Video summary
The discussion centers on the psychological dynamics of interacting with individuals who possess severe Cluster B personality disorders, specifically focusing on the concepts of transference and countertransference within a therapeutic setting. Transference is defined as the feelings transferred from the patient to the therapist, while countertransference refers to the emotional reactions experienced by the therapist during these interactions. Although these phenomena occur in all human relationships, they are particularly significant in therapy because they reveal unconscious dynamics; for instance, if a client with narcissistic traits feels that others perceive them as insensitive without realizing it, their therapist may simultaneously experience feelings of incompetence or fear. These countertransference reactions serve as critical data points, indicating how the individual behaves outside of clinical settings and highlighting potential unawareness regarding their own impact on others. A primary mechanism identified in these interactions is devaluation, where an individual with severe personality pathology silently erodes a professional's sense of competence without explicitly stating it. This process often triggers an evolutionary response intended to create interpersonal competition or force the other party into over-delivering just to regain recognition. The speaker illustrates this by describing how such individuals might manipulate a situation so that if they can make a competent expert feel inadequate, they effectively take control of the dynamic and direct the treatment in their favor. This tactic is described as intentional abuse rather than merely an unconscious side effect, designed to lower the professional's defenses and render them more vulnerable to manipulation or deception. The transcript highlights how these manipulative tactics hijack the brain's detection and deception networks, causing victims to rapidly doubt their own abilities within milliseconds of interaction. Instead of questioning why they suddenly feel incompetent compared to other relationships, individuals may unconsciously accept that they are not as good as they thought, thereby dissolving their defenses against being in the wrong while assuming the other person is at fault. Even experts and those who consider themselves "a few steps ahead" can be susceptible to these tactics, which function like a spell cast into the environment rather than a conscious plot by the abuser. The key takeaway for recognizing this abuse is noticing specific feelings of dread, fear, insecurity, or incompetence that arise uniquely in certain relationships but are absent in others. The conversation concludes with an emphasis on self-awareness as a primary defense mechanism against these psychological attacks. Rather than attempting to become human lie detectors who know the secrets of everyone else, individuals should focus on monitoring their internal emotional state when interacting with specific people. If one consistently feels diminished or threatened by a particular person while functioning normally in other contexts, this discrepancy signals that something is amiss within that specific dynamic. The speaker notes that even the foremost experts cannot claim immunity to being "sucker punched" or gassed by such tactics, underscoring the importance of recognizing these patterns early before one's own sense of reality and competence becomes compromised.
Read the full video transcript
Tell me what it's like. Tell me, tell me
what it's like to sit down opposite
somebody who has
99th percentile
cluster B
personality disorder. Just like just
describe that experience.
When we're talking about in in a in a
therapeutic context, something that's
really important to mention is is
transference and countertransference.
So, um do I Do you want me to go into
that for your audience?
>> us a give us a Give us a brief overview.
I learned that, you know, interestingly,
I know I'm grinning because
I It's one of the few things that I've
learned from reading chick novels. I
read uh The Silent Patient by uh Alex
Michaelides or Andrew Michaelides.
Uh and in it, one of the main
protagonists is a therapist who's trying
to get this patient to speak. And um he
goes to his co- It go with the head
therapist who's trying to help him get
through this very difficult patient. And
there's this line, "Uh tell me about the
transference and countertransference."
And this was as I was starting to do
therapy about 2 years ago. And um I went
in all all impressed with myself to tell
my therapist that I learned what
transference and countertransference
was. But I didn't learn about it from
proper research. I learned about it from
reading like absolute like USA Today
best-selling chick thriller. Uh but
anyway,
transference and countertransference,
you're sitting down with somebody with
cluster B,
et cetera. Yeah. Well, I mean, just just
in general, we all transfer and
countertransfer in life and human
relationships. It's not just exclusive
to therapy, but it's important to notice
that it's happening in therapy because
it gives you a lot of information as far
as
what's happening in the interaction. So,
I mean, transference
uh in the simplest terms is the feelings
that are transferred onto the therapist
by the patient. Countertransference are
some of the feelings or emotional
reactions that take place inside of the
therapist while they are in interacting
with the patient. So, the reason why
that's relevant is because we get to ask
cool questions like would I have been
feeling this if I was sitting with
anyone else right now? Or is this
feeling that just got activated in me,
is it directly related to the dynamic of
this
of this person with that I'm interacting
with because it starts to tell you
information about how maybe other people
are experiencing them outside of
of therapy in their personal life that
maybe they're not super
aware of. And they might actually even a
narcissist could genuinely come into a
therapy office and not have a clue why
everybody thinks they're so insensitive.
Right?
Um
all the while the therapist is picking
up on their insensitivity and having a
countertransference reaction to the
insensitivity. Like gosh, it feels hard
to sit in a room with this person. I
feel incompetent. I feel scared. I feel
like different than I did before they
showed up, right? So, it's a it's really
important, but
the typical countertransference that
results when you're sitting
um with somebody who
meets the criteria for cluster B or I
should say yeah, typical or common
countertransference. So, what the
therapist feels in the room with them
is you feel I I I said a a couple of
them just now. You oftentimes you just
start to overwhelmingly feel
incompetent. Like you don't know how to
do your job or you're not qualified to
do your job.
And remember, this is just coming as
you're sitting with someone. It's You
weren't thinking about it
earlier today on the drive to work. You
were thinking, oh, I can't wait to go to
work. I
I do a pretty good job, you know, I have
a full practice. Then this person comes
in and all of a sudden you feel like you
can't do your job.
Right? So, that's
>> Right. What is it? What is it? What is
it? What are they doing? What is it
>> They're devaluing you.
And not telling you that they're
devaluing you.
But you're starting to feel incompetent.
So, this is something that that somebody
with
pretty severe personality pathology can
sort of just put into the environment.
They can export this out into the
environment without saying a word. Do
you think they mean to? Is this is this
uh an outcome that they want or is this
a spandrel that's come along for the
ride?
So, earlier you were asking about
purpose evolutionary perspective. I
would say this is an evolutionary
perspective that would be important to
look into.
Um can they put this spell into the
environment into the air for some sort
of a at advantage for themselves that
they might not even fully be aware of in
the moment, but it's it's happening and
it's starting to work for them.
It makes people It makes people want to
compete. Allow me to show you just how
competent I am. No, no, no, no,
I will do I will over-deliver. I will
over because there is this odd sense of
interpersonal competition of one. Oh,
it's actually of none, right? It's just
you, right? It's not a It's not a
competition between you. It's that I
need to prove myself because
you don't seem impressed by me. Be
impressed by me. Okay, I'll do a bit
more. I'll do a bit more. I'll do a bit
more. Be be more Be finally, please just
recognize that I'm here.
Yeah. Or
if I can get the professional to tell me
to feel incompetent, then I'm I get to
um direct the treatment, which means
maybe if they feel incompetent, they'll
agree with me more.
So, see I I I take them off their
I take them off their high horse of
expertise.
Now I get to kind of
get what I want from them a little bit,
you know, maybe maybe I can pull the
wool over their eyes.
>> So, they're a bit more vulnerable. This
isn't exactly 100% conscious, but it to
me I would still even constant I would
still refer to that tactic as
intentional abuse because you're not
you're not showing up
um with the intention of playing fair
even in the conversation,
you know?
So, what else what else what else do you
feel?
Um
fear
and dread.
Okay.
And it's not always like 100% conscious
of what you fear or what the dread is,
but you can all of a sudden come up with
this feeling. We also have a detection
or a deception detection network in our
brain,
uh which gets hijacked by these types of
tactics. You you you you feel it you and
you stop thinking it it if you get
somebody who's good enough at
manipulation, you could stop thinking,
"Hmm,
I'm feeling incompetent. I wasn't
before, now I am. What's that about?"
You might just think, "Maybe I'm not as
good as I thought I was."
And that would be a really important
thing for a victim of a narcissist to to
say to themselves, "Maybe I'm not as
good
>> Oh, because because that's
dissolved their defenses around I'm not
in the wrong, they're in the wrong.
Right.
Yeah.
And this happens in milliseconds, by the
way. This is all happening unconsciously
when you're interacting with someone. So
So, someone like me, you know, I'm a few
steps ahead,
but not by any means immune. And I would
never tell anybody because even the most
the foremost experts of this would never
claim that they
could never be sucker punched.
Um gassed, finessed. Mhm. Yeah. But um
it's not really about becoming a human
lie detector and knowing what what
everyone else is all about. That's not
what you're trying to do, but but you're
trying to notice, "When I'm with this
particular person, I feel incompetent. I
feel dread. I feel
fear. I feel insecurity. And in most
other relationships in my life, I don't
operate that way.
What's happening in this particular
dynamic that's making me feel that way?"
Um that's kind of some things that a
therapist would want to certainly be
aware of
um if they're interacting with someone
who potentially has a uh
socially maladaptive personality.
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