How to Outwit the Narcissist in Litigation, Negotiations (with Rebecca Zung, 1st of 2 talks)

Another comment I would like to make about what you've said, you said that narcissists are Machiavellian. In other words, they're manipulative.

Yes, but they're Machiavellian and manipulative, unlike the psychopath.

The psychopath is goal-oriented. The psychopath would manipulate you in order to obtain goals.

The narcissist truly believes his own nonsense. He truly believes his promises. He is immersed in the shared fantasy. He is delusional.

Many, many scholars, myself included, believe that narcissists are psychotic, in effect. They can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. They have what we call impaired reality testing.

So when the narcissist embarks on a shared fantasy with you, he believes his own fiction, his own stories, his own promises, and his own rendition of reality, something known as paracosm.

So yes, the narcissist is highly manipulative within the shared fantasy, but he is in it with you. He is as committed to the shared fantasy, as credulous, as naive as you are, actually.

And when he lures you in, he is luring himself back in as well. It's a joint enterprise.

That is not the case with a psychopath. The psychopath never loses sight of reality. The psychopath knows very well when he's lying to you, when he's manipulating you, when he's deceiving you. The psychopath is after your money, your sex, your something. Psychopath is after something.

The narcissist needs narcissistic supply and it needs a good mother within a shared fantasy. End of story, basically.

And so we tend to confuse narcissism with psychopathy and narcissism with borderline. And there's a good reason for that. Comorbidity.

In other words, many, many people are diagnosed with all three, borderline, psychopathy, and narcissism.

There's actually a variant of narcissism known as malignant narcissism. Malignant narcissism is a confluence, a delectable confluence of narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism.

But, you know, here's a thing.

The way I've kind of separated narcissistic supply for people when they go to negotiate with a narcissist is I think that there's a hierarchy of narcissistic supply.

And that is the way I've looked at it is I call it diamond level supply versus coal level supply. And those are my terms.

And that is when you go to negotiate with a narcissist, I think that their image is what I call diamond level supply, reputation, how they look to the world, and that they will protect and defend that more than anything.

And then what I call coal level supply is what I call like the dark underbelly of narcissistic supply. And that's like the control or the smearing of people or the, you know, whatever they'll do to move goalposts in negotiations or holding on to people or that, you know, during the discard phase, what they will do to just keep the negotiations going just for the pure sadistic part of it, right?

I mean, you know, what I've seen in negotiations is actually that they will self-sabotage in order to keep somebody in that web of destruction.

Yeah, that's very true.

But the way that I tell people that they will get out of it is that they have to create leverage such that they have to threaten a source of supply that's more important for them to protect or defend than the supply that they get from manipulating that other person.

And that source of supply is going to be tied to their image because they will let go of what I call this coal level supply in order to protect this higher-level source of supply, which is their image. Would you agree with that?

Well, in the 1990s, that's precisely what I said. I suggested that there are two types of narcissistic supply, primary and secondary.

And that each of these two types has a three level category.

So you have high grade supply, low grade supply, and mid-grade supply.

That's my original one.

And that primary supply is the most crucial to the narcissists. Secondary supply is a kind of maintenance supply.

And that, of course, there are varying qualities of supply, and high-grade supply matters the most to the narcissists.

It is true that the narcissist would sacrifice himself in order to hurt other people.

But it's important to make a distinction between the narcissist in the throes, in the midst of a shared fantasy, and the narcissist having exited the shared fantasy.

Once a narcissist is out of the shared fantasy, he becomes very psychopathic. He becomes antisocial because he's no longer emotionally invested in the shared fantasy.

The other person is an enemy. We call it a persecutory object. That is an enemy. We call it a persecutory object.

That's an enemy.

And then the narcissist becomes vindictive, sadistic, manipulative, indistinguishable from a primary psychopath, actually.

But it is only outside the shared fantasy.

As long as the narcissist is inside the shared fantasy with a willing, consenting partner or even enthusiastic partner, then many of these manifestations are much reduced because the narcissist is very wary of losing the partner. He has severe abandonment anxiety, separation insecurity.

So he's on his best behavior.

But the minute the shared fantasy is over, he has discarded the partner or God forbid the partner has discarded him, then of course you can see the ugly face of narcissism.

Yeah.

And they turn on a dime.

It's they have because they have like that splitting part of their personality.

So it's black to white, or white to black and in an immediate.

You're either for me or against me. And if you're against me, then it's public enemy number one.

Splitting is an infantile, primitive defense mechanism, typical of two years old.

And it is when the two-year-old, between the ages of 18 months and 36 months, to be precise. During this period, the child divides the world into all good, all bad.

For example, mommy is all good and I'm all bad. The child says, if the child divides the world into all good, all bad. For example, mommy is all good and I'm all bad, the child says, if the child is abused, traumatized, mistreated, the child has to make sense of this kind of misconduct by the parent, parental misconduct.

So what the child says, I deserve it. I have it coming. I am worthy of punishment. I'm a bad. I'm a bad boy.

So that's an example of splitting. I'm all bad. Mommy is all good.

Later on, the world is all bad. I'm all good. The world is all good. I'm all bad.

You know, right and wrong, black and white. It's black and white thinking. The clinical term is dyothemous thinking.

So, splitting is very common in borderline personality disorder and very common in narcissistic personality.

Yes, black and white.

And you are all white, and you can do no wrong, and you're perfect, and you're amazing, and you're perfect and you're amazing and you're hyper intelligent and you're drop dead gorgeous and you're unprecedented in the love bombing phase of the shared fantasy when the narcissist is going through the process of idealizing you as a new mother and of course you're the exact opposite in the devaluation and discard phase, where you can do no right, and you're ugly, and actually you're much more stupid than he thought, and so on and so forth.

And how does he explain to himself that he has misjudged you so egregiously at the beginning of the shared fantasy.

He says that you have changed. You have changed. You have changed owing to other people's bad influence on you. Or you have been acting. You've deceived him or something. The onus is on you. It's your fault that he has misjudged you at the very beginning as a perfect being.

Right.

And then they have to make sure that they have to take you down before you can take them down. So they have to go smear you. They have to go make sure that everybody knows. And then you become public enemy number one. And they use the court system and they use the children as pawns and whatever means they can take.

And what I tell people is that their limbic system then actually takes over and it shuts down the neocortex part of the brain at that point and they're no longer dealing with rational or reasonable. They're literally dealing with a two-year-old in an adult body at that point.

The narcissist is always a two-year-old in an adult body.

I don't think a narcissist is ever rational, actually.

No, no.

But what I think judges need to understand, mediators need to understand, people in the court system needs to understand, is that, you know, when you're sitting across from this person in a negotiation, they're not interested in, let's come to a rational, reasonable conclusion, let's save fees, let's do what the right thing for the children, or anything like that.

They're looking at I want to. I mean, when I was still practicing law, I mean, obviously I do this full time now, but when I was still practicing law, I would have narcissists for clients and they would say, I'd rather pay you than her.

And I would be like, well, I don't, I'm sick of you too. I don't want that. I don't want to be done with this.

But that's really what they will do. And they will self-sabotage. They will self-sabotage.

And that's the scary thing.

That's the scary thing.

They don't perceive it as self-sabotage.

Their top priority is to restore their sense of grandiosity.

Grandiosity is a cognitive distortion. It's a misperception of reality. It's an inflated, fantastic self-image and self-perception, which hides, camouflages, disguises a very brittle and fragile core, or lack of core, absent core.

So the narcissist values his grandiosity or her grandiosity more than anything else.

More than anything else.

And from the narcissist's point of view, it's an absolutely rational behavior.

Because protecting, defending the grandiosity, restoring it, reinstating it, demonstrating it visibly, ostentatiously, one upmanship, winning, recasting the enemy as evil and decrepit and corrupt in the eyes of the world, thereby elevating the narcissists morally.

All these have to do with grandiosity.

The minute the shared fantasy is over, the narcissistic grandiosity is damaged, is hurt.

And there is a processinjury, and in rare cases, narcissistic mortification.

The vast majority of divorce cases involve narcissistic mortification.

Narcissistic mortification is an injury to the grandiose inflated fantastic self-image that is rendered public, that becomes known to a larger circle of people.

So then it involves humiliation and shame.

Narcissism is widely considered a defense against shame.

The child is ashamed. The child is abused and traumatized and something. There's a lot of shame there.

And the narcissist is defending against this shame.

And when the narcissist is dumped or discarded, or when the shared fantasy collapses or whatever, it's a failure. Of course, it's a defeat.

The clinical term is collapse.

And then the narcissist feels ashamed, humiliated. And he needs to restore his godlike, unblemished, perfect self-image. And he needs to convince other people of that because he is reliant on input from the environment.

He doesn't do internal regulation. He regulates his internal world from the outside.

That is narcissistic supply.

So it's not enough for the narcissist to say, I know that I'm the good person, and I know that my wife is the evil, horrible, B.

That's not enough. He needs other people to tell him, you are right. You have convinced us. She is truly evil, and you are the victim.

He needs this. That's why the smear campaigns, that's why the intransigence, that's why the apparent irrationality, self-sacrificial sometimes, because he can give up on money, he can give up on power, he can give up on sex, he can give up on his own, on his freedom. He will go to prison, but he can never, ever give up on his grandiosity.

Without his grandiosity, he is non-existent. There is no core. There's an absence there.

Yes, it's a fragile, fragile ego.

But, you know, I do always say they are more afraid of you than you are of them.

So the stronger that the other person becomes, the more afraid that they get.

And so when they do create that leverage, that threatens that what I call diamond level supply, you're calling primary source of supply, which is their image.

No, no, I have high-grade supply. It's the same like for diamond.

High-grade supply, that's the key.

That's the key.

Yes, but it's important to understand that they are not afraid of you for reasons that you would comprehend.

They're not afraid of you because you could damage the immobile. They're afraid of you because you can take away their grandiosity. You can humiliate them, you can shame them into having to face themselves in the mirror.

They are exceedingly delusional, again to the point that many scholars, many prominent scholars like Kernberg and less prominent scholars, like Vaknin, think that narcissism is actually a form of psychosis. It's so delusional, so sick.

So if you were to expose the narcissists confabulations, prevarications, fantasies, self-invented biography, if you were to expose the narcissist, reveal who it truly is, the wizard of Oz, essentially, behind the curtain, the narcissist is defending the curtain. It's the curtain that the narcissist is defending.

Exactly what I always say.

And he's terrified that you will pull away the curtain.

He's not terrified that you will take away his money or you will put him in prison. Yes, of course, that's unpleasant.

But his terror is that it will become known who he truly is. Not a giant, but a midget.

That is what I say all the time.

It's exactly, and it's the only way that you will be able to get them to get rid, to cut that source of supply from you.

Theonly way.

If you legally, of course, are capable of exposing the narcissists for what he is and who he is, there's no greater threat as far as he's concerned.

He would do anything. He would compromise. He would give you everything. He would just to prevent this from happening. He would become aggressive. Initially would become aggressive and vindictive and maybe even violent and so on.

But when he sees that it's not working, he will suddenly, it's a bully.

He's a bully. He's a bully. And when you figure out, under percent.

And whenever I'm helping people in these negotiations, and they say, I'm still not out of it. I always say you haven't figured out a way to threaten that source of diamond level supply yet, because when you figure that out, he or she will be done. You'll be done.

How do we cope with bullies?

It's a very bad idea to communicate with a bully, to compromise with a bully, to negotiate with the bully, extremely bad idea.

The only way is power, force.

There's not a way. The only way.

And I tell people, I know it feels uncomfortable because you want to, I don't want to fight, I don't want to do this. I want to be done with this peacefully or whatever. I just want what's fair.

You want what's fair? You're dealing with a narcissist? This is the only way.

And I must say that, however, unpalatable it is, I must say that many people, being exposed to the narcissists could be addictive because narcissism brings to the scene a lot of drama, a lot of excitement, a lot of color.

It's a lively life. It's a kind of, you know, a state of excitation and arousal on a constant basis.

It's difficult. It's difficult after you've been with the narcissist.

Some people find potential dates and so on, boring.

So it's difficult. It's difficult to let go of it. I mean, even when you discard the narcissism, break up with the narcissist, it's difficult. Difficult to let go of it.

I mean, even when you discard the narcissism, break up with the narcissist, it's difficult to let go of the narcissists.

Clinically, there are two processes involved in training and interjection. I'm not going to it right now.

The narcissist is inside your head, inside your head, still catering to many of your psychological needs long after he is out of your life physically.

So I think many people are trying to find excuses to stay in touch with the narcissists. Even litigation is a way of staying in touch.

And of course, the famous excuses, I want my child to have a father, for example. That's why the narcissist is in my life. I want my child to have a father.

Or, you know, sometimes I can see the inner child in him, and this child is in need of love.

People come up with the most amazing concoctions just to allow them, however indirectly, to stay in touch with the narcissists.

Because there is an element of addiction in all this.

Definitely. Definitely.

Well, I mean, I think it's, you know, that dopamine cortisol back and forth, right, because they get that dopamine hit when they're love bombing and then there's that cortisol because of the stress hormone. You know, that's what's going on in the victim as well.

And I think that's what causes the trauma bond.

But I think that there's also, to me, they look for vulnerabilities in people, right?

And they know that there's that opening because, you know, you mentioned the Wizard of Oz. I think the Wizard of Oz is all around such a perfect analogy for everything, narcissism, right?

Because I think that the narcissist is that wizard behind the curtain and really just that weak little fragile ego behind the curtain.

I also think that they look for people who are easy victims, right?

You know, not to say that, you know, I think that people who are empaths and who end up in these relationships are usually good people, people of high value.

But I also think if you think of Glinda the Good Witch, right, who was like, knew who she was, who is very, stood in her power. She was obviously, remember at the beginning of the movie where the wicked witch came near her and she flicked her away and she was like, go away, you have no power here. Remember that?

And the wicked witch was like, oh my God, I'm not going near her. She was like, please, please lady.

And I think that that's a very good analogy for narcissists, because narcissists do not go near people who know who they are. And they don't prey upon that, right?

I think they look for people who are going to be good sources of supply.

This is where I would beg to differ.

First of all, empath is not a clinical term. I regard it as a self-aggrandizing term. I regard it as a form of narcissism.

I fully believe that many of the people self-identifying as empath are actually covert narcissists.

So we'll put it aside. It definitely has not placed in an academic discourse.

But let's say empathic people.

By now we have a substantial body of studies on victims of narcissistic abuse and so on. We fail to find this.

We have not found any common denomination.

There were strong women. Most of the victims are women. That's still a fact.

There were strong women and weaker women. There were broken women and fully integrated women. They were educated women and less educated women. There were rich victims and poor victims.

We found, despite well over 25 years of efforts, we failed to find a single common denominator.

Definitely, when it comes to a personality organization, in other words, more empathic, less empathic, more kind, more dark, more narcissists seem to have, they're promiscuous in the sense that they seem to have no preference.

Availability is a major factor. That's the only factor that we did find in dozens of studies.

If the person is available to participate, then the narcissist is all over that person.

Now, it's probably true that a person would be available to participate in the narcissist's shared fantasy because she is vulnerable or is vulnerable at that point in time.

So that person may have undergone a life crisis maybe. A divorce, something, and the narcissist is the answer.

So there could be transient vulnerabilities that are the outcomes of circumstances, life circumstances, life crisis.

However, there is no type that I insist on this, all the academic studies and my experience, there is no type.

It is not true that the narcissists prefer weaker people, more empathic people, more kind people, more generous people. I regard all this as a form of self-aggrandizement by the victims.

The victims want to believe that they're special, they're nice, they're empathic, they're kind, they're generous, when actually they are a cross-cut of the general population.

Some of them are nice. Some of them are very not nice. Some of them are empathic, some of them are totally disempathic. Some of them are psychopaths. Many of them are very not nice. Some of them are empathic. Some of them are totally disempathic. Some of them are psychopaths. Many of them are narcissists.

I don't think that there is, regrettably, online organized competitive victimhood, which I find to be very destructive to real victims.

And this competitive victimhood is, as I said, self-inflating and self-aggrandizing. It is entitled. It is very reminiscent of narcissism. It is splitting.

These people split. The narcissist is all bad, is demonic, and I'm angelic, I'm impeccable and blameless, blemishless.

You could see all the hallmarks of narcissism among these self-proclaimed victims.

And I'm very, very, very much against this phenomenon. It is not grounded in reality, of the reality that we could find in psychology. And it is definitely strongly indicative of narcissistic traits or narcissistic personality style, if not full-fledged disorder, in many, many of these victims.

So I'm not denying.

How can I deny? I was the first to describe narcissistic abuse. Let's not forget that I'm the father of this.

So I'm not denying that they are real victims. I'm just denying the assumption that the real victims are online and that the victims we see online, the self-proclaimed victims that we see online are the real victims. I'm denying that completely.

I mean, I've certainly seen a lot of victims that are men, though, as well.

Men as well, of course.

And you've written a lot as well on how leaders can attract movements of people into their, you know, and attract victims that way, right, who are narcissists.

And there's CEOs who can attract victims who are narcissists.

I think people who are particularly charismatic or I don't know if it's the leaders themselves or if it's the people who are susceptible, but they attract masses of people.

And I know that you've written about that recently.

I'm trying to be delicate about this because I try not to get into politics, but I know that you've touched on this recently. And I wanted to just see what your thoughts are.

How do these leaders, whether they're CEOs, whether they're politicians, attract masses of people?

Whereas it's incorrect to say that there is a type that the narcissist is attracted to, or that is attracted to the narcissists, that is incorrect.

It is very correct to say that narcissists gravitate to highly specific professions.

So, for example, we find five times more psychopaths among chief executive officers of Fortune 500 companies, five times more than the general population.

Wow. It's amazing.

We find a preponderance of narcissists in specific professions that have been studies, for example, of rock stars and media figures, show business figures and so on so forth. We find a high representation of narcissists.

Of course, we all know that psychopaths and narcissists are overrepresented in the prison population. That is the work of Robert Hare and Babiak and others.

So it is true to say that there are enclaves and professions where narcissists are overrepresented.

You know, when the narcissist, why do narcissists gravitate there?

Because they can obtain supply.

It's all about supply.

Of course.

Narcissist is charismatic because the narcissist says as a political leader.

Because the narcissist says basically three things.

Number one, you do not need to think, you do not need to take responsibility, you do not need to be accountable, you do not need to do anything, I'll do everything for you.

That's a great relief, isn't it?

Jean-Paul Sartre, the father of existentialism, suggested that it is the need to choose, the need to decide that creates anxiety.

And so when someone takes this away from you and tells you, you don't need to decide anymore, I'll make all the decisions for you. It's a huge relief.

Number two, the charismatic leader tells you, you're perfect. He idealizes you. He tells you you're wonderful. You have no flaws. You deserve me because I'm perfect. I'm perfect. And since I chose you as my follower, that means you're perfect.

This is a process known as co-idealization.

When the narcissist idealizes you, what is he saying? He's saying, you're perfect. You're amazing. You're this and that. And that makes me perfect because I own you. You're mine. So that means I'm perfect.

So this is co-idealization. So this is the second element.

And the third element, the political leader creates a shared fantasy. He says, the future is going to be much better than the present. If you follow me, the future will be amazing, fascinating.

So these are the three irresistible offerings.

You know, just follow me. You don't need to make any decisions. You're perfect. You're flawless. And I'm leading you into an amazing, incredible future. Whereas your present sucks.

These are the messaging.

In a way, this is what the Narcissus does with his spouse, with his children, in the shared fantasy known as the Narcissus family. It's a cult. This is a cult mentality.

He creates a cult.

Yeah, of course.

But, you know, they're constantly gaslighting them. And then, you know, they say things that are, you know, they're constantly lying and saying one thing and doing others, right?

Actually, studies show that they do not gaslight and do not lie.

What they do, however, they mislead you.

That part is true. They mislead you greatly by making promises that they never keep. By introducing you into a fantasy and taking you away from reality, they mislead you horribly.

But they believe their own confabulations. They believe their own stories and they believe their own promises.

Psychopaths lie and gaslighting. Gaslighting is premeditated, is intentional. And the person who gaslights maintains reality testing. The person who gaslights you knows that he's gaslighting. He knows that this is a fantasy, a story of a piece of fiction.

The narcissist doesn't. He's really into it. He believes his own story, his own piece of fiction, his own theater production.

So they believe that it's like it's not a lie if you believe it?

It's misleading. If you believe that what you're saying is true, then yes, it's not a lie, of course. It doesn't sit with a definition of a lie.

But they don't ever keep those promises.

They don't keep their promises because of the dynamic of the shared fantasy.

But when they make the promise, they 100% believe they're going to keep it.

They do not future fake.

People confuse narcissists with psychopaths.

Narcissists are delusional. They're mentally ill, seriously mentally ill.

Like you would not blame a psychotic person for saying, here's a giraffe standing in the living room. And he fully believes there's a giraffe standing in the living room. You won't say he's lying. He's lying. There's no giraffe there. He's mentally ill.

But that's why they don't want to be held accountable.

So accountability is a different issue. Your lawyer, you know it better than I.

But the narcissist, when he makes an utterance, when he makes a statement, fully believes in it. Fully believes in it, whereas the psychopath knows his life, he knows he's lying.

And of course, there are many narcissists who are psychopaths, which creates this confusion.

But it's important to reconceive of the narcissist as someone who is not in control of his mind. He is as sick as a psychotic. Psychotic has hallucinations. A psychotic hears voices. A psychotic believes crazy things.

You know, same with the narcissist. If the narcissist tells you, are we going to get married, we're going to have three children, and we're going to have live happily ever after. When he tells you this, when he's telling you this, he believes it 100%. He's committed to it 100%.

And this is why a person who is getting out of this relationship, I tell them constantly they needthis invisible shield down around themselves and start looking at this person as if they are observing them, observe, don't absorb, respond, don't react, and just start saying, you know, you need to look at this person as if they're a toddler having a tantrum on the floor and, and, and, and, and, and, um, distance yourself from this person because very true.

They are mentally ill, basically.

They're mentally ill, that's the issue.

As if they have autism or whatever, right?

The best example is a psychotic because a psychotic also comes up with an alternative, alternate reality. And the psychotic is convinced of that reality. He tells you what are you talking about? There is a giraffe in the living room. Can't you see it? And the giraffe is talking to me. Can't you hear it? And the psychotic gets really pissed off if you say no. He thinks you're manipulating him.

It's the same with the narcissism.

Today we are reconceiving of narcissism in three ways.

Number one, it's a post-traumatic condition. So it's a CPTSD reaction.

Number two, the narcissist is a toddler. A toddler, that's why therapy fails with the narcissists, because therapy is for adults, not for toddler. We need to use child psychology.

And number three, narcissists are really, really, really mentally ill.

The great Otto Kernberg thought and suggested that narcissism is a form of schizophrenia, that it is as bad as schizophrenia, which is the worst mental illness we know.

I agree. Narcissism is as bad as schizophrenia it's horrible it's a narcissist is no longer with us is not in reality.

Now the thing is that narcissists have learned to simulate people, simulate adults, so they appear to be adults. They are good at their jobs. They are, you know, they are eloquent, they are knowledgeable. And this simulation works wonders.

And then we get pissed off of them. We get angry.

And you're right. I'm not contesting that they mislead you all the time. 100% of the time.

It's just not premeditated.

That's a difference.

And they don't know the difference between reality and the bullshit they're selling you.

They don't.

So you have to take a strategic approach. You have to distance yourself, you have to get out of this relationship and start taking steps to start documenting, start doing what you need to do to expose them so that you can get out of the relationship and not expect that they will ever be able to be rehabilitated.

I agree. I've never tried to imply during this conversation that narcissists are not dangerous, they're exceedingly dangerous. I never try to say that they the impact their impact on you is benign.

It's not benign. It's malignant.

I'm just saying if you want to cope with the narcissist efficaciously, you need to understand that you're dealing with a mentally ill person who has severe difficulty to tell apart reality and fantasy and is very protective of his fantasy of his godlike fantasy and you need to have this key to the narcissist's mind.

When you're dealing with a psychopath, the psychopath is rational. Psychopath is goal-oriented. You know? He can negotiate. He often compromises. He makes deals. He's a deal-maker, you know, psychopaths. They are coercive. They're violent. They're aggressive. They're unpleasant. They're defiant. They're reckless.

I agree. But at least they are understandable. they're unpleasant, they're defiant, they're reckless, I agree, but at least they are understandable, they're comprehensible.

The narcissist lives in his own world, on his own planet. It's like the little prince, you know, and you need, if you want to survive the narcissist, you need to visit his planet.

Pretending that the narcissist is merely a malevolent adult will not get you very far because he's not an adult and he's not malevolent. He's just as a bad influence. He's destructive, but it's not malice like the psychopath.

Psychopath is malicious.

Of course, as I keep saying, and I said here, many narcissists are also psychopaths.

It's not that I'm saying that the two are totally, many narcissists are also psychics.

Right, or borderline.

Or borderlines.

About 40% of narcissists are comorbid.

So they are borderline and psych, and by the way, borderline today, we are reconceiving of borderline personality disorder.

Right.

Or bipolar.

Or by-poly. Right.

Or I've seen bipolar as well.

Well, bipolar is wrong. Bipolar is a mood disorder. It's not to do with borderline.

But borderline personality disorder today we know when the borderline is exposed to stress, to anxiety, to tension, to abandonment, real or imagined, the borderline becomes psychopathy, secondary psychopathic. She becomes highly psychopathic.

So whichever way you look, you end up with an antisocial creature, somewhat psychopathic.

Right.

So, you know, one of the things that I think is that they very often, and I see this played out in history as well, I certainly see it in negotiations.

And I think, you know, even based on some of the writings that you've talked about recently, you've talked about some of these leaders and, you know, you've mentioned some of the recent leaders in history.

I think if you look at Napoleon, you look at Hitler, I think that narcissists end up overplaying their hand. They end up self-destructing because they make critical mistakes that end up leading to their downfall and they end up overplaying their hand and they end up causing their own destruction because of overplaying their hand.

What do you think about that?

Totally agree. Here there's no debate with us.

But it goes to show that they don't perceive reality correctly. It's exactly proof of what I've been saying.

Because the narcissist misperceives reality and himself in reality. He's grandiose about himself, and he lives in fantasy. He makes mistakes. He overplays his hand. He underestimates the enemy. He misreadsemotional cues, sexual cues, exactly like people with autism.

The narcissist is very bad with social behavior.

Narcissus is something that I dubbed called empathy. It's a combination of cognitive and reflexive empathy.

So they can scan you for vulnerabilities when they're negotiating with you or anything. They can scan you for vulnerabilities and leverage this to some extent.

But their inflated fantastic self-perception is such. They're so godlike. They're so all-powerful, omnipotent, omniscient, they know everything, can teach them nothing, they can learn nothing, that ultimately, they're so stupid.

If I have to use one word, narcissists are dumb, seriously dumb. They may be knowledgeable. They may be intelligent. For example, look at me, but they're dumb.

I always say about myself, by the way, that I'm probably the dumbest person I ever met. I am super knowledgeable. I think I'm intelligence. But I'm dumb.

Why am I dumb?

Because I don't gauge reality properly. Because I don't learn. Because I don't evolve. Because I don't evaluate people. Appraise them correctly. Because I misbehave as if there were no consequences to my actions.

These are great definitions of being dumb.

And also, it's a dumb, simply, because they are immersed in fantasy. And they refuse to have anything to do with reality because reality flies in the face of their grandiosity.

Reality challenges and undermines the thing that is most precious to the narcissist, his self-perception and self-image, is perfect, a perfect entity, divine.

Yeah, I mean, I've seen them lie even when they don't have to lie about things that they don't even need to lie about.

I mean, it doesn't even make any sense.

It's part of the fantasy. The fantasy is largely superfluous.

The irony is between you and me, a narcissist could find a partner, for example, an intimate partner, without the fantasy. There's no need for the fantasy. It's utterly unnecessary.

Many of the things a narcissist does, many of them are unnecessary, and they are responsive or reactive to internal dynamics. They have nothing to do with the outside, with other people, with reality, with circumstances, with the environment, with demands or expectations.

He is not responsive to the world. He's responsive to what's happening inside him.

So many of the things he does, many of the choices, many of the decisions, many of the work, many of the statements he makes, many of them appear to be totally superfluous and self-destructive. And self-defeating. None of this is needed.

Many narcissists are good-looking. They are, you know, wealthy, they are even famous or they are knowledgeable and intelligent, captivating, lively. They don't need the fantasy.

And yet they would impose the fantasy on you, mislead you, hurt you, break your heart, you know, because they can't help it.

And this is what we call in psychology compulsion. Narcissists are compulsive. They can't help it. You can't help compulsion. I mean, you can't treat it, but you can't help it. It's beyond your control. They're out of control.

The irony. Narcissists are all about control. They want to control you. They want to control the kids. They want to control the workplace. They're all about the control freaks. They're hysterical about control.

The reason is they're out of control. There's no self-control.

So if you would give anybody one last piece of advice, what would you say?

Your gut knows best.

It's been documented since 1970, it's been documented that we have a reaction to narcissists, which is immediate.

This reaction is known as uncanny valley reaction.

When we come across narcissists and psychopaths, there's a tiny voice inside us that says something is wrong. Something is awry. Something is off-key. It's too good. It's crazy. It's something.

You have a gut instinct, you have an intuition that tells you, this person you're faced with is not well put together, is half-baked, not full-fledged human. Some modules are missing, like empathy, like positive emotions, like treating other people nicely, kindness, you know, some modules are missing.

And this is within the first few seconds.

Uncanny Valley has been documented in various studies, in Japan, started in Japan. It's been documented within less than seven seconds, fewer than seven seconds.

So trust your instinct. Trust your intuition. Listen to yourself. Shut off, shut out the world. Ignore him or her. Listen to yourself. What's the voice here is telling you? And if you have the slightest doubt, disengage.

Don't let your loneliness and neediness dictate your mate selection or choices. Just disengage and walk away. It's much cheaper that way in the long run.

I think very good advice, very good advice.

This has been such an amazing conversation, so helpful and so insightful, so brilliant.

I hope you don't mind that we disagreed on some things.

That is the essence of a good dialogue.

I think it's absolutely fantastic. I absolutely love that.

And here's one thing. Academe changes all the time, and it changes by absorbing input from people in the field.

I may say completely different things 10 years from now. I may be saying completely different things 10 years from now. I may be saying completely different things.

There will be new studies, new discoveries, and so.

Right now, this is the state of the art.

The state of the art changes month by month.

I think it's really, really fascinating. I love reading your work and listening to what you have to say.

So thank you for having this conversation with me.

Thank you. I enjoyed. I enjoy you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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