Day two of the flu, and I'm as sick as a rabid dog, but nothing, and I mean nothing, will prevent me from making daily videos just for you.
Even after I'm dead, post-mortem, in the kingdom of heaven, in the afterlife, I will still be making daily videos, channeling myself through ventriloquists and mediums, and worst of all, through YouTube self-styled experts.
Coming to think of it, channeling myself through YouTube self-styled experts should be the easiest, because they have been plagiarizing my content shamelessly for quite a few years now. It would sound familiar to them.
Okay, enough with your flu delusions.
Let's delve right into the topic of today's video.
Self-handicapping is a strategy of narcissists. Sounds like a contradiction in terms, but by the time you finish listening to this video, those of you who have survived will understand self-handicapping is a clinical feature of pathological narcissism.
But first and foremost, what on earth is self-handicapping?
My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited, the first book ever on narcissistic abuse. I am also a professor of clinical psychology. Who has the flu?
Okay, self-handicap.
For example, you are sitting for an exam and at the same time, you are listening to distracting music or to a political speech or to a religious sermon as you're taking the exam. Obviously, this would have adverse outcomes on your ability to complete the exam successfully. And this is known as self-handicapping.
Another example. You're about to undergo a test, could be even a medical test, but you're not preparing for it in any way shape or form, thereby undermining the test's credibility and validity. This is a form of self-handicapping.
Another example. You're about to have a job interview. It's very important to you. You crave the job. You really want it. But then the day before and the night before, you don't sleep, you over drink and you travel from afar to the job interview. Obviously you're not going to make the best impression and this is self-handicapping.
And finally another example and there are hundreds thousands of examples. You're going on a date with a drop-dead gorgeous girl who also happens to be hyper-intelligent. In other words, with a girl you've been idealizing.
So you're going on a first date. You dress badly. You are with poor personal hygiene and you forget your wallet. What's the chances for a second date? Not very high.
This is self-handicapping. Got the picture?
Okay.
Why would the narcissist engage in this kind of behavior, which essentially guarantees failure?
Because the narcissist is terrified of failure. There's a terror of failure. Performance anxiety.
Remember that the narcissist has an internalized bad object, a constellation of introjects, an aggregation of voices, which keep informing the narcissist that he is unworthy, that he's a loser, that he's ugly, that he's stupid, that he cannot get anything right, that he is bad, and so and so forth.
So this is the internalized bad object, and it causes a lot of shame.
And so the narcissist is terrified of failing. Because whenever the narcissist fails, it enhances the internalized bad object. It provides these voices with ammunition and with food and fuel. It fuels this internal monologue which intends to take the narcissist down and destroy him.
And the shame is overwhelming and life-threatening. And there's also a potential for mortification in the case of extreme public failure. The shame, the mortification, the humiliation, and the voices internally which keep informing the narcissist how unworthy he is, this conspire and the narcissist becomes terrified of failure, any failure, the smallest failure.
So when you're afraid of failure, what strategies can you adopt inthe chances of failure?
Well, firststrategy is to prepare yourself, to be well prepared, to invest in yourself, to be committed to the task, become committed to the task or to the assignment.
Sorry, flu.
become committed to the task or to the assignment.
And so this is the first strategy.
But there's another strategy, self-handicapping. We'll come to it a bit later.
Self-handicapping guarantees that even if you were to fail, it would not be perceived as failure. Again, I'll discuss it in a minute.
The next thing you need to understand is that ambiguity makes it easier to be grandiose.
In an environment which is totally clear where success and failure reflect one's innate ability, in such an environment, it's very difficult for the narcissists to self-deceive. Very difficult to uphold the inflated, grandiose fantasy of the self.
In order to lie to himself convincingly about his capacity, abilities, traits, superiority, God-like features, in order to lie to himself about all these repeatedly, the narcissist needs to create in his environment ambiguity, disorientation, fuzziness.
It's much easier to be grandiose, it's much easier to dwell in fantasy when reality itself is so obscure and when it is so unclear that it is reminiscent of a fantasy.
Grandiosity is a cognitive distortion. It's an inability to perceive or to gauge reality appropriately. It involves an impaired reality testing and a strong element of fantasy.
And all these survive much better in a dreamscape than in reality itself. The more sharply honed realities, the more demarcated and delineated, the more clear, the more unequivocal, the more unambiguous, the more difficult it is for the narcissists to tell himself these self-deceiving narratives and to convince himself of the veracity of these fantasies.
So this is point number two.
Remember?
Point number one, fear of failure, terror of failure.
Point number two, preference for ambiguity.
So, self-handicapping is often misperceived as a form of self-destructiveness and self-defeat, as a kind of self-defeating behavior.
But actually, it's not.
In the case of narcissism, self-handicapping is ego-congruent and egosyntonic.
In other words, it makes a narcissist feel good, feel comfortable with himself. It allows a narcissist to sustain and maintain and buttresshis self-perception as Godlike.
Self-handicapping is a crucial strategy in the repertory of the maintenance of the narcissist's view of himself and sense of self.
Albeit, remember, there is no coherent, constellated, integrated self or ego in narcissism. Still, the narcissist does experience himself.
Self-handicapping, therefore, is not self-destructiveness, is not self-defeat in the case of narcissism. It's on the contrary. It is a form of control. It's a form of mastery.
Control and mastery of what? Of failure.
If you try something, if you're engaged in a task, if you're hell-bent on an assignment, if you manage a project or are involved in one, if you set yourself a goal, if you are looking to accomplish and achieve things, there is a potential for failure.
And when failure is terrified, one of the ways to cope with it, to reframe it, is self-handicapping.
Because when you self-handicap, you can lie to yourself, you can deceive yourself.
When you self-handicap, you can say, I failed because I was not ready. I failed because I imposed environmental conditions that made it impossible to succeed. I failed because I chose to fail.
Self-handicapping is more likely to be used when the task is of moderate difficulty.
When you fail in a highly demanding task, in impossible circumstances, it's understandable. And the narcissist doesn't need to defend against this kind of failure, because anyone would have failed. Even superior people, even the gods would have failed.
But if the task is average, moderate, common, the narcissist needs to defend against the possibility of failure.
So when he self-handicaps, when he brings into play behaviors and circumstances that make it impossible to succeed, he can lie to himself, he can say, I made the failure happen. The failure was my choice. I had chosen to fail. And had I chosen to succeed, I could have succeeded, I could have done much better.
So this is not a failure. On the very contrary, it's proof of control, it's proof of mastery, it's proof of choice.
In other words, self-handicapping is self-enhancing.
And if the narcissist succeeds, despite the self-handicapping, the success is even more pronounced, more impressive, and taken as proof of God-like superiority and ability.
When you set yourself up for failure, when you create the conditions for failure, and then you succeed, it means you are really amazing, really unique, really Godlike.
And here I disagree all heartedly with Rodwald, Tragakis, and Finity.
I think narcissists, I think the defense of self-handicapping is what others called a two-edge sword.
If you handicap the process, if you handicap the project, if you handicap the task, if you handicap the exam, if you handicap the assignment, if you handicap the date, and then it fails, you could tell yourself as a narcissist, I made it happen. It was my choice to fail.
If however you succeed, you can tell yourself I'm so supreme and so superior and so amazingly Godlike that I succeeded despite my self-handicapping.
So it's a win-win situation.
Self-handicapping leads to what is known as self-aggrandizing attribution error.
When I fail, says the narcissist, it is either my decision or not my fault. When I succeed, it is my doing entirely and the inevitable outcome of when, superior, intelligent, brilliant, amazing, godlike, divine.
The narcissist self-enhancement is a form of self-aggrandizement so it cannot be distinguished from self-aggrandizing attribution, it's a form of self-aggrandizing attribution.
Again I disagree with Rodwald and allies in this particular sense.
So when the narcissist engages in self-handicapping, when it makes it very difficult to succeed, when he engages in behaviors that set him up for failure, creates conditions that make it extremely, extremely difficult to accomplish anything, at that point, self-handicapping is a win-win strategy.
It leads to self-aggrandizing if you succeed. It leads even to self-aggrandizing if you were to fail, because you made it happen. It is self-enhancing.
And so there's nothing to lose by engaging in self-handicapping behavior.
And the narcissist can always tell himself, I will do better next time for sure.
And that is the element of fantasy.
When the narcissist convinces himself that the people around him or the environment or the conditions of the circumstances did not merit his efforts because, for example, they fail to appreciate him.
He engages in aggressive devaluation of these people or circumstances or institutions or whatever.
So self-handicapping is a first line of defense.
If it is breached, the narcissist devolves or resorts to fantasy.
And if I just put my mind to it, next time I will be a roaring success. This time I set myself up for failure. I will not do it again and I'll be a roaring success because of who I am. Godlike.
And the next line of defense is aggressive devaluation. These people, they did not deserve my success, they deserved my failure, they couldn't appreciate my success even had I succeeded, they're stupid, they...
And the narcissist holds them in contempt.
Aggression is the way the narcissists processesrisk threat to his self-image, inflated and fantastic as it is.
Does the narcissist communicate all this to others? A process known as self-presentation.
Does the narcissist go around and say, you know, the other day? I had this incredible task, I had this difficult exam, had this date and I failed but it was not a failure at all it was my choice I have chosen to fail and of course next time it will be a roaring success, unmitigated success. It's only up to me in other words failure and success are only up to me. Not up to anything else. Failure and success are not contingent. They're up to me, says the narcissist. I'm the one who determines if I fail or succeed, because I'm omnipotent and I'm omniscient and I'm godlike.
Does he communicate all these to others? Does he go to his so-called best friend or intimate partner, insignificant others? Does he tell them the story?
Studies show that narcissists don't do that actually unless they are directly asked to render an account of what had happened or unless they are challenged, unless their grandiosity is challenged.
Only then do they trot out the self-handicapping story. I made it happen. You know, I drank a lot the night before, I didn't prepare for the test, so I made it happen.
Narcissists keep it to themselves. Narcissists are self-absorbed. Other people are mere internal objects. Narcissist answers only to himself and to his standards.
So there's no need to share this with other people. It's enough that a narcissist knows that he had chosen to fail.
Of course, if other people mock the narcissist, ridiculed the narcissist, criticize the narcissist, shame the narcissist, humiliate the narcissist, expose the narcissists, etc., then the narcissists would attribute his failure to his self-handicapping behavior.
Then, of course, he would use this as a kind of defense.
I would like to read to you the concluding paragraphs of the article, article number one in the literature. There's the literature section in the description.
So, Zuckerman Kieffer and Ney found in 1998 that over time self-handicappers tended to experience more task-related problems arising from counterproductive coping strategies, for example, withdrawal and negative self-focus, and also from poor work habits. Everything here applies to narcissists, of course. Their performance deteriorates with time.
On the other hand, narcissistic dysfunction appears to be a more disruptive domain. Narcissist extreme self-focus and a need to protect and bolster the self, erode and eventually destroy their interpersonal relationships.
Both self-handicapping and narcissism, though, ultimately functioned to protect the self from negative outcomes, as the present studies demonstrate.
Making this video, while having the flu, may have been a self-handicapping behavior, ladies and gentlemen.