Speaker 1: They're not only living amongst us. They're running the show.
Speaker 1: They're running the countries, they're running the states, they're running
Speaker 1: the companies, they're running the media, they're running everything. This
Speaker 1: is their world. We're just living in it.
Speaker 2: I kill them both, just like he said I did,
Speaker 2: But of course nobody believed it, because that's how good
Speaker 2: we are at making things disappear.
Speaker 1: There's parents out there who overvalue their kids, who over
Speaker 1: indulge their kids, and are lenient with their kids. That's
Speaker 1: the pastor grandiose starcissismy.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry that people are so jealous of me, and
Speaker 3: I can help it that I'm popular.
Speaker 2: Are they capable of love?
Speaker 4: Is a Nazist capable of the concept of love and
Speaker 4: caring for someone?
Speaker 2: You? It's me. I love everything I have done, I
Speaker 2: have done for you this even is.
Speaker 4: There a possibility for this personality disordered to be taken
Speaker 4: away from someone like?
Speaker 2: Can you have it and then be cured from it?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm rather Dablukiah and on my podcast A Really
Speaker 4: Good Cry, we embrace the real, the messy, and the beautiful,
Speaker 4: providing a space for raw, unfielded conversations that celebrate vulnerability
Speaker 4: and allow you to tune in to learn, connect and
Speaker 4: find comfort together.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here. I have to
Speaker 2: say that, so I came.
Speaker 4: I've seen your work so much over Instagram and on
Speaker 4: social media, but I listened to Jay's podcast with you
Speaker 4: and him, and I became so obsessed with everything that
Speaker 4: you share, not just what you share, but the way
Speaker 4: that you share it. You just have such a calm
Speaker 4: presence about you, and you feel so you almost feel
Speaker 4: like someone that you know so well. Just by watching
Speaker 4: you seem so comfortable and you're so relatable at the
Speaker 4: same time. So thank you for that, and I feel
Speaker 4: so honored to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm honored to be here again. Are you almost his family?
Speaker 1: So yeah, of course as well. Thank you.
Speaker 4: I have so many questions for you. So much came
Speaker 4: up when I started listening to what you do. I
Speaker 4: have abundant questions, and I gather them from my own
Speaker 4: mind and from so many other people that.
Speaker 2: I spoke to.
Speaker 4: So I kind of just want to start off with
Speaker 4: asking straight up, what is the definit I know that
Speaker 4: you focus your work on narcissism and helping people to
Speaker 4: understand it, and you know so many different dynamics. I
Speaker 4: know that you also help people who have been in
Speaker 4: narcisstic relationships, and so I want to start off by
Speaker 4: asking because I feel like many people use the term
Speaker 4: very loosely and also sometimes don't know what they're even
Speaker 4: saying when they say, what is a narcissist? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So narcissism is a personality style. Okay, like any personality
Speaker 1: style happens to be a more maladaptive, rigid personality style.
Speaker 1: But all that said, it's a personality style. And I'm
Speaker 1: putting such a fine point on that because it's not
Speaker 1: a disorder. They're break great out of that right now.
Speaker 1: So narcissism's personality style again, maladaptive, not great, but it
Speaker 1: is what it is. It is characterized by entitlement, grandiosity, variable,
Speaker 1: and usually low empathy. These are personalities that tend to
Speaker 1: be very controlling. There is a obviously tremendous egocentricity, and
Speaker 1: they're validation seeking, validation and attention seeking. They need constant attention, validation, praise,
Speaker 1: people focusing on them, and all of these things I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. The grandiosity, the validation seeking, the entitlement are
Speaker 1: really defenses that are pretty deep seated insecurity and a
Speaker 1: poorly developed sense of self. They have trouble with regulating emotions.
Speaker 1: So when things aren't going their way, they're disappointed, they're stressed,
Speaker 1: they're frustrated, they will lash out very quickly. And in
Speaker 1: that way, people who spend time with narcissistic people will say,
Speaker 1: there are times when this person is literally the most charming,
Speaker 1: charismatic person in the room. And then I got to
Speaker 1: know them more and I got closer into their world,
Speaker 1: and then I would see if things weren't just the
Speaker 1: way they wanted them, there would really be hell to pay.
Speaker 1: So that's really what narcissism is, and a narcissistic person
Speaker 1: as a person who has those kind of personality style.
Speaker 4: So when I was listening to the podcast with you
Speaker 4: and Jay and I had those qualities being being spoken about,
Speaker 4: there was an Honestly, I came away from the podcast just.
Speaker 2: Thinking like, I feel like, with the way that we.
Speaker 4: All live our lives on social media, how generally everyone
Speaker 4: has certain aspects of those qualities. And I came away
Speaker 4: from it where I was like genuinely asking you, I
Speaker 4: was like, I think I might have narcissistic qualities, not
Speaker 4: because I felt like I had all of them, but
Speaker 4: I did feel like to a certain degree, Like if
Speaker 4: we think about sense of self importance or entitlement, I
Speaker 4: feel like in this day and age, it's quite difficult
Speaker 4: to when you actually reflect on yourself you do have
Speaker 4: those qualities or we can have a level of them,
Speaker 4: or even if I think about, you know, the way
Speaker 4: that we expect the one for people to give you
Speaker 4: attention and fame, Like I remember I got a DM
Speaker 4: once that was like, you're such a narcist, you just
Speaker 4: like people seeing you all the time.
Speaker 2: And I was like, am I like's you know?
Speaker 4: There are so many different levels to these qualities, and
Speaker 4: so I wonder like, and like you said about the
Speaker 4: insecurity part of it, a lot of these do come
Speaker 4: up based on our insecurities that we get from childhood.
Speaker 4: Let's say, how do you differentiate between someone having one
Speaker 4: of these qualities or a few of them? And is
Speaker 4: there not some sort of spectrum that lies on.
Speaker 1: So narcissism miss on a continuum, right, okay, And there's
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways to view this continuum. One
Speaker 1: end is quite of my old narcissism. I call them
Speaker 1: instagram narcissists. These are people who tend to be superficial,
Speaker 1: status oriented, attention oriented, and they're not able to bring
Speaker 1: their full deep selves into a human relationship. So they're
Speaker 1: always like, take a picture of me at dinner, and
Speaker 1: yet there's someone else at the table is clearly struggling,
Speaker 1: but they'll still be all be all about but you
Speaker 1: have to take a picture of me at dinner. I
Speaker 1: need it for my Instagram kind of thing. And so
Speaker 1: there's an emotional stunted immaturity to them. What they don't
Speaker 1: tend to have so much of the malignant qualities, the
Speaker 1: manipulativeness and the exploitativeness and all of that. As you
Speaker 1: get into the middle of that spectrum and more moderate
Speaker 1: narcissistic people, that's what most of us are dealing with now.
Speaker 1: It's a bit more of a problem though. There's really
Speaker 1: no way to have a successful, long term, healthy relationship.
Speaker 1: But someone like that, because of the variable empathy, because
Speaker 1: of the grandiosity, entitlement, the dysregulation, all that stuff, it
Speaker 1: gets in the way of it. There's a very little
Speaker 1: capacity for intimacy, there's a little interest in closeness. A
Speaker 1: long term, sustained relationship often doesn't have the novelty they want, right,
Speaker 1: people kind of get uninteresting to them. Now at the
Speaker 1: extreme end, now we're talking about people who are exploitative,
Speaker 1: who are coercive, who are very manipultive to isolate, a
Speaker 1: person who will really do a psychological number, and so
Speaker 1: along that spectrum, obviously there's a lot of variability. Somebody
Speaker 1: who's in a relationship, let's say, with a very mild
Speaker 1: narcissistic person, will say they're immature and they're ridiculous. And
Speaker 1: I don't know that you'd have a very easy time
Speaker 1: raising kids with someone like that, because they will lack
Speaker 1: that depth and the discipline and the commitment to something
Speaker 1: like that. But I do think that again, the thing
Speaker 1: to keep in mind, you said, what if I'm one
Speaker 1: of these things? Right, I don't think any one of
Speaker 1: those things is ever going to be the ringer. Like,
Speaker 1: the idea of any personality is its consistency, it's pervasiveness,
Speaker 1: it's stability across multiple situations. Right, this is how this
Speaker 1: person is. And the challenge with narcissism is when they're
Speaker 1: well supplied, when they feel safe, they look great, they
Speaker 1: look interesting e gauging again, charming, charismatic. But then when
Speaker 1: the things don't go exactly the way they want, it
Speaker 1: always turns out and if they don't value someone, So
Speaker 1: in other words, you will see the narcissistic person flip
Speaker 1: very quickly from treating a high status individual really nicely
Speaker 1: and they're very careful with them and they're very warm,
Speaker 1: but then when they're with a lower status person, they
Speaker 1: will degrade them and they will abuse them. And that
Speaker 1: could literally happen in a fifteen second transition. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: if anyone's ever wanted succession, I was just I was
Speaker 1: watching an old episode last night and Tom, if you
Speaker 1: watch those early episodes, it happened more Tom, the wife
Speaker 1: of Shiv. Tom was talking to a very high executive
Speaker 1: at the company and he got really berated and you know,
Speaker 1: and he was like sort of taking it. But as
Speaker 1: soon as he could, he found God the cousins name, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he found Greg and he just completely was cruel to him.
Speaker 1: So he regulated by abusing someone because he had to
Speaker 1: tolerate that bad behavior because that person at higher status.
Speaker 4: How would we recognize the difference between insecurity showing up
Speaker 4: and someone having these narcissistic traits or are they does
Speaker 4: it blend well?
Speaker 1: So I'm very insecure. Start with me. Just keep it
Speaker 1: in the room, right, I'm deeply insecure person, and I
Speaker 1: would not lash out at another human being. The vast
Speaker 1: number of insecured people won't do that. In fact, if anything,
Speaker 1: most insecure people are very internal themsel Now narcissistic people
Speaker 1: do both. To sort of give a more round view
Speaker 1: on narcissistic people, one thing that if you I've worked
Speaker 1: clinically with many of them, is that they also sometimes
Speaker 1: don't talk nicely to themselves either. They can actually be
Speaker 1: quite cruel in their self talk, but that the scales
Speaker 1: get balanced with them lashing out at others too, Whereas
Speaker 1: a person who had narrowly might internalize that talk wouldn't
Speaker 1: do that to other people. Why because they'd be worried
Speaker 1: about hurting them. The narcissistic person doesn't trouble themselves with
Speaker 1: the pain they cause others.
Speaker 2: Wh That's so interesting.
Speaker 4: And when it comes to the empathy aspect, I know
Speaker 4: that's a big part of it, where they just lack empathy.
Speaker 4: How would you define what empathy actually is? Because when
Speaker 4: I think about empathy for myself, like when I was
Speaker 4: breaking it down after hearing you speak before in my mind,
Speaker 4: I was thinking, there are so many layers to why
Speaker 4: I feel empathy for people. So when I'm feeling empathy
Speaker 4: for someone, it might be you know, I feel sorry
Speaker 4: for them because of the circumstance that they're in, But
Speaker 4: do I truly care about them? That for me is
Speaker 4: a different quality, because I think it's easy to say, Okay,
Speaker 4: there's people in just a grand example, like there's there's
Speaker 4: someone in Africa that's starving and doesn't have any money
Speaker 4: or any food or anything any of the basic needs
Speaker 4: that they need. I feel sad for them, But do
Speaker 4: I truly care about them? Like, do I truly feel
Speaker 4: that that inclination to go and help them? And in
Speaker 4: the same way, even if it's let's say our friends
Speaker 4: or our family, how do you differentiate between having real
Speaker 4: empathy or whether it's because of duty or because of
Speaker 4: what you're receiving in the back from them, or because
Speaker 4: of what you're getting from giving to them. So I know,
Speaker 4: from a person example, I used to and I've tried to,
Speaker 4: you know, change that as time has gone on, But
Speaker 4: do a lot for other people because it validated myself,
Speaker 4: Like that was my way of I know I have
Speaker 4: importance in your life because of all the things that
Speaker 4: I'm providing for you, and so I have to keep
Speaker 4: providing and I have to keep being that person in
Speaker 4: your life. Otherwise where is my value? So with empathy,
Speaker 4: that's why I know that question came up in my mind.
Speaker 4: What is true empathy? And how do you see in yourself?
Speaker 4: And how do you see in other people?
Speaker 1: So there's different ways to think about empathy. Okay, so
Speaker 1: there's emotional It does start with cognitive empathy. So to me,
Speaker 1: the least interesting or the least useful form of cognitive empathy.
Speaker 1: Cognitive empathy is when you sort of understand why someone
Speaker 1: is feeling the way they do. It's it's very much
Speaker 1: it's an intellectual activity. It's when you're in a movie.
Speaker 1: Those aren't real people, so but you feel a sense
Speaker 1: of like, oh that that character is suffering. I understand
Speaker 1: why that character is angry. I understand why that character
Speaker 1: is sad. I understand why you are upset. Right, But
Speaker 1: it really doesn't connect emotional. It's like it's a niling
Speaker 1: in some ways. Some people it might even consider that
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Then there is emotional empathy. That's the more deeply felt empathy.
Speaker 1: Whereas a person with cognitive empathy may say I understand
Speaker 1: why they're angry, but you may not see much of
Speaker 1: a change in their emotional state. When it's emotional empathy,
Speaker 1: our emotional state changes, right, because if you're sadness feeling
Speaker 1: empathy for your sadness, which is a natural act, you
Speaker 1: would see a change in my affects too, right, I
Speaker 1: would become more subdued, and it can affect me. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's sort of a doubt. There's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a dark side to empathy of a person feels too
Speaker 1: much of the other. They then then start taking on
Speaker 1: all that that negative mood stay too, which would be
Speaker 1: very There has to be some ability to say, I
Speaker 1: feel with them, but it is not my pain, right,
Speaker 1: so I feel them, and so it might You might
Speaker 1: then speak to them in a certain way. You be
Speaker 1: present with them, You'll mirror their emotions, you may cry
Speaker 1: with them. That's emotional empathy, which is to me very
Speaker 1: important in close relationships. Yet then there's compassionate empathy. And
Speaker 1: compassionate empathy is where that feeling for the other turns
Speaker 1: into behavior. So it might be that you move in
Speaker 1: with a sick friend it might be that you stay
Speaker 1: on the phone even an hour longer than you you
Speaker 1: could afford to. It's an action, so it turns into
Speaker 1: an action, you know. And then what you were and
Speaker 1: so you were talking about this idea, there's somebody on
Speaker 1: the other side of the world who is struggling or
Speaker 1: maybe hungry. Now you're talking about sympathy, right, which is
Speaker 1: different than empathy. Right, it's now connecting to pain in
Speaker 1: a different way. When you feel empathy for someone, do
Speaker 1: you care for them? I mean, I think that you
Speaker 1: know at some level becomes sort of a semantic mincing.
Speaker 1: You may not know them enough to do so in
Speaker 1: a sense of there's someone else in the room with
Speaker 1: us now, I don't know him, so it would be
Speaker 1: a little bit generous for me to say I care
Speaker 1: for him. Yes, I don't know him enough. I have
Speaker 1: empathy for him. Something sad happened to him, I would
Speaker 1: feel that and probably say can we stop because he's upset.
Speaker 1: I don't know him, so how can I really care
Speaker 1: for him?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: I think that would be an overreach. If you will
Speaker 1: right now as I got to know him, if we've
Speaker 1: developed a friendship, that would be the evolution of caring
Speaker 1: for him, but I could have empathy without caring for him.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, thank you for that differentiation, And that
Speaker 4: makes that really does clarify.
Speaker 2: So like all the different levels, You're right.
Speaker 4: When I hear out someone that has something painful happened
Speaker 4: to them, I don't know them, but I feel like
Speaker 4: the pain because you kind of put yourself into that situation.
Speaker 4: But then when it happens, like when my grandma got
Speaker 4: on well, and I like when I hear other people's
Speaker 4: grandmas have become unwell, in my mind, I feel sad
Speaker 4: for them, but I don't necessarily have that deep like
Speaker 4: emotional change within me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a big change, and you're carried around
Speaker 1: with you right, Like, Yeah, there are some people who
Speaker 1: actually err on the side of taking it in too
Speaker 1: much that actually can have health effects. And there's almost
Speaker 1: too much of itness. And a big part of being
Speaker 1: trained as a therapist is year over year over year
Speaker 1: to be emphatically present. But we can't rescue them, we
Speaker 1: can't change them. So I could see seven clients in
Speaker 1: a day, but then I can go I'll do my notes,
Speaker 1: I finished my files, I said done, and I'll watch it.
Speaker 1: To watch a TV show and laugh at it, you know.
Speaker 1: Without That's why the training of a therapist is so important.
Speaker 1: It's not that it trains the care out of us.
Speaker 1: It's not that it trains the empathy out of us,
Speaker 1: but it teaches us how to be fully present with
Speaker 1: those feelings but then not allowing it to overtake us.
Speaker 1: And just starting out, therapists will say that's harder. I've
Speaker 1: been doing it for a long time. Then it's just
Speaker 1: sort of it's a you know, and if you can't
Speaker 1: get there, sometimes there's a tremendous burnout and you have
Speaker 1: to leave the business.
Speaker 4: I feel so many people probably don't even know the
Speaker 4: difference between those stages and to even those different types
Speaker 4: of empathy that there are. And so for me now,
Speaker 4: even when I'm observing myself, I feel like that will
Speaker 4: give me a really good idea of the difference between
Speaker 4: my emotional response to someone and how And I always
Speaker 4: think about that when I'm speaking to a friend and
Speaker 4: I'm having a conversation with them and they're having a
Speaker 4: hard time. There are sometimes where I feel like crying
Speaker 4: my eyes out because.
Speaker 2: Of how sad I feel for them.
Speaker 4: But then there are other times where they're telling me,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, I need to show a bit more
Speaker 4: emotion right now, because.
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely absolutely yes, that's.
Speaker 4: More because it's in my cognitive empathy versus in my
Speaker 4: emotional empathy.
Speaker 1: And there's you know, again, we could even take these
Speaker 1: forms of empathy out to a different direction. I consider
Speaker 1: there to be something called performative empathy. So if we
Speaker 1: know that empathy. Listen, people know empathy is largely valued.
Speaker 1: I mean unless you're sort of in some sort of
Speaker 1: horrific business setting where everyone is just sort of destroying
Speaker 1: each other or something that this idea that somebody could
Speaker 1: be performative with their empathy. This is where we get
Speaker 1: back into the narcissism neighborhood. Narcissistic people know to be
Speaker 1: warm and to feel and all that. They can be
Speaker 1: very performative with that, but it's not deeply felt. There's
Speaker 1: also transactional empathy. I'm going to be empathic to this
Speaker 1: person long enough to get what I need from them,
Speaker 1: and so they can really turn it on and be
Speaker 1: that person get the thing they need. And then the
Speaker 1: next time you have an accounter with this person, perhaps
Speaker 1: thinking they're oh so empathic, you got nothing because they
Speaker 1: already got what they needed. So I mean empathy I
Speaker 1: do believe can be weaponized and often is weaponized by
Speaker 1: people who are more antagonistic, which narcissism is a form
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 4: Antagonism is narcisism something that you're able to identify just
Speaker 4: by watching someone, or when you do a consultation with
Speaker 4: someone and you're trying to find out what would be
Speaker 4: the type of quoestquestion since you asked them, like, how
Speaker 4: would you come to the conclusion that this person has
Speaker 4: a narcisstic you said, personality?
Speaker 1: Yes, it takes a minute, right, okay, I would you
Speaker 1: know there's I think somebody would be lying if they
Speaker 1: said in five minutes I could figure out someone starcissistic,
Speaker 1: unless they were so glaringly narcissistic that even like an
Speaker 1: untrained anybody would say there's something. They may not know
Speaker 1: the word narcissistic, but say this isn't okay. But when
Speaker 1: a client comes in, obviously we spend at least the
Speaker 1: first or second session and a lot of assessment will
Speaker 1: brought you in and relationship histories. There are some tells though.
Speaker 1: One thing would be sort of how they interact with
Speaker 1: the therapist in terms of even making arrangements their respect
Speaker 1: for the time. So it would be if they stroll
Speaker 1: in fifteen minutes late and say we could go a
Speaker 1: little bit later, right, because and I'm thinking no, after
Speaker 1: I'd very much explained to you that this is your
Speaker 1: time and it doesn't go we don't start early, we
Speaker 1: don't lay there's someone after you. So if I was
Speaker 1: why that sort of entitlement creep into the scene, If
Speaker 1: they would be demanding out of session time, texting, calling, emailing, whatever,
Speaker 1: that would certainly make my ears perk up. If they
Speaker 1: were very dismissive and you know, towards me, making inappropriate
Speaker 1: comments about appearance or anything like that, that would make
Speaker 1: my ears perk up. Would that make me say they're narcissistic. No,
Speaker 1: I'd still want more data as they shared with me
Speaker 1: their history and how they manage conflict, how they manage disappointment,
Speaker 1: that's all going to come out in therapy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would say the definitively, definitively, in the absence of
Speaker 1: giving them structured tests and stuff like that, I would
Speaker 1: say you'd have to probably meet a client two, three,
Speaker 1: four times before you'd be able to entertain that hypothesis
Speaker 1: in a heavy way. If you get tests and the measurements. Sure,
Speaker 1: maybe one or two sessions. And it's for this reason,
Speaker 1: Radie that when people will say, how could I have
Speaker 1: been so dumb? How could I have missed this? I
Speaker 1: tell to a layperson's in a relationship, So that's going
Speaker 1: to take you out a year on average. Just some
Speaker 1: people figured it out earlier. Sure, but I think that
Speaker 1: for many people, they'll say, it took me a year
Speaker 1: to see that all this toxic stuff was a pattern.
Speaker 1: There was so much other good stuff. Now I see
Speaker 1: it is a pattern. I see it might even be
Speaker 1: bothersome for me. So when people say it it took
Speaker 1: me two years, I said, that's about right. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm in a room looking for stuff and trained to
Speaker 1: look for stuff, and it takes me a minute. So
Speaker 1: of course, in a relationship, especially if you're having good
Speaker 1: stuff happen with a very charming, charismatic, narcissistic client, you
Speaker 1: might And I'm the only person probably out there who's like,
Speaker 1: you're charismatic. Now, all of a sudden, my years are
Speaker 1: really worked out.
Speaker 4: And so then do you think people are born with
Speaker 4: this quality? And it's something which you can't get rid
Speaker 4: of or is it something that is triggered in someone
Speaker 4: based on, you know, a lot of trauma or something
Speaker 4: that's happened in their life.
Speaker 1: So the way you get to narcissism is it's a
Speaker 1: very multidetermined path, right. So the way your personality is
Speaker 1: formed is we're kind of born with the seed of
Speaker 1: our personality, call our temperament that has a genetic element
Speaker 1: to it. It's sort of you would even see it
Speaker 1: in a family. Someone will say, oh my gosh, the
Speaker 1: way she laughs is just like this, auntie or something
Speaker 1: like that. That's temperament, right, the way someone might handle
Speaker 1: certain pressure stresses. All that, that temperament goes out in
Speaker 1: the world, and it's shaped by environmental interactions. Okay, those
Speaker 1: environmental or interactions with the people closest to them, with
Speaker 1: people in their community and even in the society at large,
Speaker 1: will then continue to shape that personality out. Parenting matters.
Speaker 1: The way a child is parented is probably the most
Speaker 1: significant predictor of narcissism in adulthood. And we're looking at
Speaker 1: two pathways again, So not only are there multiple pathways,
Speaker 1: the neglect, chaos, inconsistency, even trauma pathway that gets us
Speaker 1: to a place that's either called malignant or vulnerable narcissism.
Speaker 1: That's more victimized and it's more resentful and angry and
Speaker 1: socially anxious. The malignant narcissism is that more severe, manipulative
Speaker 1: explos that's where that route gets you. But there's parents
Speaker 1: out there who overvalue their kids, who overindulge their kids,
Speaker 1: and are lenient with their kids. That combination, you're the
Speaker 1: most special kid, You're more special than the other kids.
Speaker 1: That's the path to grandiose starcissism. And so what you
Speaker 1: have is these different pathways getting to kind of a
Speaker 1: similar place. These are kids who are entitled who don't
Speaker 1: learn to regulate their emotions. The vulnerable and malignant group
Speaker 1: perceive a lot more threat in the world. The grandiose
Speaker 1: people have all these grandiose defenses around an inner core
Speaker 1: that never really sort of learn to be a person,
Speaker 1: and so they really do walk in the room thinking
Speaker 1: they're more special. You can see that's not going to
Speaker 1: work in relationships. So and then they're having environmental interactions.
Speaker 1: Let's say that overvalued, overindulged, leniently parented, over special kid
Speaker 1: keeps being told by other people how special they are.
Speaker 1: You've now made a monster. But that child may go
Speaker 1: to school and maybe they're lucky they have a compassionate
Speaker 1: teacher that says, you know, there's other kids, we're all
Speaker 1: going to wait in line. Then, but the line leader
Speaker 1: position changes every day and that might balance some of
Speaker 1: it up. But the parents are going to have a
Speaker 1: potent influence and so, and you throw that in with temperament.
Speaker 1: If you have a kid with a difficult temperament, yes,
Speaker 1: that's the game changer, right, because that difficult temperament with
Speaker 1: all that either that overindulgence or that chaos or that trauma,
Speaker 1: and then negative environmental interactions, that's where you're taking that.
Speaker 1: You're shaking it all up, probably in more narcissistic direction.
Speaker 1: But if you have a child with the temperament that's
Speaker 1: sort of the seed of an agreeable personality, even those
Speaker 1: environmental conditions may not then get them to a narcissistic plate,
Speaker 1: the place they might be a little bit demand y
Speaker 1: and they might be a little bit entitled, but it's
Speaker 1: not going to be a full blown narcissism.
Speaker 4: And then do they when you do see like when
Speaker 4: you've obviously seen so many people in your clinics. Do
Speaker 4: you find that at all of it has come from
Speaker 4: traumatic things or you find it's more to do with
Speaker 4: this who you've seen both?
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, that's it's.
Speaker 4: So interesting that it can come from even being too loved,
Speaker 4: almost not even you loved.
Speaker 1: You're over special, You're more special. You're the most special child.
Speaker 1: No child is more special than you. It's all kids
Speaker 1: are special. You're special. That kid's special, but it's that
Speaker 1: you're better.
Speaker 4: You're almost training them to feel that entitlement before they
Speaker 4: even experience it themselves.
Speaker 1: That's exactly. And their parents are modeling it too. They're
Speaker 1: watching parents behave in an entitled way, perhaps speaking rudely
Speaker 1: to a teacher or a coach, or a server in
Speaker 1: a restaurant or anyone. They'll see that happen over and
Speaker 1: over again, and it creates sort of this closed universe. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes kids like that will be shaped by peers will
Speaker 1: say who are you to say this? And that might
Speaker 1: shape it in a different direction, you see. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. These environmental forces are almost like the water
Speaker 1: going down a canyon. It's going to shape the side
Speaker 1: of it differently depending on how the water flows.
Speaker 4: And then do you have people that generally come to
Speaker 4: you and say, do narcissists come to you and say,
Speaker 4: I think I'm a narcisist I need help? Or is
Speaker 4: it difficult for them to even recognize that something is
Speaker 4: wrong with them?
Speaker 1: The vast majority don't identify. I've had clients. I've had
Speaker 1: clients who've done that, and it actually was really lovely
Speaker 1: work with them. To do you work with the clients.
Speaker 1: When I say lovely, no, I mean definitely somebody I
Speaker 1: wanted to be my friend. But it meant that we
Speaker 1: could almost push the accelerator a little bit. I wasn't
Speaker 1: walking on eggshells. I could really push back on them
Speaker 1: and they're like, yeah, you're right, and we could go
Speaker 1: toe to toe. Most narcissistic clients come into therapy because
Speaker 1: either life isn't going the way they want, a relationship
Speaker 1: has been disrupted, they have another mental health condition that's
Speaker 1: really causing them issues depression, anxiety, substance use, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, or they've publicly done something that's like they've
Speaker 1: been in a scandal. So it's almost what I call
Speaker 1: pr therapy. Yeah, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then is a narcissist able to heal themselves
Speaker 4: or are you able to treat a narcist to take
Speaker 4: away or reduce those qualities in them.
Speaker 1: They'd have to be motivated, and that's half the problem.
Speaker 1: If you don't think there's something wrong with you, where's
Speaker 1: the motivation?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: In many cases, these are people who almost at a
Speaker 1: delusional level, a delusional grandiosity, believe that. In fact, research
Speaker 1: shows that narcissistic people actually view themselves as being very empathic.
Speaker 1: They have an incredible distortion like it's a they like,
Speaker 1: I'm a nice person. I'm a really empathic person. So
Speaker 1: they're coming from this distorted space, and if the person
Speaker 1: they're not being empathic too were to point it out
Speaker 1: to them, they would likely shift the blame onto them,
Speaker 1: gaslight them, all that other stuff, so that that very skewed.
Speaker 1: They lack what's called self reflective capacity. Narcissistic people kind
Speaker 1: of don't understand how they affect other people. They don't
Speaker 1: understand the consequences of their actions, and they're very disms missive.
Speaker 1: It's almost as though I feel everything and they don't
Speaker 1: take it's a lack of empathy. I don't account for
Speaker 1: it happening in anybody else, So there's often not that motivation.
Speaker 1: Some of these other things can motivate them. Someone saying
Speaker 1: we're done, this marriage is done, and the person wants
Speaker 1: to remain married. They may rally a little bit. But
Speaker 1: to your point, I don't think a narcissist could do
Speaker 1: this themselves personally, I don't. I think it's too deep.
Speaker 1: If there's traumatic origins to the narcissism, I'm always a
Speaker 1: little bit more optimistic about treatment because you can use
Speaker 1: trauma informed therapies. There's models of therapy you can use
Speaker 1: that can actually address what's going on for that client.
Speaker 1: Those grandiose, overindulged ones, they just don't have the humility
Speaker 1: typically to do the work. They might see that they're
Speaker 1: kind of blowing up their lives, but they still tend
Speaker 1: to blame the world for all of that and not
Speaker 1: take accountability. And even after therapy, let's say, and it
Speaker 1: takes a long time to do this kind of therapeutic work.
Speaker 1: Every day, every encounter, every email, every text message, is
Speaker 1: it's mindfulness? Am I listening to them? Am I being nice?
Speaker 1: Am I? Am I regulated? They're not going to do that.
Speaker 1: And the first time there's a stress in their life.
Speaker 2: It's back to this regulation and how common would you
Speaker 2: say it is?
Speaker 4: Like, is there research that's been done that one in
Speaker 4: x amount of people have narcissistic qualities or have this personality?
Speaker 4: Because you hear about it so much now I feel
Speaker 4: like it's something talked about so much.
Speaker 2: What's the actual stats do you go of?
Speaker 1: So when we talk about again, the Holy Show is
Speaker 1: trying not to bring up that issue of that narcissistic
Speaker 1: personality disorder. Obviously, when people do research, they have to
Speaker 1: use all kinds of scales and measurements, and usually they're
Speaker 1: diagnostic measurements. The tricky bit with narcissistic personality disorder is
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't get diagnosed with it even
Speaker 1: if they have it, because either a they don't go
Speaker 1: to therapy, and even if they go to therapy, it's
Speaker 1: a sort of stigmatized diagnosis. Insurance companies won't reimburse on
Speaker 1: the diagnosis. People don't want to put it in a
Speaker 1: record somewhere that could sort of harm the client. The
Speaker 1: client gets agitated. A lot of therapists find the workarounds,
Speaker 1: They find all the neighborhood diagnoses and toss that in
Speaker 1: so that they have something to document. So I mean,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, it just doesn't get documented
Speaker 1: and researcher to get documented because it's not usually a
Speaker 1: clinical setting.
Speaker 4: And in the.
Speaker 1: Research, I mean, I've seen rates depending on the study,
Speaker 1: anywhere from one to six percent, not a lot. Now,
Speaker 1: the difficult part is what if you study narcissism and
Speaker 1: the population as a whole, So sort of like the
Speaker 1: I don't know if Cault urban myth or the alligator
Speaker 1: and the sewer kind of number as I put it.
Speaker 1: Some folks have estimated that that number of enough narcissism
Speaker 1: to cause harm to other people in relationships level probably
Speaker 1: twenty percent, one in five. So using that as a calculation,
Speaker 1: if you know five people, statistically speaking, one of them's
Speaker 1: probably got some enough narcissistic personality stuff that you would
Speaker 1: notice it.
Speaker 4: And I feel with Narsens and whenever spoken about it's
Speaker 4: generally about the victim that has been exposed to someone
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: That's you know, it's cause harm in their life.
Speaker 4: But how does someone help a narcissistic personality, like how
Speaker 4: do they integrate into society? How do they live within society?
Speaker 4: How do they create relationships? Like there has to be
Speaker 4: some sort of way for them to live amongst everyone.
Speaker 4: Otherwise they just completely get isolated and arcissistic people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not only living amongst us. They're running the show.
Speaker 1: They're running the countries, they're running the states, they're running
Speaker 1: the companies, they're running the media, they're running everything. This
Speaker 1: is their world. We're just living in it, right. I
Speaker 1: actually think they're doing just fine. Oh oh I could
Speaker 1: use a little narcissism probably help me. I've done research
Speaker 1: shows that they're better at dating, they're more likely to
Speaker 1: get people to marry them. They're doing fine. Oh now
Speaker 1: they may be like, oh, well it's me they're just
Speaker 1: ruining everyone else's lives. Wow, there's a lot of that.
Speaker 1: I mean it's very imbalanced. No, no, no, the narcissistic personality.
Speaker 2: Is actually fine inside.
Speaker 1: Like, no, they're not fine inside. They're a mess inside, dark,
Speaker 1: de insecure, dark, k eyed to the soul, miserable. But
Speaker 1: the compensatory mechanisms. I'm going to work harder, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be better. I'm going to be the very best
Speaker 1: to the world. It looks like they're doing great, So
Speaker 1: what does that do person It's like, well, they're so
Speaker 1: successful I want to be in a relationship with them.
Speaker 1: I want to work with them. They're so smart. I
Speaker 1: have known people to say they want to work with
Speaker 1: someone else, like, please don't do this. This is really
Speaker 1: a terrible person. No, no, no, they're so successful. I
Speaker 1: said you, this will destroy it. A year later they'll
Speaker 1: say if I listened to you, and I don't know
Speaker 1: what to tell people. I'm thinking you will not be
Speaker 1: the magic person who changes them. So they're doing fine
Speaker 1: in the sense of how they function in society. What internally, No,
Speaker 1: not doing well, no self reflective capacity, none of the
Speaker 1: humility that one needs to say, you know, maybe I
Speaker 1: don't need to be this person I'm hurting people.
Speaker 2: Not that.
Speaker 1: So I would say the world is actually very designed
Speaker 1: for narcissism because we live in a very hierarchically structured world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, is there a possibility for this personality disordered to
Speaker 4: be taken away from someone like can you have it
Speaker 4: and then be cured from it?
Speaker 2: Or it's something which just remains with Okay, I'm.
Speaker 1: Going to give you an example. Yeah, But the best
Speaker 1: way I could explain it I only know about myself.
Speaker 1: I can't come I could speculate what your personality is like,
Speaker 1: I am agreeable, introverted, and conscientious. Yeah, that's my personality
Speaker 1: high in all three makes sense. I work all the time, discipline,
Speaker 1: great student, very warm, very nice, humble, modest blah blah
Speaker 1: blah doesn't sound I'm humble and mind I'm humble and modest.
Speaker 1: I would never leave my house if I could. I
Speaker 1: don't like parties. I don't like events. I don't like
Speaker 1: getting together with people, none of that. I'm very I
Speaker 1: prefer to stay home, watch TV, read a book, all
Speaker 1: those things. Okay. If somebody said, can you change your
Speaker 1: personality Romini? Can you be antagonistic and disagreeable? Can you
Speaker 1: be the life of the party? And can you just
Speaker 1: be undisciplined? The answer to that is a resounding now.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So my personality can't change. Why do we would?
Speaker 2: And that's why you call it personality type. It's specific,
Speaker 2: that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean I feel the same way whenever I've been
Speaker 4: asked to, not asked, but whenever I get put into
Speaker 4: situations where it demands a different version of me or
Speaker 4: like a me to go out of character or out
Speaker 4: of my comfort zone in that way, Like you said,
Speaker 4: I generally am someone who's more introverted. When I go
Speaker 4: into large crowds or large situations, for me, I would
Speaker 4: like to find one person to talk to for the
Speaker 4: whole night. But that pressure of trying to be outgoing
Speaker 4: and be the life of the pasty or whatever you
Speaker 4: think you should be. You're right, you can never keep
Speaker 4: that up, like it feels so out of character.
Speaker 1: Well, you can do it for a night, and then
Speaker 1: you're exhausted. So if I have to have a social event,
Speaker 1: I'll fall asleep. Yeah I can't. I'll go home and
Speaker 1: follow asleep. Right. Yeah, extroverted daughter, if she has to
Speaker 1: spend a day not having had contact with people, she'll
Speaker 1: become sad and exhausted.
Speaker 4: Yeah wow, okay, So yeah, that's why you have to
Speaker 4: shift your mindset of it's not a disorder or a
Speaker 4: well yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: A personality style. And again, most cases it doesn't get diagnosed.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure a lot of folks out there who
Speaker 1: are narcissistic, a lot of them might have NPD, but
Speaker 1: they're never going to see the clinician to get diagnosed.
Speaker 1: That's not a determination that can really be made outside
Speaker 1: of that setting. So when we focus on it as
Speaker 1: a personality style. My personality can't change, yours can't, so
Speaker 1: why would they?
Speaker 4: And so is there different ways that it shows up,
Speaker 4: whether it's in So if someone was to try and
Speaker 4: identify a narcisistic personality in work, in a relationship, would
Speaker 4: they be similar traits going across all the way? So
Speaker 4: if you were in a relationship, or let's say, for
Speaker 4: all my friends who are starting who are going on
Speaker 4: dates at the moment, many of my friends are going
Speaker 4: on like dating apps and they're meeting people in the
Speaker 4: first few dates. How what kind of questions should people
Speaker 4: be asking? What kind of triggers should they be looking
Speaker 4: for in those settings? Is it something that within a
Speaker 4: month or so you can really if you're trying to
Speaker 4: be more aware, can you ask them the right of
Speaker 4: questions or put them in situations too to find that out.
Speaker 1: I think it's less about the questions and more about
Speaker 1: the presence. So I would watch how they manage frustration
Speaker 1: they don't get the table they want at the restaurant.
Speaker 1: How do they talk to the bartender, How do they
Speaker 1: talk to a server who may not do exactly what
Speaker 1: they want? How do they talk about other people? Do
Speaker 1: they listen to you when you speak, do they get
Speaker 1: what if they have a bad date work? How do
Speaker 1: they respond to that? Are they able to be present
Speaker 1: when you're sharing something or do you feel any sense
Speaker 1: of contempt or dismissiveness or minimization. That's it's processed up.
Speaker 1: They're really because there's very few questions you can ask
Speaker 1: them because they can always change. There their shape shifters
Speaker 1: and chameleons, and they're able to very much. They know
Speaker 1: what looks right. So watching how they react, watching how
Speaker 1: they respond, watching their presence, that's how you're going to
Speaker 1: see it.
Speaker 4: And when you say they're generally in, are they people
Speaker 4: who are generally liked by people because of these qualities?
Speaker 4: Like you said, they're charismatic, they end up being someone
Speaker 4: that actually attracts people because of those qualities.
Speaker 1: The grandiose narcissists ys. The grandiose narcissists are often very
Speaker 1: well like, they're extroverted, but they and they can be difficult.
Speaker 1: So what you'll often see is that the people who
Speaker 1: are in the grandiose narcissist sphere that are valid or
Speaker 1: valued by them, like I said, might have higher status,
Speaker 1: similar status, they're useful to them. Whatever. Those people will
Speaker 1: be treated well. And it's why sometimes in life people
Speaker 1: will say I met this person so cool and other
Speaker 1: people no, no, And we also have this very different assessment.
Speaker 1: First thing I'd want to know is what your status
Speaker 1: relative to this person relative to that person with other
Speaker 1: a different opinion. And my guess is either you're a
Speaker 1: new person in the narcisses if you like them, you're
Speaker 1: a new person in their life. You have something they need,
Speaker 1: You have higher status, so they're doing a different dance
Speaker 1: for you than they are for someone who works for them.
Speaker 1: I've had this happen over and over again, where I've
Speaker 1: had the opportunity and my other work to see a
Speaker 1: narcissistic person how they're interacting with their staff. Now they
Speaker 1: might let's say they're perceiving me as a useful person
Speaker 1: at the time, how they're interacting with me, and the minute,
Speaker 1: the minute I see the mistreat a staff person, it's over.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not working with this person, not doing it.
Speaker 4: And what does someone who is in a relationship with
Speaker 4: a narcissist, what does that love look like like?
Speaker 2: Are they capable of love?
Speaker 4: Is a narcissist capable of the concept of love and
Speaker 4: caring for someone.
Speaker 1: That's a philosophical question, right, So what's love? R?
Speaker 4: What is love?
Speaker 1: What is love?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, beyond the philosophy, I think
Speaker 1: we could think about if we take love and we
Speaker 1: stretch it to a place of let's just stay in
Speaker 1: even in the intimate relational space first intimacy, and I
Speaker 1: think that from intimacy even applies to friendships. Deep sustaining mutual, reciprocal, consistent, available,
Speaker 1: present depth depth with someone, and the and the desire
Speaker 1: for that depth with someone. To me, that's part of the.
Speaker 2: Measure of love, respect, definite compassion, all of whether it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, they're not capable of that. But many people
Speaker 1: are in narcissistic relationships. But the narcissistic person says I
Speaker 1: love you, yeah, and the person will say, no, you don't,
Speaker 1: This isn't love. And I'll be like, whoa, whoa they said,
Speaker 1: they narcissist said they love you. Your problem is and I'm
Speaker 1: going to do a twist on bell hooks here. They
Speaker 1: are that you guys are using different definitions. You can't
Speaker 1: I love you. They think they love you. The problem
Speaker 1: you don't have a shared definition, right, And so that's
Speaker 1: something people don't do. I always wish there was an
Speaker 1: informed consent for him. At the beginning of a relationship.
Speaker 1: You both throw a piece of paper down and say,
Speaker 1: what do you use your definition of love? Like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling that this does not Item two on
Speaker 1: the contract is not working for me. But it was
Speaker 1: real nice to meet you. We don't do that. And
Speaker 1: I think that people get caught up in the words
Speaker 1: I love you. They say it I love you to me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, and that's not interesting. I don't care
Speaker 1: if they said I love you, What does that signified
Speaker 1: to them?
Speaker 4: Have you asked people that when they've come into your clinics.
Speaker 4: Have you seen generally when you've seen narcisstic personality, do
Speaker 4: they have similar definitions of what they see as love.
Speaker 1: It's actually a cut question. It's hard for them to answer.
Speaker 1: They'll often say like, you know, yeah, I love them
Speaker 1: like I don't. I want to spend time, I spend
Speaker 1: money on them, I buy them gifts. So it's a
Speaker 1: very superficial. When you really cut to the court, like
Speaker 1: I bought to a Chanel bag, they'll think.
Speaker 4: They're seeing their value in that relationship versus seeing what
Speaker 4: they're giving to it.
Speaker 1: And it's and not seeing it from a place of
Speaker 1: I love that we have shared interests.
Speaker 2: This is what I give.
Speaker 1: I feel safe with this person. They feel safe. They
Speaker 1: then could not. It's very it feels transactional, it feels statusy,
Speaker 1: lots of roles. Well, I mean we're married and they're
Speaker 1: the mother of my kids, or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: It's it doesn't it doesn't track to these deeper things.
Speaker 1: But like I said, they say I love you, they
Speaker 1: may whatever that measurement is to them. They may very
Speaker 1: well feel like, I like looking at your attractive to me,
Speaker 1: or you're smart, or you have a great job, or
Speaker 1: you have a lot of money. That's there, I love
Speaker 1: you right and or that you're And then I recall
Speaker 1: working with more than a few narcissistic folks who felt
Speaker 1: like they would find partners who are very materialistic and
Speaker 1: the entire relationship was a transaction. Right, I'm going to
Speaker 1: buy you this gift, I'm going to take you on
Speaker 1: this vacation. I'm going to take whatever it is. And
Speaker 1: so back to them was love if the other person's
Speaker 1: on board, maybe.
Speaker 4: And then so would a narcissist and a narcissist together.
Speaker 4: Would that be complete disaster or would that actually work
Speaker 4: because they both would end up having similar surface level relationships,
Speaker 4: Like would it make more sense for narcissists to be
Speaker 4: together than to be with other people who can't quite
Speaker 4: relate to them and understand them.
Speaker 2: Do we need to create narcissists dating apps?
Speaker 1: That's a good idea. There you go, that's your business.
Speaker 1: You enjoyed, do that, I'll be your consultant. Effect they
Speaker 1: are when narcissists isn't in a relationship with the narcis
Speaker 1: happens all the time, by the way. It can be
Speaker 1: very volatile. It can be very betrayal Leyden. You hope
Speaker 1: to god they don't have kids because no one's going
Speaker 1: to be minding the story kind of thing. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're right that given the superficial focus, it can work.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: It's basically two people looking into their own separate mirrors
Speaker 1: and you know, pretty content. And those relationships are often
Speaker 1: driven by things like status. You know that both people
Speaker 1: are deriving a status from the other. They may have
Speaker 1: similar superficial interests, so that that keeps it going, so
Speaker 1: that they can keep it going for a while. But
Speaker 1: someone's going to betray.
Speaker 4: Someone, right, So it's almost like it's a personality type
Speaker 4: that's incapable of creating meaningful exchanges, like meaningful, genuine relationships.
Speaker 4: Where would they turn to people if they have something
Speaker 4: that's upset them and hurt them? Would they would they
Speaker 4: know how to? Like, how does a narcist express their emotion?
Speaker 1: Not in a good way, It's usually going to be overtrage, yelling, screaming, irritability,
Speaker 1: or it's going to be passive aggression.
Speaker 4: It almost feels like it's like an adult tantrum, like
Speaker 4: whenever I talk, whenever I think about it, even in
Speaker 4: my own personality, if I have I don't really have
Speaker 4: outbursts like that, but even if I have emotions that
Speaker 4: get released a bit too fast, I'm like, it feels
Speaker 4: like I've seen this in lots of people where we
Speaker 4: have these adult tantrums, where it's where it's again what
Speaker 4: you said, manipulative, a little bit unreasonable, like there's no
Speaker 4: reason to it. It becomes almost like a small think
Speaker 4: and become so big and there is no changing their minds.
Speaker 4: They believe that they are right, They believe that they
Speaker 4: have every right to feel this way. The other thing
Speaker 4: that comes to mind is with people who are If
Speaker 4: there are people listening and watching and thinking, oh my goodness,
Speaker 4: my partner might just be a narcissist, what happens stay
Speaker 4: with them? How does someone then deal with that I've
Speaker 4: been with this person for ten years. I'm sure, like
Speaker 4: you said, you've seen so many people who have been
Speaker 4: with partners for years and years.
Speaker 2: What happens?
Speaker 4: Does the other person ever feel joy and happiness within
Speaker 4: the relationship or is it something that we're always struggling Listen.
Speaker 1: It's so tricky because when you think about long term
Speaker 1: intimate relationships, if it's a newer relationship, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of skin in the game. They're not living together,
Speaker 1: they don't have children together, they're not married or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Obviously, disengaging from something is, if I say,
Speaker 1: easier in quotes, because psychologically it's not easy, right, the
Speaker 1: deeper in someone is and you have other shared stuff, yeah, house,
Speaker 1: home and children and all that stuff, money, it becomes harder.
Speaker 1: But then there's other things afoot Because in a narcissistic relationship,
Speaker 1: one would say it's so bad, why wouldn't everyone go? Well,
Speaker 1: they don't. In fact, a lot of people. Don't go
Speaker 1: take the practical out for a minute, right, There's a
Speaker 1: couple of other variables at play. There's a lot of hope.
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope they'll change, right, change, and I
Speaker 1: will be the one change? You know, you won't be.
Speaker 1: No one is going to be, So you take that
Speaker 1: out of the picture. But that's hard to let go of.
Speaker 1: But then there's a phenomenon called trauma bonding. Yes, And
Speaker 1: with trauma bonding, what we see is that it is
Speaker 1: a situation where the good days and the bad days
Speaker 1: going back and forth between. That creates this very difficult
Speaker 1: to detach from bond and it's kept in place because
Speaker 1: the person, the non narcissistic person as it were, will
Speaker 1: make justifications and they'll make nationalizations and they'll make excuses,
Speaker 1: and that almost starts to become a reality. And then
Speaker 1: on top of that, that trauma bonded person will blame themselves.
Speaker 1: They'll doubt them, doubt themselves. And since they're already being
Speaker 1: gaslighted and doubted and blamed, it all fits. So now
Speaker 1: this person feels it maybe this is my fault and
Speaker 1: they're really busy and they told me that, and I
Speaker 1: actually haven't been doing X, Y or Z as much, right,
Speaker 1: and we had a good time last weekend, and we
Speaker 1: do have a vacation planned and look at our pictures
Speaker 1: on the laws and all of that, right, and then
Speaker 1: it gets bad again, and then it's bad again, and
Speaker 1: if it's bad for enough days, maybe by the third
Speaker 1: or fourth or fifth week of bad, like, okay, this
Speaker 1: isn't healthy. I got to go rationalize, rationalized, self blame,
Speaker 1: self blame, they're cracking through. Then there's a good day.
Speaker 1: And that trauma bonded stuff can often have very ancient origins,
Speaker 1: where for the child who might have a negating or parent,
Speaker 1: or they're insecurely attached to the parent, that child had
Speaker 1: to make sense of that. They don't have a choice.
Speaker 1: You can't say I don't like this mom, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go get another mom.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So what happens then is that that child does blame
Speaker 1: themselves so they can feel because as they blame themselves
Speaker 1: and there's a path forward to attachment. The other option
Speaker 1: is that that is absolutely cataclysmic. So that trauma bonded
Speaker 1: cycle keeps people always questioning, wondering, and they'll think, what
Speaker 1: if I leave and they meet someone else? What if
Speaker 1: I leave and they I was wrong. And as a therapist,
Speaker 1: I have to say when I have clients who have
Speaker 1: been in trauma bonded relationships, I've said to them, can
Speaker 1: you explain to me a little bit so I understand
Speaker 1: what do you love about them? And even more so,
Speaker 1: what do you like about them? When the client and
Speaker 1: when a client is trauma bonded, the way they answer
Speaker 1: that question is do you know doc, I don't know,
Speaker 1: Like I can't put it into words. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like it's like.
Speaker 3: This magical like I have a soul connection, like we're
Speaker 3: souls and we're like old souls and we're just connected,
Speaker 3: and like I don't know, I can't put it in words.
Speaker 4: It's like yeah, where it's almost like I know that
Speaker 4: I have this attachment to this person that I can't
Speaker 4: go off, but I don't quite know.
Speaker 2: What it is that I love about them or like
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Because it is a trauma bonded situation, it's actually a
Speaker 1: very problematic person. Now, when a person's in a healthy
Speaker 1: relationship and you say tell me you love like about me,
Speaker 1: they'll give you very clear into case like this is
Speaker 1: a kind person. I feel safe with this person. I
Speaker 1: enjoy my time I spend with them. I feel respected.
Speaker 1: They really uplift me. Okay, got it. Like it's very
Speaker 1: very clear, very healthy. Not only and or they'll say
Speaker 1: they're just I love I love hearing about their work
Speaker 1: whatever it is. You see, there's a reciprocal awareness. The
Speaker 1: person feels safe, they feel connected in a trauma bonded relationship.
Speaker 1: It cannot be articulated, but people will sometimes I feel
Speaker 1: the sense of chemistry. Chemistry is the most dangerous word
Speaker 1: in a relationship. When I hear chemistry, I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't tell me if you're a chemistry because it's almost
Speaker 1: a like it's.
Speaker 2: Like an explosion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an explosion, but it's also like a chemical excuse, right,
Speaker 1: Like we have chemistry. That's why I'm sticking it out.
Speaker 1: It's so weird to find this, I said, thank goodness,
Speaker 1: it's rare. This is not good for you. So all
Speaker 1: of that makes it very difficult for people to leave.
Speaker 1: But many people do leave. And you know what, some
Speaker 1: the vast majority who people who leave once they get
Speaker 1: over the initial hump of and they don't always leave.
Speaker 1: They're often left. Keep in mind the narcissistic person might
Speaker 1: find new supply and so in that initial period, if
Speaker 1: a person is left, they'll experience grief. They'll often feel like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I still feel so tied to this person.
Speaker 1: The trauma bond may not have it's the therapy and
Speaker 1: worked like that becomes eroding that trauma bond.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: If a person leaves a narcissistic person, though, depending how
Speaker 1: severe the narcissism is, there can be what we call
Speaker 1: post separation abuse, stalking and harassment. It can be tricky
Speaker 1: business and some people will say, oh, this is hard.
Speaker 1: Doesn't always happen, But in a narcissistic relationship cycle, it's
Speaker 1: not unusual for there to be something called hoovering, sucking
Speaker 1: people back in, and that then becomes the game of people.
Speaker 1: It's the fantasy, right of the child who finally gets
Speaker 1: noticed by the parent like, ah, they came back for me.
Speaker 1: Isn't that the ultimate attachment fantasy? They came back from me?
Speaker 1: And you're like, here we go round two?
Speaker 2: And so is that the same cycle that people?
Speaker 4: Because I always think when it comes to parents, I
Speaker 4: think we will have this image of how how could
Speaker 4: a parent not love their child? Right, like you have
Speaker 4: this in people's minds and especially in mine. I come
Speaker 4: from a like I'm blessed to have a mom and
Speaker 4: a dad who I have felt the love of, so
Speaker 4: in my mind, I always think, and I know there
Speaker 4: are so many horror stories, but if it's a narcissistic
Speaker 4: parent and a child, Let's say a child is listening
Speaker 4: to this who has had a parent who they felt
Speaker 4: neglected by?
Speaker 2: Is that the normal?
Speaker 4: Is that the key sign of a narcissistic parent, Like
Speaker 4: do you generally as a child and not feeling neglected.
Speaker 1: Not just neglected, you feel invalidated. There's a difference. You
Speaker 1: feel you are only going to be loved if you're
Speaker 1: serving a function for the parent, and that function might
Speaker 1: be not being around, not being a source of not
Speaker 1: being inconvenient that the child is always trying to win
Speaker 1: the parent over, gain their approof gain their validation. It
Speaker 1: is a it is an exhausting, painful.
Speaker 4: Way, and I guess that love is again it's the definition,
Speaker 4: right like for the for the parent who is a
Speaker 4: narcissist to their child, that is their definition of loving
Speaker 4: their child will be different to what the child's definition
Speaker 4: of love from their parents.
Speaker 1: Child does not can have a definition of all. Child
Speaker 1: is all about survival. Child's about survival, I mean child.
Speaker 4: But even when you get to an adult, Let's say
Speaker 4: I got to this age and I realized that I
Speaker 4: had a traumatic relationship let's say with my mum or
Speaker 4: my dad, and I grow up to this age and
Speaker 4: I recognize when.
Speaker 2: I hear this, and I'm like, oh, this, this is
Speaker 2: actually what it was.
Speaker 4: But in in their mind should they believe that this
Speaker 4: their definition? The parent's definition of love was just very
Speaker 4: different to what they required as a as a child.
Speaker 1: No, that's a parenting fit, right is right? That's a
Speaker 1: that's not it's not about their parents had a different
Speaker 1: action of love. Parent didn't do the crucial job of parenting.
Speaker 1: Take love out of it. Really, they just did not
Speaker 1: do what a parent needed to do, which was to
Speaker 1: have regard for their child. Notice their child, be present
Speaker 1: with their child, validate their child, regulate their own emotions,
Speaker 1: and put primacy on their child. Never make a child
Speaker 1: a repository of their needs. Listen to their child's needs,
Speaker 1: encourage their child's emotional expression, create a safe space for
Speaker 1: that emotional expression. Most kids, because they.
Speaker 2: Don't have to put people first without it being for
Speaker 2: their benefit.
Speaker 1: Correct, the child becomes a source of narcissistic supply, either
Speaker 1: the parent derived status from them or they the child.
Speaker 1: They know the child will do things for them, but
Speaker 1: by in large, the narcissistic parent just doesn't like being
Speaker 1: inconvenienced by their child. Right.
Speaker 4: And so for anybody that ends up listening to this
Speaker 4: and they get to the end of this and they
Speaker 4: in their mind think, you know what I feel like
Speaker 4: I am. Let's say they're not a narcist. But there
Speaker 4: are all these qualities I would say are red signs
Speaker 4: of or like things that it's very easy for us
Speaker 4: to become depending on the company that we're surrounded by.
Speaker 4: You could, like you said, if you have parents that
Speaker 4: are constantly telling you you're more special, friends telling you
Speaker 4: you are more special, especially when it comes to beauty
Speaker 4: in this world, because you're constantly like if you are
Speaker 4: physically attractive, it is like you will have people telling
Speaker 4: you on the street, You'll have your parents telling you
Speaker 4: being an Indian child, if you are fair, if you
Speaker 4: are whatever, like that specialness that you are told from
Speaker 4: a young age.
Speaker 2: I'd say, even more.
Speaker 4: So than being smart, beauty is probably the area in
Speaker 4: our world which is focused on the most and so
Speaker 4: for anybody on a daily basis, who whichever one of these,
Speaker 4: whether it's self importance, entitlement, being sometimes manipulative with your
Speaker 4: empathy to try and gain things from people, because we
Speaker 4: live in a world where sometimes depending on the work
Speaker 4: you're in or whatever, you end up being nicer to
Speaker 4: people because you can gain from them on a daily basis.
Speaker 4: If someone's journaling, if someone is trying to better themselves,
Speaker 4: what would be the type, Like I guess it would
Speaker 4: just be a lot of self reflection. But would you
Speaker 4: recommend that people, even if they're not diagnosed as narcissists,
Speaker 4: to be reflecting on these parts of their lives and
Speaker 4: what kind of questions should they.
Speaker 2: Be asking themselves?
Speaker 4: And and how would they then, you know, change that
Speaker 4: dynamic in those areas.
Speaker 1: If a narcissistic person is doing that level of self reflection,
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that they're all that much, do you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying? That kind of depth work on
Speaker 1: their own spontaneously? Probably not.
Speaker 4: But I imagine even if you have small amounts of this,
Speaker 4: if you get fed it too much throughout your.
Speaker 1: Life, I understand what you're saying it's like the making
Speaker 1: of a monster prevention. Yes, if we think about how
Speaker 1: they should be raising children, educating children, is that it's
Speaker 1: not just empathy that's important. It's self awareness. It's self regulation, right,
Speaker 1: It's that.
Speaker 2: What do you mean my self regulation?
Speaker 1: Regulation is I'm having a I'm really angry right now.
Speaker 1: I need to figure out a healthy way to manage
Speaker 1: that emotion. And that might mean I think I need
Speaker 1: to take a walk. Can I have some time I'm
Speaker 1: going to cry this one out to do? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know that kind of thing. I need a minute. That
Speaker 1: self regulation, lack of self regulation is just screaming and
Speaker 1: yelling and expecting to get your way right or sullenly
Speaker 1: sulking off and not communicating your feelings right. So you know, again,
Speaker 1: the core problem with narcissism is that lack of self
Speaker 1: reflective capacity. But you're saying if somebody may not be narcissistic,
Speaker 1: but they've been sort of indoctrinated into this sort of
Speaker 1: you're using this great example of like in the Indian community,
Speaker 1: of like certain qualities may be overvalued, attractiveness, fair skinnedness.
Speaker 1: You grow up with that, right, academic academic achievement. So
Speaker 1: you have a couple of things happening there. There's that
Speaker 1: temperament again coming up, right. It's also what other balances
Speaker 1: were there. The child could have heard you're so pretty,
Speaker 1: you're so pretty, so pretty, but also might have heard
Speaker 1: you're also many other wonderful things. You're so kind to
Speaker 1: your sister, you're such a kind, good person. The child
Speaker 1: still has to do chores. The child can't just ask
Speaker 1: and do whatever they want without there being some form
Speaker 1: of consequence if they misbehave right, So that overvaluation on
Speaker 1: one thing, and I call it sort of that one
Speaker 1: trick pony treatment of a child. See this will also
Speaker 1: with quite a bit with academic skills, like they're doing
Speaker 1: so well, especially in their science classes, and they're going
Speaker 1: to go to a top university. Look look, look, look
Speaker 1: we have to. But if that child's getting with everything else,
Speaker 1: or even into adulthood, they can throw tantrums, they can
Speaker 1: be rude, they can be awful, But here, doctor, that's
Speaker 1: that's a problem. But if that person also has a
Speaker 1: balance against that, then that's obviously going to be very
Speaker 1: very protective. So it's the if a person is wondering,
Speaker 1: am I being empathic? Am I being self aware. We
Speaker 1: all should be doing Yes, all of us should be
Speaker 1: doing that. Like as I communicate with this person, let
Speaker 1: me think about this, or let me be aware that
Speaker 1: I didn't have a great day today, and they let
Speaker 1: the person know. Can we have this conversation tomorrow. I
Speaker 1: know I'm not at my best today. Or this is
Speaker 1: learned to articulate our needs somebody who is help, who
Speaker 1: might even be on the fringe that they've been told
Speaker 1: but a little bit too special or too wonderful, or
Speaker 1: that by doing these sorts of check ins with oneself,
Speaker 1: you can catch yourself. That's a lot of what mindfulness is.
Speaker 1: The words I'm about to say, how will these land?
Speaker 1: We may be telling someone something very uncomfortable that doesn't
Speaker 1: feel good, but there's a way to communicate that, no
Speaker 1: matter what it is to say, Okay, I need to
Speaker 1: give you feedback. I'd like us to take a minute,
Speaker 1: come in the room, you know, and you give them feedback.
Speaker 1: It may not be very nice feedback, but there's a
Speaker 1: way to do it, to check in with someone to
Speaker 1: create safety. Right. Yes, that's all mindful checking in, and
Speaker 1: a lot of us are too busy and on our
Speaker 1: own quests to do whatever it is we're doing or whatever,
Speaker 1: So it gets complicated in that chronic checking back in.
Speaker 1: I just don't think you're going to get a narcissistic
Speaker 1: person there. I just don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think with even with all these qualities
Speaker 4: we're talking about, even with entitlement, like I always think
Speaker 4: about whenever I go into a situation or you know,
Speaker 4: I think about where certain areas are triggered in me,
Speaker 4: Like when I go into a specific situation, where do
Speaker 4: I find my ego rising or my entitlement kicking in
Speaker 4: what kind of situations am I bringing those things out?
Speaker 4: Or what situations are bringing that out in me? And
Speaker 4: then when I track back to thinking about those situations
Speaker 4: and then tracking it back.
Speaker 2: To where it could have rooted from, I found that really.
Speaker 4: Helped me because there will be certain situation and I realized, yeah,
Speaker 4: maybe it was because give an example, I was told
Speaker 4: a lot because my eyes are a different color from
Speaker 4: in being a brown woman with like colored eyes, something
Speaker 4: I was commented on for like my whole life. And
Speaker 4: it was interesting because there's a level of even if
Speaker 4: I don't believe even when I look at other people,
Speaker 4: I see another colored eye, which I find more attractive
Speaker 4: or I love deep black or brown eyes because I've
Speaker 4: been told that for such a long time. It's almost
Speaker 4: like it gets programmed into you to believe that about
Speaker 4: yourself and then about other people. And so I found
Speaker 4: that all the areas that I find I think or
Speaker 4: people have told me I am better then because of
Speaker 4: or that I have a reason to be entitled because
Speaker 4: of That's how we translate it into our body.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's interesting.
Speaker 4: I've now realized that I have to find those places
Speaker 4: in my life, all the situations that are bringing that
Speaker 4: out in me and noticing them so then I can
Speaker 4: work on them.
Speaker 1: It's a great point. Again, but to be able to
Speaker 1: do that depth work requires a tremendous amount of mental health.
Speaker 1: You know. I would always give to my students when
Speaker 1: I was a professor that we had two parking lots,
Speaker 1: multiple parkingers, but one for the faculty and several for
Speaker 1: the students. The students' parking lots were further out. Faculty
Speaker 1: parking lot was closer in. I truly believe in horizontal
Speaker 1: organization and equity. It matters a lot to me. And
Speaker 1: then I have to say, how would I feel about that?
Speaker 1: Hav'm not bargain, right, yeah, right, And I think like
Speaker 1: I got a PhD, I spent ten years in school,
Speaker 1: I have to work here. But really, and I really
Speaker 1: love your analysis of like to dig deep in what
Speaker 1: does that mean? Like do I feel like you know?
Speaker 1: Do I feel like something? And then I really would
Speaker 1: go deeper in that, like, Okay, what if these people
Speaker 1: paid me a ton more money to do this job?
Speaker 1: They said, but you have to park in this bargeou
Speaker 1: a mile away. I'm like, you could park me five
Speaker 1: miles away if you pay me that much. So it's
Speaker 1: all these these sliders right in the sense of academic
Speaker 1: jobs don't pay well, and so you're thinking, like you're
Speaker 1: already disrespecting me in so many ways, like please don't
Speaker 1: take my parking style way right, And so it forces
Speaker 1: you into what are the things like we all do
Speaker 1: have certain entitlements and privileges that we carry that if
Speaker 1: we feel those are being taken away, what.
Speaker 2: Does that what does it take away from What does it.
Speaker 1: Take away from me? What is that symbolic of how
Speaker 1: am I feeling that? What is it taking me back to?
Speaker 1: And that can be very very potent, that sort of
Speaker 1: depth work which we do for example, in a trauma
Speaker 1: client where you feeling this in your body. With a
Speaker 1: very healthy individual, where I'd say they'm in therapy this
Speaker 1: really you had a strong reaction to this, what's happening,
Speaker 1: And they'll say it blah blah blah, brought up this.
Speaker 1: When you bring that up with a narcissistic client, you
Speaker 1: kind of go kind of nowhere fast. Sometimes with a Again,
Speaker 1: I've had a handful of clients who are able to
Speaker 1: go deeper in and they see it and they get it,
Speaker 1: but it's a heavier lift and there's certainly not something
Speaker 1: they're going to do spontaneously.
Speaker 4: Let's say a narcis isn't capable of this. But I
Speaker 4: think for people who may notice certain of certain aspects
Speaker 4: of these qualities in their life, it's something where like
Speaker 4: you said, it can build up and they should be
Speaker 4: trying to We should all be trying to reduce these
Speaker 4: qualities within ourselves wherever we end up seeing them and
Speaker 4: doing that work on a daily basis. It's so important
Speaker 4: because you just never know where it's accumulating and how
Speaker 4: fast it's accumulating within you To then create this type
Speaker 4: of person or personality that you end up with and
Speaker 4: you can't reverse after you can't reverse.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the challenge is is that
Speaker 1: you know, personality is pretty much gelled and in place
Speaker 1: by the mid twenties, right you are. Then environment will
Speaker 1: continue to shape that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, a person has a tremendous amount of adversity, you
Speaker 1: can almost look at it. Think of it as like
Speaker 1: a marble rolling down something. It might go this direction,
Speaker 1: it might go di direction, depending on the texture of
Speaker 1: the thing that it's rolling down.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: A person with one kind of let's say, an agreeable
Speaker 1: personality that's given those adversities, they may actually dip into
Speaker 1: a very deep well of resilience meaning purpose, existential stuff,
Speaker 1: and it might even toughen them up. They might strengthen
Speaker 1: their focus. Somebody who has more of this narcissistic style
Speaker 1: temperament call it what you will, and they face those adversities,
Speaker 1: it is there going to start to erode on, braid,
Speaker 1: fall apart, rage at the world and the most extreme places,
Speaker 1: perhaps even engage in violence. Wow.
Speaker 4: And it's so interesting because I feel like everything, whether
Speaker 4: it's a narcissist or not, everything seems system from insecurities,
Speaker 4: like the value that you end up having in other
Speaker 4: people's lives, the value that you find in the world
Speaker 4: of yourself, and I think or whether it's a narcissistic
Speaker 4: person or all the other personality types, we all thrive
Speaker 4: off this desire of wanting to be of value, and
Speaker 4: how we find that is through the way that we
Speaker 4: present ourselves in our personality. I feel like narcissists the word.
Speaker 4: The term has been obviously more common now, but would
Speaker 4: you say, was it called something else before? How is
Speaker 4: it suddenly become something that everybody knows about, talks about.
Speaker 4: And it feels like it's just a new thing that's developed,
Speaker 4: But it's obviously not.
Speaker 1: It's a new word in the grand history of that
Speaker 1: around probably since the late eighteen hundreds, early in nineteen hundred.
Speaker 1: So remember the field of psychology still in this relative infancy,
Speaker 1: and I you know, there's always been disagreement about psychoanalytic theorists,
Speaker 1: the Freuds and Auto Ranks and all of that. They
Speaker 1: were the ones who wrote about it first, always a
Speaker 1: lot of disagreement about it. And before that, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you really wanted to play the clock, all the
Speaker 1: way back there were people who talk about things like
Speaker 1: moral insanity. So these are people who are intellectually on point,
Speaker 1: but there was a moral depravity to them that was
Speaker 1: probably a hint towards narcissism. If we roll the clock
Speaker 1: all the way back to ancient physicians like Galen, they
Speaker 1: talk about the humors and some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: those early Greek Roman sort of physicians, as you will,
Speaker 1: they were talking about humors and they were talking about
Speaker 1: these different personality styles that would present narcissisms. Always agree
Speaker 1: has always existed in beings. We're a hominid species and
Speaker 1: our close close cousins are primates, and these are hierarchically
Speaker 1: organized species. So I think that when we think about
Speaker 1: things like how human beings have come through time, like
Speaker 1: in terms of how our social systems worked and were organized,
Speaker 1: how the industrial revolutions have affected how we exist with
Speaker 1: each other, life expectancies, patriarchies, the role of marriage, all
Speaker 1: of those things would have played a role in that
Speaker 1: there've always been terrible people. Open up a history book,
Speaker 1: exactly what do you think the history books are about
Speaker 1: the narcissist? The regular folks, which is out there plowing
Speaker 1: the fields and doing the thing and milking the cows.
Speaker 1: But the narcissists were the ones invading and pillaging and
Speaker 1: making history. That's who we still learn about. Their terrible people.
Speaker 1: And so those historical figures lacked empathy. And we're entitled,
Speaker 1: and we're grandiose and believed all this other stuff, and
Speaker 1: so they do. They do stick in. They stick in
Speaker 1: the history books, they stick in our minds. It's always
Speaker 1: been there. But when we think about the devalued voice,
Speaker 1: For example, someone who had more power in a relationship
Speaker 1: might have domineered someone Being able to physically abuse the
Speaker 1: spouse was legal until relatively recent and it still is
Speaker 1: in many parts.
Speaker 2: So it just wasn't seen as being a negative.
Speaker 1: It wasn't being seen as being a thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's wild to me that they don't assess these
Speaker 4: personalities before world leaders are, like the assessment that goes
Speaker 4: that people have to go through to become a leader
Speaker 4: or someone who to become someone who is leading other
Speaker 4: people or looking after them.
Speaker 2: It really surprised me after hearing.
Speaker 4: What you said that it's that's not part of the
Speaker 4: training or part of the Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Not at all, not at all. In fact leadership, I
Speaker 1: would say the US government, look, I mean heavily, we
Speaker 1: have a house. It's very stacked towards narcissism who would
Speaker 1: put themselves through that, Like you must really want to be,
Speaker 1: like you know, of a certain powerful role and endure
Speaker 1: all that one endures in that role, Like I think
Speaker 1: a normal person like, no, thank you, I don't want that.
Speaker 1: And so the counter argument to what you're saying, though,
Speaker 1: some people would say, I wouldn't necessarily hold to this,
Speaker 1: but would say, when it comes time to hit the
Speaker 1: switch on having a war, yeah, you really want someone
Speaker 1: who's going to be thinking about empathy and children, like
Speaker 1: you want someone who's going to actually do something to
Speaker 1: safeguard a sovereign state. Right, So some people would say, okay,
Speaker 1: I almost think that the perfect way to do leadership
Speaker 1: would be to have not a one person, but.
Speaker 2: Multiple people mutiple.
Speaker 1: Have your agreeable person in there, have your narcissistic person
Speaker 1: in there, and try to work towards consensus. And I
Speaker 1: think that's why we have cabinets and and all of that,
Speaker 1: But unfortunately all of them are it's a lot of
Speaker 1: narcissisms all the way around. They're not bringing the agreeable
Speaker 1: people kind of get selected out because almost like this
Speaker 1: is not for me. I want to spend time with
Speaker 1: the people I care about. I want a time on
Speaker 1: that family like this, This whole power trip thing isn't
Speaker 1: my thing, right and so, But empathic leadership, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of really interesting work being written about it, and
Speaker 1: there are good outcomes. This idea of pie you impath,
Speaker 1: then you're not. You're not a hardcore. We're not going
Speaker 1: to make money on you. It's not true. No, I
Speaker 1: mean it's not true. A person could be empathic and
Speaker 1: I have a very very solid sense of how financial
Speaker 1: markets work and make some painful decisions in that position
Speaker 1: and still be empathic and not be abusive and not
Speaker 1: allow a culture of abuse to fester. But we just
Speaker 1: often those folks, like I said, often self select out
Speaker 1: some of the most empathic people I know. When it
Speaker 1: came to academic leadership, they could have become deans and this,
Speaker 1: and they're like, no, I love my lab I love
Speaker 1: my students. I said, But what about the money, is like,
Speaker 1: I have enough money, I'm going I don't need more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we be amazing to pick teams and to pick
Speaker 4: to really when they are hiring people. If personality in
Speaker 4: that respect was actually taken into account to create more
Speaker 4: of a balanced team yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I think what you see rather there is
Speaker 1: that there are assessments they use in the workplace. Because
Speaker 1: I've worked with clients on this and it's a little
Speaker 1: bit too much of a superficial assessment. If you been
Speaker 1: the problems, if you want too deep with the assessment instruments,
Speaker 1: you'd have lawsuits flying all over the place, right. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying that girl, if I had those
Speaker 1: assessment instruments, I'd be like no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no, because you would have you would literally
Speaker 1: get people saying that this is biased, this is your
Speaker 1: you know, you pick up somebody with you and.
Speaker 4: Someone who come out so hard to assess it really is.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you so much for all of the information.
Speaker 4: I feel like it's been so so informative, so useful
Speaker 4: for people on a daily basis to be able to
Speaker 4: figure out the.
Speaker 2: People that they are living around.
Speaker 4: I feel like we just don't we assess people in
Speaker 4: such a superficial way.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: We see people, we think about them based on what
Speaker 4: they look like, but their job is like the questions
Speaker 4: that we ask don't tend to be as thoughtful until
Speaker 4: we get to a place of knowing them. So deeply,
Speaker 4: and I think this helps others understand a different aspect
Speaker 4: to the people that they are around.
Speaker 1: A simple question, and I tell people this, I say,
Speaker 1: pay attention to how you feel while you're with someone,
Speaker 1: and pay attention how you feel after you're not with them.
Speaker 1: By that, I mean you meet someone, can be someone new,
Speaker 1: and you might in the conversation, I am so enjoying
Speaker 1: this conversation, thinking to yourself subjectively, and then afterwards you're like,
Speaker 1: I feel I feel bigger, I feel stronger. Right, I
Speaker 1: have to say people say, well, no, narcissisty people are
Speaker 1: so charming and charismatic. You got to get away from
Speaker 1: the fluff. It's not someone saying.
Speaker 5: You're so cool, you're so interesting, No, it's that person
Speaker 5: where you're getting into this place of there's a back
Speaker 5: and forth of a banter about something that you talk
Speaker 5: about vulnerabilities and good things and bad things, and you might.
Speaker 1: Find a shared affinity about X, Y and Z. Pay
Speaker 1: attention to that. How you go through the world after
Speaker 1: that conversation. I would guess in eight times out of ten,
Speaker 1: some very very good narcissistic people out there gonna be
Speaker 1: very charming, But eight times out of ten him. If
Speaker 1: you were to pay attention to that, you would say like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I knew it felt good. I can I can say honestly,
Speaker 1: the rare times my introverted ass goes to a party
Speaker 1: is that when I pay very much attention to and
Speaker 1: I remember recently spent a long time since I've been
Speaker 1: to one, because usually I either don't get invited to
Speaker 1: people or she is not good, She's just in the
Speaker 1: corner and talks to one person like you. But I
Speaker 1: I remember going to a party some time ago. It's
Speaker 1: like Mipe was December, and there was many several people,
Speaker 1: obviously many people. There was a party, and I got
Speaker 1: into a conversation with this one guy. He was the loveliest,
Speaker 1: loveliest person. And when we got together after the life
Speaker 1: is busy. He's a busy man, busy guy. But we
Speaker 1: had such a nice time, and it'll always stick in
Speaker 1: my mind. There are other people I talked with, No
Speaker 1: I didn't feel it. I was like, can you tell
Speaker 1: me where the bathroom is? I'm sure everyone in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles must think I'd a urinary tract infecton, so I'm
Speaker 1: always like, I got to do the bathroom. Can tell
Speaker 1: me what the both. It's my way of getting out
Speaker 1: of me too.
Speaker 2: I spent a love time about the in social situation
Speaker 2: some time.
Speaker 1: She's gone to the bathroom tonight, so I hope no
Speaker 1: one's tracking me. But it's a or I got to
Speaker 1: go grab a bite or something like that. That feeling right,
Speaker 1: and then you do feel it, and it's trusting that
Speaker 1: sense of not that they're pumping me up. What I
Speaker 1: liked about the person I enjoyed having a conversation with
Speaker 1: was he's such an interesting life and was answering those
Speaker 1: questions in such a humble manner. And then I think
Speaker 1: it's also what do we value in a person? Got
Speaker 1: to be honest with ourselves, Like if somebody really asked you,
Speaker 1: what qualities do you value in someone else? I would
Speaker 1: say humility matters a lot to be Empathy matters a
Speaker 1: lot to me. We need to know that. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine anyone ever saying the things I look for when
Speaker 1: I meet someone new are entitlement, grandiosity, and arrogance top three.
Speaker 2: No, that's nobody's top three.
Speaker 1: And if it is someone's top three, they're probably narcissistic.
Speaker 1: So I hope they find it in another person.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I love how self aware you are also
Speaker 4: that you know how to set your boundaries, because I
Speaker 4: think that's important. And I think, yeah, I know, but
Speaker 4: you just knowing yourself enough to not put yourselves into
Speaker 4: those situations, I don't know. Yeah, And a lot of
Speaker 4: people would say, like to me, I've had people say,
Speaker 4: you know, get out of your comfort zone or do
Speaker 4: this or do that, And sometimes I wonder, you know,
Speaker 4: from your experience outside of work and just as who
Speaker 4: you are, how did you get to a point where
Speaker 4: you became comfortable with just being who you are and
Speaker 4: not thinking that you're hiding from something or trying to
Speaker 4: stay away from something and not like just taking a
Speaker 4: step outside of your comfort zone. Like what's the difference
Speaker 4: between you staying in your comfort zone and not trying
Speaker 4: things versus just knowing this is this is who I am,
Speaker 4: and this is what makes me happy.
Speaker 1: I had to get hurt enough time, did you?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 1: You know, in many ways, it's been a devastating life.
Speaker 1: And I'm a lot older than you, and so I
Speaker 1: think there was a point where the broken hearts and
Speaker 1: the broken psyche piled up too high for me and
Speaker 1: it wasn't about comfort zone anymore. It was really about safety.
Speaker 1: They must take care, I must, I must protect myself.
Speaker 1: To me, comfort zone, you want to go to comfort zone,
Speaker 1: bungee jump, jump out of a plane, scuba dive, like,
Speaker 1: that's comfort zone to me. But that we have this really,
Speaker 1: really good detector within us to know that harm is coming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And when people say get out of your comfort zone
Speaker 1: as a way to be with that person, it's very
Speaker 1: dangerous guidance.
Speaker 2: Right in relationships.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's the last question I want to ask you.
Speaker 4: That's what got you into this line of work.
Speaker 1: Not my own experience, Believe it or not. It was
Speaker 1: actually very academic for me. Initially. I was when I
Speaker 1: was a university professor. I noticed that people with these
Speaker 1: personalities were wreaking havoc in primary care healthcare situations, and
Speaker 1: so that this is so interesting. Why doesn't anyone write
Speaker 1: about this? Nobody had been writing about it, And so
Speaker 1: I decided to write grants to an IH and do
Speaker 1: research on this and write about it and think about it,
Speaker 1: talk about it. And my own mentor said, Romedy, come on,
Speaker 1: don't do personality work. It's going to you know, puts
Speaker 1: you out sort of on this this sort of academic
Speaker 1: gulag and I'm like, that's really seems interesting. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, I was at a clinical practice and
Speaker 1: I was seeing more and more clients where I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe if I educate these people in these personality patterns,
Speaker 1: it'll help them and these relationships are in And as
Speaker 1: I was doing this work, doing this work, what was
Speaker 1: becoming fascinating to me was the almost the denial I
Speaker 1: had practiced, the pushing it down. I became so aware
Speaker 1: of these patterns in my life and that to blow
Speaker 1: up situations in my life, like to step away from
Speaker 1: some of these harmful relationships, it was going to blow
Speaker 1: up my life. And it was. It was defying every
Speaker 1: childhood teaching, it was defying almost every societal teaching, and
Speaker 1: it was. But it was Yet it took me doing
Speaker 1: all the research, doing clinical practice, and only then did
Speaker 1: I come to the inside of wait a minute, really, yeah,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't my personal experience that brought me into this.
Speaker 1: It's my personal experience though, that I think become the
Speaker 1: strong tent poles that commit me to this work. And
Speaker 1: so when people say no, no, no, this isn't a thing,
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, no, this is a thing. Trust me
Speaker 1: on this and it You know, your world gets smaller
Speaker 1: when you go through this enough. And I have worked
Speaker 1: with clients I myself over and over bad luck. Some
Speaker 1: of it's just bad luck. You keep picking the wrong
Speaker 1: black jack table in the casino, right, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just bad luck. And and then part of it is
Speaker 1: is beyond bad luck. It was maybe working through Maybe
Speaker 1: this time it could be different, And so there's a
Speaker 1: caution and there's a tentativeness. I always look like someone
Speaker 1: who's trying to make sure the ice is thick enough
Speaker 1: to stand on. That's my process, that my journey. I'm
Speaker 1: good with it.
Speaker 4: How did you with any of the trauma that you've
Speaker 4: been through in your life? Would you say that you
Speaker 4: have been able to heal from it where you look
Speaker 4: back at it and don't feel pain, or would you
Speaker 4: say that trauma is something like the things that you've
Speaker 4: been through. Have you healed from it? Is it something
Speaker 4: you feel you can heal from fully? Or would you
Speaker 4: say that it has you know, what were your mechanisms
Speaker 4: of even getting to this point where you feel comfortable
Speaker 4: enough to share and talk about it?
Speaker 1: And right, I think healing is not the removal of
Speaker 1: the pain. I think healing is the colocation and protection
Speaker 1: of the pain. Right, So this idea that you know again,
Speaker 1: it's that that's sort of the internal eternals on China's
Speaker 1: spotless mind, right, there is no spotless mind. And so
Speaker 1: it's to understand that those are the vulnerabilities and that
Speaker 1: you can draw your arms around those within yourself that
Speaker 1: they're not And I think the way I know I've healed,
Speaker 1: I don't view them as much as much. I still
Speaker 1: sometimes have my moments as points of damage, you know,
Speaker 1: but rather that you know, unfortunate painful experiences, bad log
Speaker 1: call it what you will, karma. I think that when
Speaker 1: we use this word healing, it's never it's never an outcome.
Speaker 1: It's always an ongoing process, and it's the self compassion
Speaker 1: and the self forgiveness that comes from I had a
Speaker 1: strong reaction to this day. I need to go and
Speaker 1: lie down. There was a time and I'd say, no,
Speaker 1: now you're gonna I'm gonna punish you by you work
Speaker 1: harder now, right, And so now I was like, no,
Speaker 1: it's time to call this day done. I had a
Speaker 1: day like that recently, and I said, this day is done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, there's been too much hurt in this day,
Speaker 1: and so I think that that to me the process
Speaker 1: of healing. When I work with survivors of narcissistic relationships
Speaker 1: on healing, it's that capacity to care for yourself and
Speaker 1: not continually almost harm yourself because that's the only narrative
Speaker 1: we sort of know, but we do. We care it
Speaker 1: in our bodies. It doesn't go away. It's telling us
Speaker 1: something and if anything, it's a sign of slow down,
Speaker 1: not safe, be gentle with yourself, or get the hell
Speaker 1: out of there.
Speaker 4: Were there any specific mechanisms or things that you did
Speaker 4: that you found helped you most throughout your life to
Speaker 4: keep going and to see like the light or like
Speaker 4: that life can get better for anybody who's going through
Speaker 4: it right now.
Speaker 1: Therapy was very important for me what kind of therapy
Speaker 1: I happen to be, and I work with a therapist
Speaker 1: is very humanistic in her focus getting up and having
Speaker 1: something to do right, you know. So I've either been
Speaker 1: an academic or a clinician, so that that's always been
Speaker 1: something bigger outside of me.
Speaker 4: Not leaving yourself too much time to not have much
Speaker 4: to do. I've realized that as well, not having an
Speaker 4: idol like not having too much space I think is
Speaker 4: really important, Like you don't have to be too structured
Speaker 4: in life, but to avoid yourself, whether it's going back
Speaker 4: into bad habits or bad foot patterns. Having a busyness
Speaker 4: to your day is really important, like having it filled
Speaker 4: with things which are good, not too busy where you're
Speaker 4: you're running yourself dry.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean rest.
Speaker 4: It means keeping your mind engaged in things which help
Speaker 4: you to get better.
Speaker 1: Right, they're also the meaningful and intentional. Right for me,
Speaker 1: it was exactly in clinician. It was teaching, it was
Speaker 1: learning more about this, it was all of those things.
Speaker 1: I'm very unbalanced. I need more balance in my life.
Speaker 1: I need to do more things that are good for me.
Speaker 1: I think that's still the sort of the trauma hurt
Speaker 1: part of me still talking. I became a mother, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean my elder daughters now twenty three, and so
Speaker 1: that's transformative. All of a sudden you realize your body
Speaker 1: does something that is miraculous and it produces food and
Speaker 1: it's nurturance, and I'm like, that's what all this is
Speaker 1: for it. You feel differently about your body after that,
Speaker 1: and I think that mothering is the hardest thing I've
Speaker 1: ever done. It was an important thing. I'm the kind
Speaker 1: of gal who could easily have missed that mothering journey.
Speaker 1: So I really do think that this is something that
Speaker 1: the universe put in front of me as part of
Speaker 1: this process. It made me want to be better, make
Speaker 1: the world better for them. I also feel tremendously indebted
Speaker 1: to my ancestors, to the women who always came, who
Speaker 1: came before me, who had none of the opportunities recently
Speaker 1: as my grandmother and my mother, and my mother's the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary woman I know in terms of strength, fortitude, everything.
Speaker 1: She's just really an extraordinary woman. And her life was
Speaker 1: very much a sacrifice which made so much possible for me,
Speaker 1: which feels like a responsibility, huge responsibility. You know, generations
Speaker 1: before that married, you know, made to Mary very young,
Speaker 1: didn't get to complete educations completely, had all voice taken away.
Speaker 4: There's a different builds the whole mindset, body, everything is
Speaker 4: just it was create. You're right, the way that they
Speaker 4: had to deal with things and the things that they
Speaker 4: went through and still to this day have the most
Speaker 4: like positive outlook to life. I find better than even
Speaker 4: what we have when we have less that happens in
Speaker 4: our life and we think the whole.
Speaker 1: Resilience and so I think that for me, it's almost
Speaker 1: the sense of these ancestors, these women women, maybe probably
Speaker 1: sure some of the men of my lineage. They to
Speaker 1: be the first after so many hundreds of generators and
Speaker 1: with the math on that is, to be the one
Speaker 1: who gets the voice right is a You know, my
Speaker 1: mom gave up everything and had us and stayed in
Speaker 1: this country and had no support and had nothing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was what she went through is remarkable and that
Speaker 1: I take that on as a responsibility as you know
Speaker 1: that that then you were given voice. And for me
Speaker 1: to not use that voice to help people, I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's really mean.
Speaker 2: Everyone very very important to me.
Speaker 1: So hey, I take all that put it together. The
Speaker 1: suffering of folks who have been through these relationships is
Speaker 1: I struggled seeing it. I see, I get sick when
Speaker 1: I stopped to think the amount of lost potential there's
Speaker 1: been because people have been in a relationship with somebody
Speaker 1: who invalidated them and told them they weren't important. The
Speaker 1: number of things and pieces of art, writing, science changes
Speaker 1: in the world. We've missed because people felt that they
Speaker 1: had no right. It makes me sick. So if to
Speaker 1: the degree somebody might be even one person here's it
Speaker 1: and says, okay, I'm going to put put myself out
Speaker 1: there that that to me feels really really important. So
Speaker 1: thank you, thank.
Speaker 2: You, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I hope you can continue this conversation another
Speaker 4: time and I can't wait to read more and listen
Speaker 4: more to you.
Speaker 1: Great, well, well talk again. I have a new book
Speaker 1: coming out in February, so amazing. It's called It's Not You,
Speaker 1: Identifying and Healing from the narcissistic people in your life.
Speaker 1: So to break the cycles himself.
Speaker 4: Everybody, please go and check out everything that Dr Romney
Speaker 4: has spoken about and shared. She has beautiful videos on YouTube,
Speaker 4: she has unlimited information in her books, and she's also
Speaker 4: just such a wonderful, loving person. And I can feel
Speaker 4: letting that energy here. So thank you again, thank you
Speaker 4: so much, BRODDI