When does the Gray Rock Method Fail? | Narcissism & Detachment Strategy

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 this is dr. grande today's question asks I can talk about the gray rock method or strategy that can be used for coping with narcissism so looking at the good and bad points of this particular strategy another related question here is what could cause this method to fail so under what circumstances do we see this method really doesn't work out too well so the gray rock method is not a scientific method it's not something we see in the scientific literature and there is no official definition for this strategy either there's no single and agreed-upon definition like we would see in scientific literature we do however have a general meaning for it with this particular method if somebody is in some sort of relationship with a narcissist they really limit their contact with that narcissist they don't reveal feelings they become cold to the narcissist they don't provide the narcissist a source of grafalk ation like a narcissistic supply they're not drawing attention and in a sense they're hidden in plain sight and that's why I really see the term gray rock being used here it's like just a gray Rock among a pile of rocks if somebody walks by that they're not really going to think much of that particular rock a gray rock really doesn't stand out among rocks so again hidden in plain sight now another way to kind of look at this method is it's a method of acceptance and attachment right so one accepts that the narcissist is going to behave in a certain way and then one tries to detach themselves from the narcissist to minimize that relationship so as I explore the reasons that this method can fail I'll also be touching on some of the good points and of course the bad points of the method so those points are more or less encompassed in this description about the reasons the method can fail so I'm going to refer to the gray rock method as the detachment strategy I think that's the the simplest way to kind of conceptualize this particular technique now one reason that this detachment strategy can fail is because of a power differential and this is not only in work settings but also in romantic relationships somebody may have more power in that relationship and it's really just hard to overcome with any behavioral technique right so sometimes there's really nothing someone can do if another person who is narcissistic has a great deal of power over them so this detachment strategy when it is successful tends to work when two people are at about the same power level right that's the best opportunity to see a positive outcome from that strategy now another reason it can fail has to do with the application of the detachment strategy itself the attachment seems fairly clear right don't react emotionally don't reveal personal information minimize interactions to what is necessary to accomplish goals but detaching for most people is actually pretty hard to do because it runs against the innate desire to socialize including the desire to reciprocate in a relationship for example if somebody thanks you for helping them with a task at work it's very tempting and quite natural to tell them you're welcome or to thank them for something that they did for you it just seems polite it's part of the exchange we see in everyday communication some types of communication are almost reflexive we say them without really thinking about it essentially automatic with this in mind other than the power differential I talked about before there are two main reasons I think that the detachment method could fail sometimes now I'm thinking here about a work context like the narcissist is a colleague or maybe a supervisor at work however this could also apply to other social environments and situations like romantic relationships so here's the first reason when somebody becomes unresponsive to a narcissist when they cut the narcissist off when they detach the narcissist no longer has the relationship as a source of gratification again the narcissistic supply has been removed the narcissist also loses the ability to gain new information about the victims weaknesses and this is a key advantage of this accept and detach method it doesn't supply the narcissist with weakness related information information about limitations that can be used against the victim but here's the problem even though it's intuitive to not supply the narcissist with information about weaknesses it's not unusual to still talk about strengths part of this can just be again the normal back-and-forth of conversations where people talk about different preferences they have they talk about things they believe that they're good at like abilities and skills it can also be something that's almost unconscious in the sense that the narcissist is bragging about themselves all the time so it can be tempting to want to say something positive about oneself the narcissist is talking about what they do well they're allowed to talk about their strengths why aren't other people allowed to talk about their strengths I think that's how a lot of people look at this there's the sense that if you don't talk about what you do well the narcissist gets further ahead they create more distance between you and them so essentially talking about strengths is just a matter of defending one's position in an organization a relationship or another social structure the challenge here of course is that the narcissist can use this information against a person as well narcissists have the ability to weaponize any personal information the information doesn't have to be inherently damaging or negative it can actually be positive and strength-based the narcissist distorts facts they distort information to get what they want they use any type of information to manipulate so let's take a look an example here so I'll use this person a person B language that I often use in my videos to describe examples let's say that person a is a narcissist and person B works with person a for a company that remodels homes so just to keep this example clear and I'll use the same set up in the next example person a is going to be a male and person B is going to be a female of course that doesn't have to be the case I'm just using these pronouns to keep the narrative more clear so let's say out of frustration and out of an effort not to get further behind the narcissist person B has talked about how she feels like she has skills to read people so she can tell which customers are serious buyers and which customers are not not an incredibly unusual skill in many business settings it would not be unusual to mention that if somebody had a good ability in that area right to be able to read people to know when they're serious or not so essentially this skill here is being insightful again knowing what somebody else is thinking so person a and person B go to look at this house that a customer may want remodeled the customer says that they need to talk to one other person and then they can decide about having this work done or not so person B says to the narcissist I think this person is a fairly serious buyer again not an unusual statement in this type of situation it's unusual when people are trying to sell other people a service or a product that they're gonna guess about how serious that buyer really is now the narcissist knows that person B's prediction could be incorrect and he starts planning and working on the job before the customer commits for example he may go to a local home improvement store and look at a few different items there he may go online and look at different prices for material that would be necessary for the job so he expends energy or he pretends that he is expending energy based on the prediction of person B in this scenario the narcissist wins no matter what happens if the customer contacts the company the next day and says yes let's go forward with the job the narcissist is now more prepared but if the customer does not commit if they back out the narcissists can now turn to person B and say it looks like you're not so insightful after all so somebody's trying to M a detachment strategy this example really illustrates why it's important to really carefully limit information that's shared with the narcissist even if that information doesn't seem to have a downside it reminds me of this thing that lawyers frequently say never talk to the police what they mean by this is if you are the subject of an investigation nothing you say to the police will help you there's a tendency to want to defend yourself to say no I didn't do this right that's not really even rational I'm not a criminal however it's better to say nothing and get a lawyer right there'll be plenty of time for the lawyer to provide any defense the same logic really applies here it seems like talking about a strength and making a prediction really doesn't have a downside but the narcissist does not have person B's best interest in mind he is trying to catch her on something he is looking for a way to harm her and anything she says can and will be used against her now I mentioned earlier that there are two reasons other than the power differential that this detachment strategy could possibly fail here's the second one we know that narcissists frequently lie they manipulate gaslight falsely accuse and spread rumors they're not typically good candidates for the investment of a lot of trust right so if it's ones contention that another individual cannot be trusted that individual the narcissist cannot be trusted across all domains and this is another area where I think people don't properly exercise the detachment strategy if the narcissist says something bad something negative about another person again a false accusation a rumor trying to capitalize on a weakness it's very clear to the victim that the information is not true the victim is going to know that they should not believe those false statements however if the narcissist says something good about a person that person is inclined to believe that statement again it's just woven into people as part of learning to socialize if somebody pays you a compliment it make sense to believe that compliment is true if a person pays the compliment to another person all other aspects aside they seem to be moving more towards somebody that has that other person's best interest in mind now it may seem relatively harmless to reject negative statements and to accept positive statements but in a sense it leads to the same difficulty we see before it's not truly adhering to detachment narcissists can use compliments for a few different reasons for example to get you in the habit of agreeing with them so that when they say something negative you may agree with that as well or to convince you that they have your best interest in mind so let's take a look another example one that illustrates the second reason again I'm looking at a person a person B situation and this situation person a is going to be a narcissistic supervisor so in this example person B is trying to use the detachment strategy so the narcissist person a he is having difficulty creating the type of chaos and harm through his negative statements so he switches to starting to pay compliments right he switches over to positive statements so he starts to point out ways in which person B has distinguished herself as an employee in those discussions where the narcissist is saying positive things person B is grateful she has encouraged that the narcissist may be turning over a new leaf she believes now that she may be able to reason with the narcissist the narcissist essentially gives person B hope so here's the tricky part the narcissist has been weaving negative statements among those positive statements so the person B really has to pick out certain details to reject as being untrue while at the same time she is accepting the positive feedback it becomes increasingly difficult to do this as the narcissist pays more compliments and offers more criticism so eventually person B concedes that some of the criticisms are true of course they are really just efforts to manipulate so now the narcissist gets into trouble for causing harm to a third party and he looks for person B's help he could say something like look you admitted that you have faults too nobody's perfect help me in this situation come to my defense I've always been a fan I've always pointed out your strengths so he's trying to escape accountability and trying to use person B to help him do that person B was trying to remain detached but now she is tempted to side with the narcissist now in this example it's important to keep in mind that person B knows that person a is a narcissist because simply having a supervisor who offers positive and negative feedback is not unusual many supervisors can do this in a genuine way and really help somebody to grow in an organization or grow in terms of their skillset but here we see the narcissist does this for his own gain he really doesn't care about person B or about the third party he cares about himself he couldn't make headway with negativity so he found a way to make progress with compliments we see in this scenario that the narcissist strategy provides a defense against a third party who might look at his behavior and express concern if person B does not come to his aid the narcissist can say look whenever I pay a compliment to her she seems to believe that I'm right about that but whenever I say something negative about her then she calls me a liar she doesn't respond well to criticism that's really what this is about it's simply about her having her feelings hurt so in a sense he's just pulled off another clever manipulation the defense here is to reject everything that the narcissist says not so much to evaluate information as being true or untrue but simply again to reject it so essentially to remain detached so it's like collecting data and then never making an interpretation of those data yes the narcissist is going to say whatever they're going to say one really can't prevent them from producing data but the victim of a narcissist doesn't have to assign value to that they don't have to react to those data so detachment is not about accusing the narcissist of lying the attachment is about not making any statement one is simply being indifferent to both praise and criticism now of course that statement being indifferent to praise or criticism is actually one of these symptom criteria for a personality disorder called schizoid personality disorder an individual with this disorder doesn't really care if somebody says something nice or impolite it doesn't matter either way interestingly schizoid person is order is also described as being a disorder of unresponsiveness now to somebody with this disorder the indifference to praise and criticism comes without effort but to a person without this disorder and of course most people who are dealing with the narcissist would not have this disorder they really have to work to fail to respond when nice things are being said about them it's much easier to reject negative feedback than it is to reject positive feedback now it's interesting because this association to schizoid personality features is one of the criticisms I hear about the grey rock method some people will say is it a good idea to mimic the symptoms of a personality disorder to deal with a narcissist well with a personality disorder the symptoms are constant someone using detachment strategy is only acting in that way in response to one person it's not a way of life it's not a way of thinking it's not really a disturbance of personality another important distinction to draw here between something like detachment strategy and a disorder like schizophrenia sorter is that the indifference to praise or criticism is really just talking about one area right that's just one of these symptoms for the disorder so if somebody is simply indifferent to praise or criticism that doesn't automatically mean they have schizoid personality to Swit right there's a lot of other symptoms that would have to be endorsed for a disorder like that sometimes individuals who are behaving a detached manner worry about things like that they worry look I'm getting cold or callous or I feel like I'm really growing distant from this person well with detachment strategy that's really the point right that's really the idea of this strategy is to essentially become distant from one person who was causing harm it's a behavior that a person has control over not necessarily something that's woven in to their personality I understand the concern about the overlap in that one area but again the constructs are completely different now it's also worth noting here that if someone is harmed by a narcissist if they don't offer a defense they sometimes exhibit symptoms of paranoid dependent or obsessive-compulsive personality disorders so these stresses of being exposed to all of this narcissistic harm can have an effect that looks like a personality disorder so at least with detachment strategy one gets to choose their own behavior right as a choice as opposed to a consequence and I think that's a more empowering way to look at narcissism exposure and how somebody can react to it so with that in mind does that mean that the attachment strategy is an incredibly successful strategy that everyone should use no but in some circumstances it can help to maintain a boundary that protects somebody who is being exposed to narcissism there are a number of scenarios where the strategy can be extremely effective as I mentioned when there's no power differential between two people that tends to facilitate a good outcome when using this strategy also if somebody doesn't really need to work with a narcissist on common goals right so in an example where two people are working together to remodel homes or to try to get that type of business that's a tough situation because the people are somewhat dependent on one another the more distance there is naturally in the relationship the easier it is to detach the rest of the way for example if somebody was once in a romantic relationship with a narcissist but that relationship has now concluded but they still have some things they have to work out like they have to divide AB assets or something like that the detachment strategy can be a fairly good strategy right it provides protection for the victim of the narcissist but still allows minimal communication to work out whatever details need to be worked out so again in a number of ways the detachment strategy is often used when somebody has the distance already created right when people are kind of drifting apart anyway the detachment strategy just really speeds that up right it allows that boundary to be put firmly in place and really be unequivocal right it can't be disputed you have very minimal contact and no expression of emotions or feelings as people try to figure out whether they should or should not use something like detachment strategy it's a good time to talk to a counselor right that's a good opportunity to discuss with a counselor what options may be good in any given situation right so again detachment strategy is not a one-size-fits-all it's not a strategy that applies to every situation but I think it's a good idea to bring it up with a counselor if it's something that seems to make sense in a particular situation with a narcissist so I know whenever I talk about constructs like detachment strategy the gray rock method there will be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 149,784

Keywords: gray rock, schizoid, narcissism, narcissism exposure, narcissistic personality disorder, sociopathy, grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, covert narcissism, shame, anger, aggression, hypersensitivity, anxious, depressed, socially awkward, neurotic, shy, manipulative, blame-shifting, gaslighting, self-esteem, manipulation, arrogance, self-centeredness, jealousy, special, unique, fantasy, entitlement, grandiosity, requires admiration, lack of empathy, grey rock

Id: 8-f2qNb45Ss

Length: 21min 33sec (1293 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020