Narcissism vs. Narcissistic Defense

It's not surprising that there is so much talk and learning about Narcissism and the criteria for being a Narcissist in recent years. American culture is built around an egocentric conception of Self and society. This means that we generally privilege the individual over the collective; we are egocentric, not sociocentric, and this filters into our sense of ourselves. We believe that individuals create their own destiny and fortune and that is more important than a collective experience. Don't get me wrong, this kind of thinking also has some vital and real benefits, like adopting a Constitution that has a Bill of Rights for the individual citizen. It is also why we have had recurring civil rights movements for marginalized people--because we believe that an individual's rights and experience matter and are important. 

However, this egocentric world-view has also cost us all something: a deep sense of inter-connectedness to others, including to other people and to our natural environment. We automatically see ourselves as separate, without even realizing that we're doing it. Ego-centricism also puts a LOT of pressure on us as individuals. The consequence of "failure" is high when you're totally responsible for your own destiny and fortune, your own choices and station in life. The price of that level of pressure can be isolation and shame. Lots of people have written about these things, but one of the things that strikes me now as I think about it is that probably one of the highest costs of our ego-centric culture is how easy it is to live a shame-driven life; it's even encouraged by advertising/capitalism. "You're not okay, but hey, if you just get/buy this or that, you will be."  

The roots of Narcissistic Personality Disorder are shame, and the inability to metabolize shame because it is too much, and/or we were too alone with it as we were forming our sense of self. The classic Narcissist grew up being highly criticized or shamed and also emotionally neglected, meaning that there was no healthy adult to help the child process and integrate their emotional experiences. Instead, the child does what all children do with a lack of a proper emotional holding environment: they blame themselves and make themselves responsible for the bad feelings and overwhelming experience. Under the great emotional burden of that, the child's sense of self never gets a chance fully develop and feel good and regulated and "okay." 

The reason Narcissism is classified as a "personality disorder" is that the roots of it begin when the person is forming a sense of separate self and identity. Their ability to feel deeply okay and without shame was harmed. Instead, without an inner sense of okay-ness, the child forms defenses to protect this deep and fundamental wound. These defenses form the characteristic for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, some of which are: an inflated sense of importance, a need for reassurance, a delusional or psychotic sense of importance and power, a need to have all the finest things, an instant shifting of responsibility onto others, extreme difficulty with empathy, etc.  One of the things that is notable about Narcissistic Personality Disorder is that it is all-encompassing and the person cannot get out from under these defenses. That's why psychologist say that the disorder cannot be changed or healed. There are therapists who don't agree with that; they think that all defenses can be relaxed and worked through, including those of personality disorders, though it takes a lot of work. 

Very few people have full Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Instead, most people have a narcissistic defense, but it's not a disorder. In fact, lots of people in our culture have a part of them that uses a narcissistic defense, and it seems like that gets mislabeled as Narcissistic Personality Disorder, erroneously. 

What is a narcissistic defense? It's when there is an emotional wound that gets approached in someone, and because the wound is vulnerable and feels overwhelming, it triggers a shame response ("I'm not okay, I messed up, I'm not perfect...") and the person wants to get away from that emotional territory as quickly as possible. Instead of being able to take responsibility and tolerate their negative emotions, they shift into blame. They get themselves out of the hot seat and try to put someone else in it. It can go something like this:

Speaker 1: "Why did you track mud into the house right after I cleaned the floors?!" [This is not a good way to talk about your anger, by the way. Asking a Why question like this is an easy way to trigger defensiveness in another.]

Speaker 2: "You didn't tell me you were cleaning the floors! Ugh, you're such a neat freak!"

This is a quick and common use of a narcissist defense. When speaker 2 heard the poorly worded expression of frustration from Speaker 1, and realized they'd done something without realizing it (triggering shame), they immediately shifted the responsibility from themselves to Speaker 1. If they had not used a narcissistic defense, they might have felt badly and taken responsibility for the muddy floors and apologized. 

So, why do we use these narcissistic defenses? Of course, in part it can be a personal issue of having difficulty feeling okay because of a difficult childhood, and in part it can be a collective issue. There is so much emphasis in our Western culture on Me, on the individual ego-based "I." If you grew up with exposure to cultural norms, your "I" is expected to be nearly perfect, work hard, don't make mistakes, be rich, be uncommonly beautiful, be skinny and young, be a genius. It's gotten even more intense with social media and the airbrushed versions of a human life. This is all an unnatural over-emphasis on the individual. 

So what is the medicine for our narcissistic defenses? It is to increase our tolerance for metabolizing negative feelings in ourselves and others. It requires welcoming all the feelings we have, not just the positive ones. Welcoming them and finding compassion and nurturing for them. When we can do this and tolerate shame, anger, embarrassment, etc. and welcome and work with these things in ourselves, then that increases our tolerance to bounce back when someone uses poorly worded expressions of anger or disgust or disappointment in something we've done. Welcoming and working with our negative feelings in ourselves also teaches our nervous system that we can feel shame or embarrassment but not get totally lost in it forever; and it's not fundamentally who we are. Then when we experience it, we can still hold onto our core self energy-- that we can be embarrassed or ashamed but we're still deeply okay.