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Narcissists Rule: Narcissist in Positions of Authority

Uploaded 4/14/2011, approx. 3 minute read

My name is Sam Vaknin, I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited.

I am the author of Malignant Self-Love and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love as well as a or even paranoid fears which lead to obsessive compulsive behaviors and so on.

So to secure their continued collaboration in the procurement of his much-needed supply, the narcissist might resort to emotional extortion, straight blackmail, abuse or misuse of his authority over them.

The temptation to do so is universal.

No doctor is immune to the charms of certain female patients, nor are university professors asexual.

What prevents them from immorally, cynically, callously and consistently abusing their position are ethical imperatives embedded in them through the process of socialization, through the faculty of empathy.

They learn the difference between right and wrong, and having internalized this difference they choose right when they face a moral dilemma.

They empathize with other human beings, putting themselves in their shoes, and they refrain from doing unto others what they do not wish to be done to them.

This is the normal way of the world.

But at these two crucial points, the narcissist differs from other humans.

The narcissist's socialization process, usually the product of problematic early relationships with primary objects such as parents, caregivers or role models, the socialization process is often perturbed and results in social dysfunction.

Narcissists are incapable of empathizing.

Humans are there only to supply them with narcissistic supply.

Those unfortunate people who do not comply with this overriding dictum must be made to alter their ways, and if even this fails, the narcissist loses interest in them altogether and they are classified as stupid subhuman animals, service providers, function, symbols and worse.

Hence the abrupt shifts from overvaluation, idealization of people, to devaluation while bearing the gifts of narcissistic supply, the other is idealized by the narcissist.

Narcissist shifts however to the opposite point, devaluation, contempt, disdain, when narcissistic supply dries up or when he estimates that it is about to.

Then after a phase of devaluation, he discards, becomes indifferent and apathetic.

As far as the narcissist is concerned, there is no moral dimension to abusing others, even if they are only pragmatic dimensions.

Narcissists ask themselves, will I be punished for abusing, exploiting others?

If punishment is not forthcoming, the narcissist feels free to do as he wishes.

In this sense, the vast majority of narcissists have psychopathic, antisocial traits.

Narcissist is atavistically responsive to fear and lacks any in-depth understanding of what it is to be a human being.

Trapped in his pathology, the narcissist resembles an alien on drugs, a junkie of narcissistic supply, devoid of the kind of language which renders human emotions intelligible.

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Narcissist Never Sorry

Narcissists sometimes feel bad and experience depressive episodes and dysphoric moods, but they have a diminished capacity to empathize and rarely feel sorry for what they have done or for their victims. They often project their own emotions and actions onto others and attribute to others what they hate in themselves. When confronted with major crises, the narcissist experiences real excruciating pain, but this is only a fleeting moment, and they recover their former self and embark on a new hunt for narcissistic supply. They are hunters, predators, and their victims are prey.


How Narcissist's Victims Deceive Themselves

Narcissists cannot be cured and are a threat to those around them. Victims of narcissists often confuse shame with guilt and attribute remorsefulness to the narcissist when they are actually feeling shame for failing. Narcissists are attracted to vulnerable people who offer them a secure source of narcissistic supply. Healing is dependent on a sense of security in a relationship, but the narcissist is not interested in healing and would rather invest their energy in obtaining narcissistic supply. Narcissists lack empathy and cannot understand others, making them a danger to those around them.


Narcissists Have Emotions

Narcissists do have emotions, but they tend to repress them so deeply that they play no conscious role in their lives or conduct. The narcissist's positive emotions come bundled with very negative ones, and they become phobic of feeling anything lest it be accompanied by negative emotions. The narcissist is reduced to experiencing down-steerings in their soul that they identify to themselves and to others as emotions. Narcissists are not envious of others for having emotions, they disdain feelings and sentimental people because they find them to be weak and vulnerable.


Narcissist Grooms Sources of Narcissistic Supply: Exploits Tragedy, Crisis, and Misfortune

Narcissists are callous and ruthless enough to exploit the tragedy of others. They are obsessed with the maintenance of their delicate inner balance through the ever-increasing consumption of narcissistic supply. The narcissist regards and treats his sources of narcissistic supply as full-fledged human beings, but only as long as they can provide him with what he needs. The narcissist always evaluates the victims of tragedies to see if they can become sources of supply or can be used as props in the theater of his life.


Your Empathy as Narcissistic Injury: Narcissist Never Learns, No Insight

Narcissists reject empathy and intimacy because it challenges their grandiosity, and they become paranoid and aggressive when someone tries to be intimate with them. Narcissists lack empathy and access to positive emotions, leading to a truncated version of empathy called "cold empathy." Narcissists are self-aware but lack the incentive to get rid of their narcissism, and therapy is more focused on accommodating the needs of the narcissist's nearest and dearest. Cold Therapy is experimental and limited, as it removes the false self but does not develop empathy or improve the narcissist's interpersonal relationships.


Narcissist Has No Friends

Narcissists treat their friends like Watson and Hastings, who are obsequious and unthreatening, and provide them with an adulating gallery. Narcissists cannot empathize or love, and therefore have no real friends. They are interested in securing narcissistic supply from narcissistic supply sources. The narcissist overvalues people when they are judged to be potential sources of supply, and devalues them when no longer able to supply him, ultimately leading to the alienation and distancing of people.


Remain Friends with the Narcissist?

Narcissists are only friendly when they need something from you, such as narcissistic supply, help, support, votes, money, or sex. They also become friendly when they feel threatened and want to smother the threat with pleasantries. Narcissists are also over-friendly when they have just been infused with an overdose of narcissistic supply. Some people prefer to live with narcissists because they have been conditioned to treat narcissistic abuse as background noise and are compensated for the abuse by the thrills provided by living with a narcissist. However, inverted narcissists are typically unhappy and in need of help, which suggests that they are victims who experience the Stockholm Syndrome.


Predator Narcissist: YOU are the Prey!

Narcissists have the ability to see through other people's emotional shields and know when they are deviating from the truth. They can intuitively grasp other people's self-interested goals and accurately predict their strategies and tactics. Narcissists can't stand self-important, self-inflated, pompous, vigorous, self-righteous, sanctimonious, and hypocritical people because they recognize themselves in them. They expose people's vulnerabilities and force them to confront their true selves, their dead-end careers, their mundane lives, the death of their hopes and dreams and wishes, their shattered illusions.


Narcissist: Your Pain is his Healing, Your Crucifixion - His Resurrection

Narcissists need their victims to suffer to regulate their own emotions and feel a sense of control. They keep a mental ledger of positive and negative behaviors, with negative behaviors weighing more heavily. Narcissists need counterfactual statements to maintain their delusion of being special and superior. The grandiosity gap is the major vulnerability of the narcissist, and they are often in denial about their limitations and failures.


The Signs of the Narcissist

Narcissists are difficult to spot, but there are subtle signs that can be picked up on, such as entitlement markers, idealization and devaluation, and a lack of empathy. Narcissists are often perceived as anti-social and are unable to secure the sympathy of others. They are also prone to projecting a false self and using primitive defense mechanisms such as splitting, projection, projective identification, and intellectualization.

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