Understanding the Narcissist: Why Do They Treat You This Way?

[Music] narcissistic abuse is not widely understood yet it is extremely prevalent so many people suffering from it are suffering in silence the med circle educator and clinical psychologist dr. Romani is on the forefront of research and treatment for narcissistic abuse the pattern of psychological neglect and invalidation that its victims face is difficult to recognize and even more difficult to reconcile but dr. Romani has the education you need to do both in this series she shares how to spot the signs of narcissistic abuse how to help a friend or a loved one suffering from it how to leave a relationship with a narcissist and more in our first session she unpacks the baseline knowledge you need on narcissistic abuse dr. Romani our favorite topic narcissism for those who don't know you why don't you give them a quick background on who you are I'm dr. Ramani Durvasula I'm a licensed clinical psychologist I'm a professor of psychology and I'm an author and I've actually written one and a book that's just about to come out a second book on narcissism why it's not good for us how it's it's hurting our lives our hearts our souls our world so this next book really takes on the bigger-ticket issues like this is everywhere it's almost as if something seeped into the water supply it's making everyone sick and many people say I don't have someone like this in my life oh yes you do because you go to the grocery store you should get on an airplane this is happening around you and even if it's not targeting you directly simply looking on a social media feed and having to see all this it's taking a toll on people and then of course obviously the people in these relationships it is I mean as you could imagine in my relationship with med Circle we started the journey my journey with med Circle started and talking about this issue you know I mean I know these videos have gotten millions of hits I mean I get so many emails every day this is a problem all over the world people are suffering yeah like this is a rallying cry for me this isn't okay so I've really devoted my career at this point to this what I think is happening is that people are finally understanding what it is they've been dealing with yeah because when I first sat down with you I was learning about narcissistic personality disorder and traits of narcissism and then I was able to see in my life where that was showing up where before I would have said oh this person just rubs me the wrong way but now I have understanding behind it and that understand me understanding allows me to cope with it it does but I have to tell you there's there's a pattern of grief you see in people who say what is this I feel like I'm going crazy oh that's what this is oh it can't change your entire world you can know now your entire worldview had to change because some people might have spent 10 weeks 10 months 10 years 25 years trying to change this person alright the game changes I'm saying uh-huh and so people will say thank you so much I'm so glad I'm not pushing the boulder up the hill anymore and then they see the pattern for what it is you can't unsee the pattern and it not only makes them it fills them with again sometimes grief regret and then they have to turn their game around right they can work their skills we can share with people on how they can manage this but then what a lot of people have said once I start seeing this I can't not see it and it makes people more discerning in terms of how they let people into their lives I'm gonna personally I have been more than once called out as like oh gosh you're really hard on people and I noticed you distance from someone right away and I'll notice everyone else giving that narcissistic person a chance so in essence enabling that person giving them an audience that was big giving them a chance in essence enabling them that's good because if we were talking about enabling the drug addict people would go I get it I get it I get it I won't do that there the this she used that word on on purpose enabling them giving them a chance really and so then they if I'm the only one in the room was like not cool I'm thumbed up the vibe here the energy here is wrong and I think only people who have survived narcissistic abuse sometimes get it that strongly like I get it and then they sometimes the survivor of narcissistic abuse gets called out for being dismissive for being mean I mean they really do it so it's almost like they're really riah Buse retraumatization I admit this when I will pull back and say yeah now this person's not cool and then everyone's like no no let's just listen to them and hear them out and then they get burned by them and the merciful people call me back they're like you were right about that when I said you could've saved yourself six months and a lot of money absolutely this series is all about narcissistic abuse we've talked about narcissistic personality disorder but this is really for the people who are in an abusive relationship and this can go beyond just romantic relationships this can be friends family bosses etc what is nurse what what is a narcissist okay so a narcissist briefly and again we have lots of great med circle videos on this too but a narcissist is a person who has a a long-standing pattern of not having empathy being very grandiose being arrogant being entitled they tend to be very superficial they're constantly seeking admiration and validation they cannot tolerate frustration or disappointment and under those conditions they often explode in these big rages they tend to be very dishonest they can often be very controlling now to get a holistic view of a narcissist though not all of them look like the big Pumped Up grandiose like Here I am I'm so great there's also a flip side to narcissism which is that very covert vulnerable side and these are people who are they tend to be very resentful sullen angry mopey they feel like world's not fair they feel the world's not just I never got my chance I was one of the great ones that could actually so much be a very dangerous form of narcissism because they're sort of sullen and brooding and I feel like life was never right to them they often walk around very much of victim mentality those are the two faces of narcissism and in the same narcissist you can have both it really depends on how their life is going but in its macro whether you're you're vulnerable or whether you're grandiose both forms of narcissism are really about that lack of empathy that entitlement that arrogance somehow they're too good for you they're too good for the world they can't be bothered with other Hugh beings they just don't care what's the difference between someone who is a narcissistic and someone who has a narcissistic personality disorder the big difference is more of a technical issue so whenever we talk about a disorder and we talk about a lot of disorders on med circle one of the key issues is that the person is experiencing either some kind of impairment or distress due to their behaviors of their symptoms classical example would be somebody for example who's depressed person who's depressed is irregular sleep and they feel sad and they can't concentrate and they feel worthless they're uncomfortable and on top of that it's probably causing them problems at work in their relationships in their lives that impairment distress idea makes sense there all of us have sad days but the idea that the sadness and how long it lasts and it gets in the way their lives that's when we diagnose it as major depressive disorder a narcissistic personality here's where it gets tricky a lot of people with these patterns have no impairment they're getting promotions they're getting the girl or the guy everyone's thinking they're so cool I want them at my party they're often very financially successful so as far as they're concerned they're killing it right so where's the impairment and distress we're saying I ain't got no problem it's your problem it's their problem it's the world's problem they defend themselves they rationalize everything they compartmentalize the world almost exists for their convenience so they're not distressed and depending on what index you use they're not impaired now there's nowhere in our diagnostic manuals we diagnose someone because they make other people unhappy right that's not built into them just because you're a jerk doesn't mean you get a diagnose that's right you do we do not diagnose jerks and and I think a lot of people wish we did because I think the call on email I get most often from clients is please give him a diagnosis and I say no and why I mean he's a jerk you've established that I believe you I'm buying it you know somehow and I'm thinking there's no pill I can see why you'd want to diagnosis it listen honey if I had the narcissism pillow we'd be shooting Med circle videos on my yacht thank you in San Tropez thank you okay so the fact is there is no pill and I think that people want they were there so hurt they want this to go away so narcissistic personality disorder we only see it and maybe 1 to 5 percent of people narcissism I'm willing to tip that number over 50% at this point 50% I really do have to say I think starting to feel like a coin flip maybe I'm wrong I have to say it like in my inner circle it's not enough on the capital I live in the capital true that's Los Angeles I know I could you presents a bit much you catching me out of because I've had a lot of friends watch your series on narcissism and or your many videos and a lot of them text me and they go oh my gosh I think I might be a narcissist and I go why do you say that right and they start explaining why they think that I know that you're not getting it then yes and you know what some people watch those videos and they say there are narcissists and there they're kind of right they'll say like yeah I'd I don't want to listen to other people's problems I can't be bothered and I want to get to the core of work what is this contempt about me and frame it for them do you realize that the core of intimacy and the quart of closeness is sometimes you listen to things maybe you're not fully plugged in but you care about them as a person so listen if some if some narcissists are unearthing their narcissism great it becomes a teaching point it becomes a self-reflective point on whether they're hurting other people I've worked with lots of narcissists in therapy I can only get them so far I can only get them so what is a narcissistic abuse and why do narcissists abuse okay so narcissistic abuse is not a well-articulated phenomenon those of us who do talk about it haven't even come up with a standardized definition to me it is a pattern of psychological neglect invalidation in dehumanization that causes significant stress or psychological harm or distress to the individual who is the subject of such abuse and this abuse what it's characterized by is chronic invalidation lack of compassion lack of respect lack of what we call mutuality back and forth and a sort of a cold indifference - - on the part of the narcissist to the other person like I said it's not a truly well articulated phenomenon though a lot of us talk about it that's sort of what it looks like and people who are on the receiving end of narcissistic abuse at the most severe some of these clients I think they look like they almost have post-traumatic stress disorder at the you know at the less severe end you see people who are full of self-doubt anxiety they don't feel good about themselves they worry a lot they feel hopeless they feel helpless more than anything else and all of those patterns make them less efficient and less able to get through their day-to-day lives it hurts their relationships it hurts them at school hurts them at work so if anything while the people who are narcissistic aren't experiencing the distress and impairment the people who are experiencing their abuse are so why do they do this to people that they say they love and care about when you guess that question Kylie gets it to complicated things number one what is love the server that we do when we don't I think that's a key cuz a lot of people say he says he loves me he how can he do this he must not love me I'm like slow down sister he said he loves you you're gonna have to buy that here's the problem this thing he's selling his love maybe it is maybe it's not like some of you go to a bar someone give you a glass of wine or what the hell is this it could just be great it could just be grape juice right so you know in some ways when when narcissists are selling love it's sort of like the grape juice of wine it's it's something very superficial it is something that lacks the depth that a healthy intimate relationship has it tends to be what we call very instrumental and in that way narcissus view human relationships as conveniences so in other words it's much like it's like this cup right now I like this cup because it's going to give me what I want to drink okay very convenient I'm actually quite focused on it now in ten minutes I'm not going to give this a couple of second thought because I don't need it that's how narcissists treat people I get that really well so and so that's really why it is that that's sort of the core of what it's why it happens it's just this disregard and they just don't get but they think they love because they may pay the rent they might buy you gifts they may take you out to dinner I took you on vacation hmm I died I came to your sister's wedding what more do you want from me and so as far as they're concerned that's love which is why I've always said on around the tenth day you need to pull your love contract out and say sweetheart this is what love is to me and if you ain't buying that's fine but I really do think that people need to be clear but how many people are gonna walk around saying my definition of love is actually quite superficial and this is the weight you need to stay at and this is how I expect things to be and I promise you this much in rent this much and stuff this much and gifts that's kind of gross and transactional but for narcissists a lot of their relationships are often quite transactional that's to unpack well are you sipping wine or just sipping grape juice in our next session we're going to talk about the signs of narcissistic abuse in your partner [Music] you

Channel: MedCircle

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Keywords: narcissist, narcissistic abuse, narcissistic personality disorder, narcissistic, covert narcissist, narcissists, narcissism, kyle kittleson, npd, mental health, dr. ramani, personality disorder, gaslighting, psychology, medcircle, ramani durvasula, dr ramani, discussion, psychologist, relationships, personality, educational videos, video, self-esteem, interview, emotional abuse, narcissistic abuse recovery, ted talk, are narcissists happy?, treat you this way, educational, youtube, help

Id: J4yraZiJ9D8

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Thu May 07 2020