The Psychology of Narcissism
– A Modern Epidemic
The following is a transcript of this video.
One of the surest ways to ruin our life is to be in a close relationship with a narcissist. Whether it be a narcissist as a parent, husband, wife, colleague, or friend, if we are forced to deal with a narcissist on a daily basis we suffer. But even worse than having a narcissist in our social orbit is being a narcissist. In this video we explore the character disorder of narcissism, looking at what it consists of, what causes it, and why increasing numbers of people are becoming narcissistic.
Narcissism is based on two primary factors. Firstly, a narcissist has an excess of self-admiration or a grandiose, or inflated, sense of self. Narcissists, in other words, judge themselves to be superior to most other people and consider themselves better looking, more intelligent, higher in social status, more powerful, or more creative than they really are.
“When we say that someone is narcissistic, we imply the presence of beliefs about the self that cannot be substantiated.”
Donald Nathanson, Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of the Self
The second primary characteristic of narcissism is a lack of empathy. When the narcissist considers what actions to take, the feelings of others rarely factor into their calculations. Narcissists view other people as tools to be used to help them attain their wants and needs and one of their primary needs is to obtain what is called narcissistic supply. Narcissistic supply consists of undue attention, adulation, and praise, and it is the fuel that helps the narcissist maintain their inflated self-image.
Like most personality disorders, narcissism exists on a spectrum. At the extreme end of the spectrum are the malignant narcissists. Malignant narcissists are the personification of evil. They exploit, manipulate, gaslight, and lie to attain what their grandiosity leads them to believe they deserve, and they do so without feeling the pangs of conscience. The malignant narcissist is so convinced of his superiority, so in need of narcissistic supply, and so lacking in empathy that he submits to nothing but his own will, or as M. Scott Peck wrote in People of the Lie:
“Malignant narcissism is characterized by an unsubmitted will. All adults who are mentally healthy submit themselves one way or another to something higher than themselves, be it God or truth or love or some other ideal. They do what God wants him to do rather than what they would desire. . .They believe in what is true rather than what they would like to be true. . . what their beloved needs becomes more important to them than their own gratification. In summary, to a greater or lesser degree, all mentally healthy individuals submit themselves to the demands of their own conscience. Not so [with malignant narcissists], however. In the conflict between their guilt and their will, it is the guilt that must go and the will that must win.”
M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie – The Hope for Healing Human Evil
It is estimated that only a few percent of the population are malignant narcissists, but the number of people who can be characterized as mild to moderate narcissists greatly exceeds this rate. These individuals possess an inflated self-image, have a diminished capacity to empathize, require the admiration of others, and lie and manipulate to obtain their fill of narcissistic supply, but to a lesser degree than the malignant narcissist.
What are the factors that give rise to narcissism? Many psychologists have suggested that at the heart of narcissism is psychological pain, or as the clinical psychologist Joseph Burgo writes:
“Whether they show it or even realize it themselves, [narcissists] are always in flight from pain.”
Joseph Burgo, The Narcissist You Know
The primary type of pain the narcissist flees from is shame. The psychologist Andrew Morrison went as far as to call shame the “underside of narcissism”, while the psychologist Donald Nathanson wrote that “narcissism is the system through which personal attributes are exaggerated in order to avoid shame.” (Donald Nathanson, Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of the Self)
Chronic or severe shame is debilitating and reflects a negative evaluation of the self. Often this negative evaluation is a result of a perceived failure to live up to the expectations of our family, peer group, or society at large. In contrast to guilt, which arises when we believe we have acted in an inappropriate way, shame arises when we feel our entire self to be inadequate, or as Nathanson put it: “shame seems always to involve a more-or-less sudden decrease in self-esteem, a moment in which we are revealed as somewhat less than we want to believe.” (Donald Nathanson, Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of the Self)
Shame can be useful in enforcing social norms and maintaining group cohesion. But all too often individuals suffer from shame, not because there is anything wrong with who they are, but because they interact with cruel people who ridicule or reject them. Malicious, or neglectful parents, for example, are a common cause of shame in children. Other people experience shame because they live in a sick society and refuse to adhere to its value system or fail to live up to its unreasonable demands. But no matter the cause, if feelings of shame are persistent, or severe, a defensive reaction is elicited. Some people use shame as motivation to better themselves. Others withdraw from the world and descend into the depths of depression. Some numb themselves through addiction. While others practice a narcissistic avoidance of shame by creating a grandiose self-image and then deluding themselves that such an image, rather than the one that is eliciting the shame, is a true representation of who they are. This inflated self-image acts as a sort of psychological armor that protects them from their pain, and Nathanson explains:
“Narcissism is a term that must be reserved for that part of our self-image that would be relinquished were we to accept shame. It is an ill-fitting mask or a badly made toupee. . . a girdle or corset designed to show us as we wish to be rather than as we are, a swagger meant to disguise the slump of disgrace, a house full of imitation fine art and fake jewelry, a phony accent, anything we do to call attention to the self we wish to assume rather than the person we are.”
Donald Nathanson, Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of the Self
Or as Burgo writes:
“. . .almost everything [narcissists] say and do is intended to avoid the experience of shame. The narcissistic defenses they mobilize against shame are so extreme and pervasive that they color everything about the person’s personality, relationships, and behavior, creating a kind of shell or armor against the threat of shame.”
Joseph Burgo, The Narcissist You Know
When observing a narcissist, it may be difficult to believe they are infected by shame. They come across as confident and high in self-esteem and they seem to truly believe in their superiority over others. They don’t appear to be plagued by self-doubts, self-hate, or insecurities and they often move through the social world with confidence and swagger. But a man or woman who is truly confident doesn’t require constant doses of narcissistic supply. Psychologically healthy individuals, who possess high self-esteem, are resilient to criticism and are not hyper focused on the reactions that their self-image elicits in others. Narcissists, therefore, cannot be said to be high in healthy self-esteem, rather they possess what the psychologists Brad Bushman and Roy Baumeister call unstable self-esteem. The unstable self-esteem of the narcissist rests on the shaky foundation of their inflated self-image and requires narcissistic supply to be maintained. If narcissistic supply is not forthcoming, or even worse if the self-image of the narcissist is threatened by criticism, their unstable self-esteem gives way to reveal the insecurity that infects their true self, or as Nathanson writes:
“. . occasionally some accident of life will deny [the narcissist] the privilege of [narcissistic] avoidance, or a ruthless foe may strip from [him] the layers of covering that provide solace. Then [he is] left both bare and unloved [and] suddenly endangered. . .”
Donald Nathanson, Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of the Self
As it is impossible to go through life wearing a narcissistic mask of grandiosity without occasionally bumping up against the hard wall of reality, narcissists deploy another form of defense to escape from feelings of shame. They learn to repress any negative feelings that conflict with their mask of superiority and they focus more on the image they project to the world, than on the feelings that radiate from the body they inhabit. Or as the psychologist and medical doctor Alexander Lowen explains: “Narcissists are more concerned with how they appear than what they feel. Indeed, they deny feelings that contradict the image they seek.” (Alexander Lowen, Narcissism: Denial of the True Self) And according to Lowen “The more narcissistic one is, the less one is identified with one’s feelings.” The longer a narcissist identifies with a false image, the better he becomes at repressing negative feelings. But this ability comes at a cost, as to successfully repress feelings, the narcissist must disconnect from the body, as it is from the body that the affects of feeling and emotion arise. Over time this disconnection from the body and the impaired ability to feel genuine emotions destroys the narcissist’s capacity to empathize, or as Lowen explains:
“The denial of feeling characteristic of all narcissists is most manifest in their behavior toward others. They can be ruthless, exploitative, sadistic, or destructive to another person because they are insensitive to the other’s suffering or feeling. This insensitivity derives from an insensitivity to one’s own feelings. Empathy, the ability to sense other people’s moods or feelings, is a function of resonance. We can feel another person’s sadness because it makes us sad; we can share another’s joy because it evokes good feelings in us. But if we are incapable of feeling sadness or joy, we cannot respond to these feelings in another person, and we may even doubt that they have such feelings.”
Alexander Lowen, Narcissism: Denial of the True Self
A lack of empathy, along with a constant need for praise and adulation, makes the narcissist a plague on the social world. Those who interact with a narcissist must support the narcissist’s fantasy of superiority. Anyone who fails to inflate the narcissist’s self-image, or even worse causes the narcissist to doubt their own superiority, must deal with their dark side, a dark side that is notorious for the anger and rage it can unleash. As the narcissist considers himself to be better than most other people, he often views it as only natural that he exerts control and power over those in his social circle. The best way to deal with a narcissist, therefore, is to avoid them and if someone close to us is a narcissist, we should consider cutting ties with them if their narcissism is anything but mild. For narcissists are notoriously difficult to change, and their lack of empathy makes them capable of destroying lives with little to no thought of the suffering they leave in their wake. Their disorder may be rooted in pain, but it does not follow that we need to allow them to bring pain into our life as well, for as Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell write:
“A recent psychiatric study found that the biggest consequences of narcissism—especially when other psychiatric symptoms were held constant—was suffering by people close to them.”
Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement
While we lack studies indicating whether the rate of malignant narcissism is increasing, the number of people moving the wrong way down the narcissistic spectrum and developing mild to moderate levels of narcissism appears to be rising. Or as Twenge and Campbell write in The Narcissism Epidemic, which was published in 2009:
“In data from 37,000 college students, narcissistic personality traits rose just as fast as obesity from the 1980s to the present, with the shift especially pronounced for women.”
Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement
What can account for this rise in narcissism? One explanation is that our modern value system promotes unreasonable measures of success – setting people up for shame – while at the same time technological and economic factors have made it easier than ever to identify with an inflated, or narcissistic self-image, to escape from this shame.
Most contemporary societies hold wealth, beauty, social status, and fame as preeminent values. The ideals of self towards which we are encouraged to aspire are the beautiful celebrity or the ultra-wealthy entrepreneur. If we cannot reach these ideals, then we should at least be an attractive person, live in a big house, drive a nice car, have a high-status job and associate with other high-status individuals. But these are unreasonable standards. For the accumulation of great wealth is as much a result of connections and chance as it is hard work, beauty is mostly contingent on the genetic lottery and age, social status is a relative concept which automatically excludes most people from its higher echelons, and fame is usually bestowed on those who create a spectacle or achieve notoriety, rather than reflecting true greatness of self. If we are led to believe that we must attain these things to be considered a success, many of us are destined to feel ashamed.
To escape from feelings of an inadequate self, social media, in conjunction with a debt-based economy, has made the narcissistic avoidance of shame easier than ever. Like a moth to a flame, those who feel shame turn to social media, as through the curation of profiles we can easily create a new self-image to replace the ugliness and failure we feel inside. By sharing only the most flattering parts of life, posting the wittiest of thoughts, and the best of pictures, the creation of a profile tends to be an exercise in the narcissistic inflation of self and basking in the glow of the likes and comments that a post elicits is the quenching of a need for narcissistic supply.
But the ease with which we can create an inflated self-image is further promoted by our debt-based economy. Low interest rates and easy access to credit allow us to pretend that we are richer and more successful than we are – we can use credit to purchase a luxury car, go on an expensive vacation, mortgage a dream home, or even finance plastic surgery. We can then go on social media to show the world what our credit has allowed us to purchase, and thus further inflate our self-image. Or as Twenge and Campbell write:
“The inflation in credit leads to inflation in self-image, helping the narcissism epidemic spread far and wide. Take a culture that promotes self-admiration and material goods, add the ability to realize this self-admiration through buying things you can’t really afford, and many people live the narcissistic illusion that they are wealthy, successful, and special.”
Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement
The more we inflate our self-image through social media and the use of credit, the more the other symptoms of narcissism infect our character. As we identify with an image, instead of our true self, we disconnect from the body as we repress any feelings that make us aware of the lie we are projecting into the world. With the repression of our feelings, our ability to detect the emotional resonances of others diminishes and with it our capacity for empathy. The narcissistic avoidance of shame, therefore, is a devil’s bargain. It may numb us to our pain, at least temporarily, but at a great cost as we lose the ability to share in the warm emotionality of loving relationships and we lose the capacity to cultivate a strong sense of self that is rooted on the firm ground of reality.
“Does narcissism imply freedom from shame? Of course not. Humiliation always lies immediately beneath the surface of deceit. Like the towns built for western movies, it is all front and no depth, a situation constructed to give the appearance of normality with little or nothing behind it.”
Donald Nathanson, Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of the Self
Narcissism, in its more extreme forms, can be viewed as a form of insanity. It represents a split in one’s personality between the false self of grandiosity and the reality of who one really is, flaws, shame and all. The purpose of the narcissist’s life is to live out the lie, which is to disconnect from reality and to suffer from potentially extreme delusions that alter how they perceive others and the world around them, or as Lowen writes:
“To the degree that one’s identity is based on an image, one is not in contact with the reality of one’s being. In all other respects, the individual may appear to be oriented and fully in contact with reality, but there is in his or her personality a fracture – maybe only a hairline break – that constitutes a tendency to insanity. As the degree of narcissism increases, the break becomes more pronounced…”
Alexander Lowen, Narcissism: Denial of the True Self
When we recognize the dangers that come from an inflated self-image, we may choose to adhere to values that are more attainable, more likely to promote psychological health and less likely to infect us with shame. We may also choose to abstain from sharing our life on social media in the recognition that it is very difficult to do so without becoming at least slightly narcissistic. But so long as the majority of people in our society hold wealth, beauty, status, and fame to be preeminent values, while at the same time social media and a debt-based economy offer an easy means of inflating the self, modern society will only become more narcissistic. Or as Lowen writes:
“When wealth occupies a higher position than wisdom, when notoriety is admired more than dignity, when success is more important than self-respect, the culture itself overvalues “image” and must be regarded as narcissistic.”
Alexander Lowen, Narcissism: Denial of the True Self
