World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness day is June 1st , and I would like to do a small review on some of the precursors to Narcissistic Personality Disorder. As much as we hate the damage caused by these abusers, narcissists are still people and they came from families that weren’t dissimilar to ours. Some of the causes are related to inheritance but there are many other early family experiences that contribute to this disorder.
With destroyed relationships, there are feelings of emptiness even in the midst of worldly success. The life of a Narcissist is a no win scenario where real love and peace is denied. The only futile pleasure left is a feared respect from onlookers, who are manipulated by rewards and punishments. There is a psychological isolation for narcissists who are stuck in their sadistic world. It causes a revolving door of victims who are forced to abandon the narcissist when they are tired of being an object in that world.
Emotional Control and Self-Esteem
Recent studies have shown that there is a complex connection between emotional control, and life events that threaten a narcissistic patient’s self-esteem. This is true for most people, but for a narcissist it is even more difficult. The skills to be able to control emotions opens up reactivity to difficult life events which in turn reduces the patient’s ability to control those emotions. The desperate need to regain control can involve “enhancement, spurred by aggression or fear and accompanied by detachment or dismissiveness, [that] can readily shift to inferiority and insecurity, accompanied by avoidance or a sense of loss of control caused by overwhelming shame, fear or powerlessness.”
The comparison problem
Many of these life events that threaten a narcissist are related to “social dominance, professional, physical, financial or material contexts that can cause feelings of worth or worthlessness. When there are shifts in interpersonal attention, from being included, appreciated and admired to being excluded, criticized and ignored, the self-esteem can be challenged. Experiencing loss of control and competence can evoke intense internal self-criticism, with accompanying shame, anxiety, rage or fear, and result in drastic actions to regain or to escape the situation…Emotions can be either rewarding, challenging or threatening to narcissists, mainly depending upon how they are perceived by the [others] and how it affects their self-esteem, and their sense of competence and control.”
Mentalizing
One of the key deficits that threatens the self-esteem in narcissists is the ability to mentalize. This is the skill to see intentions in oneself and in others which helps to protect against self-esteem injuries. Narcissists have trouble thinking and reflecting beyond the immediate experience when these injuries happen. They can fall back on aggression as a protective shield against overwhelming thoughts and feelings. This leads to a failure to understand consequences of their aggressive and self-destructive actions.
Impaired empathy
There is some level of empathy with narcissists but it is impaired, but “the ability to care and have empathy can fluctuate and depend upon both emotional control and self-esteem. This can result in a range of interpersonal responses to others’ needs and reactions; from total ignorance, avoidance or dismissive or even aggressive responses, to extraordinary attentiveness and care in contexts where such engagement also is associated to self-enhancement and possible benefits. People with NPD can appear unaffected by losses, separation or experiences that normally would evoke sadness, pain and anguish. They have even been considered unable to grieve. Nevertheless, [they have] extreme hyper vigilance and reactivity to certain threats, separations or losses of people or conditions that are crucial for their self-esteem.”
Fear
Despite their lack of grieving, narcissists still sense fear. “Fear can underlie several management and avoidance strategies typical for NPD, [from] achievement, competitiveness, perfectionism, risk-taking, down to procrastination, distancing and avoidance. The fear of negative…aspects of the identity can enforce protective self-enhancement as well as despair and potential suicidality, which can be a last attempt at control.”
How did they turn out this way?
What are the top reasons that lead people to narcissism? Like in all sciences there isn’t always an easy cause and effect relationship. There are multiple causes and effects, including “inheritance, temperament, psychological trauma, and age inappropriate role assignments.”
Inheritance
For example, a twin study on heritability of Cluster B Personality Disorders including, Anti-social, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic, showed that all of these disorders have a high heritability with Narcissism being slightly higher than the others. Although, predicting personality disorders accurately is improved with the understanding of heritability, it is not 100% predictive.
Temperament
How heritability shows up in personality can be measured in different ways, and one way is temperament. Psychoanalysis connected a depressive temperament to Narcissism. Unfortunately prior studies measured grandiosity more than depressive temperament, but in a study by Tritt, a depressive temperament was found to be associated with narcissism, in particular how patients’ avoid shame and humiliation to prevent losing admiration from others.
Psychological Trauma
This temperament leads to a vulnerability that can lead to constant trauma related to chasing the grandiose self:
“Kohut identified two disturbed aspects of the self that are characteristic of narcissistically vulnerable individuals: the persistence of the grandiose self and the unending quest for the idealized parent. The former requires that the individual’s special qualities and skills be admired and affirmed. The latter involves the desire to merge psychologically with persons who are perceived as powerful and strong. In brief, the grandiose self expects absolute, omnipotent control over an archaic, self-referential world. The narcissistic individual who experiences injury to the grandiose self responds with rage toward an individual or world that is perceived as not having an independent existence. The outraged grandiose self responds to trauma with, “How dare you do this to me? I deserve better. I’ll show you!” An apt analogy is the spoiled child who expects everything to go his or her way. Set backs are met with temper tantrums that dramatically illustrate the child’s world [where only the self is real].”
Naturally because the world can operate independently of the narcissist’s wishes it leads to endless psychological trauma when trying to cope with change.
Age inappropriate roles
How the parent treats the child also forms part of the precursors to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or NPD. Paulina F. Kernberg says, “the children of narcissistic parents are at risk during their first year of life because of the parents’ lack of empathy, which causes an incapability to fulfill the needs of the baby. The parents’ own omnipotence leads the child to a cycle of lack of limitation, overindulgence, and inconsistency that maintains and contributes to the preservation of the grandiose self. In the mind of the parents, the child has a role…that contributes to his or her treatment [outside of what is age appropriate]. This can be seen in the cases of divorced mothers with infantile personalities, who treat the child as the spouse or the sibling or as an endlessly infantile or dependent baby, an echo of the mother’s own sense of self.”
Limited individuation and no support for separation
The child then has trouble separating the personality from the parent and stays limited. “The parent supports the child’s individuation – that is, the refinement and distinctness of [the child’s] activities – [but only] inasmuch as the individuation rewards the parent’s own needs. However, the parent does not support the separation. The child exists in the service of the parent’s self-esteem and does not exist as an autonomous being. Paradoxically, the power given to the child to regulate the parent’s self-esteem fuels the child’s grandiosity even further.”
Since the child is dependent on these narcissistic parents, “there is a pathological equilibrium between the child and his or her parents. The child needs the parents and the parents need the child in an interlocked mutual narcissistic way, and the parents’ narcissistic needs override the child’s normal narcissistic needs. Consequently, the child develops a sense of unreality [with unrealistic expectations against which the grandiose self is erected]. [There is a distortion] of the sense of core self in NPD, especially because the sense of boundary, including the experience of one’s own body, may be brittle. There is no acknowledgement of other’s intentions, and a reliance on one’s own subjectivity infiltrates the whole world, resulting in a sense of isolation and deprivation. In terms of [separating from the adult], the narcissistic personality may have a variety of points of [arrested development] when self-absorption and the illusion of self-sufficiency [a God-like persona] are such that the external object represents a minute aspect in the child’s world.”
Splitting
“The positive perception of the actual self is fused with an ideal self and an ideal object. This is projected onto idealized external objects that are used and acknowledged only to confirm the individual’s own grandiose self. A splitting occurs with all other aspects of the devalued vulnerable self and are projected, resulting in a devaluation of other objects of the external world. The world of others consists of devalued persecuting others and fleeting, unstable idealized others who remain as long as they fit into the grandiose scenario. The grandiose self-structure, consisting of the fusion of actual self, ideal object, and ideal self, explains the sense of entitlement and self-centeredness.”
Controlling siblings
When there are new additions to the family they can be another source of a persecuting other. “An exaggerated sibling rivalry can be seen in narcissistic children. This can at times escalate to outright abuse. The aloofness and sadistic behaviour expressed toward siblings serve as a protection to the child’s sense of narcissistic injury for not having been the only one in the family. A deep protracted resentment continues throughout the childhood and adolescent years and beyond.” [See: ‘Little Hans’: https://rumble.com/v1gu93b-case-studies-little-hans-sigmund-freud.html]
Controlling school
This need to control the self-image is expressed in the school setting as well. “Grandiosity is a maladaptive way of protecting self-esteem, because the grandiosity requires immature or primitive defensive maneuvers (e.g., devaluation, projective identification, denial, omnipotent control, withdrawal, and aloofness). A consequence of a sense of grandiosity and entitlement is that in spite of superior intelligence, these children [can] have a checkered performance at school. They can have excellent grades, have low grades, or fail altogether, depending on their wish to put forth effort or not.”
Controlling the world
The need to preserve this grandiose reality extends to the world at large. “Pathological narcissism in childhood is characterized by deficient social skills and poor peer interactions in terms of level of development appropriateness. This is because of the inability…to empathize with others, their need to control and devalue their peers, their need to avoid any difference between themselves and others in order to allay their sense of vulnerability and envy. In adolescence, for example, the narcissistic individual may appear charismatic. The grandiose self exerts particular attraction on peers as it resonates with the aspirations of the other members of a group. Thus, for a while at least, the narcissistic adolescent appears to have arrived already at the ideal of perfection, beauty and power. He or she gives an illusion of a reality that the group members seek. In turn, the group confirms the narcissistic adolescent’s grandiosity so that he or she can protect himself or herself from any sense of hurt. Two noteworthy aspects of social interactions occur. One is a choice of a more popular, pretty, or handsome partner who is shown off. The other is a choice of a friend who is the least popular, ugly, or physically handicapped. In this case, the narcissistic adolescent can feel admired by the ugly partner who becomes a psychological slave and is masochistically grateful to have been chosen as an object of attention even if the quality of attention is derision.” The sense of self then gets regulated by controlling the group members as they periodically attempt to change the power structure to advance themselves against the narcissistic leader.
Duping delight
The psychological reward manifests in tricking, controlling and isolating victims with a pleasure, as described in Psychopathy and the Law, as Duping delight. Getting away with abuse is pleasurable for narcissists and psychopaths. Victims often describe this duping delight smile they witness as reptilian like you can see at the ending of the Hitchcock movie Psycho when Norman Bates gets delight when he thinks he’s trapped his victim in the basement.
As sensational as movies can be, the reality is that duping delight, usually more passive-aggressive than you see in the movies, is a shallow form of pleasure and to be locked into that limited happiness for the entirety of one’s life is not a rich and fulfilling one.
Gaslighting
This shallowness is exemplified in all the goal orientation towards validating the unreality that is the grandiose self. That unreality leads to conversations that always lead to some aim to get the victim to know what the narcissist wants them to know. A form of impression management that controls and achieves their goals. In Psychopathy and the Law they say, “problem-solving discussions is what Gaslighting is. It involves going from an unsatisfactory state to a more satisfactory state. Gaslighting for the pathological liar is simply a means to an end. Whether it’s lying to people to put blame on others, or to avoid punishment, or to pursue an infidelity, there’s always a goal directed motive.”
Other risks
There are some other risks that caretakers of narcissistic children can become aware of that may predispose the children for adult narcissism.
- One is adopted children. For example, they were “in the contradictory dilemma of being chosen because he or she was ‘the most beautiful baby,’ as well as because he or she was ‘discarded’ by the biological parents. The uncertainties of the period before the adoption are formalized and contribute additionally to the problem because they interfere with the sense of secure attachment.
- Abused children. Children who were abused had the challenge of needing to fuse with an idealized parental image to protect [themself] from the external sadistic image of the [abusive] parent.
- Spoiled children. Overindulged or wealthy children [could have] a prolongation of infantile narcissism [where one was one’s own ideal], but [especially so] if this is combined with narcissistic personality problems in the parents.
- Children of divorced parents are at risk when they attempt to fulfill their own infantile narcissism and combine it with the omnipotence derived from fulfilling the wish to replace the other parent and [to gratify] the [step parent] with a blurring of the normal generational roles”, [like treating them as a friend].
Many of these factors were in play before the victim met with the narcissist. It’s important to be aware of these red flags because once they are in play, the prognosis for the adult narcissist is a life long nightmare of exploitative, shallow, and empty relationships.
World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day Summit, June 1st
Disorders of Narcissism edited by Elsa Ronningstam (excerpts and paraphrases from Paulina F. Kernberg): https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780765702593/
Psychopathy and the Law by Helinä Häkkänen-Nyholm, and Jan-Olof Nyholm: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780470972373/
(2009) Distinguishing Trauma-Associated Narcissistic Symptoms from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Diagnostic Challenge, Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 10:1, 28-36, DOI: 10.1080/10673220216206
Ronningstam, Elsa. (2017) Intersect between self-esteem and emotion regulation in narcissistic personality disorder – implications for alliance building and treatment Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 2017, Volume 4.
Ronningstam, Elsa. (2016). Pathological Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Recent Research and Clinical Implications. Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports. 3. 10.1007/s40473-016-0060-y.
Svenn Torgersen, John Myers, Ted Reichborn-Kjennerud, Espen Røysamb, Thomas S. Kubarych, and Kenneth S. Kendler (2012). The Heritability of Cluster B Personality Disorders Assessed Both by Personal Interview and Questionnaire. Journal of Personality Disorders: Vol. 26, No. 6, pp. 848-866. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi.2012.26.6.848
Tritt, Shona M. et al., Pathological narcissism and the depressive temperament. Journal of Affective Disorders, Volume 122, Issue 3, 280 – 284
Psychology: https://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/