The Malignant Narcissist's Internal World - FRANK YEOMANS

how do you differentiate between malignant narcissism and just sociopathy what's the difference that's an excellent question and that one i have thought about the cutoff in my mind is that a sociopath which i think is pretty synonymous with the psychopath literally has no concern about any other person on the planet interestingly malignant narcissists even though they are caught up in this defense of grandiosity they usually can care about another person putting it differently relations can matter they do seem to have some urge some desire for connection to others that desire for connection is very fragile because since they don't think they have anything to offer they don't expect that relations are going to work out very well therefore they puff themselves up and seek admiration where one might better seek love but at least in the malignant narcissist there's some internal conflict between that wish to connect and the opposing aggressive drives that's why there's hope in therapy for the malignant narcissist you have a conflict to deal with in the sociopath there's the aggression there's the exploitativeness but it doesn't seem to be combined with any desire to have any kind of emotional connection with anybody else so you don't have a conflict a person is totally fine exploiting hurting damaging others perhaps getting pleasure out of it so that's how i see the difference what would ever bring a malignant narcissist to therapy why would they ever go well in some cases it's the family most of the people i've treated with this disorder have been young adults and of course we have concerned families concerned about the suicide attempts the self-harm and i don't mean to imply that all self-harm has a sadistic component towards others i'm talking about in this patient population but some people themselves realize let's put it this way in the professional parlance they have at least some ego dystonicity about their condition they're not totally happy with it they realize it's impeding their effort to have any kind of a more successful life so there is sometimes that urge within the person if it's not the family sending them you mentioned a few minutes ago that the narcissist in a relationship may feel they have nothing to offer and therefore puff themselves up do they actually feel that they have nothing to offer or that is the unconscious feeling that they're trying to fight with their narcissism that's what i'm always trying to figure out when i'm dealing with somebody with this condition it's never clear to me at least at the start with a patient if their defensive system their grandiose narrative truly relieves them of the horror of the internal emptiness or if it works some of the time it's hard to enter into like total contact with the subjective experience of somebody like that so we can only speculate some of the times the person gives the impression of having a sense of satisfaction and that may be true most often one suspects that underneath they're plagued by doubt insecurity anxiety but the interesting thing is the more they escape from the anxiety and the sense of inadequacy the less they're in touch with reality extreme narcissism borders on psychosis so if the person is able to delude him or herself adequately maybe their subjective experience is gratifying to them but they're almost or perhaps are in a world of their own there's also a link with substance abuse because the person can't sustain their delusional grandiose narrative and when the doubt enters in sometimes the substance is needed to sort of wash away the doubt and the anxiety that goes with it in contrast to somebody who manages to keep the grandiosity intact and doesn't have those fault lines that are threatening to the whole system in a significant number of people with substance abuse these personality disorder issues are not adequately addressed and if we're to do better with our substance abuse population we should include assessments for underlying personality disorders is there really such a thing as family for someone who's in malignant narcissism or well if the family is organized to worship and adore the militant narcissist there can be some semblance of a family but it's hard to imagine because the aggression that gets played out would so tear at the family fabric the only cases i've seen i would say would fall into two categories the people who've come to treatment sometimes come from marriages where the partner has a quite a masochistic streak and so we'll tolerate the kind of things i've been describing and the children may just have no choice but to stay in the family until they can leave and i'm happy to say i've seen progress in patients like that and the achievement of relative harmony in the family the other kind of family is one where everybody is in it for mutual exploitation where it just seems like the connections are based on exploitation and power grabbing not anything we would say looked like love and concern and being one big happy family

Channel: BorderlinerNotes

Views: 433,119

Keywords: Narcissism, NPD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Frank Yeomans, Yeomans, malignant narcissim, trump sociopath, sociopathy, malignant narcissism vs sociopathy, psychopath, Trump, Trump family, Mary Trump, Trump narcissist, psychosis, narcissism and substance abuse, narcissist self-harm, narcissist suicide

Id: -AeWDcJaENc

Length: 7min 2sec (422 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ParkingPsychology]

I hadn't realized that malignant narcissist were better off than sociopath in regards to their chances of recovery.

Previously I viewed them as sociopaths with additional narcissistic traits. Looks like that's not really what's going on. The name gave it away I suppose, I just hadn't realized it.

So a narcissistic sociopath isn't the same thing as a malignant narcissist. Hm. I wonder what the effective/real world differences are between the two.

[u/KilvasatLife]

I hate how it's called recovery. What's titled recovery sure feels a whole lot like being trained to let people hurt me and not fight back.

[u/No_End_7227]

I love this channel on YouTube.

[u/YeezusIsTheNewJesus]

My oh my the comments are a shitshow. Here’s the answer you’re looking for. Malignants, or me for instance at least, do not have a conscience. I can literally write down notepads of how I’m gonna manipulate and cheat on people like an edgy teenager if I wanted to, But I also have an inner child that also wants to be loved and accepted without criticism. Some people think the psychopathic traits of MNPD are apart of the ego, and others think it’s apart of our true selves (inner child). Thats up for debate though as most of the time my ego is up anyway instead of the real me. I have this notepad of my true desires compared to what my ego wants and let’s just say it’s things that hold emotional value vs monetary value. I think you know which one wants which according to the names but a friend of mine (who I trust, who is also an empath but isn’t like uhh, aware of the word he’s just highly empathic) but, he saw it and was just like “woahh it’s like a totally different person in you, I doubted you even wrote that for a second.” So yeah there’s proof of the “inner child” I guess. It’s like I want two distinct things and there’s two voices in my head that tell me two different distinct things at every opportunity, a grandiose thought and an inferior thought. Or a monetary thing and a very emotional thing. It’s two different extremes. Some days I dream of cuddling someone and never leaving their side, others I dream of being a billionaire. So yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a higher recovery rate than sociopaths as the people I see on those subreddits are complete robots — literally it’s like they’ve been tortured out of their humanity. I’m just thankful I didn’t end up there.

[u/[deleted]]

this guy is a complete phony and it shows