Adolf Hitler's Narcissistic-Borderline Personality Disorder

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Adolf Hitler’s horrible actions cannot be attributed to a drug addiction, or just being evil. It was a combination of a mental illness, and a mental disorder that caused him to take the actions. He suffered from a narcissistic-borderline personality disorder. He did not suddenly become mad towards the end of the war, but had been unstable his entire life; when under greater stress, it became more prevalent. A narcissistic personality, which is categorized as a mental disorder can be described as, “driven to control and manipulate others.” The narcissist is constantly seeking praise and when he does not receive it he gets bored, but “with his paranoid features he can avoid this emptiness and even feel deeply engaged when defending himself against imagined enemies,” giving him the feeling of purpose. Narcissists also experience fits of rage that can be unbearable and they may project it onto someone else and then believe the anger originated from that person, or persons. “Controlling, manipulating, and grandiose actions are often justified by the narcissistic personality as ways of coping with such unrealistic threats.” This description fits perfectly with Hitler’s view toward the Jews. He had no true reason to hate them or feel that they were ruining the German race. He created these ideas in his mind and they only got worse over the years to the point where he took action them and then tried to exterminate them completely. The borderline personality, which was only recently categorized as a mental illness , is described as, “a severe disorder characterized by pervasive patterns of disturbance or instability across multiple domains of functioning, including behavior (e.g., chronic fear of abandonment, affective instability, int... ... middle of paper ... ..., Hitler’s Psychopathology (New York: International Universities Press, INC., 1983) National Institute of Mental Health. “Borderline Personality Disorder.” http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml Redlich, Fredrick C., Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.) Kubizek, August, The Young Hitler I Knew. (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2011) Hans-Joachim Neumann and Henrik Eberle, Was Hilter Ill? (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2009) Waite, Robert G. L., Psychopathic God (New York: Basic Books, 1977) Carlson, Elizabeth A., Byron Egeland, and L. A. Sroufe. "A Prospective Investigation of the Development of Borderline Personality Symptoms." Development and Psychopathology 21, no. 4 (11, 2009): 1311-34, http://search.proquest.com/docview/201700811?accountid=27975 (accessed December 5, 2013).

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