Narcissism Shapeshifting Camouflage: Conceals Other Disorders (University Lecture)

imagine this typical exchange with a narcissist the narcissist says by cheating on me with other men you're rejecting me as a man and by abandoning and betraying me you're rejecting me also as a person and the intimate partner answers you are never there you're absent you're never there either as a man or as a person if i'm cheating on anyone i'm cheating on your absence as a man and if i'm abandoning anyone i'm abandoning your absence not you to which the narcissist answers but i am my absence you're not getting it this absence is me otto kemberg had written a brilliant article about the time dimension the perception of time among narcissists he espouses views which are strikingly similar to my views expressed in an article that i had written six pre years prior to that in 2001. both of us are saying to cut a long story short that the narcissist's inner absence inner emptiness because the narcissist is absent not only from your life he is absent from his life he is nowhere to be found even in his own life and camber points out correctly that this is the outcome of internal impoverishment the narcissist is unable to maintain any type of object relations let alone love and the narcissist consequently is focused 100 on maintaining the grandiose self it's a maintenance chore it doesn't lead to the formation of memories and in the absence of memories there's identity diffusion there's no identity and of course in the absence of identity there's no life lived and there's no life lived there's a sense that time has flew by and that you had done nothing with it as a narcissist the narcissist constantly feels the time that life had passed him by that he had wasted it squandered it that he should have much more time at his disposal that's where his entitlement comes in but this is an interesting observation because it indicates that pathological narcissism is a narrative and it's a narrative intended to disguise discontinuities in memory and breaks in identity now kernberg and many others observe that such dissociation such massive dissociation and splitting they're very typical of post-traumatic conditions especially ptsd but of course also cptsd so people who had been traumatized they experienced time very differently and the narcissist as a grant yourself and this grandiose self wants to live forever because it is god-like the narcissist wants to freeze time to in the language of andre green he wants to murder time andre green has this very colorful vocabulary his mother is dead the mother is dead dead in his theory and time is murdered by the narcissist so post-traumatic people have this very convoluted irregular relationship with time and narcissist above them all so narcissism is a script it's a movie it's a theater intended to camouflage intended to paper over discontinuities lack of memory and lack of identity but it has another role and that role is to glamorize dysfunction to elevate this function to the level of an ideology of superiority if i'm dysfunctional means i'm superior to you what you call dysfunction is actually the next stage in evolution children with impaired and incompetent disorganized personality or with self-defeating ornary temperament this kind of children shunned ridiculed ostracized excommunicated mocked bullied other children don't like them they're not liked they're disliked actively they're punished they're tortured so this kind of children whose personality is hasn't coalesced fully whose self hadn't constantly hasn't constellated in the language of jung children who are simply disagreeable not pleasant to be around this kind of children suffer and they suffer throughout their childhood and to compensate to compensate for these painful experiences these children sometimes recast their freakish idiosyncrasies their nerdy uniqueness their rejected offerings they cast these no not as misfortune but as choices and so by casting everything that's wrong about them as choices you know i am the way i am because i choose to be the way i am not because i'm defective not because i'm malformed not because i'm underdeveloped but because that's how i choose to be my way or the highway and by doing this they restore an internal locus of control they're actually saying this is a choice which i am making and consequently it's a choice which i can unmake which of course is not true it's counterfactual and that's the first substantial profound fundamental confabulation underlying the fantasy that is narcissism and so for example consider the schizoid the schizoid or the autistic person they boast grandiosely about being self-sufficient emotionally imperturbable resilient uh call cool-minded razor-sharp with razor-sharp focus and with an extreme iq they boast and brag about about being socially selective i don't don't date i just i don't just date anyone i don't just befriend anyone and many of them even elevate their asexuality into a principle of life into an ideology as i said into a form of wisdom and definitely into something that sets them apart from the animalistic and bestial behavior of other people the these deformities these malfunctions these dysfunctions become superhuman in the eyes of the compensating schizoid or the compensating autistic person and of course such grandiosity is a hallmark of narcissism so in the case of the schizoid person or the autistic person the narcissism is a veneer it's an overlay it's not the core issue it's not the primary disorder similarly take the sadis oh actually don't take it bad advice consider the sadist the sadist brags about his altruism his rationality his invulnerability his perspicacity and his imperviousness to weakness and to pain whatever he's doing it's because of tough love he is just how to educate to reform to mold he is when he inflicts pain is for it's because he's well intentioned it's an example of a narrative that elevates the sadist into sainthood so a lot of what we consider to be narcissism is actually camouflage its disguise it's intended to hide a primary disorder which many would consider even much worse than narcissism for example the schizoid personality is on the verge of schizophrenia and these people don't have a personality in effect they don't exist they're utterly robotic they say this of course derives pleasure and joy from inflicting pain on others arguably it's even much worse than narcissism drill down to find that compensatory narcissism is merely the fantasy aggrandizing a veneer superimposed on other mental health disorders and on the harrowing lifelong costs of these mental health disorders it's like splashing a coat of paint in order to disguise the dirt underneath [Music] and this is the topic of today's uh video today's lecture we are going to discuss the disguises of narcissism the way narcissism and narcissists engage in mimicry the way they come flush themselves and appear to be another type of animal um literature assignment before we proceed i would like you to visit the website freudians freudians like freud eons freudians.org or g they have a library there with a wonderful wonderful collection of texts by the leading psychoanalysts many books and you can download them um as well i also remind you to visit the library or the book section of the international psychotherapy institute thousands of books amazing library including many very famous titles then including the incomparable handbook of psychiatry i would like to assign to you a few articles to read and i'm indebted here to darlene lancer l-a-n-c-e-r is the therapist and she is the author of codependency for dummies which is which comes greatly recommended it's a good exploration of the construct of codependency and dependent personality disorder and darlene has a blog online which surveys and analyzes and summarizes in capsule form the latest research on narcissism and so on comes highly recommended this reading assignment is borrowed from one of her blog posts and she had put together a great compilation so i would like you to read the article fluctuations in grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic states a momentary perspective by erdes edersheil and wright i would like you to read three faces of narcissism published in personality and individual differences volume 53 the author was holcroft authors were hardcroft boar and monroe and then clinical correlates of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism personality perspective by kaufman weiss and miller again journal of personality disorders volume 34. chryson and herlach in 2018 the narcissism spectrum model which i'm going to discuss a synthetic view of narcissistic personality published in personality and social psychology review miller lineum and hyatt hyatt and campbell of course controversies in narcissism annual review of clinical psychology volume 13. i'm going to discuss this article road world and morph 1998 on self aggrandizement and anger a temporal analysis of narcissism and effective reactions to success and failure publishing the journal of personality and social psychology volume 74. darlene lancer thank you very much for putting this reading list together before we proceed to clarify one thing they're all kinds of self-styled experts wannabe coaches and gurus pretending to know what they're talking about when they discuss narcissism they don't some of them tell you that there is no such thing as a covert or vulnerable or shy or fragile narcissist i have a surprise for them there is not only there is it is mentioned in the diagnostic and statistical manual edition 5 published in 2013 page 767 in the alternative model of narcissistic personality disorder the dsm-5 finally acknowledges the construct of covert narcissist or vulnerable narcissist a construct first proposed by cooper and akhtar in 1989 they most definitely exist all the textbooks including lynn lynn sperry's textbook that i keep referring to miller many others they include chapters and so on about covert and and vulnerable fragile shy narcissist this construct is well validated it definitely exists so if you come across anyone who pretends to know what he's talking about presents himself as an expert or or coach on narcissism and says that there is no such thing as covert narcissist dump him he has no idea what he's talking about he or she has no idea what they're talking about okay now let me try and see if i can enlarge this someone asked me to to discuss the the differences between narcissistic style and narcissistic um let me see if i can enlarge this right um okay let's see and i'm going to read to you the section from lens perry's book about the differences between narcissistic style and narcissistic personality so here it is narcissistic personality style although emotionally vulnerable to negative assessments and reactions of others they can handle these gracefully shrouding dealing with others utilizing the strengths and advantages of others to achieve their own goals can energetically sell themselves their ideas and their projects tend to be able to be able competitors who love getting to the top and enjoy staying there can visualize themselves as the best most accomplished in their field they believe in themselves their abilities and their uniqueness but do not demand special treatment or privilege accept accomplishments praise and admiration gracefully and with self-possession possess a keen awareness of their thoughts and feelings and have some awareness of the of these in others expect others to treat them well at all times so this is the narcissistic personality style now let's talk about the disorder reacts to criticism with feelings of rage stress or humiliation even if they are not expressed interpersonally exploitive taking advantage of others to achieve his or her own goals and ends grandiose sense of self importance their problems are unique and understood only by other special people preoccupied by fantasies of unlimited success power brilliance beauty or ideal love have a sense of entitlement and unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment require constant attention and admiration possess a lack of empathy inability to recognize and experience how other people feel preoccupied with feelings of envy so this is these are the differences between the style and the disorder and now i'm going to read to you a segment from lens perry's book which i kept mentioning in my previous videos about uh treatment and diagnosis of dsm-5 personality disorders and here is a segment although dsm-5 only describes one type or presentation of the narcissistic personality disorder research describes three types overt covert and malignant and he relies on an article published in 2015 by caligor [Music] c-a-l-i-g-o-r levi and eomance all three types are highly self-absorbed and have little genuine regard for the needs and feelings of others then he discusses the overt type i wanted to listen well because this is the foundation for the continuation of the video where we're going to discuss narcissism is a disguise and a camouflage of other disorders so the overt type this type presents as grandiose and thick skinned and is the embodiment of dsm-5 criteria these individuals are characterized by overt grandiosity attention-seeking entitlement arrogance and little observable anxiety they can be socially charming despite being oblivious to the needs of others and are interpersonally exploitive the problem is that they have a fragile sense of self that is predicated on maintaining a self-view that they are exceptional because genuine engagement can result in the painful realization that others have attributes that they lack these narcissistic individuals engage in superficial relationships they seek out external feedback that supports this grandiose search definition and now to the covert type this type and this is not some acne this is lensberry this type presents as vulnerable fragile and thin skinned these individuals are characterized as inhibited manifestly distressed hypersensitive to the evaluations of others while chronically envious and evaluating themselves in relation to others interpersonally they tend to be shy outwardly self-effacing and hypersensitive to slice but are covertly or secretly grandiose and jealous unlike the overtime these tend to withdraw from social situations and finally there's a malignant type this type is also referred to as malignant narcissist by kernberg in 1984 these individuals are characterized by the typical symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder as well as prominent antisocial behavior paranoid features sadism towards others they may engage in chronic lying intimidation and financial or interpersonal secondary gains which maintain their malignant pattern taking a more behavioral attack turket tur in 1990 differentiates this disorder into three other types the self-centered impulsive type the ruthless impression management type and the oriented impression management type of course he considers the acceptance oriented impression management type to have the the best therapeutic prognosis nevertheless he formulates each type as behavioral manifestations of an impulse control deficit that is learned in early childhood by the way the third type is actually codependent specifically these individuals that learn to seek reinforces enablers without having to work for them so they want to be reinforced they want to be enabled but without investing it this resulted in their development as self-indulgent egocentric and impulsive individuals individuals with the second and third types focus on creating a favorable impression on others however they are unable to maintain close relationships because while they have excellent skills at reading superficial cues they have empathic deficits there's another proposed topology which again corresponds if you listen carefully if you tune your bi your mind this topology as all the previous topologies have mentioned correspond to other mental health disorders it seems that narcissism maybe maybe a camouflage an overlay a veneer a coat of paint or polish over real primary disorders there is the topic of comorbidity narcissism is very often diagnosed with other mental health disorders personality disorders mood disorders depressive disorders anxiety disorders and so this comorbidity should have should have alerted us should have warned us should have told us that narcissism may actually be a secondary phenomenon not a primary phenomenon based on a survey of and this is from the book malignant self-love narcissism revisited authored by one sambucne based on a survey of 1201 therapists i don't know who was the last one and psychologist in clinical practice professor drew weston of emory university postulated the existence of three subtypes of narcissism number one high functioning or exhibitionistic narcissist has an exaggerated sense of self-importance but is also articulate energetic outgoing and achievement oriented this is what i would call perhaps the cerebral narcissist the second type is the fragile narcissist again fragile vulnerable shy covert western describes the fragile narcissist wants to feel important and privileged in order to ward off to fend off painful feelings of inadequacy and loneliness that's of course the equivalent of the compensatory or covert narcissist and the third type is the grandiose malignant processes has an exaggerated sense of self-importance feels privileged exploits others and lusts after power and that would be the classic overt type okay let's go let's get to business a bit late but better late than never i am going to quote from the article exploring the structure of narcissism towards an integrated solution it was published in february 2019 it was a culmination of three years of joint work by the authors i'm going to read to you the last article first and the initiating article the first article they had published lost because i want you to see the way their thinking had evolved the this this particular article was published in the february 2019 um edition of journal of personality and the authors are michael crowl c-r-o-w-e of the university of georgia donald lineum of purdue university the famous keith campbell of the university of georgia he collaborated with john twenge on multiple studies very crucial and important studies he's a chronicler of the rise of narcissism in society and josh or joshua miller of the university of georgia and so this is the article exploring the structure of narcissism towards an integral solution earlier they had published another article called titled controversies in narcissism this one was published in march 2017 in the annual review of clinical psychology so i uh i would like to try to to read to you uh composite of their thinking there has been a certain interest in and research on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder the author's saying despite or because of this increased attention there are several areas of substantial debate that surround the construct including descriptions of grandiose and vulnerable dimensions or variants questions regarding the existence of a consensual description central versus peripheral features of narcissism distinctions between normal and pathological narcissism possible etiological factors the roar of self-esteem in narcissism where narcissism should be studied how it can be assessed and its representation in diagnostic nostologies we suggest say the authors that a failure to distinguish between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism the grandiose narcissism is overtly modest self-centered entitled domineering and the vulnerable narcissist is self-centered distrustful neurotic and introverted if we fail to distinguish between the presentations these two presentations of narcissism this has led the the authors say to a less cohesive and coherent literature and that trait based models of personality and personality disorder can bring greater clarity to many of these important debates despite decades the authors continue despite in in the next article despite decades of work on narcissism there remain many active areas of exploration and debate and they repeat some of the i mean they that's how they define their agenda this is the earlier article there is no clear and conceptual description of the underlying components of narcissism understanding narcissism factor structure is necessary for precise measurement and investigation of specific psychological and behavioral processes the aim of the current study is to explore the structure of narcissism by examining it at varying hierarchical levels and so they continue to describe the the the way they constructed the article and they use 46 scales it was an interesting an interesting study and they used essentially the five factor model self-esteem aggression and externalizing behavior these were the the things they measured and the results were this a series of factor analysis revealed the fact of structure of narcissism at a range of specificities no more than five meaningful factors were found grandiosity neuroticism antagonism distrustful self-reliance and attention-seeking and the most parsimonious model appears to be a three-factor structure actually narcissism scales that effectively capture each of the identified factors are identified in the article factors diverged in their association with criterion variables and the conclusion of the of the authors is a three-factor model a genetic extraversion narcissistic neuroticism and self-centered antagonism seems to be the most parsimonious conceptualization enough to capture narcissism larger factor solutions are discussed but future research will be necessary to determine the value of these increasingly narrow factors so this is what is known today as tmn the trifarcated model of narcissism it starts uh let's start with the foundational with what they call foundational traits and as i mentioned the foundational traits are extroversion agreeableness and neuroticism and all these three are transformed malignantly in narcissism extroversion becomes assertive extroversion i would use the term aggressive extroversion agreeableness becomes antagonism in narcissism and eroticism remains neuroticism and then when you put the three together as assertive extroversion antagonism neuroticism you get two types of narcissists grandiose narcissist or vulnerable narcissist and this is the campbell campbell miller tmn model trifarcated model of narcissism let's talk a bit about the grandiose narcissist they the authors and others admit that there are degrees and types of narcissism so everyone now agrees that there is a spectrum a dimensional we should have a dimensional approach to narcissism but most of the studies we have are focused on exhibitionistic narcissists the narcissist who seeks the limelight the narcissists who can't live one minute without attention these are boastful grandiose narcissists and these are the kind this the stereotype of the narcissist the stereotype is so powerful that it made it into the dsm-4 and the text revision of the sm4 and into dsm-5 although the author's committee of dsm-5 tried to divorce itself from this stereotype by proposing an alternative model which incorporates covertness and so these overt exhibitionistic narcissists grandiose they're charming they're attention seeking they're extroverted they're vain they're bold audacious even they're obnoxious they're shameless and guiltless they're self-absorbed entitled callous exploitative authoritarian aggressive etc etc etc and of course when i described this in 1995 i showed the inexorable connection between this list of traits and the behaviors attendant on these traits and i coined the phrase narcissistic abuse now narcissistic abuse could be anything it's verbal in the case of the cerebral narcissist but it could be physical physical abuse is also a part of narcissistic abuse in in many cases these narcissists have a self-aggrandizing self-perception and self-image and because they lack empathy and they feel superior hauntingly superior they are arrogant they are also contemptuous and yet at the same time they are dependent on other people for the regulation of their self-esteem and sense of self-worth and they are extroverted so when you talk to these narcissists they tell you i'm very happy with myself you know i'm ego they're ego symptomic they're very high self-esteem too high they are satisfied with their lives and they don't they don't give a second thought sometimes not even a first thought to the pain and hurt that they inflict on on other people they are focused like a laser beam on obtaining attention a claim domination and narcissistic supply even they bring this attitude even to intimate relationships they every relationship becomes a competition or a power play a hierarchy a dominance who would be top lobster and because they are outgoing and because they're charming and because you know they know which buttons to push and which levers to pull because they have cold empathy highly developed cold empathy they do have relationships but these relationships are called and sterile and empty there's no intimacy there's no happiness and there is only the infatuation with the charisma with the audacity with the daring with the adventure with the risk with the novelty they cater these narcissists to the psychopathic and narcissistic elements of their own partners and these are the overt of grandiose narcissists and then there is the vulnerable shy fragile covert narcissists closeted narcissists the introverted noses i mean that many the many names similarly they are self-absorbed narcissism is an inability to maintain object relations the only relationship a narcissist any narcissist truly have truly has is with himself and since he doesn't have a self he doesn't have a self the narcissist has a relationship with his absence i know this is mind boggling it's it's it's extremely difficult to comprehend you know what consider religious people god is an abstract god is an idea it's a concept and yet religious people convert god into a presence it's a delusional presence but it's a presence and they interact with god as though god were there similarly the narcissist deifies his false self narcissism is a religion i keep explaining so he deifies his false self and then he has a relationship with his false self that is akin to a religion he misperceives his false self as a presence when actually the fourth self is defensive one hundred percent defensive the forces is not about including anything or anyone the false self is about keeping out pushing away excluding others and circumstances and complete competitors and objects of envy the fourth self is busy firewalling the narcissist the full self in other words guarantees in empty space and yet the narcissist perceives the false space uh default self it's a presence so he has a relationship the only relationship and the only libidinal cathexis the only investment of emotions that the narcissist is capable of if at all is in this emptiness he is married to absence and of course because he has no true self to counter this absence gradually he identifies with the absence he becomes the absence he merges with the absence and fuses he has a codependent relationship with his false self it's very intricate and so the fourth self includes all the internal objects including representations and introjects of the narcissist intimate partners who had been internalized interiorized that's the snapshotting mechanism that i'm describing okay so covert narcissists are also self-centered of course although in the absence of self one could say they are centered around the absence of self in their case they are also envious envious of overt narcissists and functional people so in the case of covert narcissist i would say that the relationship the cathexis is in the envy but envy is about emptiness because envy is destructive the impulse of envy is to destroy the source of envy to destroy the object you envy to destroy the person you envy so it's about destruction it's about annihilation it's about disappearing and vanishing it's about emptiness and absence so while the overt narcissist interacts with emptiness and absence via grandiosity he interacts with a fantasy which is not there the covert narcissist interacts with absence and emptiness via envy and so um he feels entitled if he's exploitative he has no empathy he's manipulative aggressive exactly like the overt but he is also socially shy to the point of being avoidant one could even argue that covert the covert narcissist is a compensatory reaction to avoidant personality disorder or schizoid personality so there's a debate now and it seems that schizoid personality disorder will be some subsumed within avoidant personality so not kept as a separate clinical entity so the the covert narcissist shy away shies away from attention because he is afraid of criticism and rejection and abandonment rings a bell yes borderline we're beginning to see the seamless integration of all so-called separate personality disorders and clinical entities each one of them functions as primary or secondary foundational and overlay that's why people who are traumatized for example victims of complex trauma cptsd that's why they suddenly develop borderline traits or become narcissistic or become secondary psychopaths because trauma doesn't create a single personality disorder trauma creates all personality disorders and then a few of them one or two usually one actually becomes primary becomes the cornerstone the core and around these their overlays this core personality disorder this core disturbance picks up traits and behaviors and effect and emotions and memories and fears and wishes and hopes and elements of identity because the identity is shattered there's identity diffusion identity disturbance so the core serves as a giant black hole as a giant magnet if you wish and accumulates an overlay or actually a series of overlays like an onion of other personality disorders but these personality disorders which are visible to the therapist visible to the intimate partner visible to colleagues and friends this personality disorder let's call them the presenting personality disorder the facade personalities or they're hiding they're hiding the core personality disorder or the core the core disturbance the core disturbance in identity formation the core disturbance in effect and emotion and and regulation the core disturbance in memory dissociation that's the core so covert narcissist probably the core is avoidance schizoid or what melanie klein described as a schizoid posture position um overt or grandiose narcissist may be compensating for something else for example a um a psychopath so when we are presented with a personality disorder we should take it with a with a mountain of salt it's like a visit card you know the the person is giving you a visit card hello my name is sam i'm a narcissist wait a minute hello what is your narcissism hiding narcissism is compensatory what is it compensating for sam dude what is your problem the real one not the one you're presenting to me don't forget that most personalities engage in numerous defense mechanisms including fantasy confabulation rationalization intellectualization i mean you name it everything is distorted endlessly in an infinite hall of mirrors you're not getting real information by interrogating the personality disordered person so the the covert narcissist uh shares a lot with the overt narcissist but probably is hiding another core problem another core issue and so both of them for example present as autonomous but they're not they're highly dependent both of them present exude information but this information is fraudulent they're imposters and they suffer from imposter syndrome they have no self they have no ego and yet everyone thinks they're egotistical of the driven by ego including one of the experts who spew endless nonsense about ego and ego death and i don't know what they're self-alienated and and perhaps the only difference between them is the intensity and extent of experiencing internal objects experiencing and reacting to introjects experiencing and interacting to disembodied emotions not identified as emotions experiencing and interacting with internal processes and dynamics and so you could be confident you can be ego symptomic self-satisfied gratified you can be insecure you can be happy you can be all this is not relevant it's a mistake to focus on this psychology has deteriorated to the composition of lists and to structured interviews for some reason psychology assumes that self-reporting is honest reporting so today the dominant tests for narcissism and psychopathy rely on self-reporting two types of people who lie as soon as they breathe you know and the distress the anxiety the guilt the shame the depression the hypersensitivity the hyper vigilance that it's all these are all the grandiosity these are all cognitive deficits there you can't rely on the cognition of these people you can definitely not rely on their emotions because their emotions are either dysregulated and overwhelm them which provokes them to become psychopaths or as a defensive butcher or they deny themselves access to their emotions no measure of self-reporting should be employed engaging personality disorders there are these are conflicted conflicted characters irrational and they're they they engage in a monopoly of very primitive defense mechanisms such as splitting and projection and projective identification and and many others and they create in the evaluator in the assessor in the diagnostician they create very bad dynamics like counter transference or introjection projective interjection so if you engage with them as you would with a normal person you're going to be infected even if you are a highly trained diagnostician trust me i've seen it happen um it would behoove us perhaps to resurrect the concept of neurosis somehow it was discarded together with psychoanalysis and sigmontroid this towering genius sigmund freud [Music] didn't wear a white coat didn't pretend to be a physicist and didn't play the experimental game and he wrote well which is a minus so he was discarded and the baby in the bath and water and the room and the building everything was discarded and one of the things that was discarded is the concept of neurosis and roses is intimately connected to personal growth i recommend that you read the works of the books any book anything you can lay your hand on by karen hornay so neurosis was both all-encompassing it was a unifying or organizing principle and on one hand and on the other hand it was intimately connected to lifespan development now you can take the work of integrationists such as for example ericsson and to some extent unafraid and you can go from there but it's important for us to have a language that captures the fact that as people grow up from the first moment through the formative years up to death as they evolve throughout the lifespan they're going to present kaleidoscopically different facets of their personality and some of these facets will be dysfunctional and to cage them or to limit them to a grocery list of symptoms defies um any everything and everything we know about the human animal and so there are questions we should borrow elements from from psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychology and the concept of neurosis we should resuscitate a lot of knowledge accumulated in the behaviorist school so concepts like operant conditioning reinforcement and and so on so forth we should revive the study of defense mechanisms much reviled and and uh and ridiculed brilliant a brilliant uh concept a brilliant achievement of the of the human mind and and we should work with all these things sperry writes unlike extroverted narcissists covert narcissists lack positive relationships instead of boldly dominating people they are threat oriented and distrustful their attachment style is more avoidant and anxious they withdraw from others with hostile blame and resentment internalizing their narcissism empathetic codependents feel sympathetic and want to rescue them from their misery but end up self-sacrificing and feeling responsible for them and then he describes the communal narcissism not realizing that i coined the phrase communal or pro-social narcissism is a phrase that i coined in 1997 i think and he describes the communal losses even more difficult to identify is the third type of narcissism it was only named recently wrong communal narcissism communal narcissists value warmth agreeableness and relatedness they see themselves and want to be seen by others as the most trustworthy and supportive person and they try to achieve this through friendliness and kindness they are outgoing like the grandiose narcissist however whereas the granules narcissist wants to be seen as the smartest and most powerful a communal narcissist wants to be seen as the most giving and helpful narcissist vain selflessness is no less selfish than that of a grandiose narcissist they both share similar motives for grandiosity esteem entitlement and power although they each employ different behaviors to achieve these when their hypocrisy is discovered it's a bigger form and finally the malignant narcissist lens sparing malignant narcissists are considered to be the extreme end of the continuum of types of narcissism due to their cruelty and aggressiveness they are paranoid immoral and sadistic they find pleasure in creating chaos and taking people down these narcissists aren't necessarily grandiose extroverted or neurotic but are closely related to psychopathy the dark triad the dark tetrahedron and antisocial personality disorder and he refers to how croft an article from 2012 and so the the question of course is the the the question of course is um where do we go from there what do we what do we achieve by by considering these classifications the previous sections i've read were partly from darlene lancer partly from lensberry and they presented a good overview but taxonomy and classification don't help us to gain insight into the core state the experience of being a narcissist identifying the type of narcissist is also useless because there's no type constancy as i've kept saying in all my videos narcissists oscillate they change the grandiose becomes covert the somatic becomes cerebral the inverted becomes covert etc etc they constantly fluctuate and they are reactive to the my interpretation is that various types of narcissism disguise core core disorders they are like overlaid on core disorders and the circumstances change life circumstances these core disorders manifest this is why there's no type constancy the core disorder is like a body and narcissism is like clothing you can change your clothes but you can rarely if ever change your body there is a body of disruption with identity memory effect emotion cognition disruptive in some individuals and they overlay this with narcissistic defenses and each type of narcissistic defense creates another diagnosis and of course the circumstances change that the defenses change and suddenly the diagnosis change instability fluctuation uh very common and so while typically when when you are in the type you're unlikely to exhibit attributes of the other type you can definitely switch to the other type completely so work by edersheil and wright and odwalt and others which i've mentioned before they discuss these type constancy and type in constancy and so is there anything we can say about narcissism that is not dependent on these core disorders are there any personality traits are there is there anything that we can point the finger at and say regardless of the core disorder regardless of the primary disruption of the primary problem this is narcissism so there is a triforce model that i mentioned a genetic extraversion disagreeableness and and neuroticism and adjusting agent extroverts are authoritative bold audacious go-getters they are after money power acclaim achievement leadership positions et cetera et cetera they are extrovert they're little leader types you know and but it would seem as jordan peterson also notes in in many of his writings that disagreeableness is is a core narcissists are disagreeable it's one of the big five personality traits it's it seems that narcissist narcissism is about conflict interpersonal antagonism both of the covert and the overt the somatic and the cerebral that you name it all types of nonsenses they're gonna fight with you they're gonna fall out with you they're gonna hurt you they're gonna abuse you there is an element of constant battle constant conflict one could even venture to say functional sadism not emotional sadism in the sense that most narcissists hurt other people and abuse them not in order to derive pleasure but functionally as a psychopath would do but if we have a class of people whose overriding common denominator is hurting other people can't we safely call this kind of people operational or functional sadis i think yes narcissists are manipulative hostile entitled callous and angry and they put all these assets at the service of antagonizing others fighting them humiliating them establishing hurtful dominance etc etc kaufman in a recent article 2020 has has mentioned this granted antagonism and conflict are expressed differently some narcissists are more hostile others more distrustful some uh domineering others are most obese even so but it's still at the core hostile hostile conflict i want to quote from a blog by by darlene lancer about the spectrum model she summarized it nicely the narcissism spectrum model nsm created by kerzen and herlock in 2017 conceives narcissism as existing on a spectrum from grandiose to vulnerable it demonstrates how npd varies in severity and how traits manifest the model reveals that both types of narcissists share a common psychological core of entitled self-importance narcissists believe that they and their needs are special and take precedence over those of others this core is made up of arrogance self-involvement and entitlement in fact entitlement is reportedly the most toxic element in relationships narcissists differing personalities express diverse qualities at various times this model captures a fluid functional analysis that is more representative of real life the greater a person's grandiosity the less is their vulnerability and vice versa more entitlement and risk-taking increase professional and interpersonal difficulties the greater the vulnerability the further away or lower is the grandiosity so we are beginning to reconceive of narcissism as a spectrum of behaviors and traits united by specific factors five factors three factors there's a debate about the factors but we're beginning to have a factor factor view of narcissism could be antagonism self-importance entitlement disagreeableness um whichever ultimately we are going to settle on the list evidence-based list verified and proven via experiments and studies but i think we are going there where we are no longer going to talk about narcissism as a personality disorder we're going to just to discuss it in terms of a post-traumatic condition that relies on several factors or brings forth several personality factors and because it's a condition not a disorder it's in other words because it's a process not a disorder it's a reactive process it can be attached to any other mental health issue including mood disorders anxiety disorders even eating disorders you can find narcissism everywhere in every even in schizophrenia in psychotic disorders we have grandiose psychotic disorders narcissism is not a mental health issue narcissism is the very foundation and core of personality formation and personal growth primary narcissism is what drives the baby to become effectively human and then we have narcissism healthy narcissism throughout life narcissism is who we are it can go bad like cells which become cancerous but we have cells everywhere and we have narcissism everywhere and we have narcissism in everything self-confidence self-esteem and mental health issues so we should get rid of the conception of narcissism as a specific disorder with a list of criteria and symptoms and if we only get five out of nine we have this is nonsense the spectrum model which is a dimensional mode is much closer to the reality and the reality is if you have a mental health issue you're going to react to the internal trauma of experiencing your mental illness with narcissism that is inevitable experiencing mental illness exactly like experiencing covet or chronic illness is a traumatic experience and it's superimposed on a traumatic early childhood so it's a double trauma it's a resonant trauma the trauma of being mentally ill resonates with the trauma that had led to the mental illness it's a it's an echo chamber and to cope with this we need narcissistic defenses these are the only defenses we have even as healthy people so ultimately when we have mental illness gonna gonna end up being narcissistic if we are exposed to trauma complex trauma we're gonna end up being narcissistic if we get sick physically we're gonna end up becoming more narcissistic narcissism is a survival mechanism it's a positive adaptation in extreme situations the problem is when these defenses are leveraged and used in day-to-day life there's no emergency no trauma no mental illness and no chronic illness that's where the trouble starts and narcissists need narcissists need you to manage their internal environment narcissist by definition is a diet not not a person narcissist doesn't have a personality which which makes the whole concept of narcissistic personality disorder counterproductive not to say nonsensical narcissists have no ego how can they have a personality narcissist borrow your personality you help them to regulate their their needs their cognitions their emotions everything their sense of self-worth and exactly like people with borderline personality disorder who also have a false self the aim of the false self is to hail to interpolate to cause people to react in highly rigid and structured forms rendering them in many ways pseudo narcissist as well and so i want to read to you what milan has to say about the compensatory narcissist the company theodor millen personality disorders in in daily life second edition published in 2004 the compensatory narcissist the compensatory variant essentially captures the psychoanalytic understanding of the narcissistic personality the early experiences of compensating narcissists are not too dissimilar to those of avoidant and negativistic passive aggressive personalities you see he's noting the resemblances all these have suffered wounds early in life rather than collapse under the weight of inferiority and retreat from public view like the avoidant or vacillate between loyalty and anger like the negativist passive aggressive the compensatory compensating narcissist develops an illusion of superiority life becomes a search to fulfill aspirations of status recognition and prestige every small certificate and plug the individual has ever received may be displayed on the office wall for example at other times they may bore others while they present a complete biography of their most minuscule successes and achievements like avoidant personalities compensating narcissists are exceedingly sensitive to the reactions of other people called empathy noting every critical judgment and feeling slighted by every sign of disapproval unlike avoidance however they seek to conceal their deep sense of deficiency from other people and from themselves by creating a facade of superiority though they have often ha though they often have a degree of insight into their functioning remember i kept telling you that narcissists are self-aware it's another type of nonsensical myth propagated and spewed by self-styled experts yes so milan agrees they have self-awareness though i quote from milan though they often have a degree of insight into their functioning they nevertheless indulge themselves in grandiose fantasies of personal glory and achievement some procrastinating doing anything effective in the real world for fear of evaluation and failure instead of living their own lives they often pursue the leading role in a false and imaginary theatre unrelated to the real world when they're threatened with reality compensatory narcissists may defend themselves by becoming more and more arrogant and dismissive until the offending stimulus withdraws if reality overturns their illusions completely compensating narcissists may retreat more and more into an imaginary world of others who recognize their supposed accomplishments they become schizoid in other words and i would like to read to you descriptions of other mental health disorders which will immediately remind you of the narcissist so these are other than this is not narcissistic personality disorder this is not narcissism but i'm going to read to you the description of these disorders and you immediately will recognize the narcissist what you call narcissists what i call narcissists so the insular paranoid the insular paranoid it's a paranoid not a narcissus the insular paranoid combines aspects of the paranoid and avoidant personalities such individuals are often moody apprehensive and hypersensitive to criticism especially where their worth and achievements are concerned extremely vulnerable many insular paranoids seek solace in self-focused ways for example they may engage in abstruse intellectual activities to enhance their self-esteem or they may indulge in drugs and alcohol to calm their fears especially fearful of shame and humiliation insular paranoids seek to defend themselves against both real and imagined dangers more than most insular paranoids seek to protect themselves from a world both threatening and destructive as such they may isolate themselves for long periods of time a means of keeping the inevitable judgments of other people out of their lives insular paranoids also have an unusually strong fear of being controlled they not only seek to prevent external influence but they also desire to rely solely on their own conclusions and beliefs unwilling to check their thoughts against consensual reality insular paranoids grow more and more out of touch with the surrounding world eventually losing the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality fears of shame and humiliation an important component of both the paranoid and avoidant patterns easily inflate to full-blown conspiracies eventually their thoughts may become so painful and terrifying that they begin intentionally to interrupt the continuity and focus of their perceptions distracting themselves from their own thoughts by deserting themselves their inner world becomes a chaotic melange of distorted incidental and unconnected notions the threshold of a decompensated paranoid state let's discuss another mental health disorder which is not narcissism the reputation defending antisocial psychopath not all antisocials covet material possessions or power says theodor miller those who share traits with the narcissistic personality are motivated by the desire to defend and extend a reputation of bravery and toughness anti-social acts are designed to ensure that other people notice them and accord them the respect that they deserve as such they are perpetually on guard against the possibility of belittlement society should know that their reputation defending antisocial is someone significant not to be easily dismissed treated with indifference taken lightly or pushed around whenever the status or ability is slighted they may erupt with ferocious intensity posturing and threatening until their rivals back down some reputation defending antisocials are loners some are involved in adolescent gang activities and still others simply seek to impress peers with aggressive acts of leadership or violence that secure their status as the alpha male the dominant member of the pack being tough and assertive is essentially a defensive act intended to prove their strength and guarantee a reputation of indomitable courage and finally one last type which is not a narcissist and still resembles almost fully analysis and overt narcissism the vivacious vivacious hysteromic vivacious historic synthesizes the seductiveness of the estrionic with the energy level typical of hypomania the result radiates attractiveness charm playfulness verve and intensity more than just bubbly or perky vivacious histrionics are interpersonally cheerful optimistic spontaneous and impulsively expressionistic often without regard to future consequences driven by a need for excitement and civilian stimulation many vivacious historionics are easily infatuated attaching themselves to one person one after another in quick succession behaviorally their movements are quick and animated they both enter and leave with a flourish even though they are only superficial thinkers their ideas often flow so quickly and easily that other people become infected by their excitement those who are more normal race around get things done start projects and persuade others to join them with an energy and friendliness that make for a natural salesperson others however pursue momentary whims without completing much of anything leaving broken promises empty wallets and distraught associates not surprisingly many vivacious historionics also possess narcissistic traits summary personality disorders in general are story lines storyboards narratives they are intended to disguise and camouflage discontinuity is an identity caused by post-traumatic dissociation however narcissism is not a personality disorder it's an integral part of personal growth evolution and development over the lifespan we all have healthy narcissism we all start with primary narcissism as infants and it is primary narcissism that allows us to develop and evolve and become adults so narcissism stays with us for life the malignant forms of narcissism the sick forms pathological forms of narcissism the overt the covert the malignant these forms could be cons could be conceived of as cancer there are cells everywhere and so cancer can appear anywhere it's the same with narcissism cancerous or malignant narcissism it can appear anywhere people with an underlying mental illness a mood disorder affect disorder eating disorder psychotic disorder another personality disorder people with a mental health issue are likely to be traumatized twice once by the trauma that had led to the mental health issue and the second time by the mental illness itself which is highly traumatic to compensate for these traumas to paper over the resulting dissociation to cope somehow everyone who is mentally ill employs and deploys narcissistic defenses everyone who is mentally ill with any kind of mental illness whatsoever becomes a narcissist of one kind or another depending on the mental illness this expression of narcissistic defenses if if it is sufficiently long if you know if if you've been mentally ill for 20 years and you've been using narcissistic defenses for 20 years if it is sufficiently all pervasive and above all if it is successful if it's a positive adaptation allows you to cope properly with your mental illness this narcissistic adaptation becomes entrenched becomes fossilized and ossified becomes an integral part of your identity and you become in this particular sense a narcissist so narcissism is an overlay sometimes a rigid overlay sometimes an integral integrated overlay over and above some underlying condition mental disruption mental health problem usually in reaction to a trauma trauma can be an early childhood trauma could be with your husband trauma could be a natural disaster but whenever mental illness erupts all the arsenal of defenses comes into life and into action and a core core feature of these defenses is narcissism so narcissism is with us as healthy people and with us if we get mentally ill and its manifestations vary so there's no type constancy because it is attached to a primary disorder which is not narcissism and it acquires its features it requires its attributes it requires its symptoms expressive symptoms presenting symptoms so narcissism is like a chameleon it shape-shifts it adapts itself to the problem it has to solve it's a problem-solving tool the problem starts with the fact that one of the narcissistic defenses suspends reality testing involves cognitive deficits another problem is lack of emotional regulation in narcissism when narcissism goes up emotional regulation goes down these two put together uh create behaviors foster engender encourage behaviors which are essentially anti-social and abrasive and hurtful and abusive that's where the problem starts thank you for surviving this

Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin

Views: 69,643

Keywords: narcissism, personality, narcissistic personality disorder, NPD, psychopaths, antisocial, cold empathy, psychopathology, therapy, relationships, abuse, divorce, spousal abuse, domestic violence, psychotherapy, personality disorders, cluster B, DSM, self, ego, object relations, psychodynamics, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, psychological abuse, schizoid, borderline, psychology, psychiatry, pathology, inverted, compensatory, pedophilia, shared fantasy, collapsed, mortification, psychopath, somatic, cerebral

Id: lK7xWUZvg8U

Length: 76min 17sec (4577 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2021