What is megalomaniac?

What Does megalomaniac Mean

It is mentioned as megalómano to those suffering from megalomanía . The term megalomania, in turn, alludes to mania linked to greatness .

A mania is an exaggerated and capricious preoccupation with a certain subject. For psychiatry , it is a clinical picture that arises from an exacerbation of self-awareness.
Megalomania, in this framework, is a condition given by the delusion of power . The megalomaniac has excessive self-esteem and feels omnipotent .
The megalomaniac is often seen as a narcissist . These subjects believe they are superior to the rest of society and that is why they think that they are destined to guide or lead people.

This personality disorder is characterized by grandiosity. The individual thinks it is very important and demands constant attention and applause. At the same time, he is someone who lacks empathy , since he is located on a different plane from others.
The megalomaniac is self-centered and arrogant and admires himself. Socially he tends to be confrontational because he assumes that he is not valued or admired enough.
Through this behavior, experts say, the megalomaniac covers up his negative feelings and insecurity. That is why also its constant aggressiveness as a defensive mechanism.
Megalomania is frequent in those who occupy a leadership position. These people often develop a mistaken perception of their relevance and the scope of their works , which they exaggerately exaggerate. Thus the megalomaniac does not feel recognized enough.
It is very common for people with megalomania to go to extremes impossible for those around them to understand, in terms of their comments about their abilities, their physical beauty, their purchasing power and their academic achievements . The apparent self-confidence with which they describe themselves generates uncertainty in others, who sometimes come to think that it is a joke.
However, far from being a short stage of life, in certain individuals megalomania lasts much of it, if not all. The desire for recognition, mentioned above, can be related to fame through the media, either for artistic reasons or any other area in which the megalomaniac can show the whole world "his greatness."
According to Sigmund Freud , the neurotic sense of superiority and absolute power that the megalomaniac experiences is rooted in the feelings and sensations of childhood , when we have not yet understood our limits. He also believed that in various forms of paranoia it is possible to find traits of megalomania.

This link between megalomania and childhood is common to all during the first stage of life, and little by little it fades as we accept and internalize social precepts: since it is not well seen to despise others or feel more important than others. Furthermore, we replace these ideas of greatness with more realistic notions of ourselves.
The psychiatrist Edmund Bergler , also a native of Austria, agreed with Freud's views on childhood and megalomania, but added that later in development it can be activated again as a game.
According to the Austrian psychoanalyst Otto Fenichel , people who deny narcissistic harm in adulthood go through a regression that resembles the megalomania of the first years of life.
Freud considered megalomania to be an obstacle to the study of psychoanalysts. However, this idea changed over time, particularly in North America and Great Britain, where other practitioners of the mind defined it as a defense mechanism .