The Darkest Triad

A few years ago, I was talking with a psychologist friend of mine and I happened to mention to her that I once had two narcissists in my life. She told me something I never forgot. She said that whenever she got a narcissist for a patient she always referred them out. She had a bias against narcissists. They were the only kind of human being that she truly hated.

The problem with narcissists is they are incurable. My therapist friend went into psychology to help people, not to waste time.

Narcissists only go into therapy, when they ever do, to prove how much smarter they are than the therapist. There is nothing for the therapist to work with. Therapy requires a certain amount of humility and narcissists have none. They lack a lot of other things as well.

The 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) gives nine diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Any five of these criteria are sufficient for a diagnosis.

Those criteria are: grandiosity, constant need for admiration, a sense of entitlement, exploitative behaviour, lack of empathy, fantasies of unlimited success, beauty or power, belief that one is special or unique, envy of others or belief that others envy them, and arrogance or haughtiness.

The patient Donald John Trump satisfies all nine. I say this despite the certain fact that it goes without saying.

There is an informal but very useful type of narcissism called “malignant narcissism.” The concept was developed by 20th century psychologist Erich Fromm. It’s narcissism in its darkest form. You might say it’s turbocharged narcissism. It’s narcissism on steroids.

Malignant narcissism includes sadism and paranoia. Malignant narcissists are sociopaths who have absolutely no conscience.

This is just my opinion, but I think the distinction between garden variety narcissism and malignant narcissism is useful because, while some narcissists can be harmless, even charming and fun, malignant narcissists never are.

Malignant narcissists are in fact extremely dangerous. It’s like the distinction between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. They are so different from one another they almost require their very own separate categories.

Because it is not a formal diagnosis we have no formal statistics on malignant narcissism. But it’s generally agreed that about 70% of malignant narcissists are men and 30% are women, more or less.

I think it’s clear that the patient Donald John Trump is a malignant narcissist. Again, I say this despite the fact that it goes without saying.

Thus far we have dealt with the formal definition of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), and the informal definition of the informal personality disorder known as malignant narcissism. There are two more.

The term Dark Triad is used in personality psychology to refer to a special case of the malignant narcissist which includes Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Because there is a certain amount of overlapping in the Venn diagram of the Dark Triad, it’s thought to be imprecise.

But I think it’s useful if used sparingly. Especially because it sets up a unique personality disorder that is entirely of my own invention. Again, this is just my opinion. I am not a psychologist. But I do claim the poetic licence of every writer, and I think many will see some merit in my newly minted personality disorder.

I call it The Darkest Triad. It is the combination of all the very worst traits of The Dark Triad together with enormous power concentrated into a single man. So far only one man in history, as far as I know, fully fits the diagnostic criteria for The Darkest Triad.

I think it goes without saying that the man I am referring to is the patient Donald John Trump.

Trump is the perfect storm of all of this awfulness. And he was given the closest thing to unlimited power on earth, power that has no equal in the history of the world. He is so deadly dangerous that it literally may come down to this: either Trump is stopped or we are finished. Finished as a nation, finished as a world of nations, finished as a planet. That is The Darkest Triad.

The Darkest Triad

There is a Thing in the Office Oval,
Quarantined by its terrified sentries
who bring it food. Tossing the bones over
its hunchback shoulder the Thing shrieks again:
“Bring me more fine morsels of human pain!”
The Thing has enemies to be consumed
Who lacked all nerve. The sentries’ shovels serve
Its food and then it eats — and eats again.

“It’s The Darkest Triad,” whispers one sentry
to the other, “and It will never end.”
And then the Thing awoke and shrieked for more.
The Darkest Triad. The sentries had one thing
the Thing could never ever have: enough.
The Darkest Triad. Feeding time returned
Every hour on the hour until
Nothing more was left but for the Thing,
Before the day was done, to turn to them
With jaws and eyes — remorseless as the sun.

If you enjoyed this article please leave a “like”