Egomania is also known as an obsessive preoccupation with one's self and applies to someone who follows their own ungoverned impulses and is possessed by delusions of personal greatness and feels a lack of appreciation. Someone suffering from this extreme egocentric focus is an egomaniac. The condition is psychologically abnormal.

The term "egomania" is often used by laypersons in a pejorative fashion to describe an individual who is intolerably self-centred. The clinical condition that most resembles the popular conception of egomania is narcissistic personality disorder.

Egomania has also been linked with alcoholism. 'Egomania drives many young alcoholics...alcoholism-created egomania'. A recovering alcoholic may well look back at the past as 'the land of self-loathing, egomania, and decay'.

The danger with the egomaniac is always that 'underneath the apparent over-confidence and bravado lies a fragile personality', driven by 'grandiose fantasies of boundless success or power or perfect love' which cannot be fulfilled.