Understanding the Fluidity and Overlap of Narcissistic Types
Most of us who’ve worked closely with narcissistic presentations—whether clinically, in research, or both—know there’s something off about the neat little boxes we’ve created. The classic categories (grandiose, vulnerable, malignant, communal) are useful… until they aren’t.
In practice, people don’t show up with clean diagnostic lines. They show up messy, in flux, shifting between charming and hostile, inflated and deflated, altruistic and manipulative—often in the same session.
That’s the tension I want to dig into here: what happens when we stop forcing narcissism into categories and instead pay attention to its natural movement?
Because once you start watching that movement, you begin to see something else: that these “types” aren’t types at all, at least not in the way we usually think about them.
They’re states, strategies, and postures—more fluid than fixed, more interwoven than isolated. And frankly, we’re missing the point when we act like they don’t bleed into each other constantly.
Why the usual narcissistic categories fall short
We’ve all read and probably taught the difference between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. It’s been a staple in both psychodynamic theory and personality research for decades. But the more time you spend with actual narcissistic personalities—not just data sets or test scores—the more you realize: this divide is far more artificial than we admit.
A short history of oversimplification
The split between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism really got traction through the contrast between Kohut’s self-psychology and Kernberg’s object relations lens. Kohut emphasized deficits and vulnerability; Kernberg stressed aggression, entitlement, and manipulation. Later came the DSM’s more behaviorally focused definition (hello, NPD), which leaned heavily toward grandiosity, largely ignoring the vulnerable side for decades.
Then came the rise of measurement tools: the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) painted narcissism as a socially confident, inflated self-image (i.e., grandiose), while the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) and later multidimensional tools tried to include vulnerability and internal suffering. Those models were (and still are) incredibly helpful, but they also solidified the idea of a binary split. You’re either grandiose or vulnerable—or, more recently, you’re “covert” or “overt,” which is just the same binary in disguise.
But in real life, people don’t split so cleanly
Let me give you an example: I had a client who would present as deeply introspective and self-critical, sometimes tearful in session. She’d talk about her inadequacies, how people always leave her, how she hates how needy she gets. That sounds vulnerable, right?
And then, boom—the moment she perceived even mild therapeutic challenge, she’d switch. She’d start mocking therapy as pointless, implying I wasn’t sharp enough to understand her. Then later, back to distress and woundedness. Same session.
What do we do with that? Is she vulnerable or grandiose? The answer, of course, is both. And neither. And more.
Grandiosity and vulnerability often exist on a pendulum
Ronningstam and Pincus have both pointed to this—that grandiose and vulnerable states often co-occur or alternate based on internal or external threats to the self. It’s not that the person “has” two modes like a switch. It’s more that these are regulatory strategies responding to perceived narcissistic injury.
So when a client oscillates between defensiveness and shame, dominance and collapse, they’re not being inconsistent. They’re showing us the internal conflict at the heart of narcissism—a self that needs to stay inflated to survive, but also collapses under its own contradictions.
Narcissistic states are reactive and contextual
It’s not just what the narcissistic person brings into the room—it’s also what the room activates. Say a person with communal narcissistic traits volunteers obsessively, and they genuinely believe they’re the most moral person in their friend group. They come across as humble and giving, but they bristle when they’re not publicly acknowledged or praised for their kindness. They’re not just kind; they’re performing kindness in service of self-worth.
That kind of narcissism doesn’t cleanly fit into the communal subtype—or vulnerable, or grandiose. It’s situational, reactive, and layered. And it’s not rare.
Another place we see this: trauma-related narcissism. When early attachment trauma intersects with narcissistic structures, you often see fluidity between hyper-independence (a kind of survival-based grandiosity) and relational panic (a collapse into vulnerable dysregulation). Again—this isn’t two types in one person. This is one person using multiple, sometimes contradictory strategies to keep the self intact.
We need to shift from “type” to “process”
If there’s one idea I’d love to see take root more deeply in both clinical and research worlds, it’s this:
Narcissistic traits are not static personality dimensions; they are dynamic, affect-regulating processes.
This doesn’t mean we throw out typologies—they’re useful heuristics. But when we treat them like fixed structures, we stop asking more interesting questions. We stop tracking movement, interaction, function. And that’s where the really juicy clinical insights are.
In therapeutic work, this matters because it changes what we listen for. We stop saying “This person is a grandiose narcissist” and start asking “What threatens this person’s self right now—and what do they do when that threat shows up?” That’s a more alive, more human, and frankly more clinically helpful stance.
So yeah, we need our models. But we also need to outgrow them. Narcissism isn’t a set of static traits to measure—it’s a choreography of self-preservation, playing out in real time. And if we only see the costumes and not the movement, we’re missing the show.
What Narcissism Looks Like in Real Life
Let’s zoom in on where things actually get messy: when narcissistic traits don’t sit still. In the wild—i.e., therapy offices, families, boardrooms—narcissism doesn’t show up as a fixed “type.” It shows up as a sliding scale of defense, need, and performance. What I’ve found helpful is tracking how these traits blend, shift, and surface in different contexts.
Here’s a breakdown of some patterns I’ve seen repeatedly—some in clients, some in supervisees’ cases, and honestly, a few in people outside the therapy room, too. Each example pushes back on the idea that narcissistic types are separate and stable. Instead, they show us just how much narcissism morphs to fit internal need and external conditions.
The grandiose–vulnerable switch
You’ve probably seen this one: someone who initially presents as confident, superior, dismissive—classic grandiosity. But the moment they experience failure, rejection, or even mild disappointment, that shiny self cracks. Suddenly you’re looking at a collapsed, rageful, or shame-ridden person.
This isn’t a split personality. It’s an internal balancing act. The grandiosity is armor. When it fails, vulnerability floods in—raw, unprocessed, and overwhelming. The person isn’t either/or. They’re flipping between poles to maintain a sense of self.
In therapy, I’ve seen this in high-achieving clients who present as bold and assertive until something in the therapeutic alliance shifts. Even neutral feedback can unearth deep insecurity, and then you’re no longer talking to the same ego state.
Malignant narcissism with flashes of empathy
Malignant narcissism gets a bad rap—often for good reason—but it’s not as emotionally flat or affectively dead as it’s sometimes portrayed. One of the more unsettling things is how selective empathy can show up even in this constellation.
For instance, I once worked with someone who regularly manipulated family members and coworkers, yet was deeply attuned to the emotional needs of a niece who idolized him. He could be devastatingly cruel to peers and shockingly tender toward this child—not because he was faking it, but because that relationship reinforced his desired image.
It wasn’t that he didn’t feel anything. He felt things in strategic doses—affect filtered through ego preservation. That’s a key theme across narcissistic styles: emotions aren’t absent; they’re instrumentalized.
Communal narcissists and the moral superiority complex
If you’ve ever tangled with a communal narcissist, you know how slippery this one is. These are the folks who seem incredibly selfless—always volunteering, always organizing food drives, always taking care of someone. But it’s not really about the people they’re helping. It’s about being seen as the person who helps.
What’s tricky here is that the behavior looks prosocial, but the motivation is deeply self-serving. They don’t just want to do good—they want to own goodness.
When that image is threatened—say, someone else gets credit—they can become passive-aggressive, undermining, or even openly hostile. I had a supervisee work with a woman who volunteered at multiple nonprofits and claimed to “live for others.” But when a newer volunteer got public praise, she exploded into envy, sabotaged her, and then positioned herself as the real victim.
It wasn’t vulnerability or grandiosity alone. It was both—camouflaged by altruism.
What countertransference can teach us
If you’ve been doing this work long enough, you know countertransference isn’t just noise—it’s data. Narcissistic presentations that flip between idealizing and devaluing often evoke strong reactions: exhaustion, confusion, sometimes even awe or admiration.
When I start to feel like I’m being cast in a role—rescuer, idiot, audience—I start to pay close attention. The narcissistic structure doesn’t just act. It recruits. And what we feel as clinicians often tells us more than the content of the session.
That “hook” we feel? That’s the narcissistic fluidity in action—drawing us into the client’s shifting self-narrative. It’s a performance, but not necessarily a conscious one. The performance is the only way they know how to regulate the chaos underneath.
The same person, different settings
One more wrinkle: context shifts narcissistic expression. Someone may act deeply grandiose at work (dominating, performing, posturing) and then appear passive and fragile in intimate relationships. That doesn’t make them two people—it just means their narcissistic defenses are triggered differently depending on the relational landscape.
In couples therapy, I’ve seen this dissonance drive partners crazy: “He’s so confident and in control at work—why is he so sensitive and shut down with me?” Because narcissism isn’t a core—it’s a coping pattern. And different patterns activate in different attachment arenas.
Why Our Models Need to Catch Up
If you’ve made it this far, then you’re probably already on board with the idea that narcissism is more fluid and contextual than we were taught. So the question becomes: What do we do about that? How do we shift our frameworks—diagnostically, theoretically, and clinically—to actually reflect the complexity we’re seeing?
Here’s where I think the conversation needs to go.
The limits of fixed trait models
We rely heavily on dimensional trait measures like the NPI or PNI, and they’ve absolutely advanced our understanding. But there’s a catch: they assume stability. When someone scores high on grandiosity, we tend to treat that as a defining feature of their personality.
But what if narcissistic traits fluctuate not just over years but from hour to hour, depending on context and interpersonal dynamics? Most of our tools aren’t built to capture that level of movement. And that means we’re missing how narcissism actually functions as a regulatory system, not just a cluster of traits.
We need more research methods that track affective shifts in real time—ecological momentary assessment, narrative analysis, therapy session transcripts—so we can actually observe narcissistic states in action.
From diagnosis to narrative
Diagnosis has its place, but it often encourages static thinking. What would it look like to take a narrative or psychodynamic formulation approach instead?
Instead of asking, “Is this person grandiose or vulnerable?” we ask, “How does this person construct a self under threat?”
Instead of asking, “What type is this?” we ask, “What are they defending against, and why does it show up this way here?”
That kind of thinking allows for movement, contradiction, and even growth. It lets us see narcissism not as a wall, but as a process.
Clinical work gets richer when we drop the categories
In the room, rigid typologies can flatten our understanding. Once you label someone as “a narcissist,” it’s easy to start filtering everything they do through that lens. But when you drop the label and start watching the shifts, you begin to notice new things:
- Moments of genuine emotional contact
- Bursts of insight followed by retreat
- Subtle manipulations that aren’t malicious but desperate
Those are the openings. And they matter more than which “type” box someone fits into. If you’re doing deep work with narcissistic clients, it’s the movement that tells you where the pain is—and how close you’re getting to it.
Research has to follow therapy’s lead
Honestly, therapy is often ahead of the literature here. Clinicians have long known that narcissistic clients don’t sit still inside their “types.” What we need now is for the research to catch up—not just by refining measurements, but by embracing messier, more qualitative data.
We need longitudinal work that captures shifts in presentation over time, across relationships, and in response to key life events. We need more case-based work that centers complexity, not averages. And we need to stop pretending that the NPI and PNI are giving us the full picture. They’re not.
It’s Time To Wrap Up
Here’s the bottom line: narcissism isn’t a frozen trait—it’s a dynamic system of strategies, reactions, and performances. And when we reduce it to fixed types, we flatten both the person and the problem.
By tracking the movement—between grandiosity and shame, between performance and collapse—we start to see the deeper architecture of the narcissistic self: fragile, brilliant, defensive, and deeply human.
So maybe the work now is to stop asking what type of narcissist someone is—and start asking what they’re trying to hold together. That question, I think, gets us a lot closer to the truth.
