Arrested Empathy: Instinctual, Emotional Cognitive, and Cold Empathy
Sam Vaknin discusses the model of empathy, suggesting it is three-partite and develops in children in three phases. He explains that narcissists and psychopaths lack empathy and may possess “cold empathy,” which is devoid of compassion and emotional connection. Vaknin also explores the decline of empathy in society and its impact on social behavior and mental health. He argues that empathy is more important socially than psychologically and that its absence predisposes people to exploit and abuse others.
System Re-victimizes, Pathologizes Victim, Sides with Offender, Abuser
The system, including academic institutions, law enforcement agencies, and the courts, often fails to take victims of abuse seriously and instead pathologizes and diminishes them. This is due to a lack of education and awareness about abuse and domestic violence. Abusers are often possessive, jealous, dependent, and narcissistic, while victims may blame themselves or have a history of abuse. Mental health professionals may also be biased towards the abuser and pathologize the victim, making it difficult for victims to receive proper help. Victims may need to stage a well-calibrated performance to convince therapists that they are victims and not be re-victimized by the system.
Narcissist’s Victim: NO CONTACT Rules
Professor Sam Vaknin advises victims of narcissism and psychopathy to maintain as much contact with their abuser as the courts, counselors, evaluators, mediators, guardians, or law enforcement officials mandate. However, with the exception of this minimum mandated by the courts, decline any and all gratuitous contact with the narcissist or psychopath. Avoiding contact with the abuser is a form of setting boundaries, and setting boundaries is a form of healing. Be firm, be resolute, but be polite and civil.
When Narcissists Become Codependents
Living with a narcissist can be harrowing, and the partner of the narcissist is often molded into the typical narcissist mate, partner, or spouse. The partner must have a deficient or distorted grasp of herself and of reality, and the cognitive distortion of the partner of the narcissist is likely to consist of belittling and demeaning herself while aggrandizing and adoring the narcissist. The narcissist is perceived by the partner to be a person in the position to demand these sacrifices from her. The breakup of the relationship with the narcissist is emotionally charged and is the culmination of a long chain of humiliations and subjugation.
Raging Narcissist: Merely Pissed-off?
Narcissistic rage is a phenomenon that occurs when a narcissist is frustrated in their pursuit of narcissistic supply, causing narcissistic injury. The narcissist then projects a bad object onto the source of their frustration and rages against a perceived evil entity that has injured and frustrated them. Narcissistic rage is not the same as normal anger and has two forms: explosive and pernicious or passive-aggressive. People with personality disorders are in a constant state of anger, which is effectively suppressed most of the time, and they are afraid to show that they are angry to meaningful others because they are afraid to lose them.
Fight Abandonment and Separation Anxiety
Codependent behaviors such as clinging and smothering are rooted in a deep fear of abandonment and separation. To overcome this, codependents must confront their anxieties through psychotherapy, medication, and self-help methods such as meditation and engaging in meaningful activities. Codependents should also adopt a scientific approach to their relationships, construct alternative hypotheses, and test them before making impulsive decisions. The longevity of long-term relationships lies in being transparent and expressing emotions and concerns honestly. Finally, codependents should prepare detailed contingency plans for every eventuality to reduce anxiety and gain control.
Some Abuse Victims Never Learn
The victims of narcissists and psychopaths often engage in magical thinking and malignant optimism, refusing to accept that some problems are unsolvable and some people are irredeemable. They see signs of hope in every fluctuation and believe that love can transform even the most destructive individuals. However, this optimism is a vulnerability that the narcissist and psychopath can exploit. The abused provide the very weapons that will ultimately be used against them. The film “We Need to Talk About Kevin” illustrates this phenomenon, as Kevin’s mother, despite enduring his massacre of their family and his schoolmates, still hugs him and believes in him.
Narcissist: Destructive Envy and Romantic Jealousy
Envy is a compounded emotion brought on by the realization of some lack or deficiency in oneself. Narcissists cope with their pathological envy by either subsuming the object of envy via imitation or destroying it. The most dangerous species of narcissists are those who derive contentment from their own humiliation and end up driving the objects of their own devotion and accumulation to destruction and decrepititude. Romantic jealousy is a narcissistic defense that reflects the narcissistic traits and behaviors of possessiveness, objectification, and treating the spouse as an extension of oneself.
CHILLING: Conman in Action, Scammer Pounces on Prey
The text is a first-person narrative of a conman who lures his victim into a shared psychosis, infiltrating his mind and converting him to the cause. The conman is in control and manipulates his victim’s emotions, making him feel vulnerable and dependent on him. The victim is addicted to the conman’s attention and affection, and the conman exploits this to extract information and money from him. The conman is devoid of conscience and sees his victim as nothing more than a means to an end.
Narcissists Hate Therapists
Narcissists regard therapy as a competitive sport and often try to prove themselves equal to the psychotherapist in knowledge, experience, or social status. They use professional psychological lingo and terms to level the playing field and create a shared psychosis between themselves and the therapist. Narcissists have a dilapidated and dysfunctional true self overtaken and suppressed by a false self, and therapy aims to create the conditions for the true self to resume its growth. Change is brought about only through incredible powers of torsion and wreckage, and it takes nothing less than a real crisis.