Episode 475: Dr. Ramani Durvasula: How Narcissists Hijack Your Mind and Why We Keep Falling for Them

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I'm already, I've been yapping already with my guests because I really, really enjoy her. I love her.
She's so smart. Her name is Dr.
Romany. I never actually ever said your last name.
Durvasula. People know me as Dr.
Romney, so we'll leave it at that. That's what I call you.
I call her Dr. Romney because, well, I've known Dr.
Romney for many years before she became the Dr. Romney.
Well, I'm glad you just known me for a long time. Forget the the Dr.
Romney, but I'm just nice to see you again. Yeah.
So nice to see you. So for those who don't know, Dr.
Romney is the leading expert in narcissism, but she's way more than that. I mean, her credentials are truly off the charts.
And she wrote a book, she wrote many books, but this last book is a little, it's been out a little while, like what, a year we said? A little over a year. A little over a year, but people are so fascinated with the topic.
Her latest book is called It's Not You. And thank you for being on the show.
Thank you for having me. It's so nice to see you.
And it's nice to be live. It's so nice.
This is what I like. Last time we did this, it was, I think, during COVID.
Yes, yes, yes. And it's not the same when you do it on the computer.
It's horrible. And I think it's so interesting because the whole topic of narcissism, like people are so fascinated by it and obsessed with it.
And, you know, like what came first, the chicken or the egg? Like, were you talking about it? And people all were like, oh, that sounds like something that a person I know, or that sounds like a familiar thing. Or like, was this always something, like you said you were doing research about this many years ago.
And like, how did it kind of snowball into becoming this like whole hashtag phenomenon? So, you know, listen, I wish I was more narcissistic. I'd probably be more successful.
I guess I'll give us a little pat on the back for taking the conversation and sort of not letting go of the reins of the horse of YouTube and every day getting videos and content out there. Certainly, I'm not the only one.
There are other people having these conversations, writing these books, but there was a small group of people who started talking about it. I think what happened, you know, it's always hard to know.
Something becomes a cultural conversation and it's hard to find sort of ground zero on that thing.

A point zero, patient zero, call it where you are.

Where did this conversation all begin? I have to say, when I wrote Should I Stay or Should I Go, which came out in 2012, it was a long time ago, right? And so I'd been working on it for two years before that. So it's called 2010.
And so we were at the beginning of this conversation. And when the political landscape really changed in 2016, I think that's when there was a much more interesting public conversation about this.
But I'll be frank with you, Jen, when it comes down to brass tacks, the political, the global, all of that, people still come back to this conversation about narcissism because of the devastation in their own lives, right? And it's not, I think what's happened is there's a risk of oversimplifying it is they're a narcissist, they're a jerk, I want them out of my life. No, these are really uniquely broken hearts because as much as the spouse might be terrible or a cheater or a betrayer and narcissistic, their partner once had a vision of having a life and a future with them, or they have kids with them or a home with them.
A person who figures out that their parent is narcissistic, it's not simple as like, well, they were a jerk to heck with them. It's this agony of not only a childhood that was stolen by the parent's narcissism, but still having to navigate the world and feeling like you're not safe within your own family system.
The person who is a boss who's narcissistic. It's not as simple as my boss is a jerk, but it's, you might've trained years for a career.
And now you're watching that career be upended by this narcissistic abusive boss who may still be really valued by the world. It's such a nuanced topic.
And I think it's great. Everyone's talking about it.
I think something that's really kind of gone down the toilet in the last three years, though, is we've oversimplified it. I also think what has happened is it's become the excuse for everything.
When a relationship ends, I would say almost 10 out of 10 times you hear them like from the woman's side, it's because he, oh, I was married to a narcissist or he was a narcissist. Like you don't hear that from the men's side, but you hear it from the woman's side a lot.
Like, oh, the relationship ended or I didn't, whatever it was. Like, do you find that people are now just using the excuse or the reason of narcissism as, like it's been overused as maybe not someone who was narcissistic.
It's just like becomes the reason why, that people glom on to the reason why something has failed or didn't work out. I actually think it's one that they're using the word wrong.
Their husband cheated on them. He's a cheater.
He's a narcissist. Not every cheater is a narcissist.
A lot of them are, but definitely not. Not all.
The person will say they were, all they wanted to do was work. And then they put me down.
I'm like, okay, they sound like a jerk. We need to talk a little more to figure out if they're narcissistic or the person who says, oh my gosh, they're so selfish.
Am I willing to take the bet? I'll take the bet. I'll take the bet of after I hear some of these stories.
But I think we're using one thing to name another, right? So the cheating is a great example. The betrayal.
Yeah. Like I said, very much a narcissistic thing.
But sometimes people cheat and they're not narcissistic. They may simply be careless.
They may be emotionally immature. There's a lot of other things that could be, they could be cowards, but not necessarily narcissistic.
That's a great point. Can you tell us some distinctions between a narcissist and someone who's just a jerk or a narcissist or someone who's just emotionally immature or a coward, as you would put it? So I'm going to, I mean, using an example, I've used it so many times, I'm afraid it

becomes tired, but I'm going to use it here.

If I, I'll do a twist on that.

If I came to your front door with, I went to the farmer's market and I bought a basket

of apples, you would not thank me for a pie.

You would thank me for the apples I brought you. Thanks for the apples, but not for a pie.
Why aren't you thanking me for a pie? Because I don't have a damn pie. I have a bunch of apples, right? Apples are but one key ingredient of that pie, but they're not the pie.
So what I say is that you may be in a relationship with someone selfish. Right now, all you've told me is you're in a relationship with someone selfish.
You want to call this a pie? Then we got to add some stuff. You want to call this a narcissist? There's a bunch of other stuff that has to happen.
So a narcissistic person not only is selfish or entitled or, you know, a cheater, like, you know, again, that's more the entitlement, frankly, and the lack of empathy. They're also grandiose.
They are, they're very superficial. They're very status oriented.
They don't tend to care about other people's experiences. Again, that's that lack of empathy.
You need all these things to be happening at the same time. You don't pull out one or the other.
So the person who's just really selfish, they have to have their golf game when they want it. They have to have things the way they want it.
But frankly, their anger is well-regulated. They're not hyper-sensitive.
They don't bristle under criticism. They don't even put their wife down.
They don't say, you know, like, you're nothing. They're saying, I play golf every Saturday at nine.
You knew this before we met. I do this now.
I'm really not going to stop. And I get that you want me to be with the kids, but this is something I'm not budging on.
It's actually pretty selfish. I wouldn't want to be in that relationship, but it would be a bridge too far to call that person narcissistic.
So what are the main key character traits of someone who is narcissistic for people listening so they don't just oversimplify or mistake one thing for another? So let's talk about the low empathy because that's already got so many pieces to it. Everyone thinks that narcissistic people lack empathy.
They don't lack empathy. Their empathy is low.
It is variable. It is what we call cognitive, meaning they understand what you're feeling.
It's not that they don't understand. They understand it.
They just don't care. Right.
And it is performative. So sometimes they'll seem like the most empathic person around, but there's an audience.
Or it's transactional. They're going to need it first down the road.
So the empathy is not working the way emotional empathy should. It's being used as a tactic, a tool.
And sometimes it's luck with a narcissistic person. You catch them on a great day.
They got the promotion. They got their award.
Something went their way. And they're like, hey, oh, wow.
Yeah, that's really interesting. They have empathy for me.
Now I'm like, now you caught them on a good day. Empathy is a consistent trait in a healthy person.
So narcissistic people, it's kind of all over the map. And that's what confuses people.
They'll say, you say lack of empathy. I don't say lack of empathy, but a lot of other people do.
But I'll say they sometimes have empathy, but that sometimes is the key word. And it may or may not line up to when you need it.
So that's the empathy piece. Narcissistic people are entitled.
They believe that they deserve special treatment, that they're more special than anyone else, and they're not ordinary. So they should not be subjected to ordinary things like waiting in lines and things like that, or having to meet a deadline.
Those would be great examples of that. They're grandiose.
They live in fantasy worlds where unbelievable love stories and unbelievable vacations. I mean, Instagram is purpose-built for the grandiosity piece, right? They're what we call dysregulated, which is a fancy way of saying they cannot manage their emotions.
So when a narcissistic person gets triggered and then get triggered a lot, criticism, feedback, someone's life is going better than theirs. They're like hair trigger.
They snap and they get very angry very quickly. So you'll think you're having a perfectly good breakfast and you'll say one little thing and they're off.

And you'll think, what did I say?

What did I do?

That's why people walk on eggshells in these relationships.

And that anger can either be in your face yelling

or it can be passive aggressive, withholding and withdrawing.

And for a lot of people will say that withdrawing and withholding

is harder for them in a narcissistic relationship.

Narcissistic people are pathologically selfish. This isn't your usual selfishness.
I mean, everyone's like, isn't everyone a little selfish? I'm like, yeah, but not this kind of selfish. They're always going to do what works for them.
Always. Like there's no exception to this.
They will choose what they want over their kids. And if they involve their kids, it's because it works for them to involve their kids.
So there'll be times, but they took us all on this trip. I'm like, yeah.
And the CEO of their company was staying in the same hotel. So you always will find that angle because if you just wanted to go, it's always that.
If you wanted that, if you thought they were taking you to that hotel, cause that's the hotel you wanted to, that's just by coincidence, your interests were aligned. It was always about them.
So it's a pathological, never yields, never changes selfishness. And I think it's actually very key to it.
They're very superficial. They care about appearances, how things look.
So a lot of folks will say they had a narcissistic parent and that narcissistic parent would be like, shh, shh, don't talk about our problems. Don't do the, just look good.
They will criticize their children for their appearance. They will push them to be a certain way.
So everything has to look a certain way. So facades look really good with narcissistic people, but there's very little depth.
They're very status oriented against that superficiality. They will date someone for no other reason that they feel like that person's going to put them ahead in the social world, whether it's their family's connected, this person has a big job, they have money.
So that's why sometimes people will say, well, if he's so narcissistic, why is it with an unattractive person? I'm like, because that unattractive person is really connected. And so, I mean, it's not nice to say someone's unattractive, but in a relative world of the narcissistic.
But they're an opportunist, basically.

Yes, right.

And then you'll say, well, why do the narcissistic people choose these really sort of disproportionately

sometimes young or attractive, like by societal standards?

Because that's status, right?

Look at my young, attractive partners.

All of it's about status.

You take all this stuff that is the narcissism.

They're very arrogant, right?

And if their arrogance isn't realized, like other people don't think they're great, again, they snap and they get angry. Narcissistic people have an excessive need for praise, validation, and admiration.
They constantly have to be told, you're great, you're wonderful, you're so great, you're so smart, you're so wise, you're so hot, you're so this, you're so that. It's constant.
So people around them, like if you don't give them enough of a compliment, so they give you a gift, but your thank you isn't enough. A lot of people dread getting gifts from narcissistic people.
They're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to say thank you for so long. This isn't even worth it, right? So it's everything is about, tell me I'm great.
Tell me I'm wonderful. Aren't I great? And when they're not getting enough of that, not enough people like their Instagram picture, they get sullen or angry.
Makes sense? Yeah, it makes sense. But I feel that's like a grandiose narcissist, right? There's all these different types.
And the grandiose narcissist is, it's a breeding ground on social media for that, for the grandiose narcissist, right? Like it's's like, wow, I can get all the, it's all basically through a filter curated of like what you want them to see. So if you want to look like you have status, money, hot girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, that's a great place.
And there's other kinds though that are also, and I want to get into the types. But that list I gave you, every narcissist has all of that.
It's just how it shows up. Oh, okay, that's interesting.
So you're never going to show me someone who's narcissistic who isn't grandiose. The difference is a vulnerable narcissistic person is still grandiose, but they'll do things like drop out of college, never work a job for more than three months.
Like, why should I give the best of myself to that guy? He's such a loser. He got this company because of his dad.
So grandio, I'm too smart for this job. That's grandiosity.
But it results in this, I don't, failure to launch. I shouldn't have to do that.
I shouldn't have to do that. How come I have to do that? Like a grumpy teenager.
Why do I have to open the dishwasher, empty the dishwasher? Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to do that? But it's still all the same stuff. So is narcissism a personality disorder? It's not a personality disorder.
I do not use the diagnostic framework. It is a personality.
Now it's what we call a maladaptive personality, meaning that it's not good for relationships, right? So it doesn't foster connection. It doesn't foster relationship.
But this is where narcissism is such a tricky beast right now. It fosters success.
Narcissistic people are overrepresented in leadership. Narcissistic people make more money.
Narcissistic people are more successful at dating. Narcissistic people are judged to be more attractive.
The list goes on and on. Because we're a superficial world that cares about money and status and success and what looks good on social media, this is the era of the narcissist.
All the stuff they focus on is what we consider to be successful. Now, if we lived in a world where kindness, connection, reciprocity, safety, those things were valued, narcissistic people wouldn't be attractive.
That's not the world we live in. Right.
So I would also venture to say that narcissistic people live longer, right? They can. They really can.
Here's where it gets interesting. I think that what you can see is that one thing we found in my research that I did for years at the university, narcissistic people take very good care of their health before everyone else's.
So they don't care about anyone else. They don't care, give none of that, but they do their little whole longevity obsessions, their morning routine, their morning routine.
I have to treat my body like a temple. However, narcissism is also highly correlated with substance use and addiction.
So a lot of narcissistic people, addiction and narcissism are very close cousins. Really? Yeah.
So obviously, if you live with addiction, whatever that looks like, cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, that's going to result in a harm to one's health. So that could bring it down.
But I've got to say, when you think of what, if you were to line up 500 people and have individual interviews with them about what some of their key stressors are, and the American Psych Association does this every year, but I mean, really get into it, not just boxes on a questionnaire, really get into it with them. I can promise you that a significant proportion of them are going to say dealing with difficult people or dealing with relationships.
And if you really then ask the follow-up questions, it's difficult people. Well, then what's the stress for the difficult people, right? They might say it's other difficult people and we see that sometimes, but the people who are trying to work around the difficult people are enduring a lot of stress.
They have no support. They're not getting empathy.
They're not being cared for. They're not being valued.
So they're living with all of this stress on top of all the other stress all of us have, financial stress and the stress of living in the world the way it is. But the narcissistic people have cut out that other people's stress one.
I I saw something, I think on your page that I thought like it really hit. Like I thought it was, I think you had a guest on actually, who said something like the signs of someone having a traumatic childhood is when you're trying to make somebody difficult like you as an older person.
Do you remember this? So I don't remember who the interview was, but you're basically saying that you're, when you're saying when... Someone like, you asked a question, something like, you know, something about trauma as a kid, or how do you know if someone's had trauma as a child? And the guy said to you, you know, if a child had trauma as a child, because it shows up by trying to get somebody who's difficult to like you.
Ah, yes. I think that might've been Dr.
Scott Lyons who said that. It might've been him who said that.
I don't remember, but I was like, that's interesting because how I'm correlating that is, is it the person that had trauma as a kid who is, is that person always going to be attracted to a narcissistic person? No, no. I think that that's a kind of a, a tired theory of like, oh, if you grew up in a toxic family, you end up in a toxic relationship or you're going to choose toxic people.
I try to break people out of the idea that people who grew up with narcissistic family systems or traumatizing family systems go out and look for narcissists. Nobody's going out and searching this out, right? The narcissistic people are attractive enough without trying, right? So they're already walking around with the cars and the looks and they're very charismatic and they're extroverted.
And the vulnerable narcissistic folks who are more victimized and sullen and angry and aggrieved and sort of disaffected, that kind of thing, they still sort of sell a really great sad sack story. Like, oh my gosh, life has been so unfair to me.
And then some people really are like that, strangely enough, can be something that would engage someone like, wow, you've had a tough story. And the vulnerable narcissistic person still can have the capacity to be present with someone and notice things about them, right? So all of that said, everyone's attracted to narcissistic people.
That's why they do so well in dating. And business and this and that.
And business and all the things, right? The issue becomes if you've had the traumatizing family or the narcissistic family, you get stuck in the relationship. You can't get out because you're making excuses for them.
This feels normal. You think it's going to change.

You blame yourself. You do the things that the psychologist had said on the podcast.

Right. Because I guess that behavior is so familiar.

So you don't-

It also keeps you safe. It's familiarity.
Yes, it's safety. Because the child who grows up with a narcissistic or traumatizing parent, the child doesn't have an option.
They can't say like, I don't like you all. I'm going to get in my car and go.
There's no car, there's no go, there's none of that. The child has to make what's in front of them work.
And that means this fragmentation process of I'm bad, they're not dangerous, they're good, sometimes even turning them into a hero, right? The more somebody heroes out their parents, I'm like, something happened here. Really? Yeah.
And so I'm like, because most people can say, my dad was a good guy, or my mom was great, but we're like, they're my heroes. And I'm like, ooh, boy.
Why? What does that mean? Why do they do that? Because it's too much. It's too much.
I mean, unless the parent was genuinely heroic. Like the parent like drew 500 people out of burning buildings or, you know.
No, but what I mean, you're funny. You're so funny.
I just, you're so great. I mean, like when the person talks about their parent as like the hero, why is that? What does that represent? It may very well be an overcorrection of sorts.
It may still be that child who's still trying to put the parent on a pedestal to stay safe in the relationship. If my parent's a hero, then they can't be hurting me.
They're going to keep me safe. The parent might be the source of the harm.
I've worked with many clients where that's the case. And I don't question them.
I'm like, what? So tell me about their heroism. Yeah.
What makes them so heroic to you? And immediately I'm like, ooh, this is not a hero. Right.
And so I'll listen and I'll listen. And then my job is to very gently and empathically say like, hmm, you know, it does sound like they would, you know, when they pushed you so hard, what did that feel like? Did you feel supported? Well, they wanted me to be my best.
I'm like, but did you want to do that? Well, that's not the point. I'm like, yeah, kind of it is.
And that's, so what happens to that child? They grow up to be what? Well, again, I'm not saying everyone who portrays a parent in this overly grandiose way has a narcissistic parent, right? But they may have a parent who wasn't attuned to them, right? The child became a thing for the parent to do. You're going to be an extension of me.
You're going to become the great fill in the blank, whatever it is, the great skier, the great soccer player, the great scientist, doctor, whatever the heck it is that they want them to be, right? And so the child then learns this transactional model of, if I do this, everything's fine. If I'm good in science, everything's fine.
If I make the club team, everything's fine. So the kid knocks themselves out.
At no point in time does anyone ask the child, do you like this? Do you enjoy this? This is survival. If you were starving to death and somebody gave you a piece of food, you wouldn't like this.
I'm just grateful there's some food here. That parent's attention is the equivalent of getting that food when you're starving.
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Are kids that are only child, like an only child, usually a narcissist?

I don't know. No, no.
An only child's an only child, right? I think that sometimes an only child might have a precociousness to them. Because you're an only child, right?

No, no, no. I have a sibling.
Oh, you do?

Oh, she's the best. Okay, you have a sibling.
She's the best. Oh, right.
She's in the insurance business, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's great.
I should watch what I say. And I thank goodness for her.
She is, I view my sister, and I think she, me, as a salvation of sorts. I think when you go through these experiences, if you're lucky, the sibling's an ally.
Sadly, for many people who grow up in chaotic, traumatizing, invalidating, or narcissistic systems, the siblings all get turned against each other. And so they might find that some siblings are allies, but then they're even turned against what would be other supports.
So narcissistic or traumatizing parent is very skilled at triangulating the system. So the parent's always in charge because if the kids had that strength in their unity, then that's a threat to the parent.
Wow. You know, it's funny.
There's so many myths, right? Like you would think that an only child would have, would show up as a narcissist because they were, had all the attention and they had, well, you're right. Not always, right? But like people make a lot, I guess my point is a lot of people make conclusions with very little information.
Well, they're armchair-y kind of things. Like narcissism doesn't come from attention or lack of attention.
It's so much more subtle. It's the child almost getting stuck at this grandiose phase of development from two, three, four years of age, really.
They get stuck there. That's why a 45-year-old man who's narcissistic looks like a tantruming three-year-old, because in a way, they're developmentally stuck at that point.
Wow. Right.
They just don't get what they need. I mean, here's where it gets tricky.
I've worked with many, many, many, many, many narcissistic clients in my practice over the years. I've done tons of research into this.
It's a sad story. The way people become narcissistic isn't all Disneyland and here's a car when you're 16.
And in fact, in many ways, even if it's that kind of overindulgent parent, for that child to become narcissistic, it also means that parent wasn't emotionally available. So it could be a lot of, we're going on the fancy vacation here.
We're going on the fancy vacation. So this might be kids who grew up in five-star hotels and first-class flights and all the stuff, but never once was anyone attuned to a single emotional need of that child.
That's like growing up in poverty and it's fashion. You might have all the stuff, but you're still missing the most essential food group.
So that's interesting. So basically, one of my questions, which I haven't even opened yet, but one of my questions was, how does someone even become a narcissist? Because you're not born narcissistic.
No, no, no. Nobody's born narcissistic.
Or everybody's born narcissistic. I mean, babies are pretty selfish.
Well, pretty selfish, but with good reason, right? That's my point. Well, so a baby, there you said it though, a baby is selfish for good reason.
They can't go and warm up their own bottle. Right.
Cute when a kid's one, two, even three. Not cute when they're 43.
Nope. Nope.
And that's why I want to understand like what kind of, how does someone become a narcissist? So here's where it gets tricky. Probably somewhere, take the diagnosis out.
We're not talking about that, right? Just we'll talk about a person who's narcissistic enough that it's noticed by other people and it causes issues in their relationships or work or general functioning, right? If you use that as the index, we're talking about 10 to 12% of the population, which means almost 90% of people are not narcissistic. Now, some of that 90% may be other things, but they're not narcissistic.
Okay? Right. So what I'm saying I'm giving you that is even the things I tell you that could result in a narcissistic child, I mean, in a narcissistic child, a child becoming an adult narcissistic person still doesn't result in narcissism all the time.
So this is how you can have four siblings raised pretty similarly. Now, some folks would argue no child has the same childhood, even if they grew up in the same home.
And I agree with that because the child has their own temperament, their own genetics, the way they look, the skills they have, the way they go through the world. It's true, but other conditions in terms of, and let's just say that no child is being differentially abused or anything like that.
Even under those conditions, four kids from the same family can end up in four very different places in terms of their personality as adults. In all my years of practice, I only encountered one family.
They had three kids, and they were adults. All three kids became narcissistic.
It's the only time I ever encountered that. One time only.
Every other family, there would be one narcissistic, maybe two narcissistic adult children, and the others were not. They might've been anxious.
They might've had other things going on, but they were not narcissistic. So what we know is that our adult personality is comprised of really two big things, which is our temperament, which is like a biological seed of our personality and what happens in our environment.
Okay. So the temperament, again, it's why you might have a little expression on your face that another family member said, oh my gosh, Aunt Joan had exactly the same look, but you've never met Aunt Joan.
Or like when Uncle Bob would get angry, he'd do the same thing, but you've never met Uncle Bob. So you didn't learn this from Uncle Bob or Aunt Joan.
It's just that little seed of temperament that expresses itself, right? Stubbornness, things like that. So when we take temperament, temperament then gets shaped by the environment.
And so what we do see, and this is, it's still, we can always tell the story of personality backwards. We cannot really tell it well forward.
Some people have found that some kids with more high demand temperaments, like difficult to soothe as small children, very attention seeking, kind of all over the place, high demand, that kids with these more externalizing, demanding temperaments, that tends to be the temperament that puts them at greater risk for developing narcissism. And in one research study, kids with these kinds of temperaments at the age of eight was predicting relationship problems they would have over the age of 30.
So they were definitely seeing that there was something predictive about that. Wah! As a kid, predicting something.
Okay? Now, what we see in terms of the early environment of people who end up becoming narcissistic, we can see invalidation, inconsistency, so that in some cases trauma, abuse, emotional neglect, emotional abuse, other forms of abuse. We can also see the child learning that they're valued for only one thing.
You be good at school, be good at sports. And when they were that, they were noticed, but they learned, if I'm not this, it's scorched earth, like I'm done.
And so this might be the kid at 16 who finally says, I don't like soccer. And then the parent will just go cold.
Like that's it. There's nothing there.
And it's almost like at 16, they can say, yeah, I kind of always thought this doesn't mean it doesn't break the 16 year old's heart. Right.
So the child doesn't, they don't get to develop their full sense of self with those, in those kinds of situations. Now, some kids, there's some argument that some kids who become narcissistic are really overindulged, like by overindulge, not emotionally, but materially.
And also, and this is the clincher, it's not enough that they get the latest bike or the latest video game. It's that they're told they're more special than any other child.
Now, parents are like, well, I'll tell my kid they're special. I said, not all kids are special.
You tell your kids you're special, great. But with the child who goes on to become narcissistic, there's a risk that they're told, you're more special than those kids.
You shouldn't have to do things the way those kids do because you, my child, way more special than those other. It's this othering.
Those other kids aren't special, you're special. That kind of rhetoric accompanied with the, you can have anything you want.
There's no model of emotional regulation. The kid makes a mistake, the parent fixes it.
But there's also no emotional expression involved. That's another path to narcissism.
You know, I did this TED Talk like, I don't know, seven months ago on building like mental resilience for kids. And you said a couple of things that really like struck right now because it's a couple of things I was talking about.
It's like the helicoptering, the overindulging, all of these behaviors that have become like in the, in the world of gentle parenting, right? Like participation trophies, allowing the kid to make the decisions in the house. Like that's happening more and more now, right? Like not wanting to say no to your child, wanting to be a friend, not a parent.
All of, so I'm going to make like some kind of like, you tell me if this is far-fetched, but does gentle parenting turn the kid into a really good target for being a narcissistic adult later on? It depends on whether that gentle parent is attuned or not. And what I mean by that is, so a lot of what you're talking about is like we've seen Diana Baumren's work from the 1970s, right? And even then we think about what was going to be the end game for that child with a permissive parent.
Sometimes what the end game is for that child with a permissive parent is they forever feel like an imposter, right? You can do this, you can do that. Not only were they sometimes parentified, they were being made to make decisions they weren't equipped to make.
Then they, so there's a certain sense of incompetence, fear, guilt, but then there was this sense of, I don't know how to do anything, you know, kind of thing. So that's one piece of it.
Now- Actually, what I was going to say is what the parents are doing is doing the homework for the kids, not allowing the kid to do anything on their own. Right.
So then the child never gets to experience disappointments, right? Now we know one of the key elements of narcissism is the incapacity to manage frustration, stress, or disappointment. This isn't my fault.
This isn't working. I don't want to do this homework.
This sucks, da, da, da, da. But to your point, could this gentle parenting result in narcissistic, It's like a slam dunk.
Not at all. And I'll tell you why.
Not just because of the statistics that it's statistically improbable that a child will become narcissistic, but rather that I think that there's a pretty big subset of gentle parents who are actually quite emotionally attuned to their children. I agree.
So the children know

who they are. They feel like they can show up as themselves, right? I am interested in art.
I'm

interested in music. I don't like this class.
I'm feeling a little scared. They can express those

emotions and they will not be shamed, belittled, rejected, or humiliated. The kids who have gentle

parents who are doing that, you're still developing a pretty strong sense of self. And there's actually a decent probability that they'll go on to then enter healthy adult relationships because they were allowed to regulate.
They were allowed to express emotion. They may get frustrated by the world because at some point the world isn't going to be as permissive with them.
So they may not understand why they can't get away with stuff. Well, maybe once they have a job or something, but may still be in a position where they can regulate or feel safe enough in the world that they'll be okay.
If I had to choose, the gentle parenting is always going to win over the authoritarian parenting. I do believe it's actually the authoritarian parenting that results in narcissistic kids.
But authoritarian parenting also results in anxious kids. In the most severe cases, kids with complex trauma, rebellious kids.
I mean, authoritarian parents end up with kids with nothing but problems, right? Because by definition, an authoritarian parent is not going to be emotionally attuned. But you could have, I mean, obviously the gold standard is the authoritative parent is what we've come to know.
The kid knows the score. They're in charge.
They're here. They're attentive.
They're permissive, but you got to do your homework. You got to take some responsibility.
We can't bubble wrap them. They do have to get disappointed.
Otherwise, we're all in trouble, right? So there is that piece of it. But I think from a parenting perspective, really it's those authoritarian parents that are causing all the problems.
Really, not authoritative. Authoritative parents are great.
The authoritarian. Authoritative parents is hard to be.
It's very hard. Especially now with social media and all the screens and all the things.

It's very, very, very hard because you have to be that rule enforcer. And like I said, when you have screens and all these other things that are competing and you're locking things up and hiding and other kids.
But it's the, but the authoritative, attuned, empathic, available, non-shaming parent, that's the chef's kiss. That's what we want.
Yeah. Good luck.
Yeah. I was going to say, that's a hard.
I wasn't. And I tried my hardest.
I really tried. I mean, I really tried.
And I did my best. What would you say? What kind of parent would you say you were? I think I tried to land the plane on the authoritative.
And I think I sometimes would get to the, I think at times I would be a little permissive because I'd feel guilty. I would try to overcorrect from some of the things I didn't have.
We forget that with parenting. And remember, we can take it all the way back to Winnicott and the good enough parent.
Yeah. And I tell my clients this all the time.

Making mistakes with our kids is a good thing because those fails are times when they've

got to figure some stuff out for themselves and create a holistic image of them as their

parent, not as this grandiose hero, but as like a flawed but loving person who's there

for them, right?

Winnicott's saying, we make mistakes.

We can't be perfect.

We can't make the kid the only game in town. We have to show them that we're whole people outside of them, right? There's tolerance to make mistakes.
Now, if we make too many, not so good. Right, right, right.
But if we strive to read the child's mind, make it that they never know disappointment. And listen, I raised my kids in LA and I saw some parents where this kid was their full time job.
I mean, this was it. Like they were, everything was about this kid to an insane, like almost disturbing degree.
I worked the whole time my kids were young. So there was no room for that.
So there were moments of I'm going to be late or someone else is going to be picking you up today or we're eating mac and cheese for the fourth night in a row. Yes, exactly.
I think though, that's how we were raised back when, like when I was raised, when I was growing up in the eighties, I felt like my parents worked and like, you're kind of like a latchkey kid. You got to kind of figure it out.
And that's why there was much more of a of the ability to be kind of self-sufficient for our generation, for my generation. Yes, but if that kid of the 80s or the 70s had the latchkey and all of that, but was dealing with a parent who was invalidating, shaming, it was going to be a downhill slope.
But if the parents, when they finally came home from their jobs, were available, consistent, one, you don't need both. The dads were always bringing up the rear.
Dads are finally catching up. But back then, the dads were, I mean, either they were awful or they were non-existent.
I could count on one. No, no hands.
I think of every friend I had in the 70s, we hated the fathers because they were scary and we didn't want them around. But not one of them were good parents.
No. Yeah, it's true.
It was always about the mom. The mom was the caregiver.
And I don't know what the father was. I know.
He was in the background. Sometimes the fathers were funny.
Like if you had a funny father, that was actually kind of a nice one. They put on the sprinklers for us or make funny faces or something.
That's so true. That would be fun for us.
That would be fun running through the sprinklers. Are you kidding me? Kids now should be doing this.
They don't do anything like this. It's kind of actually the sad state of affairs, I think that we lack adventure now for the kids.
It's all about screen time indoors. And it's, I think that's a whole other, maybe it's not narcissism, but there's definitely other things that happen to the, to your, to your brain that's, does bad things to you.
We know nature is good for the mind. We know that, but again, it's attunement, it's interest in the child.
My daughter, who is actually not a kid anymore. She's a young adult.
But she said something very, I was driving with her today. And as I'm saying, we never quite get this right.
I was preoccupied with something because I'd had a meeting this morning and I was thinking about it. And I was asking her some questions, but they were kind of superficial.
And then she said something to me and I wasn't plugged into it. And then, and we went on, she said, you know, it would mean so much to me if you asked me a deeper question about myself.
And, you know, it would feel, it would feel like you were, you were actually really listening to me. And she was absolutely right.
I wasn't fully, I was 65% in that car. Now we had a conversation and I, first thing I did was I validated her experience.
I said, you know, you're absolutely right. Asking you guys just what you had for dinner and stuff last night.
I was interested in that, but there was something more happening there. So not like, do you know how busy I am? Number two.
And I said, I do apologize. You know, and she's like, well, what's up? Why are we not present? I said, you know, I'm going to be very honest.
It was a difficult meeting I had this morning. I was thinking about it.
But that said, that still affected our time together, right? And so, you know, I want to apologize for that, for how I showed up, but can we reboot? And we had a meaningful conversation. Good parenting happened that that child felt that she could show up that way.
Bad parenting was that I wasn't attuned, which is a longstanding problem of mine. But the big piece for as a parent, I'd give myself this one in the win column.
Instead of saying, do you have any idea how busy I am? Do you know how hard I worked to pay no tuition? Tempted, and I pushed down bad mommy and said, you're absolutely right. That validation of your child's experience, everything.
Right. And also having the ability to apologize.
Yeah, you have to be able to apologize, especially to your kids. Right.
You have to be able to, I've said, I have to, I apologize to my kids like all the time because of my bad being, like being on the phone when they're trying to talk to me, like all these things that I know I shouldn't be doing. And then they catch me in it.
And instead of me saying, well, I exactly, to your point, like I'm working, I have got to finish this thing. It's so much easier easier and better for everybody if you could just say, you know, I'm so sorry.
You're right. Like, I'm going to try to be better.
Not that I'm going to be better, but I'm going to try to be better. It also humanizes the whole situation.
And they feel seen and heard. But they learn something important.
What my daughter learned was I made a valid point here. And it's okay.
Yeah. Because when she goes into other relationships, my hope is she will continue to say, hey, I didn't feel heard.
Stand up for herself. Instead of knowing she's going to be shut down and not bringing that up.
And you can see the slippery slope that would be of her potentially getting into a narcissistic relationship. That's what I don't want to have happen.
Absolutely. How do narcissists even have, is it possible for a narcissistic person to be in a, or another, I should say this, sorry.
Can you be in a good relationship with a narcissist? Depends on what you call good, right? Relative. That's what, it's all relative, right? I don't- A somewhat healthy relationship that's not super toxic, that's not super draining, anxiety-ridden.
I don't think it can ever be one of depth. Okay.
So I think that the key to navigating any relationship with somebody who's narcissistic is realistic expectations. And as those realistic expectations wash over you, you're going to say, wow.
As long as we talk about what they want, we avoid anything where it's that's triggering to them. I don't attempt to go deep with them and have a deeper conversation with them.
And it's kind of pretty much keeping the trains running. This could kind of work.
So what that really tells a person is, I don't know that anyone should go out there and choose this, but I'll be frank with you, Jen. There are people who say, I want a well-resourced life.
I was raised, I mean, I'm sure there's still even in 2025, there are people saying, I was raised to have a partner who's a good provider. I want to be home with my kids.
I'm going to tell someone like that, the odds aren't in your favor on this one, sweetie. Like you may really end up in a toxic relationship because that asymmetry, that drive of someone to have made that much money.
I'm not saying everyone who makes money is a narcissistic person, not by a long shot. Plenty of people out there worked hard, made money, really good people.
You're going to meet them? I don't know. And so it's a, because sometimes too, then they may not have the grandiose sizzle and all the charisma or all that other stuff.
So some people will say there's things that matter to me, higher order things, like I want us to live comfortably. And they might say, I like the structural elements of our life.
I wish this was more connected. And I think that where people are like the moth bashing themselves against the glasses, I get to be sort of the bad news messenger and say, this is never going to be more connected.
If you like all this around you, I get that. But understand you can't draw blood from this stone.
It can't be something else you want it to be. So it's really about people taking a good, hard look at what does it mean? What does a good relationship mean to you? Some people it means they're with somebody who shares their faith, who shares their rhythms, that they're all from the same area, that, you know, it's very much about a larger family system.
For other people, it's that they have a very shared singular interest. Maybe they mountain bike or whatever you do, those people who run and swim and do all kinds of whatever, triathlon.
You know, maybe it's everyone, we can't assume that everyone wants the same relationship.

But I think that it's that whole idea of, you know, you can't, one person cannot be all things.

But bottom line is this.

If you're in a relationship with someone who needs interpersonal control, who doesn't really see you, who is not attuned to you, who puts their interests first. That's never going to be a healthy relationship.
Right. Ever.
And I do think there are a lot of people who like are programmed to be okay with that. Like there's very specific roles and like they're okay with it.
But I would say, like, I feel like professional women, strong women, smart women, that's not going to, that's not going to work. And there'll be a lot of, there could be a lot of combative, like, cause I find like, you know, women, okay, how am I going to say this in a very PC kind of way? I find that a lot of successful women have a lot of masculine energy sometimes, right? They just bring that there have to be for business, for work.
And so that I would imagine that doesn't work well for a narcissistic man. So I guess maybe we'll even take away the masculine energy piece and say, there may be women out there who hold, who have had very developed intellectual worlds or careers where- Strong personalities.
I'll even say that they're used to, they're very competent at managing their lives. That's a great word to say.
That's what they are. They're very competent at that.
They've also, especially in their professional roles, really learned how to communicate what it is they need clearly. They wouldn't want someone to, for example, take over the finances.
They're going to want to know what's going on, right? So you'd have a person who is much, much more aware of sort of who they are and how they go through the world. I'm sorry, I'm going to interject.
I don't even mean that. I'm talking about people, women, who are just, who like are confident, self-assured, who have a job, who work.
All those folks are very, but they could get into these relationships. They will for all their same reasons.
All the same reasons, yeah. The charisma, everyone's attracted to the same thing.
That's why on these apps, and that's why of all the men in the world, it's the same 1% of men who get all the women in the dating. And a lot of them are narcissistic.
And all narcissists. But there's a reason, right? Because to your point, they're good.
Look, they're the ones who are attractive, successful. Confident.
Confident. They sell a good story.
Wealthier. You're right.
They have game. So all the women initially are going to be attracted to that, right? That doesn't mean it's going to end well for anybody, but initially I'm talking about, right? So that's going to be women who are strong and successful and women who are maybe weaker or less successful, whatever.
I'm saying all women. That's why the 1%, right? But what I'm saying is those types of men won't do well with women who have the competence, the confidence, the success, because they're going to push back.
The other women will maybe be a less challenge for them. Potentially, but unless those other women are saying, I want you to be my companion, I want you to spend time with me.
The needy one. And I wouldn't say needy.
I say even asking at a healthy level, like we are partners. I want us to spend time together.
I want to share my emotions with you. I want us to talk about things that are meaningful.
That's not needy. That's just being in a relationship.
True. I'm just, you know what I'm doing in my head right now? I'm thinking about all the people I know who are with people who are narcissistic and who it actually works for and who it doesn't.
Like I know a lot of my friends, they're breaking up all the time because of this whole situation. They're saying, oh, I'm with a narcissistic partner.
He's not going to work because, you know, that's why I'm asking it. And the other thing I find interesting is, is narcissism just way more prevalent in men? But it is? What's the percentage? Well, so what we know is that all forms of narcissism, grandiose, malignant, communal, self-righteous, everything but vulnerable narcissism.
Vulnerable narcissism, same in men and women. But in the other forms of narcissism, it's more common in men.
How much more common? You know, we've never gotten good prevalence statistics, but I wouldn't, I mean, if I were to spit out a guess, 80-20 at least. Really? Yeah, 75-25, yeah.
So it is much more. More prevalent, except for the vulnerable narcissism, and that's pretty same.
Why the vulnerable? Because I think that there are're also they're qualities that we tend not to like we we shut down things like grandiosity entitlement that kind of stuff gets shut down in women for a woman to hold that position into her adult life that's that's actually much more seared that's why grandiose narcissism sometimes is more severe in a woman because if she could have despite the sociological pressure against being like that, still be like that, I'm like, damn, this really was you. Versus for a guy, it's athletic culture, it's competitive.
We foster that. We also foster low emotionality in men.
Don't share your emotions, don't share your feelings, being shamed for emotions. That combination means that a lot of the narcissistic stuff, at least in the emotional realm and the entitlement realm, all of that gets over, sort of over-indexed.
For the women, no. And so for a grandiose, like I said, when I see a grandiose, narcissistic woman, I'm like, this woman's never going to change.
Maybe you got a little bit of a fighting chance with a man, but not with a grandiose or malignant, narcissistic woman. No, no, no.
It's rare. So when you've got it, it's almost more entrenched.
But with

vulnerable narcissism, you see more, again, being aggrieved, more passive aggressive anger. So it's

less of the rageful anger we don't tolerate for women, more of the withholding and victimized

anger that we see in vulnerable narcissistic folks. And it's more allowable in women.
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Trust me. Can people work on their narcissism and become better i mean i i am a firm believer that if someone who's narcissistic literally does and it's unicorning i gotta say has that moment where they're saying what i'm doing here is not cool i've hurt my partner i've hurt my kids i've hurt the people i work with I'm owning that.
I actually think there is some real possibility for some real work to be done. But like anything, it's not like I'm going to work on my exercise.
You meet with a personal trainer three times or six times, right? And this is much harder work. So every so often, and usually it requires a certain rock bottom for a narcissistic person.
Like, they kind of lose everyone. They lose the big job.
They're publicly shamed. Their kids aren't speaking to them.
The partner has since packed up and moved on. That some of them will say, yeah, the only common denominator here seems to be me.
And one day that it's everyone else's fault, but mine tends to fade away. And in a small, small, small, small, small subset of folks, you'll say people will say, I guess I need to take some ownership.
One thing we do see for some narcissistic folks, they have a really, really discernible history of trauma. Like what they experienced in childhood wasn't, it wasn't restricted to an invalidating parent.
It was like chaos, neglect, physical or other forms of abuse. It was very clearly a harmful environment with folks who have narcissism as a result of that.
And some therapists argue narcissism is a post-traumatic state. And I tend to agree with them.
Those narcissistic folks sometimes have a better shot because we can do the trauma-informed work with them. And by creating an atmosphere in therapy, which is safe and accountable, and we do collaborative goal setting, we work on regulation, and we really let let them know, like I'm in here with you.
I'm sitting here at the same level as you. I got no superpowers over you.
And we really stay in it with them and we help them kind of mentalize, see the perspective of the other, see the perspective. Cause I've successfully worked with clients with mentalization where like, I hear all of what you did.
Now let's just take a brief moment. You're your wife and you're reading your phone.
She's like, oh my God, I'd be pissed. I would have screamed.
Yep. And she actually just gently asked you to leave the house.
I couldn't have done that. And I said, do you see that? What do you think she went through? Now, some narcissistic people would rage, don't bring that up to me.
And some will say, I suck. And then that's a chance for me to say, no, you don't suck.
That's an indictment of you, but your behavior was hurtful. And the ones who can hang in that and really do some of the trauma-informed work, tie it to early schemas, do the fragmentation work, this is, it's not for the faint of heart.
And I can count on one hand the number of therapists I know who could do that kind of work with a client. It's really hard work, but you need a ridiculously motivated narcissistic client.
You need a ridiculously skilled trauma informed therapist. And when that happens and that narcissistic person has enough money to pay this skilled therapist, then after a few years, you might see some change.
Because also it requires self-awareness,

right? To be able to look at yourself in that way. Which is not typically there in narcissism.
Now,

you can enhance it in therapy, but the problem is like anything to maintain that change over time,

you typically need therapy to sustain for a long time. The other problem is it's the rarest of

narcissistic person who might even do all of this vulnerable work, but then feel like, well, everybody needs to come back and see how I'm better. I'm like, no, they're gone.
You hurt them. They're not coming back.
You can try again. You can meet new people.
What do you mean? But I did all the work. I said, yeah.
And you broke it. You didn't buy it.
They're gone. Right? And that's sometimes the moment I've seen very few narcissistic people recognize I did break it and I don't get to keep it.
Right. And I have to go start anew.
That's the juncture where I've seen the smallest number go. They're like, I did all the work.
I'm so much better now. Look at me.
And it's almost like this is performative again. You're showing off your healing.
That's not how this is supposed to work. Right, right, right.
How do you know if you are a narcissist? So one thing I don't like is the little simplistic social media. Well, if you think you're narcissistic, then you're not.
Not necessarily so. I've had clients come into my office and say, hey doc, before they even sit down, nice to meet you.
I'm such and such. I'm pretty sure I'm narcissistic.
I'm like, okay, sit down, let's talk. And in most cases, I hate to say it, they were right.
They were. They were narcissistic.
And what I'll see is that sometimes though, when a person's been through a very narcissistically abusive relationship, the partner has told them they're narcissistic. Or when people wake up one day and say, oh my gosh, my partner is really narcissistic, or my partner is a terrible person, or they're mean, or whatever word they use, they don't even say anything to the partner.
They come in and say, I feel so guilty that I think this about my mother or my partner or someone. Does that make me the narcissist? When they say that way, no, not narcissistic.
Sometimes a narcissistic person figures it out. Most do not.
But how do we know we're narcissistic? First of all, that you're grappling with it,

maybe a good sign that that may not be what's happening. But how do you treat people in a

consistent way? How do you react to being in a line? Do you believe you deserve special treatment?

Do you snap at people who aren't doing things exactly the way you want them to? Do you shift

blame on other people? Are you able to take responsibility and accountability? Like,

really think about those sorts of factors. And then people would make excuses though.
They're like, well, like, cause you'll be like, oh, I don't like a line, but who does like a line? Like people would make excuses. Right.
No, I said it's, nobody likes a line. However, you, do you feel entitled to throw a fit or yell at the person who's at the airport? I mean, I'm not saying me, Yes, I'm saying.
Yeah, but you know what I'm saying? Like, that's how I'll push it. It's like, what is it about you then that you're the one throwing the fuss? Because everyone, oh, they're just lemmings.
I'm like, that's a lot of contempt. Where's that coming from? So you'll see it all.
Can you spot a narcissist really quickly? Me? I wish I could have some magic power. I still have narcissistic people crawl into my life.

It's becoming less and less frequent, but I got to tell you, I'm taking less cracks at bat.

I don't think I've ever become as closed off and as isolated as I've ever become because I kind of don't trust people.

But I do have to say that I feel it in my body when I'm with it.

I get bored when I'm with narcissistic people.

There's a boredom that overtakes me.

I'm like, oh God, here we go again.

Really?

Like I've seen this episode

and I never even liked it the first time.

You know, so.

Right, because you're expecting,

I have a friend of mine, anyway,

I mean, I shouldn't even talk about that right now

because I feel like everything you said is so, there's so many people. We're in Los Angeles.
I feel like Los Angeles is flooded with a lot of narcissists. I guess my question is, is it more predominantly in main cities like LA, New York, or? I think so.
I think it is definitely more urban-faced. There are more financial opportunities in big cities.
There are more high-status opportunities in big cities. So the kind of opportunity structure of a big city is not only more individualistic.
I can be the best one. In small towns, people tend to have left less.
They tend to stay in the town that they were in, right? So there's more of a communal structure.

You're assholery. You can't get away with as much of it because people might call you out on it.
Whereas the success structures here are much more narcissism facing in any big city. And this is in Los Angeles, the business is show business, right? So it's still an entertainment city.
It's also becoming a tech city. Those are two highly narcissistic industries.
So media, entertainment, tech, politics, finance, law, all of those are heavy narcissism industries. Those tend to be more urban-ish.
Now, that's not to say, I mean, some of the worst cases of narcissistic abuse I've heard happening in rural settings, like the individual, how someone's treating someone in a marriage or something, that could happen anywhere. But I think that what a person might be drawn to as a place, especially grandiose narcissistic folks might come to such places because, look, I can, look at me, I can be so great.
Or a malignant narcissistic person who can sometimes even have a grifter feel. There's going to be more people to grift in a city.
What is a malignant narcissist? Malignant narcissistic people, the grand, they're not so much of the charming, charismatic as they are the more exploitative, isolating, coercive, narcissistic person. There's a more menacing feel to them.
They can be charming and charismatic in the short term. Like, you know, like, you know, hi, yeah, nice to meet you.
But it's like, let's get to business. Let's get to business.
There's a very, there's a coldness under the niceties, whereas the grandiose narcissist can keep that warmth going for a very long time. But the malignant narcissistic person can do the niceties, but like, let's get down, let's make the deal, let's do the this, let's have the meeting.
And when we take away those, the sort of more affluent stuff, and we go down to somebody who may not have as many resources or average resources, and they're a malignant narcissist, much more controlling in a relationship. Again, they don't share, if you will, like their partner is someone they will isolate.
And I think that a malignant narcissistic person will disproportionately seek out a partner who really doesn't have that much power. Somebody much younger, somebody who may be at an immigration status.
He may take advantage of somebody who can't be in a place. And so lack of green card or immigration status, they'll say, okay, well, come be with me, but one step out of line and they're dangling the residency permit or whatever it may be.
I've seen that happen. Malignant narcissistic people may take advantage of

someone who doesn't have as much education, income making potential, that kind of thing.

Or they may actually have a really partner who's exactly at their level, but say, oh, come on,

you can stop working. I got us.
And then this person is then taken further and further away

from the center of the core of the finances and stuff like that, finding themselves more and more and more isolated. So it's like a bird in a gilded cage kind of thing.
Is P. Diddy like a malignant narcissist? We've seen several high profile cases of people who are serial offenders, isolate people, coerce them into sexual acts that to the world, the world's like, well, they went along with it.
I'm like, people don't understand what coercion is. This is not voluntary.
This is non-consensual, right? There is a psychological gun at that person's back. We just can't see it, right? And so that very much we see is that overlap of malignant narcissism and psychopathy.
Now, psychopaths are a different animal. These are people who have no empathy, no remorse, very callous, calculating, parasitic, menacing.
They do not feel bad for the harm they do to people. They truly feel entitled to do whatever they want and are solely motivated by power, profit, and pleasure.

That is all they care about. And so they will destroy anything and anyone in their path mercilessly.
And this is where the world's an interesting place. We let these psychopathic folks off the hook like that.
Let's give them a second chance. They didn't really mean it, but they've done all these great things.
They've made all this money. They're a successful business person.
They can't be that bad. You give them even one second chance and you've done the equivalent of putting nuclear launch codes in their hands.
They feel that they're untouchable at that point. And sometimes they go one, two, three, 10 times.
The people they harm often really lack any power. They know if they say one thing, they not only will get destroyed, their families will get destroyed.
So there's all these silenced people. So they look like there's no victims for the longest time.
And so, and they will, and they have, and they do. They kill people and make it, and people still to this day are like, no, they didn't do it.
And I'm like, well, probably they probably did. And so, and they get away with it and they get away with it and they get away with it.
And then one day they don't get away with it if we're lucky, if we're lucky. And so that's

psychopathy. That's a whole different game.
And people in those marriages suffer deeply.

Right. So it's not just like, it's narcissism on crack, basically.

It's yes. So, and there's people who argue something called the dark tetrad and the dark

tetrad is the overlap of narcissism, psychopathy, sadism, and something we call Machiavellianism, which is exploitativeness, the willingness to take advantage of another person, right? So we have these four things that kind of hang together. And so those four things, the Machiavellianism and all the rest of it, that's the, when all that stuff is together, it's, the reason that's come up is that people are like, okay, we keep having, is it narcissism, is it psychopathy? Instead of trying to differentiate them, understand that these things are highly intercorrelated.
And when you're at that level of that bad stuff showing up, it's these people just, they just go through life harming people. And they'll do till the day they die.
Either they end up in prison or they live a life just continuing to harm people and they get away with it. I mean, some people get away with it till they die.
I mean, Bernie Madoff's a great example. Yeah.
Right. Kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it, got caught, died in prison.
I mean, that's the, you know, that's that story. I mean, what, it's crazy.
It is crazy. But the psychopath thing to me is, I've always been fascinated with sociopaths, psychopaths.
What's the difference between a social? Psychopathy has much more psychological science behind it. They're different brains.
They're very different. They have different brains.
Their empathy centers of their brain are quite different. They're what we call their autonomic arousals, different, meaning that they're very cool.
Like even when, like they know the feds are coming tomorrow, even though it's all falling apart, they're still very, very calm. They're not even breaking a sweat.
There's something very composed about them, even as the wheels are coming off and everyone else is upset. Sociopathic, I always say they're a bit more of a bar brawler.
They're more reactive. We will definitely see more reactive crime.
We'll see, again, bar fights, you know, they'll be reactive and how, but much, but it's all the stuff of malignant narcissism, but with very reactive anger. Sociopathy is actually more of a term used by criminologists and people who do science in that realm.
Like Jeffrey Dahmer, Or't he a psychopath? I would argue yes. Yes.
Again, most serial killers are psychopathic because it's calculated. It's, you know, destroying someone's life.
That guy, the one in Long Island, the Gilgo Beach killer. Same thing.
That'd be psychopathy. Yeah.
Oh, God. Back to narcissism, though.
Which seems gentle now compared to the psychopath. That seems like a walk in the park, like a nothing.
What is the best ways for someone? How does someone deal with a narcissist? So let's start with what I call the two biggest ticket relationships. Narcissistic partner, narcissistic parent.
These are very primal relationships. One affected your development.
One affects the course of your life, right? The research actually shows that the psychological distress created by narcissistic relationships. One affected your development, one affects the course of your life, right? The research actually shows that the psychological distress created by narcissistic relationships with partners is the highest we see, but that makes sense because it's often what's currently happening.
You're married to this person, you're dealing with them in the day-to-day, whereas the narcissistic parent, for some people, can cause lifelong distress, but in some cases you're not doing as much of the day-to-day dealing with it. Makes sense? So how do you deal with it? I mean, the fork in the road really is, are you in it or not? Are you still in it or not? Do you still have to interact with this person or not? Let's say you do.
And for some people, everyone's like, well, if you're in a relationship with a narcissist, you just got to leave. Well, that's not an option everybody has.
And I hate when that advice is given because I think it's actually very insensitive to the circumstances to some people for whom leaving would be potentially unsafe, financially not possible. They don't have the supports they need.
These issues around immigration and things that I raised, minor children, family court, forget about it. So they'll stay, not because they want to stay in the relationship, but because leaving might even make their circumstances worse.
So for those folks, assuming there's no imminent physical danger, I'm not talking about that here. I'm talking really the ongoing emotional abuse.
For many people, once they recognize what they're dealing with, they can engage with it differently. So it's the sort of thing like the most heartbreaking day for anybody who's in a narcissistic relationship is not only the day they really clearly see, oh God, this is what this is, is when they recognize it's not really going to change.
And it's that radical acceptance of there is no more, not when the kids graduate high school, it's not when they get the promotion, it's always going to be this. And so I say to people, if you know this is really not going to change much from how it is today, I want you to consider all your decisions from that point of view.
Now, some people say, I'm out of here, and they leave, okay? If they can. If they can, but many people cannot.
And those people will then say, okay, I can't leave. However, the shifts within them are, I'm no longer going to engage with this person in the same way.
I am going to be more superficial in my dealings. I'm not going to share my good news.
I'm not going to share my bad news. I'm going to keep the conversation to sort of basically like a, look how cloudy it is.
I wonder when it's going to get warm again. Did you see they're building a new supermarket down at the corner? And people say, well, that's so sad.
I'm like, if you want to fight with them, by all means, that's yours. But that's the only thing that's going to happen if you go in another direction.
It's a small talk. It's small talk.
It's small talk. And that also means that if you're going to be in this relationship, especially if you can't leave, you have to foster other sources of support.
Friendships, collegial relationships, relationships in the community. And people say, that's a bummer.
Like, I want that to come from my marriage. It ain't coming from this marriage.
I mean, you know, it's you. And so, but you need those things as a human being.
You need that connection. So it may be friendships, sister you like, you join, you know, you become really involved in your kid's school, whatever it is.
And some people say there's a lot of grief associated with that because you wanted your life to be something different. And that's a different hill to climb.
But engaging, it's really, I say, I have an acronym, don't go deep with the narcissist. Don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, and don't personalize.
They're going to do this to anyone. They're not listening to your explanation.
They're going to blame you no matter how much you defend yourself. So you just got to stop talking with them as much.
That's it. That's the relationship.
And like, is it the same with being gaslit? Gaslighting is a part of it. The gaslighting though does so much harm to a person.
And that's why what I'm saying is almost overly simplistic because a lot of people in these relationships were made to believe that they were the problem. I didn't do this well enough.
I didn't do that well enough. I'm the one who's crazy.
There's something wrong with me. I'm overreacting.
I'm too sensitive. I've always feel that my clinical work with somebody who's gone through a narcissistic relationship, the first half of it is deprogramming.
Wow. Because yeah, you're always making excuses or like, oh, it's because of this reason or it's because of that reason.
Right. Right.
And how do you even know? Like, what is, like, how do you know if you're being gaslit? Well, I think that gaslighting is, everyone thinks everyone else, it's just like they don't understand narcissism. They don't understand gaslighting.
Right. These are like very common terms you keep throwing around all the time.
So if somebody comes up to you and they say to you, you said you were coming at noon. Oh no, you say to them, you said you were coming at noon.
And the other person said, I never said that. People are saying, they're gaslighting me.
I'm like, maybe, but we're not all the way through. See how the conversation goes.
Now, if you say to the person, you said you were coming at noon. And the other person said, I never said that.
Okay. And I'm sorry.
I didn't say that. And I'm sorry.
There was this misunderstanding here between us. Still probably not a gaslight.
Now, if that person says, I am so sick of your crazy. I am so sick of you coming after me.
Every time you think I said something, it's like you're paranoid. I feel like I have to start recording it.
That's gaslighting. You see what I'm saying? They're, you have not only are they, is your reality being doubted, questioned, they're having a different experience than you, then they're telling you you're crazy.
And it's also most likely that you are correct. Especially if you really are correct.
And like, listen, do we make mistakes? Do you say, hey, you said you're going to come at noon.

And they said, no, I said one.

Here's the text.

You're like, oh, God.

Then that's not a gaslight.

That's just all a big misunderstanding.

Right, and people make mistakes.

But what I think is interesting when people,

and I see this all the time with life, right?

When people are like, oh, I saw you talking to that girl

or this guy or whatever.

Oh, you're so crazy.

You're overreacting.

It's nothing.

It usually is something.

That's gaslighting.

Thank you. right? Like when people are like, oh, I saw you talking to that girl or this guy or whatever.
Oh, you're so crazy. You're overreacting.
It's nothing. It usually is something.
That's gaslighting. You're overreacting.
Usually that gaslighting is actually the honest truth and they're just trying to cover it up. Correct.
Correct. Like to me, it's always 100% always been that.
So when, because again, in a healthy relationship, if you have a reaction, a person's with it and may even internally say, well, that's a lot of reaction, but they're having a reaction. I'm going to hold space for their reaction and let them have their reaction.
You might even apologize, but it's, you know, for something you've done wrong, but you don't say, I'm sorry, you feel that way. That's not an apology.
I hate that. That's not an apology.
Why do people say that? Because they're kind of gaslight. It's kind of in the gaslight neighborhood.
It may not be a gaslight, but it's like, I'm sorry you feel that way saying, what, you have a problem with my feeling? Like, no. It's also just so patronizing.
It's so patronizing. It's not really an apology at all.
It's like the opposite. So I think that we, how do we know we're being gaslighted? I think that we know it because our reality is being denied.
Listen, the 12 o'clock, one o'clock thing, that could be a misunderstanding and we can hold space for that. But it's the, when somebody says you, you have no right to feel that way, you can't feel that way.
Nobody would feel that way. That's a gaslight.
Or it's when I think they project a lot. It's like, what are you talking about? You're crazy for that.
Why would you say that? It's all gaslight. I feel like when that pattern happens, you're being gaslit.
Always. That's all a gaslighting pattern.
And I think that people don't know what it is. And also a lot of people, depending on what their early life was, often don't even feel they have the right to their own experience of reality, right? We feel like we're not being team players.
And we often push people, you know? And like, listen, two people can have two different experiences at the same time. Two people could be a restaurant.
One person's having the best meal of their life and the other one's like, get me out of here. Two people could have been at a party and one person said that was the worst night of my life.
And then it's like, oh my gosh, I had such a good time. Neither is wrong, right? So a gaslight's not necessarily just a lie.
A gaslight is not a difference of experience and a gaslight is not a difference of opinion. A gaslight is dismantling the other person's reality saying there's no way you could have had a good time at that party.
You're lying. That's a gaslight.
I feel like so many of these, are there some other myths that you can kind of dispel a little bit? Well, the idea that narcissism is self-love. I think that the mistake that a lot of the armchair people say, narcissistic people love themselves.
It's excessive self-love. No, it's not.
I wish they loved themselves, if they loved themselves, they wouldn't be doing this. It is the core of narcissism is insecurity and shame.
They're more insecure than you. They're riddled with shame.
That's why they're always projecting their shame on you because they don't want to carry it anymore. So it's a, this idea that it's self-love.
No, it's not self-love. It is self-loathing.
It is self-emptiness, but it's definitely not self-love. That's a big one.
That it's a personality disorder. There is something called narcissistic personality disorder, but to say someone's narcissistic is not to diagnose them with something is another myth.
Like I said, that if a difference of opinion is gaslighting, no, it's a, and that matters a lot in such polarized times. I could talk to somebody who has very different political views than me, and I'm in absolute disagreement with them.
But I can say, okay, I'm hearing your point of view is this, my point of view is this, I'm not gaslighting them, right? Now, if they say your point of view is stupid and you're stupid, they just gaslighted me. Right.
How can you outsmart a narcissist? Can you?

I think so, by not trying to convince them of anything, right?

I mean, once you know what they're about,

you got to figure out what is it you need from this interaction.

I know that makes it sound like you're being as Machiavellian as them,

but what do you need from this interaction, right?

Right.

Don't try to convince them of anything.

Don't try to, I would say, don't try to overpower them because they're always going to punch back, but get the thing you need. Narcissistic people are eminently manipulatable if you fluff them up.
You know, you're amazing. You're so smart.
You're the best. You're, I've never met anyone like you, blah, blah, blah.
And link that to the thing that you need. Right.
And I think that if you, it can't be too transparent, right? You can't link the two. You kind of almost have to get them in the space and then slowly move in there, like get them ready.
You also, again, can you outsmart them? You can, I think part of outsmarting them is to no longer rely on them. I think that people say, well, we're in a relationship.
They need to do their part. I'm like, they're not going to do their part.
So either you're going to spend all your time trying to get them to do something they don't want to do or pay for what you need. You know, so if you need someone to do you for 50 bucks, you could get them someone to do something.
You have the 50 bucks. You can get someone to do something, but they should have to do it.
I'm like, life ain't fair. And that 50 bucks meant the thing got done and you didn't have to interact with the narcissist.
You just outsmarted them. Because they'll often use those times when you're relying them on something as a time to shut you down.
I also think it's still, I just think they're very easy to manipulate. Like they're very easy to manipulate.
They can be, but you can't overdo it because they're not dumb. Narcissistic people are very socially perceptive.
They are, however, they love adoration, as you said. They love to be validated and they love to be listened to.
Right, but only to a point. Only to a point.
But if you're a pretty girl, and that's why this dynamic works so well. If you're a pretty girl with a narcissist, all you need to do is tell them how wonderful you think they are, how great you think they are, and they will do whatever you want.
Until you need something that they don't want to give. Until you need something that takes effort.
Right, or that is emotional, or that is deep. Yes.
I mean, again, that's why sometimes purely transactional relationships work with narcissistic people. Totally.
Transactional relationships, for sure. Yes, that's really what it is.
It's purely transactional. It can work.
But even then, here's where it gets, I'm saying, it's not easy. The narcissistic person, though, still lives in a world, almost like a simulation where they think, I'm in a relationship where somebody loves me.
So when it's too transparent that it's transactional, then they're uncomfortable, right? So it still has to mimic a love story. It has to mimic it, but that's why there's so many of these, I don't know how, this is again, not so PC, but so many, like, you can might as well be a hooker here, right? But like, if you know how to like work a man in LA and you know how to just pumple them enough, look, look good, look hot, you can just kind of just get, just get so much shit out of them.
There's a lot of people who have done that and they've gone from person to person. And let me tell you this, they got, they got a hell of a lot more money in their bank account than I do.
Me too. Yeah.
And they probably didn't pay taxes on it. So, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.
So no, I agree, but it only works to a point. And if you did that and you were smart and literally started putting that money away in a way that it couldn't be touched and you weren't buying nonsense with it, then you could actually set yourself up quite nicely before the looks fade.
And you can't play the sound unless you start going for 85 year old people. But I know.
Yeah. It's actually kind of, you know, and also what's kind of sad to me is that like, as these women are getting older and older, middle age or and above, you know, there's a fear of like desperation.
Right. And so they'll settle for somebody who's not treating them so wonderfully.
Or to be in a relationship. And I think that's the problem is we have to, I think one of the greatest narcissism antidotes is people getting comfortable with their own company.
Yeah. I think it's really important.
And to find like, and to find other community places or else, you know, you're in that, in that whatever you call it, spiral. All right.
So I've kept you here for much longer. I know.
Dr. Romani, I love you.
Her book is called It's Not You If You Don't Have It Yet and follow Dr. Romani.
She's so great. You've given such wonderful, you always are wonderful.
Thank you. And I watch all your stuff.
You are just wonderful. And I love that you are here in person.
So thank you for being here. Thank you.
Thank you so much. You always are wonderful.
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
All your stuff. You are just wonderful.
And I love that you are here in person. So thank you for being here.
My pleasure. Thank you.
Thank you so much. And again, for people who really do want to heal, though, we have a lot of programs.
You go to my website, drramani.com. You're going to see we have an intensive monthly healing program.
We have the Dr. Ramani Network.
We're constantly doing live question and answer sessions. We have our YouTube channel where there's constant content on this.
So please check it out because if you really do have questions about this or you're actively healing, we have the resources. And you're also helping other therapists become certified, right? Yep.
So if you're a therapist and you want to get trained in working with people who are going through these relationships, again, go to my website and you'll find that there's actually a 36-hour training that culminates

in certification. So go check that out.

In 36 hours? In 36 hours.

You have to be a therapist already.

I was going to say, not any random joke.

No, no, no, not random person.

And you get 36 hours of continuing education

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