Weekly Insights: Is Narcissism the New Moral Panic?

In this Weekly Insight, Dr. Ettensohn examines the rise of moral panic within contemporary discourse about narcissism, particularly how popular online narratives have transformed psychological terms into tools of moral judgment.

In this Weekly Insight, Dr. Ettensohn examines the rise of moral panic within contemporary discourse about narcissism, particularly how popular online narratives have transformed psychological terms into tools of moral judgment. Using a recent online interaction as a jumping-off point, the video traces how disagreement is increasingly reframed as harm, and how nuanced discussions of narcissistic personality structure are met with accusations of abuse, gaslighting, or complicity. Drawing on Stanley Cohen’s original criteria for moral panic, and placing current trends alongside historical examples such as witch hunts, McCarthyism, and the Satanic Panic, Dr. Ettensohn contextualizes the intense emotional reactions that now dominate conversations about NPD.

The video explores how stigma, stereotypes, and moral binaries are amplified online, creating a culture in which appeals to complexity and humanity have become taboo. It also considers the communal function of scapegoating within current narratives about narcissism.

This video offers a clinically grounded, sociologically informed framework for understanding what happens when trauma discourse is overtaken by lurid sensationalism and moral panic, and why the path toward healing lies in reclaiming psychological depth, complexity, and humanization.