Today we are going to discuss another aspect of malignant narcissism.
Just to remind you, the malignant narcissist is a delectable combination of narcissism, psychopathy and sadism.
In short, it is someone you would like to marry and have children with.
And as you may recall, those of you have been around long enough, I've discussed various aspects and dimensions of malignant narcissism in previous videos, some of them very recent.
I mentioned, for example, that there are three types of malignant narcissists, the grandiose malignant narcissists, the covert malignant narcissists, and the borderline malignant narcissists.
Now these parallel another classification.
Otto Kernberg and others have discussed high functioning malignant narcissists and low functioning or passive malignant narcissists.
And here is the map, what corresponds to what?
The grandiose malignant narcissist is a high functioning narcissist.
The covert malignant narcissist is a pro-social, communal malignant narcissist, which is the topic of today's video.
And the low functioning malignant narcissist is also known as the borderline malignant narcissist.
Well, now what's the difference between all these types, subtypes, subspecies, variants?
It begins to resemble the COVID-19 virus.
So what are the differences?
Well, a low functioning malignant narcissist, aka borderline malignant narcissist, is utterly dysfunctional.
This kind of person is unable to be efficacious, unable to act and to guarantee outcomes in any field of his life.
He is unable to generate any results professionally, is unable to work regularly in a workplace, is unable to maintain interpersonal relationships, especially intimate and romantic relationships.
So this is a low-functioning narcissist. A bloody mess. Total chaos in all arenas of life. Someone who goes through life, leaving in his wake, disappointed, broken, damaged people, institutions, frustrated hopes, and tamped down expectations.
The high-functioning malignant narcissist is professionally functional. He is very successful at the workplace.
But he is interpersonally dysfunctional. He cannot maintain relationships in the long term. He fears intimacy. He is unable to engage in secure attachment.
In other words, he has an insecure attachment style. And he keeps ruining one relationship after another, something that the beloved Sigmund Freud called a repetition compulsion.
So these are the first two types.
The low functioning borderline malignant narcissists, good for nothing.
The high functioning malignant narcissists, great at his job, sucks at his relationships.
But there's a third type, the covert malignant narcissist, also known as the prosocial or communal malignant narcissist.
Now in low functioning malignant narcissism, human contact of any kind from shopping to dating triggers the sadistic element in malignant narcissism.
I'm going to repeat this because this is very crucial for the continuation of this video.
With the low functioning borderline narcissist, sadism is triggered each and every time this kind of person comes in contact with another human being.
The presence of human being, their speech, their actions somehow exude an emanation, which hasn't been captured in any laboratory, but this emanation, whatever it may be, triggers the low-functioning narcissists.
He becomes emotionally disregulated, in other words, he becomes becomes borderline and he becomes exceedingly sadistic.
And so this the low functioning narcissist malignant narcissism sadism is triggered by exposure to human beings and the low functioning malignantists justifies his sadism by holding all people in grandiose contempt and haughtiness.
He regards all people as inferior, stupid, deserving of their fate. They had it coming. They should have protected themselves better. They're idiots.
And so, no big loss.
Sadism of the low-functioning malignant narcissists is embedded in an ideology of contempt.
Over time, the cumulative adverse outcomes of such behavior or misbehavior are such that the malignant narcissists gradually drifts towards withdrawal and avoidance. He adopts schizoid behaviors.
In other words, the low-functioning malignant narcissists, the borderline malignant narcissists becomes sadistic whenever he's in touch with other people, never mind the setting, never mind the framework, never mind the reason for being in touch with other people. Whenever he's in touch with other people, he becomes sadistic.
And of course, other people react. There's payback, there's backlash, there's punishment, there's karma.
And so this kind of low functioning malignant narcissists at some point begins to avoid other people, to withdraw from social interactions, to isolate himself, to become hermetically sealed in his own bubble of existence. He gradually drifts away.
This is known as schizoid behaviors. Schizoid behaviors also allow the low functioning borderline malignant narcissists to preserve egosyntony via alloplastic defenses.
Now there's a very fancy way of saying that when the low functioning borderline malignant narcissists withdraws from other people, avoids other people, he tells himself that he is doing it because other people are wicked. Other people are evil. Other people are dumb. Other people don't deserve his presence, his contributions, his involvement.
And so he says to himself, I should not waste my precious time and towering intellect on other people. I should better be alone.
Gradually, the low functioning borderline malignant narcissists begins to self-supply. In other words, his narcissistic supply emanates from the inside rather than from the outside, and this kind of person becomes more and more psychotic, as Kernberg had observed in his work on the borderline between psychosis and neurosis, low-function, borderline, malignant narcissists, end up being schizoid behaviorally, avoidant and withdrawing, but also highly emotionally dysregulated, subject to mood disorders, and ultimately pseudo-psychotic.
They have brief psychotic micro-episodes because the stress breaks them apart. They disintegrate, or more clinically speaking, they decompensate.
So this is the low-functioning, borderline malignant narcissists.
The high functioning malignant narcissists we have discussed in the previous video. There are links in the description.
And today I want to dedicate time to the third type, the covert malignant narcissists, also known as the prosocial or communal malignant narcissists, also known as the prosocial or communal malignant narcissist.
This kind of narcissist, exactly like the high-functioning malignant narcissist, this kind of narcissists functions perfectly professionally.
But as distinct from the high-functioning malignant narcissist, the prosocial and communal malignant narcissists also functions well interpersonally.
So don't confuse the two.
The grandiose, overt, in your face, defined, high-functioning, malignant narcissist, is a superstar in the workplace, in his chosen career, in his job, able to organize and work with teams, and so on so forth, but cannot maintain long-term relationships, intimate relationships, friendship relationships, you name it. He is unable to maintain relationships. He is interpersonally not self-efficacious, whereas the prosocial and communal malignant narcissists is good at both fields, at both areas of life. He is good in the workplace, in his job, in his career, his chosen career, and he is also good in maintaining interpersonal relationships.
So, you would say, if he is so good at everything, why do we attribute to such a person any kind of pathology?
Because the prosocial communal malignant narcissistsmakes a distinction between an in-group and an out-group.
An in-group are people around the malignant narcissists who provide the malignant noxies with narcissistic supply and sadistic supply. These are fans, followers, acolytes, intimate partners, friends, people who form together the pathological narcissistic space of the malignant narcissists. These people are known as the in-group.
And within the in-group, the pro-social communal covert malignant narcissists is able to maintain functional, long-term relationships in the workplace, in his job, with his team, and in intimate relationships. So he's perfectly functional within the in-group.
But the shocking thing and the reason we attribute pathology to this kind of person is that in the out group he becomes psychopathic. In the out group he becomes sadistic.
When this kind of malignant narcissist is forced to interact with people who are not members of the in-group, then he becomes antisocial, violent, aggressive, sadistic, terrifying, monstrous, in short.
And this clear demarcation between in-group and out-group is what sets the prosocial communal malignant narcissists apart.
He identifies the people who are worthy of having relationships with him. The people who deserve his largesse, his magnanimity, his benefaction, his compassion, his affection, his love, so to speak, what he identifies as love, and his commitment and investment.
These kind of people around him, they're the in-group. They never dare to doubt him. They never criticize him. They mirror him the way he wants to see himself. They are unthinking robotic followers and fans and acolytes.
And so within the in-group, he is benevolent, he's benign, he's prosocial, is communal, he is helpful, he's compassionate, he is supportive, he is charitable and he is altruistic within the in-group.
But then, when he comes across someone from the out-group, he is likely to attack viciously, to destroy, to undermine, to challenge. He becomes combative, he becomes belligerent, he becomes hateful, negative affectivity takes over, hatred, envy, rage, anger, and we see a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Dr. Jekyll in the in-group, Mr. Hyde in the out-group.
This is what characterizes charismatic leaders, political leaders, business leaders, or even family leaders.
The formation of the equivalent of a cult. The in-group is a cult. The out-group is the enemy.
I want to read to you an extended excerpt from the work of Otto Kernberg, recent work published in 2020. It's an article title Malignant Narcissism and Large Group Regression, Publishing the Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Volume 89.
Brilliant, as always.
And remember at all times what we were talking about.
The three types of malignant narcissists, the grandiose, overt, high-functioning narcissists, good at his job, sucks at his relationships.
The low-functioning, borderline malignant narcissists can do nothing right, not in relationships, not in his job, not in his career. He sucks, I mean, virtually everything.
And the covert, the covert malignant narcissist, who outwardly is actually a good guy, a nice guy, passionate, compassionate, prosocial, communal, helpful, charitable, altruistic, etc.
But his benevolence, his benignity, his charitability, his altruism are limited to the members of the in-group, the members who adulate him, the members who support him, the members who never criticize him, the members who follow him unthinkingly and unhesitatingly, robotically almost.
These people enjoy his sunshine. Everyone else is the enemy.
We call this dichotomous thinking. Dichotomous thinking is a kind of thinking, black and white, good versus evil, you're with me or you're against me.
And it is founded on a primitive defense mechanism, infantile defense mechanism, known as splitting.
Okay, enough Vaknin, and we go to someone a bit older and much wiser, Otto Kernberg.
He has written this in 2020. I want to explicate one concept in his work.
It's called the second skin. The second skin is a decisive intervention by leadership in order to protect the well-being, security and stability of the group's existence.
I would have used the word firewall, but then I belong to another generation, evidently.
Okay, here we go, Otto Kernberg.
He discusses now charismatic leaders, most of which are malignant, pro-social, communal, covert malignant narcissists.
He says, the leader's narcissistic self-centeredness and grandiosity, his self-assured signaling what he believes the large group should think and do, and his promise for a brilliant future if he is followed, powerfully reassures the members of a regressed large group against the threat of the loss of individual identity, and provides them with a second skin of an idealizing mutual identity of all in identification with the leader.
The reduced cognitive level of functioning, characteristic of large groups, responds positively to simple slogans and cliches that the leader provides them with to confirm their value, uniqueness, importance, and power. Simple slogans replace complex thinking and correspond to the large groups need to feel that they are intimately involved with the thinking of the great leader and understand him completely.
And at a deeper unconscious level, don't need to envy him, because they are one with him. Everybody is equal in the pursuit of simple ideals and in the proper symbolic expression of such ideas.
The well-rationalized aggression against out-groups is fostered by the leaders' direct, crude and sadistic expression of animosity against such out-groups, devaluing and dehumanizing them while declaring the large group that he directs to be selected, ideal, morally justified, superior social group.
Aggressive outbursts against minorities is fostered, welcome, considered heroic and morally admirable, so that freedom to express destructive behavior excites the group and creates a contaminating festive atmosphere.
Kernberg describes how, during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the beating up of professors by revolutionary group in the middle of huge public gatherings contaminated the bystanders, so that massive engagement in physical attack and murder became welcome public spectacle.
The characteristic antisocial features of the leader with malignant narcissism are reflected in practically public dishonest behavior matched with shameless denial of that behavior.
Hitler never acknowledged his clear, indirect instructions to eliminate potentially rivalrous leaders of his SA troops. He never acknowledged publicly nor in writing his instructions for mass murder of the Jewish population under his control, in spite of being the obvious ultimate source of these orders.
Today, by the way, this is known as plausible deniability.
Stalin continues Kernberg. Stalin would invite both privileged followers, whom he to honor Forty at his place, and also those who already had been secretly condemned to be eliminated. This was sufficiently well known in his intimate circle to cause external anxiety in the invitees, which apparently greatly pleased and amused Stalin.
The leaders evident dishonesty, the self-assured expression of lies that may be easily recognized as such by an outside observer and a broader social environment of general community, is perceived by the regressed large group by the in-group as a courageous standing up to conventional truth, daring to say the impossible.
The leader is showing courage in changing his mind at any point and shifting over if necessary to declaring alternative choices of who is the selected enemy at any given moment.
The leaders decidedly assuming moral responsibility promotes a sense of freedom from moral constraints, excitement of moving with a powerful wave of political discontent and strife as it is manipulated from the top and cemented by the suggestibility of the large group.
Repeated attacks, ridiculing and demeaning humiliation of selected enemies reinforced the group's enjoyment of sadistic behavior.
It was the inhumane cruelty of ISIS that exerted an exciting attractiveness to many early international followers.
This is an excellent description and a comprehensive one of the type of interaction between the covert, pro-social, communal malignant narcissists who becomes a charismatic leader and the in-group with which he interacts.
He lets them believe that they are superior, selected, chosen, and therefore they are his natural milieu, and he will never hurt them.
He will never hurt them, because they together, as a team, are going to attack the enemies and eradicate them and obliterate them.
And so, this is the psychology of the social, pro-social communal narcissists.
Another point mentioned by Kernberg is what I call 20 years prior to Kernberg's article, I called it psychopathological resonance.
Kernberg elaborated on this point in 2020, but I was the first to suggest it more than 30 years prior to that.
I suggested that the prosocial communal narcissists, malignant narcissists, actually resonates with similar pathologies in the in group.
In other words, I suggested that membership in the in group is not random, but it is based on a principle of mutual selection.
The members of the in group select the malignant narcissists because they themselves in some ways or in many ways have tendencies to be malignant narcissists. They're sadistic, they're psychopathic, they're antisocial, they're narcissistic, they're grandiose.
So there is a psychopathological resonance.
Psychopathology of the malignant narcissist chosen as a charismatic leader. His facade of prosocibility and communality, all these resonate with identical or similar psychopathologies in his followers, in his acolytes, in his psychophants, in his fans, in people who support him, his supporters.
And so it's not a random situation.
Anyhow, this is the first video I'm making about the prosocial communal narcissists. There will be more to follow.
So I think the prosocial communal malignant narcissists is the biggest threat to the existence of the human species nowadays. It's a big threat.
Whether the prosocial communal malignant narcissist is involved in gender studies or in politics or in show business, wherever pro-social communal malignant narcissist is involved, there is strife, there is division, there is conflict, and ultimately there is self-destruction.