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 […]
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This channel is made possible by the support of our members 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, writes the psychologist Donald Nathanson, we imply the presence of beliefs about the self that cannot be substantiated.
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.