How To Handle A Narcissist, Sociopath & Psychopath - Dr Ramani, Ep 21

hello everybody welcome to health hackers episode 21 I'm Jim Evans I'm a journalist and presenter here in the UK and this is my series devoted to getting inside the minds of some of the most pioneering figures in health wellness and mindset my guest today is dr. Ramani Durvasula she's a clinical psychologist and wrote the book titled should I stay or should I go surviving a narcissistic relationship over the next thirty minutes we will be discussing how to spot and handle the narcissists in your life but not just that we're going to touch on sociopaths and Psychopaths to dr. Romani hello and thank you for coming on to hackers good morning Gemma so here's what I would love to know first what motivated you to write a book about narcissistic relationships you know it's funny had I had no idea where the world was headed when I originally got into this work and it's funny how it all collided but when I first started doing this work what was really noticing was the clients who were coming into my practice were almost kind of all saying the same thing like the amount they were suffering at the hands of a partner who was really neglectful and lacked all empathy and was really entitled and there would be really bad behavior on social media I mean obviously the the specifics of the story would vary but there would be this consistent peace and the way the people who were being affected by these kinds of relationships was consistent and that pushed me into this literature on narcissism and I was really shocked at how little of the science talked about how other people are affected by it like in psychology we tend to talk about a person like a person with depression person with substance use what they're going through but we don't tend to think as much about how others around that person are affected and especially these personality patterns and at the same time in my lab I'm a university professor at a place called California State University of Los Angeles we were also studying difficult personality patterns and how that related to health and what we were finding is that in a healthcare setting people with these kinds of personality patterns were just wreaking havoc making life miserable for the the doctors for the nurse for the front desk staff and so then I realized like wow there's just a lot of difficult people out there and yet everybody keeps giving them second chances she's having a bad day it's a tough week at work she had a mean mother like they just kept making excuses for these people and it seemed like these people just the narcissists were just receiving these excuses and never changing their behavior the final piece was no matter and then I had clients who were coming in who were narcissistic and I thought nothing I'm doing is working nothing I read everything I could I tried every sarap utak technique and the best I might do is kind of get them to show up on time or not be as insulting and I thought whoa if I'm going through this what are their partners so was like a lot of things happening at the same time and then the world the world took some massive shifts in the last three to five years and narcissism is sort of now become the new normal and it's now in the United States which was a bad week it's getting dangerous it's getting dangerous Wow narcissism could be the new normal oh that's a big statement oh my what so tell us how how do you tell the difference between a narcissist and someone who's just a bit arrogant or a little bit different yeah it's a great question and one of the biggest confusions that comes up and actually causes a lot of tension and online forums is like you should never diagnose someone you've never met so I'm not diagnosing anyone there is a pattern called narcissistic personality disorder that is a diagnosis that appears in in diagnostic manuals like the the DSM or something called the icd-10 it's there with all the bells and whistles of the diagnosis a list of symptoms here's the thing when we diagnose this pattern now not only do you have to have many of these narcissistic patterns but that person also has to be experiencing significant impairment in their life or distress about the symptoms like for example a person who's just depressed it's like I'm miserable I'm sad I can't get out of bed I can't go to work they have a subjective sense of discomfort so they will they'll go get help in most cases a person with narcissistic personality disorder I should say a person who's narcissistic often that feels like my life's going just fine I'm making lots money I do whatever I want whenever I want I don't I'm not bothered by other people I just do what I want so we rarely see narcissistic personality disorder but this pattern called narcissism it's just that it's a pattern it's like a trait you know in some ways it's almost like saying someone's stubborn or they're sweet or kind like we know what that means and so when we look at this word narcissism and the the sort of the noun being a narcissist is that it's like a bucket and in that bucket or all these little words like the person who's narcissistic lacks empathy they're deeply entitled they think they're special and entitled to special treatment and shouldn't have to go through the hoop jumping that other people would have to go to they're very grandiose they're very superficial and shallow they cared tremendously only about appearances and Instagram abou lifestyles and that kind of thing they're they're constantly seeking validation and admiration they need other people to say you're so wonderful you're so great like your picture and that's why for example though do things like cheat on a partner because it's just one more way to get validation have someone tell them how attractive they are something they're very arrogant they can tend to be very manipulative and exploitative of other people in relationships they tend to be deceitful and they tend to lie they're prone to shame like when they do something bad when they apologize it's not because they feel bad about the impact it had on someone else that they feel ashamed that they got caught doing something that makes them look bad you see the difference so they're afraid Richmond yeah they're free of the judgment they don't care until they heard someone yeah maybe the judgments to their jokes I mean but I don't know and dr. Ellen Francis said this beautiful he's like should we really be diagnosing jerks no I mean they're there so that said it's not a diagnosis and I think people like to think it's a diagnosis because then there must be some magic pill or therapy that would make it better well there's not what a narcissist ever seek help I mean if you okay let's let's take it from here if you are in a relationship and you're listening to this and you're thinking oh wow my partner is is a narcissist is there a way of telling that partner like a thing you're a narcissist let's get help or will a narcissists always be like I'm not a narcissist what are you talking about more often than not not only were they not say it say I'm not a narcissist they'll get angry they'll get defensive they'll turn around and say you know what actually you're a narcissistic and they'll twist your reality they'll accuse you you're in though they'll start blaming their partner for every misery they've ever had what happens is that once a person in a narcissistic relationship says you know what I can't do this anymore then sometimes the partner will say okay I'll get help but that can feel more like a manipulation like they're signing up to get help so that that person will not leave the relationship rather than a frank admission that there's something that's not okay about their behavior now all of that said in a very very very tiny number of cases tiny I will have people come up and say I'm a jerk and I know I'm a jerk I have cheated on my wife repeatedly I've treated my colleagues badly I am all about myself my life feels empty can you help me I'll work with them but I gotta tell ya basically what ends up happening is that they just now pull the veil back and realize like they're kind of a shallow person making them more substantiating and full that's tough long-term work it's hard it's hard to do and you got to remember the world especially the person's financially successful the world has told because most men need not most many narcissists are very successful because they tend to be very good businesspeople they're quick they're sharp and they don't care who they hurt so they're willing to close the deal no matter who they hurt in the process because it's worth it it's interesting you say that because I remember reading one of your blog's mm-hmm in which you wrote calling Donald Trump a narcissist isn't even interesting anymore it's like doing the Sun hot and he's usually successful he's gotten everything he's ever wanted because he's never he's revised the story he doesn't care who he hurts and like I said this has been one of the most tragic weeks in America in a long time innocence innocence are getting affected and people are expressing their Rajon and honestly sad a significant chunk of Americans think there's no problems that's narcissism that the idea that I can hurt someone because I don't agree with them instead of saying we have different points of view I mean that agree but I can understand where they're coming from that's empathy they don't have it so why would they they would just hurt other people I don't have empathy so do they ever feel guilty or is it again it's about how they look they feel guilty if they are caught and it makes them look bad they're not like Psychopaths like Psychopaths actually just simply have no remorse they just sort of take what they want and they have it's like they're wired differently narcissists are a little bit too I do think that when ours and I see this when narcissists do bad things they're aware that the thing they're doing is a bad thing but if that thing is going to be good for them whether it's a one-night stand or a business deal or cheating on a test at school or whatever this short-term gain is meaningful to them and it keeps pumping up their ego that even though they're like wow this is a really good thing to do but I'm gonna do it and I'll deal with the problem later and maybe if I'm lucky I won't get caught they're aware what they're doing is wrong they are there what they see there's a difference between being aware knowing what you're doing is wrong and having empathy for the people who'll be affected those are two separate processes hey see you mentioned Psychopaths there we're going to come on to Psychopaths and sociopaths but I just wanted to get back to relationships and get your thoughts on what somebody should do if if they're realizing now they have a narcissistic partner how do you deal with this person now well my book was called should I stay or should I go it was called that for a reason because I do think it was important from my position to be respectful of the fact that some people for a wide range of reasons both practical and emotional don't feel like they can leave a relationship it could be finances it could be children it could be culture it could be other medical circumstances health reasons it could be that they genuinely feel like they love this person it's not my place to doubt that it's my place to help them see things clearly and then give them the tools for whatever decision they make now if you're asking me my friend said to me a dear friend not a client but a friend said to me I'm in a relationship with the narcissus what should I do and I said by all means please leave they really deserve to take your life back because this will always be half a life with this person it's like being in a relationship with a narcissist is like looking into a mirror that doesn't reflect you back it's just unsettling and it's disarming because if they it doesn't see you is there a way that a narcissist will make you feel about yourself less then less then you're not good enough you know remember at the core of it the narcissist is insecure deeply insecure that's why they're so grandiose that's why they're so superficial and that's why they chronically seek validation most normal people don't we like validation it's always nice to have someone say you look nice but most of us can get through an entire day feeling pretty damn good even if we didn't get a single compliment we can and we like them but we don't need them the narcissist needs that okay there's a difference so in terms of the relationships if you can go great but here's the thing leaving a narcissist is never easy they don't like being left they don't it's a blow to their ego they don't mind leaving people but they don't like being left and if it's a marriage and if there's kids and there's money involved you can expect a brutally painful divorce battle that will drag on for years that will harm the kids that will be extraordinarily expensive that will be very public that will exhaust you in a way that you don't even know you could be exhausted if you stay you have to Ratchet your expectations down like I say to people here's the thing this person isn't changing what you see today is what you get you are now gonna have to adjust your expectations to this never changing because narcissistic relationships are really kept in place by both hope and fear right hope it's gonna get better fear of what's gonna happen to me if I left so now you know one thing it's almost like it's if you woke up every morning and said today today the Sun is gonna rise in the West usually really frustrated every morning and that's what a relationship for the narcissist is it's like waiting for that Sun to rise in the West every single day to turn your heads and say look at that that's the east that's what the Sun is gonna rise and you adjust your expectations and you realize this person doesn't care about you they're gonna keep lying to you they don't care about your life they don't about your sadness they don't care about your triumph so here is a word of advice don't tell them about this make your relationship deeply superficial in fact I instruct my clients to make a list of completely superficial topics ranging from oh did you see they're opening a new grocery store though can you imagine it's going to be very warm this week or did you know that the post office now stays open a half-hour later that's all you ever get to talk about you cannot ever talk about anything substantial again or they'll break your heart you never go to them with an important decision you always you almost have to view yourself as being in that relationship alone don't think that they're gonna want to go support you do anything with you listen to you I say cultivate other networks of friends family they've likely tried to isolate you find ways whether ideally live but even if you have to online because a lot of people think well now I'm in a relationship they should be there for me they're not going to be if you stay you really are staying in an impoverished condition and that's how it is have you ever had a couple sent out to you for therapy and you can see immediately one of them's a narcissists and you're thinking well a couples therapy isn't gonna work because he or she's an old Oh you deal with that you know what ends up happening they tend to burn themselves out in a couple of weeks like it's very clear you know and it's it's the it's usually the narcissists that pulls the plug because what narcissists don't like is to be near people who can see through that and once they know that someone's got their number they will encourage or say we don't do this person's a hack they don't know what they're talking about or like they'll distance themselves whether it's a therapist a family member a friend anybody who the narcissist can sense when they're being sucked out and they will distance themselves and they'll tend to defame that person say they're ridiculous they're stupid and the partner being in a relationship with a narcissist is a bit like being in a cult you're it's reoccur brainwashed and that's why a lot of people very very unfairly blame people they say if he was so bad then why didn't you get out I try to explain to people once somebody has been doing such a psychological manipulative number on you it's really you no longer trust your reality and since the the narcissist voice is the loudest in your world it's easy to go with what they're saying it's like being in a cult you almost like blindly follow and then one day maybe to therapy maybe through a friend when somebody starts waking you up a little bit then you start waking up and then one day you realize like I'm living a lie now some people live the lie till the day they die I'm not kidding you Gemma I've had clients say Los Angeles is an unique city the real estate here just like in what places like London is incredibly expensive so buying a house or renting a place is very expensive particularly people who've been in relationships for a long time if you own a home and you're married in Los Angeles the home has to be split in half right so if somebody's well-off they can buy that partner out so let's say the house has 500,000 in equity one person has to come up with $200,000 well many times people don't have that so they're staying in these relationships because they can't afford to buy the other out and neither can afford to leave and I've literally had people say to me we're both sitting here waiting for the other one to die and we're hoping that we're person dies first so we can at least have the house I mean that's how empty these spaces are and it's a and this is where the only real way to manage us I tell people is don't get him in the first place you know if you even see or sense one red flag one red flag you're better off spending the rest of your life alone than entering some of these red flags I mean it would it be subtle ways kind of the veil drops and you see him speaking to or her speaking to a waitress or waiter anything whoa that was a bit sharp and these the kind of telltale signs looking out for yep what will people people will sometimes say oh yeah he was rude to the waiter but we did have to wait an hour or or alternatively he may be very inappropriate with the waitress or a bartender and say he's probably just nervous we're early in a relationship or it will be how they listen to you you you listen to their life story for a long time then it comes time for you to talk about yourself and you see them looking around the room and really distracted well he did tell me he's a little a DD really he wasn't a DD when he was giving you the two-hour version of his damn life so don't give me a DD okay so you come up when you find yourself explaining this new relationship to friends but you're making lots of excuses for what feels like really invalidating behavior pay attention to that pay attention to that because you know a lot of people are so desperate to be in a relationship I've had people say I ended up marrying the narcissist because I knew he was a bad guy but all I ever wanted was to be married and he came around at the right time you have no idea though this is not this is this isn't child's play this is a mistake for Chico if you have kids that will come back and bite you for the rest of your life like I know I sound like all doom and gloom but I am seeing people who even if you don't have kids the psychological scars these relationships leave are pretty profound Wow I have a couple of questions from viewers on Facebook who posted these remarks when I said I was interviewing you today dave has a question about handling narcissists he says how much is acceptable for an individual to endure I think this is a really important point perhaps you can reiterate on the kind of personal safety factor here because if you do decide to stay where do you draw the line with oh that's because he's a narcissist or what whoa that's not right I need to get out right I think that today's question because it's a really great one part of it is each individual has a different endurance right you know what I'm saying like some people really gonna have a different pain threshold than others you raise an important point Gemma part of this does come down to personal safety if indeed your safety is being impacted you know literally like this person is behaving in ways that are dangerous to yourself it's in the self to the lives of other people around you or your property there's no there's no you just throw yourself in a trash bag and you get out of there kind of thing but it's it's this sense of how what pay attention to yourself because many people I've seen who have what I call most narcissists survivor syndrome they look like they have a combination of post-traumatic stress and they start their mood really start they have sad mood they have they lose a pleasure from activities that usually made them happy they find themselves to be hyper-vigilant they're full of self-doubt and second-guessing if you feel like you're really sliding into that pattern and you're not able to get out of it and you're working on this heavily in therapy it's a bit like taking a person and keep throwing them back into the toxic soup right you have to go back to live with that person you have to ask yourself how much of a toll is this taking on your mental health because I've heard a thousand times people say I'm staying for the kids I'm staying for the kids like at some point your kids witnessing this is actually worse for them then you splitting it's like your kids are screwed either way to be honest with you so to Dave's point you know your limits but Dave here's the bottom line if you know this person is not going to change if you shelve that idea of hope how long are you going to be able to endure this it's as though you're in a freezing cold place and it's never going to get warm how long can you be in that place and so he children can can children be narcissists are you are you born in Oz know basically this a lot of this work even comes from some of the work we see hit that has been done on borderline personality that there's likely a little bit of a temperamental thing that a person comes into life with and it could be sort of a biological vulnerability or sort of a hypersensitive temperament or something however not everyone with these vulnerabilities and temperaments become narcissistic narcissism is largely made it's not born we wouldn't call as child a narcissist you know children by definition are insanely selfish they're grandiose because they're still working through their fantasy world because that's part of developing as a child I do tell people though the single most the single most important thing I think we can teach a child is empathy in order to have good empathy they have to have a solid sense of themselves and they also have to be aware of the needs of other people so to be self-aware and aware of other people and that may mean waiting their turn that may be checking in with another child that may mean telling adults that there's a child suffering or just being aware of other people and when the parents don't have any empathy it's really hard for them to teach it to them kids are by definition entitled our job as parents and educators and all of that is to take a child aside and say listen there's there's this many toys and we all have to share them and there's a reason for that and you'll enjoy your turn when you get it nobody gets special treatment here but so many parents are raising their kids saying well no you're more special and I'm going to fight the coach so you get more playing time or more time on the stage or whatever grandiose fantasy the parent has for the child narcissism is largely made it is a disease it's a condition of insecurity and that insecurity is often brought by parents who do not who do not nurture their child's inner world so teaching empathy is a way we can help avoid bringing up a narcissistic children yep good to know um here's a question if you think your boss at work is a classic narcissist but you really want to get on his or her good side any tips for how we can make narcissists like us or do they just like themselves and love it you know that's a great question because I mean in the long term it's gonna be a tough strategy because that narcissistic boss will throw you under the bus one day as a short term strategy you may try to win a boss over maybe to get a plum assignment or get a good letter so you can't leave you know it's again it's never a long term strategy but it's so easy all narcissist crave crave validation you may have to I mean you really do it's like you have to pump them up and fluff them and say you know I feel so lucky to be mentored by you your career has been absolutely amazing it's an utter inspiration to me I mean I know how busy are but would you ever have some time to really sort of I want I want to be you like teach me how you are I mean and then try to then go throw up in the bathroom after you're done I do think that would end up happening is over time as you can imagine this starts feeling inauthentic and Hollow they're so easy to play I mean it's in some ways a narcissist you have to view yourself as a cat with a mouse we often feel like we're being manipulated by them they're so easy to play there's a you just have to you almost have to say I'm going in and then just sort of fluff them off and validate them even though you know everything you're saying is ridiculous you can even get what you need and get out of that situation it just doesn't feel good if you're an offensive person it doesn't feel good to do that so to that person the narcissistic boss validate them sometimes sadly it means you might have to give up some credit for something you did to them say you know I never I never would have even thought of that sale strategy without you even though you're the one who came up with the strategy so you have to hand over a little credit I see this in academic settings all the time really big puffed up professors and administrators an investigator they take all the credit for what these really hard-working junior colleagues are doing in their labs and so I see that stuff all the time but it really depends but there is a point though to that person with the narcissistic boss you gotta remember this they may not actually advance you because they might want to keep you close by because you're doing such a good job job validating that so don't always think that that narcissistic boss is only gonna do what's good for him or her they are not mentors they do not care about other people advancing they only care that they hold on to power as long as possible you may be their right-hand man but they can prom but I can promise you this the first time they get in trouble you're gonna end up being the fall guy I guess it goes back to what you said earlier in relationships about you're just gonna have to lower your expectations there's about sociopaths now what are the signs of a sociopath sociopath but there's a difference between a sociopath and a psychopath first of all okay so a lot of people here somebody's gonna love the word sociopath I think it makes them feel like they're being smart or something I guess I thought the psychopath actually very very similar the difference is is the sociopath is almost a little bit sloppier you know they tend not to be as charming they tend not to be as smart they tend not to be a slick or as glib however similar to the psychopath they're resentful they're cold they lack empathy they lack remorse and they can be downright dangerous because they're not as socially slick they often don't get themselves into the same level of positions of power and relationships because in fact what ends up happening sometimes a sociopath feels a little pathetic and only down the line a little bit do you realize how dangerous they are the psychopath on the other hand is just smooth slick like you're kind of you're dangerous yo or that kind of thing like they get all the way to the top and everyone is shot you know like how did they get so fine if you watch them they there was something almost chilling to them like you had no doubt like this person would probably shoot me in a dark alley if it was going to help them but they would hide the body so well so it's your path isn't as good at hiding the body to be honest with you but neither would feel bad about doing it so they're there sort of variations on the theme and the other thing I tell my students all the time all Psychopaths and all sociopaths are narcissistic but not all narcissistic people are psychopathic with sociopathic it goes back to the idea that the narcissist knows when something is they shouldn't be doing something and when they get caught they feel remorse they feel more than remorse for themselves but even the Psychopaths like you know I gave it a shot and I'm gonna figure this out and I'm gonna get myself out of this and they often do Psychopaths can be incredibly wealthy they're scary like they're people who would be like I don't know like runs crime syndicates or something like that and people are terrified of that so they're often able to get a lot done and that's the psychopath that's a cycle thing it was an example of a this is really hard a stereotypical sociopath because we think of Psychopaths as criminal look at what the United States has been this week I mean in this week we had somebody go into a synagogue and shoot 11 innocent worshippers we had some other you know sociopaths sending all these bombs if you looked at these two men they were socially unskilled they had they completely alone they did not have normal work histories they were angry they were resentful they were sullen and they felt absolutely no remorse for the things that they did they're great examples of sociopaths and nobody would give them the time of day they just like look like creepy sloppy guys you know there's nothing slick about the mass won't make some not psychopaths but I didn't feel like Psychopaths they felt like sociopaths another big distinction is psychopathy appears to have a central nervous system element to it that they actually their brains may be different they're likely are born that way what we call their autonomic nervous system tends to react differently to things they'd actually make really great like military operatives because they wouldn't get anxious the way the rest of us would write sociopaths are believed to be more made they may come from abusive early environments they may be indoctrinated and to hate hateful kinds of thoughts and everything they may be angry at the world like these are people who may actually have been humiliated or believed by peers or family members and that makes them really angry and resentful at the world so they're often made rather than born the same way the Psychopaths were like you see Psychopaths to come from perfectly what seemed like good families in a sociopaths background you'll tend to find something that's really really unsettling in trouble so if you think you have a colleague or a friend he's a bit sociopathic how should you handle them stay the hell away from them I mean I mean it it's like it's you're not gonna win at this game and if anything they may actually try to sabotage you in very real ways and in a way that although at the end of it like you have to hire lawyers and all this stuff it may end up okay the harm it would have done to your physical and mental health not to mention it's some circles your professional reputation people just you don't even want to take that battle on because I almost feel like psychologically and karmically you can't win that you know that they're there they just destroy everything in their way because they just don't care and they're so angry at the world and so if you have a sociopathic colleague I mean you want a document everything document document document because some of that might work with HR but these sociopaths these are the types of people who will go into a workplace and start harming the people they're harming their cars leaving threatening notes or in the most tragic circumstances killing the people there you know what I'm saying like these are dangerous people it's not this is no longer your narcissistic boss where you can buy him a box of cigars and tell him he's attractive like that's not this this is really people who are sullen resentful angry manipulative out to get you feel the world's out to get them and they can be very dangerous unsettling colleagues I'd often say to people if you really feel like this is happening and you're in a position where you can slowly eggs at that position you may even want to consider that because a lot of people say well that's not fair you know what life's not fair and so you know che on the HR people and in the boss who hired this person you allowed that to happen but not everyone can pick this out but the fact of the matter is and then you need to document but I often say to people that even if it's it you're gonna face upheaval either way if your head trying to tangle with a sociopathic colleague it may almost be easier to step away the sociopaths have relationships their pets can have relationships they tend to be very shallow they tend to be very exploitative there really are the sociopaths get into the relationship to take advantage of that person for money for contacts for drugs for for sex you know it's very superficially driven they tend to have either no relationship or lots of short-term relationships like three months here 6 months there if they do get into a longer-term relationship it's not unusual for it to be riddled with domestic abuse that sort of thing so they can't but they really aren't made for it and like I said when they do get into relationships it tends to be exploitative even if it's simply that they want someone to be their maid and they don't they just don't have that kind of charm of a narcissist oh yeah I know I mean they could just ya know they they come off as a little bit awkward and sometimes they come up it's quiet you know like people like yeah he's a hard enough worker he's quiet nobody quite gets I mean you'll often hear that in the post-mortems on these crimes that are done like yeah like we never he lived upstairs from us but we never really noticed him kind of thing he wasn't very friendly is something you'll often hear where Psychopaths can seem quite friendly because they're always trying to use their charm to get what they want so a psychopath could be could also be a very successful person yeah but can you have psychopathic tendencies but not necessarily be a chronal you could just go charlie people getting what you want in a kind of brutal way look at a lot of multinational corporations I'd look at the heads of many world's governments I mean I'd look at the heads of many world agencies like really really important people are often quite psychopathic incredibly successful and they never see the inside of a jail cells you know they commit their crimes quietly and should you handle them in the same way that you would handle a narcissist you got to really suck up to them tell me yeah but you yeah but you want to be careful because with a psychopath you may end up doing their bidding and you may be the one who ends up seeing the inside of the jail cell Wow final question if someone is in a close relationship with a psychopath or somebody is in a relationship with someone who has psychopathic traits um what should they do because they don't necessarily need to leave because they might not be treated the same way as a narcissist would treat them yeah should they have this awareness are you in a working trip with a psychopath or sociopath you'll be treated exactly yeah you'll be treated exactly as badly because again it's that narcissistic core that cuts across all three patterns right they are very exploitative in their relationships there they do not have any empathy they're not interested in deep intimacy of any kind or distant they're cold in fact they're probably more distinct cold than the narcissist because at least a narcissist may sometimes actually try to be an engaged parent for a little while like especially since small children are so unconditional in their validation they just look cute and they look up at you sometimes narcissists do well with that those handed to someone else when it cries a psychopath or sociopath if they did become a parent really would not that be that engage in the process so it's a very cold relationship so this the same thing as before if you if you can get out and here's the things Psychopaths and sociopaths can be very vengeful leaving can be very dangerous and you often you may have to enlist the assistance of authorities including domestic violence authorities it can be a dangerous game I know I said final question but I have one more because this is just so fascinating what would happen if you tell us like a path that they are a psychopath laugh at you you don't know what you're talking about they might even view it as a badge of honor yeah yeah and I'm getting away with this you know like again the psychopath is that criminal who whose success is he was like I got away with the perfect crime and listen sometimes in our you know we look at some like famous armed robbers or stuff and we almost like view them with grudging admiration like woah they got away with this they they broke the unbreakable safe I mean and they didn't feel bad about it if I closed it was it was probable so I robbed it kind of thing so they can almost get folk hero status so I think that because a psychopath cares absolutely nothing about what other people think of them that if you said that to them they'd be like all right then you better be scared of me in fact they love the idea that everyone's frightened of them because it gives them tremendous power so yeah they thrive on that well that is fascinating that's Romney I'm so grateful to you we are family up on time and can you just remind the listeners and viewers where people can find out more about us media absolutely you can go to a website at dr. Ramani comm which is do ctor - our AMA and calm you can find us on all social media at dr. Amin I do ctor ra MA and I and on our social media we regularly you know post things about narcissism about interesting articles about it we welcome questions and then I do have a new book coming out next year it will keep people posted on when that releases and it's just information on what not only I'm doing but a lot of people are doing in this area sort of as a clearinghouse to educate people fantastic thank you my social media must be making more narcissism uh so yes absolutely absolutely and you can also catch me on a weekly podcast called sexual disorientation and you can also send in questions and whatnot I'm gonna put links to this notes everybody and thank you once again and if you're listening or watching this I would love it if you left a nice review on iTunes or SoundCloud and you can follow me on Twitter at jammer evans instagram at health hacker jammer or watch on facebook at gemma evans broadcaster thank you and goodbye for this time

Channel: healthHackers

Views: 538,759

Rating: 4.8439503 out of 5

Keywords: ‘Narcissism is the new normal’, narcissism, narcissist, how to spot a narcissist, are you a psychopath, how to handle a psycho, how to handle a psychopath, in a relationship with a psycho, in a relationship with a narcissist, dr ramani durvasula, ramani durvasula, gemma evans, gemma morris, gemma health hackers, health hackers, healthhackers podcast, healthhackers, psychology experts, relationship advice, divorce help, couples counselling, narcissist help, narcissistic abuse

Id: j_GhsuXAlrc

Length: 37min 22sec (2242 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 30 2018