissism: effectively two sides of the same coin.

Jolyon Jenkins examines two psychological buzzwords that are supposed to explain this decade's zeitgeist - empathy and narcissism: effectively two sides of the same coin.

BBC Radio 4 LW

I Feel for You: Narcs and narcissists

Narcs and narcissists

BBC Radio 4 - I Feel for You, Narcs and narcissists

Jolyon Jenkins investigates whether we're really in the grip of a narcissism epidemic.

At a time when we are being told we need more empathy, some experts claim narcissism is on the rise. Social media seems obsessed with 'narcs'.  Jolyon Jenkins investigates.

At a time when we're being told we need more empathy, some experts claim that narcissism - empathy's evil twin - is on the rise. Narcissism has vaulted off the psychotherapist’s couch, sprinted away from the psychiatric ward, and is now squatting in the mainstream of popular conversation.

Social media seems obsessed with "narcs", and with detecting narcissism personality disorder in people.  It may or may not be a coincidence that we ended up with an apparent world-class narcissist in the White House at just the time when we seemed to be undergoing a public crisis about narcissism and narcissists. Blogs and books about narcissists are everywhere. 

Jolyon Jenkins talks to people who make a living from advising the public about narcissists, and a self-confessed celebrity narcissist who offers consultations to people who think they may be living with one of "his kind". The evidence that there really is more narcissism around seems thin, but that doesn't mean to say that we shouldn't take it seriously when it flips into a personality disorder.

Producer/presenter: Jolyon Jenkins

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