How narcissists are made

hi everyone it's dr romney welcome back to this youtube channel on all things narcissism narcissistic related um today's a little bit of a longer video it's one that many have asked for i try to make it as comprehensive as possible but i'm sure i miss still miss some points so always welcome comments and thoughts on that but today's video is going to get it something that i actually usually talk more to professional audiences about which is how does narcissism develop in essence how do people become narcissistic before we get to that please welcome to this channel if you're new hit that subscribe button hit that bell if you want to get notifications whenever a new video comes up which is every day so let's take this question on how do people become narcissistic where does this pattern that's hurting so many people come from this is a question that comes up all a lot a lot and i'm going to tell you this right now i'm answering this question and making this video reluctantly i'll tell you why it's not because i don't want to share the information obviously i a big believer knowledge should be shared but i'll tell you why i'm reluctant sometimes what happens is once people hear these things they hear where this personality starts comes from they often feel compelled to justify the narcissist behavior they'll say things like now that i know why they are the way they are i kind of feel bad for them and i just don't want to pull away from them and great so then you're just signing up to to put up with more of the emotional abuse and remain even more stuck i can only ask you to please hear this as a framework that's based in theory to help you understand these patterns and i can also only ask you please don't use them as a justification for somebody's mistreatment of you or for narcissistic behavior or for you enduring more abuse i can't force you to do that i can't come to your house and say please don't do that you're adults you take this information and always recognize though that you can learn about where these patterns come from but you can't change them narcissism and narcissistic personality styles largely reflect developmental issues okay so there these are issues that sort of develop through childhood the narcissistic personality that emerges in adulthood largely reflects what happened to the person as they came up through childhood into adolescence our personalities start to develop from the day we are born pretty steadily until our early to mid 20s during these years our brains rapid phase of development goes throughout childhood and adolescence in our mid-20s things slow down a little bit and i think it's safe to say that by about our mid-20s kind of like a jello mold that stops shaking our personalities get pretty well set there's a little room here and there but they get pretty well set so let's start at the difficult end of this okay narcissistic personality styles okay because this is probably the most difficult explanation narcissistic personality styles are suggested to be a manifestation of what happens to a personality after being exposed to or adverse childhood experiences and maybe a manifestation of post-traumatic symptomatology so children and their in their personalities that are these are shaped through neglect abuse inconsistency and in many ways that the some of the patterns that observed are observed in narcissism are consistent with some of the patterns we see in all kinds of post traumatic presentations for example after trauma people may experience things like restricted expression of emotion a chronic perception of threat even impulsivity narcissism can also reflect a disruption in attachment now secure attachment is like the gold standard it's what we hope that everyone can have and secure attachments are created by early attachments early relationships with consistent and available caregivers who give the child a sense of safety within themselves and with the world who love them and who foster important skills like self-regulation narcissism is not associated with a secure attachment style but rather was what we term anxious and avoidant attachment styles and these result in the person never not as a child and not as an adult ever feeling safe in close relationships there's always this push and pull they're in they're out they're in they're out and a relative incapacity for deep and sustained closeness and intimacy this is challenging because having a history of trauma and difficulties with attachment aren't always observed in people with narcissistic personality styles in addition people who have those patterns in childhood don't always go on to develop narcissistic personality styles in addition it can feel hard to set boundaries or walk away from someone who's had this history because knowing someone's had this kind of difficult history as a child all plays upon cognitive dissonance justifications rationalizations and just feeling stuck for a person in a relationship with a narcissist but like i said probably the bulk of people who have these attachment and trauma issues in childhood don't go on to develop narcissism so it's not a guaranteed path then there is the issue of temperament simply put temperament is i don't know for a block of a better way to say sort of the biological part of personality temperament is actually believed to be inherited and can explain why even from the very beginning of our lives or an infant's life person's life some infants are more difficult to soothe and some sooth so easily and into childhood while some children may simply just be more difficult more behaviorally agitated more attention seeking temperament can be easier or more difficult in some cases temperament can really make things really difficult because a child with a difficult temperament quite frankly definitely is going to have a more difficult go of it when their babies their mothers and fathers may be more frustrated by them as they grow up teachers may not like them as much adults may find them more difficult as children and what does that mean that means that child can have a relatively invalidating experience with the world on the basis of their difficult temperament let's face it on the other side kids who have easy resilient temperaments those kids definitely have an easier go of it they may be the more favored child because the parent often feels like a more confident parent with them and they just may have an easier experience of the world because they kind of go with the flow more easily temperament may be in part a reason why children are differentially impacted by the experiences of their childhood and it is very likely that the case likely it's the case that a subset of adult narcissists very likely had difficult or sensitive temperaments as children and then you could see that if they also on top of that had adverse childhood experiences or any other difficult childhood experiences or even things like disengaged parents and these difficult kids are more likely to have disengaged parents because the kid was more difficult so the parent may pull away a little bit or just be more frustrated that combination of temperament and invalidation can also raise the vulnerability for a narcissistic personality style however there are there are also other developmental pathways at play when we think about how the narcissistic personality style evolves some people have called the development of narcissism as being caused by simultaneous over and under indulgence of a child these are children who are spoiled with getting maybe things getting experiences i don't know like going to a theme park or something but whose emotional worlds remain really impoverished it's the psychological equivalent i don't know of only being fed junk food if you kept eating junk food you wouldn't be hungry but you're not nourished for children who are raised in a sort of over and un under-indulged manner their material needs are met but they are not taught how to be comfortable or even have their with their emotions or even have their emotions nurtured they may even in some cases be shamed for having emotions and they do not get to learn one of the most important things we are supposed to learn in childhood which is self-regulation being able to manage feelings and emotions now a not insignificant proportion of narcissists may have had a narcissistic parent or parents themselves and so certain elements of narcissism particularly entitlement rage other dysregulated demonstrations of emotion arrogance superficiality can all be learned through something called modeling the child doing what he or she sees when a child sees something they tend to repeat it especially if they see it repeatedly they'll see the father who yells at the soccer coach the mom who yells at store clerks and hotel clerks kid sees enough of this and it starts to become normalized and may not always but may get mirrored in adult behavior narcissistic parents and other parents with difficult personality styles also have really really bad boundaries and what they'll do is almost inject their emotions and expectations and their needs into their child all the time a simple example of this could be when the child does express an emotion mommy i feel sad and mommy doesn't say the right answer the right answer is oh honey that's so hard and she soothes her child holds her child and gives the child permission to talk about it even recognizes they may not be able to fix it but what we tend to see a little bit more often in children who are at risk for developing narcissism is a parent who uses the child's emotional state as an opportunity to make it about them the child says mommy i'm sad and a narcissistic mother could say oh goodness this sad you just made mommy sad when you're sad mommy's sad whoa hello what just happened the child just learned now that their emotions are a problem the child doesn't want to have the responsibility for making mommy sad so now the child says i'm sad now mommy just made it about her not only do they start negating and avoid sharing their emotions but they may not even fully understand where their emotions end and the emotions of other people begin and in adulthood where we see this happen for narcissistic individuals this is manifested as the narcissist again not seeing that difference between them and others not fully understanding how they impact other people or simply just not having any understanding of their inner world the example i gave you also shows us how tricky all of this is some of you may be thinking damn my parent did that to me all the time and now i'm actually not narcissistic but i waste a lot of time trying to babysit other people's emotions and worry about everyone else's emotions see that's what i'm saying there's no guaranteed singular pathways that's where temperament and all of these other factors come getting mixed up none of this is a perfect science that's part of the struggle and so yeah you could have had a parent like this and be whatever the opposite of narcissism is so we end up having to sort of back construct these narratives if we go to some of the work the theoretical work by someone named winnicott he calls this whole experience the false self the parent sort of sticking their self into the child and the child then internalizes the parents needs over their own and this false self in the narcissist has sort of run amok and that's where they've sort of internalized this parent and then they no longer are aware of others conditional love is a phenomenon that many children are subjected to the idea of a usually starts with a parent of a parent saying i love you if or i love you when i only love you if fully actualized growth in a human being requires unconditional regard a parent saying i love you done it doesn't mean the parent likes everything you do but it does mean that the parent loves the child and doesn't confuse the whole child with the child's behavior a healthy parent would apply appropriate consequences so the child learns appropriate behavior but the child knows their love so they feel safe the validation seeking of narcissists is in part very much a byproduct of getting almost only conditional love i love you if i love you if you get a trophy i love you when you win and this is really pronounced for parents that i call the performing pony style of parenting the parents who validate the child only when the child performs only when the child wins the parents these are the parents who are front and center cheering the child on when the kid gets the trophy when the kid scores the winning touchdown when the kid is the number one in the ballet performance or the science fair or the spelling bee or is helping in the family business yeah that's my kid look at them yes of course it's good for kid parents to be proud i sit in the front row of my kids in a show too but these kids are winning or excelling or doing what the parent needs the parent of course is nowhere to be found when that kid isn't doing what the parent wants them to be it's all very conditional and again i also know some of you who are watching this are thinking again damn my parents never showed up to anything it would have been nice to have even had conditional love from them like that they even knew i existed and i get that it sucks all around parents should just love their kids and if they show up and it's conditional then you know that whatever love you're getting is about what you bring to the table that's not a nice feeling for a child if they don't show up at all you can believe you aren't even worthy of any regard not even an hour of their time to show up at your soccer game and as we go deeper into the era of helicopter parents and bubble wrap parents parents who over protect their children and shield them from everything that too can be a risk for bringing upon narcissistic tendencies in that that will sort of start in children childhood but then boom show up in adulthood many parents make the huge error of trying to shield their children from disappointment childhood is where we are supposed to learn from the disappointments big and small the lost soccer game the bad grade the not being invited to a birthday party the lost pet not getting onto the team or into the play so many parents view their children as performative extensions of themselves that the parents themselves can't stand the disappointment that their child is going through and try to shield everyone from it and these are also the entitled parents that try to stack the deck so their child doesn't experience any disappointment they may strong-arm the schools they may strong-arm the coaches and the teachers and buy a new pet right away right after the one pet gets sick and dies talking smack about the kid who didn't invite you to the birthday party it's tempting gosh it is tempting to fix things for a kid but it does a child absolutely no favors childhood is the time when a child must learn to regulate disappointment in a safe loving space but we know one thing obviously what happens to narcissists is that they don't do disappointment and when they are disappointed or basically just don't get their way their adult tantrums can put a three-year-old to shame in a generation of parents as this generation has been trying to comment compensate for what their parents got wrong over protecting a child from reality and from disappointment can put them at risk put that child at risk for going on to become a relatively disregulated adult and for being much more stress reactive as adults both are which are patterns we see in narcissism there's definitely an emotionally stunted quality to the narcissistic personality for example the narcissistic personality somebody who at the age of 50 they continue to function and value things in the same way as we typically see about an adolescent and they still tantrum like a three-year-old they look like adults they have they often have jobs like adults they have stuff like adults but their inner worlds can often remain quite undeveloped which actually makes sense because these different kinds of developmental experiences i've been talking about in many ways keep them stuck we're not done yet though there's more things that that can lead to narcissism in adulthood the extrinsic focus the external focus of how we raise kids doesn't help the phones the gadgets for people who can afford them the vacations the expensive theme park days and when you couple that with the social media soaked and obsessed world we are watching in front of our eyes we're watching 17 year olds amass vast wealth on the basis of dancing on social media the world and the economy have changed the world has changed and is social media making things worse in the world of narcissism absolutely yes and then when you add to that parents who have agendas for their kids about succeeding in this external space it then becomes about the child becoming one more pathway for the parent to get validation the child becomes the sort of ego extension for the parent and the child goes into adulthood believing that they are the things they achieved the trophies on the shelf rather than valuing who they are simply as human beings now everything i've described trauma insecure attachments being conditionally valued parental inconsistency parental unavailability only being valued for external characteristics these are all things that could potentially foster the bedrock of narcissism which is insecurity whatever fosters insecurity in a child and that can that insecurity can proliferate unchecked into adulthood places a person at risk for narcissism in adulthood and when the person in the face of this insecurity develops grandiose defenses such as entitlement to protect that core insecurity we see that evolution into narcissism heck if all we did was raise safe secure children who had parents that were mindful and present narcissism rates would drop that is not going to happen i've said this a million times before and here i say it again another way we maintain the development and the sustenance of narcissism is plain old enabling while enabling may not foster it in a child it can though if the child is very sort of spoiled as the child gets older the enabler for the enabled child these patterns don't get called out not in the child not even in the adults the child then sees that the adults are getting away with it and the child themselves may not get called out for arrogance and bravado and tantrums especially if that kid is performing as long as they're winning games or they're the golden child or they're getting a's or they're getting tick-tock followers their parents may say heck your behavior is besides the point and that's how in adolescence and early adulthood all those seeds set in childhood can finally get set like that jello like jell-o mole turning hard here's what we don't have from a research perspective and i wish we did the long-term longitudinal developmental studies that follow children from infancy into adulthood and gather a lot of data on them so we can understand what the factors are that prospectively turn into narcissism from an infant into adulthood right now the best we've got is case study research where we write about narcissism and learn about their histories and what we call retrospective research which is research when we ask adults to tell us about their childhood but not everyone remembers everything perfectly lots of the things i've listed the adverse childhood events and the trauma and the conditional love and all of that they don't result in narcissism they can go in all kinds of different directions people with all the things i've listed on this video may end up becoming overly empathic adults and thus become very vulnerable to narcissists they may turn into anxious adults they may use substances they may develop obsessive-compulsive symptomology they may develop post-traumatic symptoms those things aren't narcissism so even this laundry list i've given you may or may not turn into narcissism and the final piece here and an important piece for us to kind of come to an end on you as an adult cannot undo another adult narcissist's history unless the narcissist actually thinks something is not right they themselves are like yeah no this is not cool without the narcissist self reflection you're not going to be the one to undo their history because that's the struggle isn't it it's the idea that we can go back and we can be that unconditionally loving parent and we can teach them the goodness of what is inside of them and we can break them of their superficial cycles and we can teach them how to regulate it doesn't work like that that had to happen back when all these neural pathways were getting laid down most of us carry wounds from childhood and those are our own load to bear someone else can't fix it a therapist can talk about it they can't fix it and you sure as hell can't fix it for a narcissist these narcissistic patterns have deep complex roots i have no problem with you understanding these patterns and using this understanding to foster empathy and compassion i think empathy and compassion are everything but i do have a problem with you watching these this video and taking these explanations as a way to rationalize you enduring more abuse for yourself saying ah he did have a rough childhood you enduring abuse isn't going to change that so i hope this clarifies a rather complex body of work my work on this has actually led me to consider whether there may even be further subtypes of narcissism beyond the usual grandiose malignant covert etc based on their developmental histories someday i'll try to turn that into a series because it may illuminate things a bit further for you but i really want to reiterate a point here things i talked about here adverse childhood experiences trauma issues with attachment having your parent insert their emotional world into you that winnicott sort of false self issue parents with poor boundaries parents who are not present parents who are invalidating all those things that can lead to narcissism many of you are saying i went through these things and i'm not narcissistic i know that and that's absolutely true in fact i think it's maybe even more likely so some of these patterns would take you there and that right there is the struggle the very patterns that turn us into anxious adults or not feeling enough adults or vulnerable adults are the same patterns that turn into narcissism it's probably temperament that might be a piece that gets thrown in there maybe the golden children are more likely to become narcissistic the scapegoat with the same parent may turn into somebody who's much more anxious in adulthood none of this is a perfect science and that's why even as i present these theories to you a lot of you wonder where does this come from this is where it comes from i have no doubt that this video has raised questions for you and um and please drop them in here and can certainly do more videos explaining this and again please understand all those patterns that could place a person at risk for narcissism can also place people at risk for different things and it's for that reason those of you who have siblings you might have a narcissistic brother and you're not and you're the same parents look at your roles that you had in the family that too may explain why you've gone off in different directions despite being exposed to similar things it's not a precise science this is the this is the challenge of psychology that sort of equal parts you know neuroscience and wizardry and uh the wizardry part is a little bit hard to sell so thanks again for tuning in that was a big one that was a complicated one but i do hope it clarified things bye-bye

Channel: DoctorRamani

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Length: 28min 55sec (1735 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021