Deep into the Mind of Narcissists & Sociopaths. Radio Interview. Narcissism & Sociopathy. Expert

so welcome to conscious lifestyles with ginger Leilani Chapin hey there welcome to the show I have a very special returning guest in the new year Ross Rosenberg he is an author and professional trainer psychotherapist and he is the author of the much celebrated book the human magnet syndrome why we love the people who hurt us welcome Ross Rosenberg back to the show well thanks ginger I'm so glad to be on I love being on your show tell my listeners how they can get a hold of you sure I have a but two ways I have a website human magnet syndrome calm just like it sounds human magnet center.com and my youtube channel instead of giving you a long name just go to youtube and type in Ross Rosenberg and Rosenberg is spelled are OSE and BER G where I have about 65 YouTube videos which are at present up to a million views now well tell me about your latest training which I understand is going to be the basis for your next book reversing the human magnet syndrome the codependency cure yeah I'm actually really excited about it when I when I wrote the human magnet syndrome the readers or the training participants always ask so what do I do now that you've explained what happens and why it happens what do we do and I kept saying it will be in my next book and now this is my book this X actually tells the reader what I've done my whole career and in my own life is to change that part of us it repeats those patterns and to look at it not so simply as just to stop codependency but understand dependency is a result of some deep psychological reasons mostly the relationship that you had is a child with your narcissistic parent so it goes into it goes into detail what to do and how to change it uh so yeah I look forward to the second book by the way so what are and who are pathological narcissists it's it's a term that I created to explain the exact opposite of a codependent you know in my in my book human magazine room I have a theory called a continuum of self theory and on each side of the continuum are exact opposites on one opposite side are the people who are pathological caretakers so what's the word for pathological caretaker a codependent on the other side of the continuum is pathological turn eaters what's the word we use for people that are so sick and pathologically connected to only their own needs well they're they're pathological narcissist and pathological narcissists represent a few different diagnoses for example narcissistic personality disorder borderline personality disorder antisocial personality disorder or the sociopath and someone who has an addiction of the addiction while someone's and that while someone's addicted they are very deeply narcissistic so the pathological narcissist is a group of people who are severely narcissistic who cannot be empathetic or altruistic who always make everything about themselves or grandiose they're entitled they think everything is about them or for them they get mad if you correct them I mean these are the nurses that don't even know that they're narcissists because they're so impaired that just a suggestions or narcissistic will attack you and accuse you or projected your the nurses that's about this that's the nutshell version of that definition well a projection that's a very important word in psychology can you expand on that a little bit sure projection actually is misused and projection according it's actually one of those very few terms that Freud created that we actually still use you know Freud has a lot of stuff that doesn't really hold up anymore but rejection is a defense mechanism where if you can't really recognize what's wrong with you because it's so shameful that you actually repress that and you can't even think about that but what I had what when you see someone who says so if you are selfish and narcissistic of course by definition pathological narcissists can't or doesn't know about that they will see that in other people sonar nets that explains what narcissists don't like nurses they get triggered so if a narcissist is meets another narcissist he will say he's selfish he self-centered he brags what he's really talking about is himself the turn it that there is a term that an old therapist once told me and he used to be you spot it you got it we tend to see in others what we can't accept in ourselves projection is when we see in others traits that are too difficult for us to accept but much easier to see and then to blame others for well let me ask you this to expand on the question here what's the difference between someone who's just simply immature and self-centered and a true narcissist like you know someone who really has psychological problems in a psychopath great question and because of that question too and another version of that question is what's the difference of a codependent and someone who's just like the caregiving but focusing on your question is to answer that I created the continuum of self and there are gradations or of narcissism severity so in my theory you know I I have a point system and there there is five on the continuum there's none there's zero is the middle and then there's there's five not a five-point scale of narcissism it is completely healthy and normal to think about yourself to want to do things for yourself to talk about yourself and especially when you're younger it's actually developmentally appropriate so this mild narcissism is not catho logical you know people are sports players or you know there's musicians and they just love having people look at them or having people admire them mm-hmm that is normal healthy narcissism so the person as they get more narcissistic they become less empathetic less less connected to other people's needs so somewhere along the continuum it starts to get unhealthy so that's where I have the numbers 1 2 3 4 & 5 and in my continuum that the number 3 is someone who is narcissistic but still able to be empathetic and take care of people so somewhere along the line it becomes pathological where you start to hurt people and you don't change so the line between unhealthy narcissism and how unhealthy narcissism is your ability to be mutual and reciprocal in a relationship for example if you're a an author talking about myself or you're a doctor and you like to talk about yourself you like to get attention but yet in a relationship you still can be loving and caring so that that's that's the balance well that's a very very important answer to a question I think a lot of people have in their in their minds about this we're talking with Ross Rosenberg today you can find him on the human magnet syndrome calm and his book the human magnet syndrome why we love the people who hurt us we have to go to a quick break but I want everyone to know that this is such an important topic we've got to have you back Ross because so many people have become victims it's across the board it's not just in in you know in your personal life but it's also bleeds over into your professional life in every aspect of your life hey there welcome back to the show this is conscious lifestyles we're talking with Ross Rosenberg today he is the author of the book the human magnet syndrome why we love the people who hurt us Ross I want to ask you is it true that it's one in five people who are psychopathic sociopathic in society today what I know it's it's it's probably closer to 1 1 to 3 percent but you know those those statistics you have to take with a grain of salt because you know trying to find out who on how many people in our country have a disorder and it's hard to get to have them represented because people don't see them they hide from others yes versus the person that goes in you know you know to a doctor for a certain type of treatment that we contract but but it's estimated between 1 and 3 percent and maybe as high as 500k so leading to the next question are there some professions that are attracted to these personality types and these people I mean if you think about it a job that requires you to make yourself center stage to get people to want you to love you to need you that is a perfect job for someone with was a pathological narcissist because the job fuels their their psychologically depraved needs so let's think about that politicians to get elected you have to make everyone like you love you and believe everything you say so your your personality revolves around what people need of you so I'm not saying that almost most politicians have NPD narcissistic personís order but I do believe that a significant majority of them do because it represents what we see in Congress Congress you know not too long ago had 11 percent approval rate is because they couldn't communicate they couldn't get along what we know about narcissist is they don't like each other and they trigger each other narcissists remember the projection they blame everyone for the very same problems that they have right and so when you get a you get a congress full of narcissus you're not going to not going to make any progress so I think more and more narsing and people with NPD are gravitating towards Congress Sports singing sports or music or anything where people can control control everyone by getting all the attention and needs met hmm well it what's interesting about this disorder is that you have explained in the past that early childhood trauma can create this personality disorder can you go into that just a little bit sure I'm in my book demon Magnus Enderman and also in my second book that I'm writing now I talked about the origins or the genesis of these disorders and interestingly enough they both often originate in the same type of family the codependent personality type or these pathological narcissists we can usually trace back the origins of the disorder to a certain type of trauma which I call attachment trauma and that happens when one of your parents is a pathological narcissist so if you are a child and you basically come into this world as more or less you know except for your genetic predispositions you know a blank slate you need unconditional love all children need that disrupt this rise but wondering if one of your parents is a pathological narcissist you are going to try to do whatever you can as a child I'll be it's limited I'll be it is limited you're going to try to get the parent to love you the child that can figure out a way to get the parent to love them the good child that the trophy child the pleasing child the child it becomes a gift that child gets all the love from the parent so the message to that child and he takes into his adulthood is that you are loved when you make other people feel good about themselves you become a human doing instead of a human being and that's a relationship template that they bring into adulthood that manifests in codependency but the child with the same parent it's that can't make their parents happy for a variety of reasons whether its genetic whether it's psychological whether the with colicky who knows if that child can't figure out a way to make mommy or daddy whoever's an artist is happy that child doesn't get any love I'm any left unconditional love at all so that child grows up in a very dark hostile environment and in which they feel unlovable and can't figure out a way to be loved and this child grows up labeled as the bad seed and this child starts to act out and learns early on that there's no love for you so you have to create the love for yourself and and there and therefore they learn how to manipulate to get what you're exactly early on their relationship template is set that they find attention by doing it for themselves and they take that relationship tablet into adulthood it's about me and the only way I'm going to get things met is by take care of me which means I have to manipulate others or because and so that is the origins of the pathological narcissism well you've also taught that they're very good at creating a persona putting on a facade but what is behind that facade is very different from what the average person sees you mentioned politicians they're you know that's an obvious to me an obvious choice of they make promises they put on a persona but they're not really they oftentimes do not are not sincere so that can that can cross over into any part of your life into any profession doctors come to mind you know contractors of course come to mind for me you know it's any they will put on the persona to manipulate their victim and get what they want so how can you see that person coming down the pike what are some some traits and characteristics and and and ways that they go about doing things their behavior patterns that you can you can catch it before you become a victim well before I answer that question let me first answer it diagnostically there's two disorders that that that fall into the type of person your one is the covert narcissist someone who is severely narcissistic those are narcissistic and they project this this exterior this facade of loving altruistic giving they create just this this outer exterior of a codependent and to everyone that looks at them that they see this beautiful loving giving person all beat whether there are TV personality a politician and the other the other form of this the other side of this is a sociopath and that's a person who actually cannot be in a relationship but understands to get what they need in relationship they have to pretend and be someone else so the difference between the covert narcissist is they're actually they actually want to be in a relationship but they're really in that relationship they need to be in charge and they need to get all the love because it's a narcissism hey there welcome back to conscious lifestyles this is ginger Leilani Chapin I'm talking with Ross Rosenberg today you've got to check out his book the human magnet syndrome why we love the people who hurt us you can find him on the human magnet syndrome calm Ross before we had to go to a quick break I had to cut you off you were talking about covert narcissist could you please add in your answer why a covert narcissist is so dangerous so the covert narcissist and the sociopath are dangerous because they won't manipulate you to get what they need and they don't have empathy for what they do so anyone that doesn't have empathy for hurting you is a dangerous person there is a pathological narcissist that can do things that they don't have what all of us most none of us most of us have is a sense of ethics and morality that actually cause stress and anxiety when we're doing something bad mm-hmm so the danger is they can do things that make no sense to someone that actually has a sense of morality you know so they're a contractor or a politician or a policeman or a therapist for that matter when it's all about them and they have power over you then you know they can cause great harm so but you had asked the question and I want to get to it so how do we identify those people so if I if I put them if I put the covert narcissist and us in the sociopath in one category is we identify them by inconsistencies the person who is a who is who is not or is neither a covert narcissist or a sociopath you're going to see that they're connected to others you're going to see that their connection is behind the scenes and in front of the scenes the covert narcissist and a sociopath behind the scenes you never see because if you know what's behind the scenes then they're you know then they're mask is you're taking their mask off so one red flag is to kind of look for their backstory look for information that goes beyond what they're saying and what they want get background information check references go on the internet and google them you'd be surprised what you could find if you Google yeah someone another thing is is take note of how often they're asking for things versus how often they are giving things and are they leveraging what they're giving because people who are not a pathological narcissist give because they enjoy giving and they love someone or they care for someone the covert narcissist or the the sociopath is doing it because they need something from you or and there's leverage there and it will never be unconditional and sometimes it's hard to see in the beginning because you aren't you are you are connected to their charm and/or likability another another red flag is if it's too good to be true then it's probably not true then ask yourself so what's not so great about them because we all have a shadow self we all even though the healthiest people have our side where we're not so perfect the person that comes across everything is happy and good look for the other side because you know what I think I think that's a healthy part of relationship building well that those are all very good points I did want to ask you unqualified therapist now you did kind of mention that a little bit and I know that you have some followers who have actually talked about that on your YouTube channel you know there are unqualified therapists you may have become a victim many of us have been and you go to a therapist and the therapist actually ends up revitalizing you because they want you to forgive would you talk about and then they also don't know how to even identify or help the victim they don't know how to identify this like a path because they're not trained in that and then they don't know how to help the victim of the psychopath well in it the thing about going to a therapist it's it's really really tricky because there are so many different types of problems and then the second thing to consider just because you know about it doesn't mean you know what to deal with it for example I know a lot about narcissus but I don't work with them mm-hmm and that's good because I know what I'm good at I know what I'm not I know a lot about codependence or trauma survivors and I know how to work with them that the key to a good therapist is do they know how to get you to where you need to be do they have the skill not just to listen to you and validate you which most people mistake is therapy because it does feel good and you walk away feeling better than you started but true therapy in my estimation is is the person that makes you feel good and empowered but lead you into solving the problem that you came to therapy for and more often than not the problem you came to therapy for is a symptom to the deeper problem and that's the therapist that you need because and that's why I'm writing my second book is to cure codependency to solve codependency you actually need to know where it comes from and and not only do you need to know where it comes from you need to know how to resolve the problem that started it all mm-hmm great another point yet and those therapists are more they're not there's not as many of those services there are because that takes a good amount of skill knowledge and and ability well that's why your books are so important and so many people gravitate to them and really need you on YouTube for that very reason okay getting to the next question who is susceptible to the emotional manipulator I think we all are the visit the emotional manipulator especially the Psychopaths and the sociopaths have the ability to fool all of us the narcissists usually give it away the covert much much more difficult because they have this exterior that seems perfect but they also have an interior that if you're connected to them in a relationship you can see so but the person who is most vulnerable according to the human magnet syndrome theory is the codependent because the codependent remember grew up with early childhood experiences being around narcissists and it's almost as if they know how to do it's like you there's an analogy you can they know how to be with narcissists with the lights off hmm I mean it's like they intuitively know what to do because they were subjected to that relationship so it's paradoxical they will seek what's familiar to them which explains you know some of our friends were codependents will you know who always take the narcissist the human magnet syndrome they'll also say that they went on a date they met someone who's perfect who seems so nice and so sweet and so honest but they'll say there's no chemistry well that's the human maggot syndrome they don't know what to do with that person because it's that dance I talked about you need the two opposite people to make yourself feel like you're connected so the person long story short the person who is most susceptible to emotional manipulators is a codependent because they they fall for their manipulation because that has been their life story hmm well that's a you know such an important thing to think about it's a much larger topic than what we have time for today but I do want to ask you how do these emotional manipulators covert narcissists and covert narcissists as you mentioned are extremely difficult to spot oftentimes they put themselves into positions of authority so they could be a teacher a clergyman someone who you're supposed to respect and unfortunately that can really because you let your guard down that can really do a lot of damage so how do they trap people into relationships well I mean they trap people because they find people that are susceptible to their personality type and those are people who tend to be not always but tend to be codependent side because the person who is not codependent will catch them let me give you an example I had a therapist once and I think that that therapist was a covert narcissist and in therapy he said something that I didn't like and I said he was wrong I mean all of a sudden he got mad and got argumentative yeah yes and so the and and then the relationship kind of fell apart because I wouldn't back down well that's a big sign because you actually held a mirror up to him and he didn't like it right exactly but more simply perfectly that was actually a really good way to sing it but simplifying that is a way to figure out someone is a covert narcissist is confront them with constructive criticism or criticism or feedback and they will get mad and angry and try to regain control so and then you will see that the altruistic kind veneer or exterior kind of melt away to someone who's angry who wants to get you back into that role where they're the expert and you're the follower and the covert narcissists respond to disbelievers or people who don't agree with them reactively it's not always anger sometimes if they're like the therapist or a rabbi or a priest hi there welcome back to conscious lifestyles we're having a very important discussion today with Ross Rosenberg he is the author of the human magnet syndrome why we love the people who hurt us please find him on the human magnet syndrome calm Ross I had to interrupt you very quickly before we went to a break you were talking about the covert narcissus and how they try to regain control and regain compliance of their victim go ahead and and so um so you know let's say it's that covered narcissus has a role of where they're supposed to be kind you know whether they're a talk show host a therapist Oh God and that's how much a doctor that they don't try to hide it but not all of them some of them at any rate so my point is that those who are the altruistic form of covert narcissist they will they won't react really angrily at you it will be it will be passive-aggressive they will indirectly try to hurt you and directly try to disempower you indirectly try to manipulate you or triangulate you in order to keep you from I'm calling them out what about laughing don't they use laughter or smirking or some type of psychological behavior if laughing gets you mad you bet I'm passive aggression the person is not passive aggressive will tell you off because it gets you mad the person is passive-aggressive who knows if he smirks or last at you and it pisses you off and that he'll smirk or if it forces you into compliance because it belittles you right it if it belittles you and your endure laughing that's passive-aggressive because on the outside you're being passive but the intent is aggressive hmm such an important point you know and I think you had also talked about at one point that they can also a narcissist in a site and someone seriously psychologically deranged and damaged a sociopath or psychopath is very good at getting others on the outside to AH even have to be on their side they also are able to get other groups of people to see their way of it and their side of it as though they were the victim and the victim was actually the aggressor or somehow deserved whatever they got could you talk about that because that's a very damaging thing when you're a victim you know that front we call that triangulation and that is when we we reach out to a second party to hurt a person or a party so for example if you're if you are in a family and your your mom is mad at you and the only way she has power is is to get your sit and I'm not talking about your mom or your siblings for that matter but is to get your sister mad at you and now now she has an audience that she can use to prove her point mm-hm so triangulation occurs when the manipulative party gains power and control over bringing people onto their side for the purpose of hurting someone manipulating someone are getting what they need well that that's important to understand that outsiders can be fooled by the psychopath very easily because again they put on the facade of being this great guy or great gal but they only show that wretched side to their victim but to the rest of the world they keep that facade and in place but the ones that show it to their victim are the ones that have rendered the victim powerless right because the psychopath or the pathological narcissist or sociopath will not show that side if if showing that side decreases the probability of maintaining control or getting what they want so so it is but if you have been rendered weak or someone or powerless because of the triangulation then they will when no one's looking though smile at you and and go to because they know they've got you trapped and that's a way of them not only des to them that's way of them reminding you of the power and control that they have over you and that's truly pathological that's such wonderful information all right the next question I have is is it possible to rid yourself of pathological narcissists according to my book it actually the two books is that it is actually a difficult process and yes it's possible because this pattern that draws people towards pathological narcissists comes from deep psychological forces that you know that were formed early on in our life as such it requires psychotherapy that can address those and resolve those and you know like like PTSD you know like someone who is a trauma survivor to solve that or those traumas in order to let go of those dysfunctional personality traits so yes psychotherapy with the trained practitioner I recommend people who want it who are codependent is fine someone who understands trauma who does trauma psychotherapy and understands codependency because codependency and trauma are deeply connected and I've seen miraculous results I've been doing this type of therapy for 28 years and I've seen so many hundreds hundreds of people solve this codependency dilemma what about taking up you know dancing or doing some charitable work to help your mind and your body heal I think anything you can do to love yourself is important in fact I've been writing about this in it could be an element of some of my future stuff is the opposite of codependency is self-love hmm it's a simplification but the codependent is angry lonely and shame base because if you really loved yourself and you had good self-esteem you would not you would not put yourself in situations where people would harm you or hurt you so anything that can make you love yourself or nurture yourself such as dancing or anything that you suggested is part of the healing process that's such great great information great advice everyone we're talking with Ross Rosenberg today you can find him on the human magnet syndrome com I really have to thank you Ross because I think you're setting a lot of people free with all of your research and your incredible voice in this matter not many people in the world of psychology understand this I want to dedicate the show to anyone and any animal who's been a victim of a psychopath we all should be set free from it thank you so much for listening

Channel: Ross Rosenberg

Views: 314,825

Rating: 4.8275113 out of 5

Keywords: Ross Rosenberg, narcissism expert, what is a covert narcissist, identify a covert narcissist, identifying narcissism, passive aggressive signs, narcissist strategies, what are narcissist strategies, identify a sociopath, dysfunctional Relationship, personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, psychopath, sociopath, narcissism spectrum, signs of narcissism, signs of covert narcissism, relationship with a narcissist, lack of remorse, lack of empathy, Antisocial behavior

Id: YECIi1Zb5kM

Length: 35min 16sec (2116 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 18 2015