Midweek with Dr. C- What’s At The Core Of Narcissism?

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Dr. Les Carter is a best selling author and therapist who has semi-retired to Waco, TX. In the past 40+ years he has conducted more than 65,000 counseling sessions and many workshops and seminars. He specializes in anger management and narcissistic personality disorder.

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[bereal]

When i was a child we had 2 dogs. 1 was bought, the other was the offspring of the first. What i saw in that dog was what happened to me. Being brought up with my fathers rages and then fun side turned the poor thing into an anxious dysregulated mess with the extremes of intermittent reinforcement. Eventually it had a heart attack and died, i got ill and have cptsd. The other developed brain damage and fits because he was always blaming it and hitting it in the head. My father hated his father, now i hate mine for everything he has done and said. Well done dad. I loved those dogs, still do and my mother never protected them, just like me. Yes they turn to the dark side and they never learn or get better. He wouldnt hit now but their current dog is once again a dysregulated mess! When i was a child and i saw hurt and pain i wanted it to stop and got into trouble for that, i didnt want to go on and cause harm! To me its weak to hurt because youre hurting ✌️

[aaronkwolfe]

Wryly stated - the core of narcissism contains the seeds of contempt, pride, selfishness, etc.

[Hatbox]

In some ways narcissism seems devilish. The devil knows he's bad, but turns on the charm to blind you to his evilness. But, it begins to seep out and eventually becomes a river. I'm not kidding when I say my nex could talk and stay in character all day. It was unbelievable.

[BaraSchmidt]

We did not cause it. We cannot change it. We don't have to accept their ill treatment of us. We can change our way of managing ourselves when confronted by this type of individual. Find Healthy! Stay Healthy!!

[ActiveSneakers]

My mom and dad will never seek therapy. Both are in denial and both had difficult childhood. Dad is a perfectionist and a know-it-all and mom is stubborn in her ways, and insecure. I realized these recent years there's little chance for them to change. Change will need to come from me.

[IzabelaWaniek-ix]

Thank you 🙏 so much for your brilliant advice and invaluable support dr Carter 😊 God bless you ❤

[katiedid]

Thank you, Dr. C. for your videos. They are extremely helpful. I am in a situation: covert narcissistic friend used passive agressive discard tactics, I recognized and have chosen to yellow rock her as my friend base is composed mostly from my Church group of which she is also a member. She is very charismatic and I can tell when her “compassion and love bombing skills “are in high gear. She immediately homes in on anyone she thinks I might becoming closer to and befriends them with gifts, advice, and her wanting to spend more time with them—- building her camp. I went to another function, of which she is not involved, but knows someone in that group (she was new this past meeting and I did not know her). This person came on strong and began asking me about negative aspects of the narcissistic person. Thanks to your videos I did not bite so I was very generic with my answers and did not say anything derogatory about the narcissist. Yesterday, a mutual friend told me that this new acquaintance asked her how my and the narcissist friend relationship was progressing as the last friend is in another group with the narcissist ic friend and what I think is a flying monkey. ( I feel like I am in middle school🙀). Obviously the narcissistic friend has been “discussing “me with new people who she thinks I might become acquainted with which is probably negative. My QUESTION: Do I just sit by and let her spew her reteric.? I stand to loose many friends and it appears she is also widening her circle to isolate me. What is the best way to handle this without looking like I am the evil one. We are all in our ‘60s—‘80s. Most of us do not gossip and I abhor gossiping. I had been co- leader of our Bible study group. The leader had to be absent for a extended period of time and asked the narcissist to help— well she was miserable to work with—for— but she has managed to manipulate the leader to do what she wants. They no longer even ask my opinion on the materials nor the lesson plans which the leader and I had done together for years. This gal just dictates. Please help!

[amandaliverpool]

I love the Team Healthy compassion. Everyone is going through tough times.
I light a candle 🕯every evening and dedicate it to everyone I know ✨️

[l.]

My mother took her narcissism to the grave at age 97. I wished so often that she could have just opened up and trusted me and been able to realize her shamed core was unnecessary. I believe she had a teenage pregnancy at age 14. Something she would never admit to but the evidence was overwhelming. But her shame caused her to be extremely controlling of her kids, 'religious' to the extreme, intolerant, and unable to have healthy attachments or to love. The worst is the deprivation we had of not knowing who our complete family was. So many lies, so many all so unnecessary...just to preserve a false image of 'godliness and holiness and perfection'.

[Isildurrrrp]

Thank you Dr C for sharing your considerable wisdom!

[rosieE]

When "Over and over" is interspersed with positive reinforcement that is so confusing (happened to me) if you don't understand what is happening. Nearly impossible to get out of if you don't understand its intentionality.

[mindofnobility]

Exactly! Thank you for the sound and harmonious message, Dr. C! Peace and Light!

[SlobArt]

Thank you Dr. C. I like listening to your podcast and pondering, deciphering, learning, then practicing.

[zeddeka]

Otto Kernberg, one of the grandfathers of psychoanalysis, believed that narcissism was in most cases a defence mechanism against what he called "Borderline Personality Organisation" (BPO). Its is NOT the same thing as BPD, but seems to be the inspiration for BPD's name. Kernberg believed that everybody's personality was organised on one of 4 different levels, although people could move between those levels at different times, increasing or decreasing the severity of their symptoms.

1. Healthy, which is self explanatory.
2. Neurotic - these people have some problems but their sense of self and reality testing are intact. Someone with OCPD (Anankastia) would likely have neurotic personality organisation in most instances.
3. Borderline Personality Organisation - these people have an unintegrated sense of self ("identity diffusion"). Their reality testing may not be good at times and they will often have "primitive" (immature) defence mechanism, of which narcissism can be one, and primitive (immature) object relations.
4. Psychotic Personality Organisation - again, self explanatory. These people will have a very poor relationship with reality. People with severe narcissism may be at this level.

[BarbzSA]

Hi doc @SurvivingNarcissism. Please can you do something on the scapegoat role in the family system or scapegoating in abuse? Thanks and am so enriched by your lives, videos and team healthy ❤.

[lindabell]

This is close to the top shelf, the questions, the comments, my community Rules

[monicaelyn]

Wow. Listened to hundreds of these videos and i've never heard it described so perfectly: 'the underbelly of the human condition.'
Thank you again Dr. Les for all that you do...💙🙏

[lishmahlishmah]

Thank you dr C, again.
I didn't write this observation immediately and straightaway because I wanted to listen a bunch of times... Your explanation about
the good _mindset_ for people trying to give the narcissists some "glimmers"
for a possible improvement in their lives.
I wandered a lot in the internet looking for a good healthy way to enter a minimal basic human communication.... I didn't find it a clear way...
Then, I kept on practicing calmness (very difficult sometimes)
along with my usual empathy even in the worst moments.
Now, I know directly from your experience that I did again&again exactly what you say would be the best to do.
That _mindset_ you have described well, that was actually my main way to interact with them in the most difficult events... (since my discovery of family narcissism in 2023).
In the last months, I thought maybe it was a wrong solution because things went worse and worse, meaning they *always* interpreted my kindness, calmness and warm authentic empathy as either an attack ("I'm not angry! I don't have any problem! You have the problem!") or an evident proof of my weakness... Consequently, in both cases of interpretation the narcissists went crazy and attacked me bad (I mean, even more than usual).
So, it's not easy for me now to accept the reality.
There has been only one time in which my mother stopped her attacks and became sort of kind towards me. But I don't like the dynamic I triggered, I don't want to be that way!! In short, I was done, I lost my patience and I said to her with cold and disrespectful tone "That's enough! Stop it now!".
She stopped her contemptuous speech against me, she calmed down, she treated me with respect for some hours. Then, the day after she organized an "open deceit" (I can't find the right definition)... just to spite me... Just to show me her contempt toward me, a show of her control and her power.
As I already wrote in another comment, I learned (no doubt) from your webinar Decoding Darkness that my mother is a covert malignant narc with many (almost all) sociopathic traits plus some psychopathic traits too.
I'm trying to come to terms with this reality...
Thank you dr C

[Dove-gxgz]

Hi Dr.C, Could you discuss how the narcissistic family system resembles a cult? Especially when covert malignancy is involved & children are indoctrinated. Thanks to you & Gus!

[istvankiss]

What would happen to a group of collective narcissist if things will not go according to plan? For example authorities start enforceing responsibility on them?! 😊