Remorse, Regret, and Shame in Narcissists (November 2024 Interview)

They're I'm just going to use the word again victims. Do they ever feel remorse? >> Very few narcissists would perceive other people as victims regardless of the nature of the interpersonal interaction or relationship. Most narcissists, not all narcissists are human beings. There is a there is variance. Um there are degrees, there are intensities. Normally I mean we are not even narcissists essentially are not subject to a single rule but one could generalize and say that the majority of narcissists would self victimize would would assume a victimhood identity. Mhm. >> So when a narcissist is in a relationship, even when the narcissist had victimized the other person, they would reframe the situation. They would create a new narrative where this might have been, for example, inevitable or provoked or something and then it it's the narcissist who has been victimized. Actually, they they would claim victimhood in this situation. So narcissists regard other people um in two ways. They can idealize other people or they can devalue other people. These are the two ways they relate. When the other per person is idealized, this helps the narcissist idealize himself. If the narcissist, for example, is married to an ideal person, the fact that the nar narcissist owns this ideal person, the fact that this ideal person is a property of the narcissist renders the narcissist ideal >> and perfect. It's a little like owning a flashy car. >> If you own a Porsche, fleshy car, that makes you, you know, fleshy. It's a status symbol or kind of. So this process is known as co- idealization. So as long as the ide idealization continues, you can do no wrong and the narcissist may assume responsibility for some things and may exper experience remorse and guilt and shame, but not about having victimized you or having mistreated you or whatever about having failed. having having failed to manage you, having failed to make you feel good, having failed to manipulate you. So the focus of the locus of the shame, regret and remorse which narcissists are capable of experiences of experiencing even psychopaths are is on success or failure. It's um it's results or consequences oriented. Never about what the other person feels, how the other person would experience the situation, how the longlasting psychological consequences for the other person, abuse, trauma, this doesn't enter the narcissist or the psychopath's mind. >> How how do narcissists react if they're if they're exposed, caught, found out? depends. If this is done in private, the most likely reaction the narcissist would devalue the source of the exposure. So if you were to expose the narcissist, criticize the narcissist, disagree with the narcissist, attack the narcissist and so on so forth. But this is done in private just you and the narcissist. the narcissist's very likely, most likely reaction would be to devalue you, to say, for example, well, you're too stupid to understand or in due time you will realize that what you're saying is wrong. Uh or you're an abuser, you're victimizing me. So, he would devalue you some somehow. He would devalue your morality, your conduct or misconduct or attributed misconduct. He would misattribute. This is known as attribution error. He would misattribute. He would say you're a bad person. That's why you're behaving this way. So he would demonize you. This and he would use a defense mechanism known as splitting. He would say, "I'm all good. You're all bad." This is what children do. Children split. Children under the age of two actually split and said, "Mommy is all all good. I'm all bad." For example, this is known as the moral default. And so he would split you and he would say you're all bad, I'm all good. But this is when it's done in private. And this is known as narcissistic injury. Having criticized him, uh, disagreed with him, exposed him, forced him to face his inadequacies, shortcomings, erroneous choices, wrong decisions, and so on so forth. The narcissist is injured. The narcissist has a brittle, fragile balance uh between implicit self-esteem and explicit self-esteem. And when you when you intrude, then you force him to face reality. >> He resents it. It's fleeting. It's like microscond. And immediately his grandiosity reasserts, reasserts itself. his defenses emerge and he attacks you. >> He he does something called externalized aggression. He externalizes aggression. He attacks you in order again to eliminate you to eliminate you as a source of perspicacity, as a source of insight, as a source of wisdom, as a so you are not worthy of consideration. >> So like a smear campaign >> kind of. Yeah. You're not worthy of consideration. And whatever you say consequently is not worthy of consideration. So why bother? This is in private. However, if you were to do the same thing to the narcissist in public and in front of people he values or people he aspires to be like or people who who he identifies with something known as narcissistic alignment or so if you do this in public then the reaction is far more fierce because you will have you will have committed what is known as you will have engendered what is known as narcissistic mortification. Narcissistic portification is when the narcissist is forced to come face to face with his internal shame. >> Narcissism, pathological narcissism is a compensation for internal shame. The narcissist as a child is ashamed. ashamed of its own helplessness, of its own inability to manipulate the adults around, of its own unlovability, of its own unworthiness of so there's a lot of shame there. By the way, this is a common, this is everyone agrees on that there's a lot of shame there and narcissism is the firewall between the shame and the narcissist. The narcissist never gets in touch with his shame because his shame is life-threatening. And then you come along, you humiliate him in public. Everyone is a witness. Everyone smirks. He's been ridiculed. He's been he's been mocked. He's been humiliated. He's been exposed, been criticized, and all the defenses crumble. It's a process known as decompensation. all the defenses crumble and he's left face to face with this internal monster the shame and he has to confront his shame and this is known as internal motification um narcissistic motification. At that stage the narcissist adopts one of two solutions but before adopting the solutions he undergoes a phase which is indistinguishable from borderline personality disorder. because all his narcissistic defenses have crumbled in the face of your onslaught >> because you've attacked him. So the the the defenses crumbled. He's been besieged and the fortress fell. So now he's skinless. There's no firewall. He's in direct touch with reality. He cannot deny anymore that having considered himself a genius is actually an idiot. having considered himself drop deadad gorgeous is actually ugly. >> Having considered himself accomplished is actually a failure. He cannot deny this anymore. The shame is overwhelming. And the fact that this emotion is overwhelming renders the narcissist the exact clinical equivalent of someone with borderline personality disorder. And the narcissist becomes suicidal, develop suicidal ideation. Okay, let's finish this. >> Sorry. Will we wait till she's later done cuz the noise will interrupt. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Are we good to go? >> Yes. >> Are we good to go? >> Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Carry on. >> Suicidal ideation is threatening. Emotional dysregulation being overwhelmed. Just do you want him to go back a little bit cuz it was No, I think you sure you're all right. Okay. Okay. Thanks, sir. >> Suicidal ideation is threatening. Emotional dysregulation, being overwhelmed by emotions, inability to manage emotions, drowning in emotions is threatening. And so, the narcissist has to come up with the solution. The alternative is death. 11% of people with borderline personality disorder commit death. It's the lead leading commit suicide. It's the leading cause of death among border lines. So this is what the narcissist is faced with. He has to solve this somehow and he comes up with one of two solutions. He either adopts what we call an internal solution. He says everything that has happened I made it happen. If she had insulted me, it's because I pushed her to insult me. I provoked her to attack me. I gave her wrong information so she so so that she could criticize me erroneously. I orchestrated all this. Everyone here is my puppet. I'm the puppet master. That's the internal solution. It restores grandiosity. And the other solution is known as the external solution. It's when the narcissist says, "I'm a victim. She's evil. What she did to me is evil. No one would have done that. Had had she been a good person, she would have never done this. And everyone who has mocked me, everyone who's colluded in this this spectacle is also evil. It's a conspiracy. So there's a lot of paranoid ideiation involved in the external solution. The external solution leads to vengeance, vindictive behaviors like stalking, like smear campaigns like while the internal solution, I made it happen. I'm the puppet master is self self-sufficient and self-contained. The narcissist grandiosity is restored. I'm a god-like figure. Everyone here is my extension. Everything that has happened I orchestrated it was choreography that's all then he doesn't need to do anything and then it stops but depends on the narcissist. >> So interesting to to frame it the way that it was their decision because then it gives them the control back so much is power control. >> Of course one more thing in this context if you wish. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> If you allow it's very interesting what you said the the the issue of control. Yes, of course it's about reasserting control as a condition for grandiosity because God God is in control. So, but sometimes narcissists preempt the inevitable narcissistic motification and then they indeed push people to for example a narcissist may say my relationship is deteriorating clearly she is becoming I'm saying she gender pronouns interchangeable half of all narcissists are women so a male n a male heteros Sexual narcissist would say she's becoming rebellious. She's no longer a willing participant in the shed fant in the shed fantasy. It's all unconscious. Yes, >> I am anticipating abandonment and rejection. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to push her to cheat on me. >> I'm going to push her to infidelity. And that way when she when the inevitable happens, I could tell myself that I'm the one who is orchestrated this. I'm the one who made her do this. And so this kind of narcissist would introduce his partner to eligible potential substitutes would create situations where infidelity would emerge naturally. For example, inebriation or drug consumption. So he would he would he would truly uh he would truly foster a a theater production or a film or an environment where his control would remain intact. >> Do do narcissists fear being found out or caught or exposed? Nar majority of narcissists suffer from an imposter syndrome. Whatever is happening to them is unreal. Even when things happen in reality, they're incapable of perceiving reality. They have something called impaired reality testing. Reality testing is a function of the ego. In Freud's words, reality testing is the ability to interact with reality without too many distortions, gauge reality appropriately, and then react to the information in a way that engenders or creates positive beneficial outcomes to the individual. >> Narcissists don't have this. They're terrified of reality. They're also terrified of positive emotions. So they never experience reality and they never experience positive emotions. What they do they convert reality into a fantasy. Sometimes the fantasy is internalized and this is known as paracosumm. So the narcissist is a paracosm and sometimes the reality is externalized and then the narcissist coerces other people to participate in the fantasy. But it's always fantasy. There is no situation where the narcissist interacts with reality unmediated directly and unfiltered. No such thing. So because this is this is the case, narcissists would function within the fantasy. They would function within the fantasy and everything they do would have to conform to the narrative of the fantasy. So it's not as if you could analyze the narcissist behaviors as for example goal oriented behaviors or as an attempt to manipulate the environment to obtain outcomes or as normal interactions with people. That would be highly mistaken and that's a problem with therapy with narcissists. When when narcissists attend therapy, regardless of the treatment modality, could be schema therapy, could be gestalt, could be anything. When they attend therapy, the common mistake is to perceive the narcissist as someone who is embedded in reality. >> To perceive the narcissist as an adult, which a narcissist is not, to not realize that the narcissist is is a traumatized child. >> And so that's why therapy fails with narcissists all the time. >> So it's a bit like [clears throat] I'm just going to quick step. >> Could you remind me of your last question? >> I'm sorry, my mind wandered. >> Do do they fear being >> Yeah. >> So, because narcissists are constantly embedded in in fantasy, um, many narcissists have impostor syndrome. Many narcissists deep in the recesses of their unconscious mind, if you wish, understand that they're one step removed from reality. They understand this distance somehow because they experienced for example narcissistic injuries and narcissistic motifications and for a brief moment they came face to face with reality and they saw that reality has nothing to do with their fantasy. They're not these are not intellectually challenged people. Many of them are highly intelligent. So if I as as a narcissist were were to experience narcissistic motification even once in a lifetime, I would know from that moment on that there is real a reality out there which is inaccessible to me because I've experienced it without the benefit of the fantasy, without the benefit of the cognitive distortion known as grandiosity. This immediate direct unmediated contact with reality has taught me that my normal existence is not reality is nonrealistic. So this generates in narcissist u a strong imposter syndrome. >> Yeah. >> They can't believe that they are pulling it off. They pull the wool over people's eyes. They deceive people. They manipulate people. They obtain outcomes. They become presidents. They become and and there's a voice that keeps saying keeps telling them unbelievable. >> How did I pull it off? I mean, this is beyond belief. People must be exceedingly stupid. You know, because there is this contempt. In other words, in narcissism, the imposter syndrome serves the grandio self-perception because the imposter syndrome says I'm an imposter and the fact that I'm successful proves that I'm vastly superior to these people because only that way I could have deceived them. >> Hiding in plain sight. >> Yes, that means I'm superior. So the impostor syndrome is the the fact that the narcissist is an impostor is perceived as an accomplishment as proof positive of the narcissist superiority. While in normal people, healthy people who experience imposter syndrome. This creates a dissonance. It's an unpleasant feeling. Uh if people found out who I am, they would run the other way. If people found out who I am, I would end up in prison. People found who I am. So it's unpleasant, you know, like I don't want to be exposed because the outcomes would be horrible. It's a dissonant feeling in the narcissist. It's a source of narcissistic elation. Look at me. I succeed to deceive everyone. Wow, how superior must I be? No. >> Do you feel that way? >> I don't deceive. I don't have to deceive. I think when narcissists are truly endowed for example they are by fact in fact intellectually superior there's no need for these strategys anymore I think these are compensatory strategys for example a narcissist who perceives himself as a genius and he's not in reality he's not >> would would need these bridges these strategys to deceive himself basically >> but a narcissist who is truly endowed and there are many narcissists who are truly talented, truly geniuses, truly. >> They don't need these things anymore. They they have it. They You understand what I'm saying? There's no need for compensation. >> Mhm. >> But for example, a narcissist would selfdeceive where there's no comparative advantage. For example, a narcissist who is truly a genius but not exactly drop deadad gorgeous would deceive himself as far as far as his looks go. >> He would deceive himself about his looks. >> He would say, "I'm a genius, but I'm I'm also very attractive." You know, >> and then when when a potential partner would react, when a woman would be attracted to him, he would say, "Wow, she must be blind and I'm truly super. I'm truly superior in this sense. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, you're saying basically that the the narcissists do have an awareness that they've done wrong, I suppose, and