This is more about PDs in general here but, psychology as a whole does not fucking understand PDs and the whole system needs an overhaul. Why are we not advocating for a collapse of PD terms, into a spectrum or at the very least renaming NPD to a less demonizing name. How are this many people self proclaimed ‘anti-psychiatry’ and not analyze their assumptions on PDs outside of ‘demonization is bad’.
Every PDs criteria is how they affect people around the one who's really suffering. Of course people are going to demonize people with labels under the 'emotional or erratic disorders'. Of course people are going to consider anyone reacting to trauma in a confrontational way as unreasonable if it's labeled as an 'unreasonable erratic emotional disorder'.
Self aggrandizing ego by itself isn't NPD, it's just a trait that's a hallmark of NPD. there's shitty people out there that are self absorbed and completely neurotypical and they're being conflated with people with real trauma/C-PTSD. Obviously people are going to conflate shitty egotistical assholes with innocent traumatized people if its name 'shitty egotistical asshole disorder', be real. The criteria of disorders in the dsm were designed to dehumanize 'odd' or 'problematic' people to justify locking them up or forcibly controlling them, not to help rehabilitate, accommodate, and heal people.
Leading back to the original post's point, all PDs have a considerable overlap between them. all PDs describe an emotional reaction to continuous trauma. All PDs cause unstable relationships with others, all pds cause fear or resentment toward others. There are times I've confided in people about AVPD (sometimes including our SZPD and NPD traits) and they've tried to armchair rediagnose me with BPD because all they know about PDs is BPD, and all they know about BPD is 'unstable emotions/relationships'. We should all be thinking of PDs as C-PTSD and learned adaptations to harmful childhood environments that are different to each individual, rather than set boxes for traumatized people to be sorted into neatly. how arbitrary and shitty pd criteria are is VERY evident by how many women are diagnosed with BPD or HPD and how many men are diagnosed with ASPD or NPD for the same fucking symptoms. The racial/ethnic bias of PD diagnosis is way too complicated to be put here justly, but PD traits are ignored in black populations and blamed on individuals and 'Hispanic' (I'm assuming the study means latino) men are more likely to be diagnosed with ASPD and BPD.
As cluster B disorders are turned into a horror spectacle for mentally well off people to gawk at, there's little to no treatment for people who are also suffering from a PD/C-PTSD in cluster A or C. the treatment for literally any personality disorder is fucking abysmal or nonexistent. cluster A and C do not have 'privilege' over B, and vice versa. If you're cluster B you're treated as a manipulative evil unreasonable animal and therapy is focused on comforting others, if youre C or A you get nothing, retraumatizing 'therapy' or a misdiagnosis. Did you know common treatment for AVPD makes it worse but teaches the patient to mask better? Did you know SZPD has the least effective therapy results of all the PDs? Did you know people are diagnosed with HPD because the psychiatrist saw them as an annoying woman?
I understand a desire for labels, especially as people with trauma, trauma destroys people's senses of self and identity, but ask yourself why cluster B is specifically demonized when A and C have a lot of the very same traits as any of the disorders in cluster B. Maybe we should be focusing on showing people how these disorders are the result of trauma specific to an individual, and not set 'evil freak' variants of people let loose onto society ok? Aside from universal healthcare and applying that care to mental health, therapy/psychiatry NEEDS to focus on how every patient is different and needs carefully considered help. Is my point coming across the way I'd like it to? sorry if this is an incongruent mess