Narcissism & No Contact | Is avoiding relationships with narcissists cruel?

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel well assist dr. grande today's question asks is the idea of avoiding a relationship with someone who's narcissistic cruel right so what this is getting at is if somebody is having difficulty with a narcissist is it really okay for that person is to break off a relationship completely with the narcissist is that taking things too far another question I'll answer here is should we ban narcissism right huh this is a different type of question I'm not sure that's really possible to ban narcissism but I think it's kind of looking at the same issue right it's this frustration with having to be exposed to narcissistic behavior so as they refer to narcissism here I'm talking about maladaptive narcissism which would include at an extreme and pathological narcissism not adaptive narcissism right a lot of the traits of narcissism are fairly common and just because somebody has a few characteristics of narcissism doesn't mean that it's necessarily problematic so with that banning narcissism question if we think about this it's kind of like saying instead of driving to work should we just step in a transporter and appear there like something out of Star Trek right I mean sure I guess that would save a lot of time and the cost of owning a car and all that but it's not possible right so if narcissism could be banned I guess that in most situations would be a good thing you know again talking about maladaptive or pathological narcissism but we can no more ban narcissism that we can ban any other destructive personality traits so should we ban narcissism I don't know how we could ban it right so that's kind of how it answered that we really have no way of doing that so when people deal with narcissists in family work or romantic and other types of relationships they often come to the conclusion learned the easy way and sometimes the hard way that narcissism exposure is too painful to maintain over long period of time in essence it's not healthy to be harmed by a narcissist not in the short run not in the long run not by one narcissist not by many the cost is simply too high but at the same time of course people want to be supportive of other people they don't want to just abandon others and give up on them obviously a casual acquaintance is easier to give up one than a brother or sister son daughter or a parent but no matter what the relationship again the pain and the damage can just become too much for somebody to handle to understand this dilemma we have to understand the context of avoiding relationships with a narcissist what does it mean to not have contact with a narcissist well lack of contact means not allowing the narcissist to engage in an interpersonal relationship with you it means that there's no emotional connection no friendship no romance no sharing of feelings and most importantly no trust it means that somebody will not allow themselves to be vulnerable to narcissistic manipulation it doesn't mean that if you're walking down the aisle of a grocery store and you see a narcissist enter into the other side of aisle that you have to run the other way right it's not a general thing it's a commitment to avoid close contact with specific narcissists often just one specific narcissist it's not a philosophy that affects the entire population it's a strategy of self-protection that protects one person from another person also this strategy does not apply to helping professionals counselors treat everybody who wants to be treated and in some settings they treat people who don't want to be treated right like in court settings forensic settings but either way this is not talking about the professional realm it's talking about the personal realm there can be a counselor who treats people with narcissistic traits all day long as part of their job and when that counselor gets home they may make active efforts to avoid narcissist in their life again at a personal level incidentally this dichotomy professional versus personal when looking at psychopathology is not new it does just apply to narcissism it can apply to a lot of areas for example counselor may work with people who use substances but not want to associate with substance users in their personal lives probably for the same reason somebody would avoid a narcissist they don't want the pain and the damage that comes along with that type of personal relationship and in the case of substance use there may be concerns about codependence as well but either way this whole professional versus personal issue is not new but I suppose there's an even larger issue at work here it is having a lack of contact with the narcissist the only other choice to being in a relationship with a narcissist is there a middle ground for some it probably is the only choice but for many settings strict boundaries is another option one could argue that when a narcissist repeatedly violates those strict boundaries is when people choose to break off all contact so what's best for society in the long run every individual has to make their own decision but if everybody chose not to engage with narcissist would that be a good thing so I thought about this question for a while over the course of the last several days it's kind of a philosophical question that hits at a societal level so I'll explore this philosophical angle and then come back and answer this question along with the original question for this video is avoiding a narcissist cruel so on the one hand nothing would compel someone to change more quickly than to stop all rewards for narcissistic behavior right so if people avoided relationships with narcissists that may lead to some types of changes on the other hand people learn social skills by socializing by having meaningful contact with other people we would hope that when a narcissist sees compassion empathy and caring they would want to emulate those characteristics what's more narcissism is on a continuum so what level does somebody become a true narcissist and are all the characteristics of narcissism destructive to others clearly manipulation is but what about having fantasies of success and power is that really harming bunny or somebody believes that they are special and unique it's not really clear that that's going to damage people at some larger scale like cause a lot of damage so again not all aspects of narcissism are destructive so figuring out who would be a destructive narcissist versus who would not be would be very difficult when it comes down to it all these questions are individual even if they do have a larger societal consequence some people can tolerate very high degrees of narcissism exposure and other people can't tolerate any as a society narcissists keep getting rewarded for being narcissistic they get promoted in companies they are able to surround themselves with people who will help manipulate others these people are attracted to the narcissist these are the so-called flying monkeys a reference from The Wizard of Oz I call them narcissistic agents narcissists are able to hurt people then reject the very people that they just hurt and then move on and cause damage somewhere else also narcissism is on the rise every year we see the percent of the population who is narcissistic increases and many people don't know the dangers of narcissism even when they're able to detect it right even they understand this narcissism they don't really get how destructive it can be interpreted a new of a wholesale societal rejection of all narcissists different people will look at a narcissist and see different things right some people will see a threat a danger someone who will manipulate them someone who is too dangerous to have a relationship with someone who is beyond redemption others won't see narcissism at all it doesn't really seem to concern them or they're being manipulated by a narcissist so they think that they are the problem and the narcissist isn't the problem in essence they're trapped in a world of self-doubt and low self-esteem caused by the narcissist others will look at the narcissist and appreciate the danger but believe they can help some of those people will have an opportunity to help and motivation to help and others won't so people see narcissism in different ways so is avoiding an arse just cruel right that original question and my answer would be not if it's necessary but I hope there would be other options that would be explored before that option and certainly we would want to continue to support counseling options for those who are narcissistic narcissism is arguably the most challenging personality trait it's caused when a young person is neglected and validated bullied treated without compassion or given too much praise rewarded in the absence of accomplishment and once that narcissist is formed they go on to expose others to that narcissism the damage spreads so we won't break the cycle by ignoring narcissism we won't break the cycle exclusively by avoiding relationships with narcissists but we won't break the cycle by suffering either by maintaining toxic relationships with narcissists allowing yourself to be damaged by a narcissist doesn't help you or them it comes at a cost to you and it reinforces the destructive behavior and the narcissist of course many unfortunately have no choice but to be exposed to narcissism so moving on to the other question what's best for society in the long run well it's really about behavior personality is largely set when somebody's young as I mentioned we cannot change that easily but we can identify certain behaviors as being unacceptable for example manipulation and other forms of emotional abuse these narcissistically driven behaviors should be treated as any other unacceptable behavior how do we treat somebody in a work setting when they come into work every day intoxicated or how do we treat a person who steals from their family members there are going to be consequences both individual and societal level consequences everyone's going to take action when those types of things happen we also need to be aware of the victims of narcissistic behavior and offer them help the help that they need this is often overlooked so what we really have to ask ourselves is at what point does narcissism become socially unacceptable at what point do we stop rewarding that behavior regardless of where it comes from so I know whenever I talk about topics like avoiding relationships with narcissists they're going to be a variety of opinions people who agree with me and disagree with me and have other thoughts and opinions from their own experiences please put those opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate really interesting dialogue as always I hope you found this description of avoiding relationships with narcissus to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 82,723

Keywords: narcissistic personality disorder, narcissism, no contact, avoiding narcissists, etiology of narcissism, origins of narcissism, parental neglect, manipulation, sense of entitlement, praise, fantasies of power, grandiosity, envy, arrogance, lack of empathy, mental health, counseling

Id: VEf7o8B7W4U

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 09 2019