Overt Narcissists Are Psychopaths? (Clip: Ohrid Seminar, May 2026)

let's say and raises the the question whether covert narcissism and overt narcissism should belong in the same psychological construct. Something I've been advocating for many many years. I've been suggesting for many years that overt narcissism is actually not narcissism at all but a form of attenuated psychopathy. Whereas it is covert narcissism that is the only form of narcissism. I suggested that covert narcissism reflects more accurately the dynamics of shame, the dynamics of compensation, the dynamics of external internal fantasy. Covert narcissist engage in fantasy much more than overt narcissist and so on. Whereas overt narcissists easily slide into psychopathic behaviors, antisocial behaviors for example. And we have a hybrid of psychopath and narcissist. Psychopath and overt narcissist. A hybrid known as malignant narcissist. The malignant narcissist or the psychopathic narcissist is a narcissist who is also a psychopath and also a sadist. We don't have this with covert narcissism. We don't have a malignant a psychopathic covert narcissist. We don't have this. And even when the covert narcissist is exposed to motification and injury and so on so forth, they become sometimes secondary psychopath, never ever primary. Same with borderline. People with borderline personality disorder who are exposed to stress, to anxiety, to tension sometimes become psychopathic, but they become secondary psychopaths, not primary. It is the overt narcissist who becomes primary psychopath. When exposed to stress, anxiety, motification, injury, the overt narcissist becomes classic primary serial killer type psychopath. This does not happen with covert narcissism. So there are many differentiating features to the point that I suggest that I don't think these two overt the overt presentation and the covert presentation is one and the same. I don't think so. I think all narcissists go through overt and covert phases in the sense that all narcissists become more or less psychopathic. That's how I see it. I see pathological narcissism as an extension of psychopathy, not as a separate diagnosis. And I think within this spectrum we have types of narcissists who are less likely to become psychopathic or if they do become psychopathic they become secondary psychopaths and types of psychopaths who are more likely to become psychopathic and when they do they become primary psychopaths. Now how many of you know what's the difference between secondary and primary psychopaths? And if you don't know, why didn't you ask? >> France. Yes. Uh, primary and secondary psychopath were defined, first defined and described by Robert Hair. Robert Hair is a scholar, Canadian scholar, bit of an oxymoron, but never mind. Canadian scholar who studied who studied psychopaths in prison populations. He was a prison psychiatrist and he studied psychopaths in prison populations. And um he suggested that there are two types of psychopaths. He called them facto one and facto 2 psychopaths. And he designed a test. The test is known as PCLR. And in the PCLR there are two groups two groups of determinants. two two two group two two clusters of traits. So you have the psychopath who is reckless, who is defined, who is aggressive, who is impul who is um uh violent and so on. That would be the primary psychopath. And you have the psychopath who is impulsive, capable of emotions and even has empathy. And that is the secondary psychopath. So these are two distinct types and the overt narcissist becomes primary whereas the covert and the borderline become secondary and never ever become primary and that tells us a lot because these uh phase transitions to borrow a phrase from physics these transitions expose the underlying psychonamics or the underlying psychology of the disorder. It is when when the disorder changes face that it is truly exposed. And so I think I think we we need to reconceive of the whole thing. And of course if a child is exposed to a psychopath the impact would be less less pernicious less problematic than if a child is exposed to a narcissist. I know this sounds crazy, but it's not. If you think about it, a a psychopath is grounded in reality, able to tell the tell the difference between reality and fantasy, is goal oriented. A psychopath essentially is an exaggerated healthy person. It's a kind of Yeah. Because you know, a healthy person wants to have sex, psychopath wants to have sex, healthy person wants to have money, psychopath wants to have money. The [snorts] only difference or one of the differences is that the psychopath doesn't have the inhibitions and and behavioral controls. The psychopath is is either impulsive in the secondary type or doesn't care in the primary type. But essentially the behaviors are recognizable to you. Like if I were to show you a movie about a psychopath, you would recognize yourselves in the psychopath. You would say, "Wow, I would never do this to to get se to obtain sex." But you understand the need for sex. You would say, "Oh my god, I would never rob a bank to to get money." But you understand the need for money. Whereas a psychopath is merely a hyperbolic healthy person, an exaggerated happy healthy person. A narcissist is an alien. Narcissist has nothing in common with you. As I've been explaining to you for many hours now, little in common with you. So growing up with an with a narcissist is a highly alienating and terrifying experience. Whereas growing up with a psychopath is just about survival. You you need to develop some survival strategies. You need to accommodate yourself to the machavelianism and manipulativeness of the psychopath. You need to participate in the psychopathic capers and to obtain some goals. It's survivable. It's doable. It's not, you know, out of this world. Whereas with the narcissist, it is out of this world. So it's not a surprise that if you adopt my if you adopt my suggestion, if you adopt my view that narcissism is a form of psychopathy and that a narcissist can be less or more psychopathic. So more psychopathic is the overt, less psychopathic is the covert phase. then it would not come as a surprise that children who grow up with psychopaths are likely to be actually okay. Nothing happens to them. Children who grow up with overt narcissist who are in my work psychopaths are okay. Children who grow up with covert narcissists are not okay because these are narcissists. And then the child is introduced into an alien terrain with no navigation tools, no capacity to survive, no ability to decode and decipher what the hell is happening. That and that is that is terror. That is terror raified. I tried to find a quote. There is a famous and quote by McFaden. So let me find it. Yeah, I found it. In 2010, Hazen and McFarland wrote a piffy quote that I think encapsulates the totality of child psychology. They said, "When alarmed, the child seeks proximity to a caregiver, but proximity to a frightening caregiver increases the alarm." Simple. That's all you need to know. Okay, bye-bye. See you next year. That's really it. The psychopath is not an alarming is not a frightening caregiver. The child can decode the psychopath. The child can survive the psychopath. Child can understand the psychopath. The psychopath is is uh accessible. Whereas a narcissist is is this is a frightening caregiver. Is terror is is out of this world. is something you cannot and so I am not surprised by these studies and I need to modify my early work but not my late work as my late work anticipated this when I suggested that narcissism is actually just an extension of psychopathy. Okay.