Narcissism and the Extra Drive to Feel Special w/ Dr. Craig Malkin

Why are you? In my mind, I want to be the person who has cancer and doesn't run a marathon, Like, do I have to work that hard? No, it's the best excuse not to run a marathon. Welcome to Go, ask Alli. I'm Allie Wentworth. So we've all heard the word narcissist being thrown around. He's a narcissist, she's a narcissist. But what exactly is a narcissist? And how do we spot a narcissist in our life and how do we

get them the hell out of it? There is no better a person to talk to about this than doctor Craig malcol He's a clinical psychologist, author and lecturer for Harvard Medical School. His internationally acclaimed book, Rethinking Narcissism, The Secret to Recognizing and Coping With Narcissists, has been translated into twelve languages. That's how many narcissists there are in the world. In February this year, Rethinking Narcissism was named by Oprah Daily as the best book to read if

you have a narcissist in your life. One hundred percent chance you do. His articles, advice and insights on relationships have appeared internationally in outlets like Time Magazine, NPR, and the Oprah Winfrey Network. Doctor Malkin is President and Director of y M Psychotherapy and Consultation in Cambridge. Well, doctor Malkin, are you a narcissist? I'm just curious how you got involved in researching narcissism. Are you a recovering narcissist? I

should ask. I'm actually covering echoist, which is a whole other topic that is related to narcissism. What's an echoist? So if you think of narcissism along a spectrum, and you really should, because study after study, decades of research show that it's really best to think of narcissism as pervasive universal trait that exists to some extent in all of us, to a greater or lesser degree. I think of as the drive to feel special, and we can

talk about why. I think that captures all forms of narcissism. But you think of that drive to feel special along a spectrum. Imagine it from zero to ten. A lot of times people start at some narcissism bad and then all the way up to a lot of narcissism really bad. But what we've learned from the research is a little of that drive is helpful. And if you have none of it, if you have what's called a failure to self enhance, that is what I describe as echoism. And

the term echoism comes from the myth of narcissists. In echo, Narcissus is the vain Greek youth who fell in love with his reflection. Echo is the nymph who was cursed to repeat the last few words she heard. She had no voice of her own, and she fell in love with Narcissus. And I like to think of echoism along

those lines. These are people who, because of their experiences, have no drive to feel special or very little, fail to self enhance, and they intend to have fall into relationships with extremely narcissistic friends and partners, not always a lot of time, and that pretty much describe my dating life right for most of my early adulthood. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, you've just described a lot of people. I know, a

lot of women. I know. All right, So let's dive right into narcissism because I think that and I'm sure you've dealt with this A lot people get confused with exactly what narcissism is, and we need to be very clear because I feel like the word is thrown out so casually all the time. So how would you, doctor Melkin? How would you define narcissism we've just discussed. I think the starting point is the drive to feel special, exceptional, or unique compared to the other eight billion people nearly

eight billion people on the planet. Is it the drive or do you feel those things? It's both. It's both. The reason it's both is because the drive is there, that is, the intense engagement in experiences in a relationship in a way that's expressly geared to maintain this sense of feeling special. But people will struggle with narcissism, particularly

in the extreme, don't always feel special. They're driven to create experiences that they can have that feeling, but it doesn't always stick and they don't always feel that way, So I would say it's both. There are three terms for a narcissist. Correct, correct? Can you tell me what these three terms are? Sure, so you think of the drives you feel special as the heart of narcissism. There's lots of ways to feel special, but to date they come down to three that we've identified in the research.

The first is extroverted narcissism, also called overt or grandiose or obvious. Really it's that loud, outgoing brand of narcissism. The second type is introverted when people were more inward and reflective and less outgoing. Doesn't mean they don't have any aspect of that. So that's more introverted or vulnerable or covert. And these are people who agree in self

report with questions like no one understands my problems. A few people have suffered as much as me, so you get the idea the flavor of it, which is with overt narcissism, the grandi is obvious and the insecurity is hidden. In covert narcissism, the insecurity is obvious, shy, anxious, withdrawn, self doubting, low self esteem. The grandiosity is on the inside or hidden, hence covert. And then there's a third brand of narcissism that we've identified recently in the research,

which is communal narcissism. And communal narcissists agree with statements like I'm the most helpful person I know and it always makes me laugh without fail. So I'm the most helpful person I know, and one day I'll be known for my good deeds. So these are people feel special by virtue of their helpfulness or their altruism. As you might expect, their belief in their altruism and helpfulness isn't necessarily correlated with their actual altruism or helpfulness, but that's

how they feel special. So those are the three types. And so are you born a narcissist? How do you acquire narcissistic traits? You know it? Like most answers in psychology and development and personality, the answer is it's really best understood as a combination of genetics or temperament and environment. We know from a terrific longitudinal study by a psychologist named Phoebe Kramer, where she traced people over time for

twenty one years. She used data that had been around to track patterns of behavior, and one measure was early precursors for narcissism in preschoolers, like being melodramatic, being impulsive, always wanted to be the center of attention, being aggressive.

These were signs as early as age or four or five that she discovered predict later on unhealthier pathological narcissism unless those kids had a kind of parenting called authoritative parenting, which you want to think of as a combination warmth and structure. It's kind of what it sounds like. They set limits, they have boundaries, but they're carrying, they're connected, they're empathic with their kids. And if those little sort of obnoxious tikes had that experience over time, they didn't

grow up to be extremely narcissistic, they didn't show unhealthy narcissism. So, combined with genetic studies that also show what we call in the research a concordance rate, where you look at twins and if one twins particularly separated at birth, but they're identical twins and they're separated, if one has narcissism

does the other, there's a high concordance rate. So that also suggests there's genetics or temperament involved, but we know that's not enough because kids need a particular experience that leaves them insecure in a very specific way that also

causes them to develop unhealthy narcissism over time. So if you had a narcissistic toddler and you're not an authoritative parent, let's say you're a free range parent, chances are that narcissism would grow absolutely, particularly because that kind of unhelpful free range parenting that you're talking about is often called permissive parenting, and it's not simply hands off. It's not

just lais a fair. Parents who slip into that kind of permissive parenting are also not really paying close attention to what's going on with their kids. And so you take a kid with this kind of earth and we're talking a particular kind of narcissism, I should mention right when it's outgoing, when it's aggressive, that one tends to develop along these lines, particularly when kids don't have limits

and boundaries. And if you take a kid with that temperament and put an an environment where the parents just kind of asleep at the switch in all kinds of ways, not just in boundaries and limits, but more importantly emotional intwuments. Are they paying attention to when their kid is sad or scared or lonely or blue. They're not paying attention to other things like obnoxious behavior. They're not paying attention to that either. That is a recipe for unhealthy narcissism.

So is it a leap to say that narcissistic toddlers, when not having a strong connection to their parents, become bullies in high school. No, it's not a leap at all. The core of the problem there this brand of narcissism which is extroverted. It's the loud, brash, as I say, narcissists we all know and loathe, right, we all recognize that. And what drives that most powerfully is aggression, which is

also wired in. We also come into the world with that biological equipment, taking kid with that kind of aggression and give them an experience where they're not taught to consider others, where they have, say an authoritarian or bullying parent themselves, or parent who doesn't really help them think about other people in these the kind of empathic way that we're talking about. Authoritative parenting Yeah, they're going to become a bully. Sure, and you just hope they don't

become president one day. Correct. Yes, that's an interesting topic. Of course, most presidents they're narcissists, yes, yeah, but there I would imagine different levels of narcissism that works in their favor, and then there's those that work again correct, Yes, yeah, I think you have to be somewhat of a narcissist who want to be president of the United States, and

that is that is confirmed by research. There's a couple of researchers, James de Luga, another one Scott leland Field Lelandfeld excuse me, who took measures of narcissism, of which we have many, and took one of the most popular. And you can take a measure like that, and you can ask expert people to rate someone on that scale, and both these studies did that and not surprisingly, look at presence over time and looking at their behaviors, and

there's plenty of biographical historical data for this. Most of them scored high enough on these measures to be called narcissists. That doesn't mean disorder, which is your point. It means they had the drive to get them to that place. Exactly and a high enough drive that it's well above average compared to other people. But we know from the research too, is there's healthy and unhealthy aspects of narcissism and expressions of it, and they don't rise and fall

in perfect step with one another. So you can be high enough on the narcissism scale to agree with statements like I'm a natural born leader, which you hope and somebody who wants to lead a country, for example, but not score high on measures. I won't stop until I get the respect. That's doom and I like to look in mirrors. Right right, I will be the fascist dictator

of a democratic country. People with narcissistic personality disorder, which we should probably define, are so addicted to that that need to feel special, so driven by it that they demonstrate what I call triple E, which is the core of pathological narcissism. Exploitation, which is doing whatever it takes

to feel special no matter the cost to others. Entitlement, which is acting as though the world should bend to our will because we're so special, and empathy impairments exactly what it sounds like, becoming so blind in the needs and feelings of others because of our drive to feel special that we have to maintain that at all costs. We can't see what's going on with other people. And triple E accounts for all the most destructive, dangerous behaviors

that you see in narcissistic personality disorder. Okay, so let me jump First of all, did you know your mother was a narcissist when you were a kid? I didn't. But circling back to your question, this is what got me into it, and I didn't know. There are no words for this anyway, to kind of think of myself as an echoist. And these things came later for me in my own thinking and research as well. But when I was younger, I had of Dara say, had a special connection with my mother. I mean, I knew her

to be kind and caring and supportive. Looking back, there were red flags of her narcissism. Can you tell me what those were? That our relationship was really organized around me being a consummate caretaker. So she, for example, had migraines. I think she had migraines. I don't know now. All I know is she locked herself in her room, isolated herself, and seemed to be in pain and needed special attention. You see where this goes. This is what looking back,

I think of as a red flag. Just wanted many but she often called me, you know, her little helper, her little doctor, in terms like this to really valorize and reinforce how great I was it attending to her. At at the same time, she could be caring with me, and she was often warm. I wouldn't say she was

the best listener. Again, another red flag. It was only when I later started learning about narcissism an undergraduate that I saw a description of narcissistic personality disorder in a book, and by then I'm a young adult and it fit

her so well. And that was stuck with this paradox of this stark contrasts between the mother I knew as a child and the mother that I knew as an adult, And how do I reconcile those Well, it sounds like you had a narcissistic mother, But it sounds like what you said up top of the podcast you were echoing, and so you were probably in relationships where you participated in some form of what you were like as a

child with a narcissistic partner. Oh spot on Allie, I'm not a professional, but those are the connections I would make. There's a lot more to come after the short break and we're back. So the majority of my listeners are women and younger women, even older women that are already in a relationship, maybe pursuing a relationship. What are some of the things they can look for when it comes to narcissism. I'm sure you've come across this as yourself.

Most of the sort of signs that people list the warning signs, they're really things that tend into abuse, gas lighting, put downs, and those are behaviors that often come later. Most people are trying to put their best foot forward in a relationship, including people who are extremely narcissistic. So

those are not the ones I focus on. Really, they all come down to what I call the vulnerability dodge, and what I mean by that is the more narcissistic someone is, the more they have that particular form of insecurity I mentioned earlier called attachment insecurity, And what attachment insecurity is is it means that this is a person doesn't trust themselves in other people's hands emotionally when they're sad, scared,

lonely blue, when they have vulnerable emotions. In particular, they don't trust that they can turn to a special person or persons with that for mutual care and comfort. That is attachment security and extreme narcissism is a way of coping with that. And one of the ways narcissists cope with it is they avoid vulnerable states. If I don't go into those vulnerable feelings, if I stay away from them, if I don't feel them, if I don't share them, I'm not going to risk being hurt. Nothing bad is

going to happen to me. So you see these things

early on. Subtle signs like one of them I call emotion phobia, and a lot of people are phobic when it comes to emotion, but this is a particular brand that happens with all forms of narcissism, where say, for example, you're chatting with your date and you know, you're talking to them about an experience that you've had, say you went through difficulty at work, and you're feeling sad and you're feeling hopeless, you're feeling upset, and you're just trying

to share a little bit about that, and they say to you, oh, gosh, I can't say I've ever felt that way. I try to look on the bright side of things. Now. A lot of people make a mistake like that, but delivered in that way. That is particular combination of where they're not only trying to stay away from any vulnerable feelings in you, but in themselves and at the same time self enhance. I would never feel that way. What's wrong with you? That's the message, right,

that's weird who would feel that way? And as a matter of fact, I feel the opposite. It's strange that you would feel otherwise. That's a good example. You're weak, that's the implication, and it can be subtle. I may have played it up more than I should have, but everybody runs into this from time to time. And when it's that combination of staying away from any kind of vulnerability and self enhancing, trying to feel special or on top of experience or better at emotions than you are. Right,

that's a sign of narcissism. Yeah, I would assume that narcissists in a relationship, if they've started a relationship and the person they're having a relationship with maybe they're going through hard time, which makes them vulnerable and emotional. A lot the narcissist would leave. That's a great segue. Sometimes. Remember there is a brand of narcissism introverted or vulnerable or covert, and these are people who feel special except for unique by virtue of their suffering. Right, I'm no

one's more misunderstood than me. No one has been passed over for promotions more often than me, all right, And in the beginning of a relationship, they're going to put their best foot forward as well. And what that means is they might join you in that vulnerability and you might not catch early on that it doesn't feel fully authentic, that it doesn't feel fully mutual, more along the lines of, oh I've been through that too, And you may not

catch the lack of mutuality. But they wouldn't necessarily leave. They'll stay around long enough if they're extremely narcissistic in this covert way, to show you that you don't understand how much and they've suffered. That's where it will trend eventually.

So what this would look like in the interaction is they might join you early on and talking about oh, yeah, I've been through that too, and I remember this one time, and very quickly you realize that they're talking about their suffering, and you're not sharing yours at all anymore, right, and it must feel like sort of a fake attachment, which is the opposite of that right before. So exactly, let's fast forward and somebody is now married to a narcissist,

let's say an extreme narcissist. Is there any advice you can give them if they need to stay in the marriage. So we might need to break this in parts. I have a lot to say about it. Yeah, good step one. And this is true of any relationship experience you have. I put the emphasis on safety. And not all extremely narcissistic people are abusive, but many are. It correlates. Actually,

I mentioned that aggressive drive. The more aggressive drive somebody has, the more likely they are to show that really outgoing, loud bullying kind of narcissism, which is not the covert of vulnerable kind that doesn't come out in that way. And those types of narcissists are more likely to exhibit overt aggression as well, which could be in physical abuse, it could be like an onslaught of emotional abuse. So I always always talk to people about the three stop

signs first for any relationship. All kinds of things drive abuse. Not just narcissism, but if you hear put downs as the person is trying to control you financially, if they're gas lighting you, right, if they're trying to say and do things to make you feel like you're crazy when you're just trying to report events as they happened, Like I saw you look at your phone. Oh no, you're imagining things that kind of thing. This is gaslighting. If you see that kind of abuse, that's one of the

stop signs. Another stop sign is denial. I've talked to people about this a lot too. Just in the same way, if you have a partner who has substance abuse problem, if they're addicted to alcohol or if they're addicted to opiates and they can't acknowledge that there's any problem at all, they're not going to get better. So now imagine somebody who's extremely narcissistic, where their whole problem is they can't allow mutuality in a relationship. You know that they're drive

to feel special overtakes everything, all right. If you imagine that situation of somebody who can't eignet a knowledge they struggle in any way, and it's not going to get better. It's going to get really bad, and in fact, in the research, denial is a horrible predictor, meaning it predicts horrible things down the line. It often only gets worse. And then the third stop sign is psychopathy. Psychopathy and

narcissism are related. Psychopathy it's another trait like narcissism, but unlike narcissism, where people and at their worst have blocks in empathy impairments. Their empathy might come and go if they're motivated. Just as we were talking about early on in a relationship, you might see flashes of empathy. With a psychopath, it's all show and they feel almost wired

in a lack of remorse or guilt. So this is somebody who you catch them in a lie and they don't flinch, and they show no remorse and they show no guilt. We've gone beyond narcissism to psychopathy at that point, and again, to me, that's another one of those stop

signs that's not going to work in a relationship. You know, I have an example I want to give just because there's something that I witnessed in my own life that I think is important because you are pretty much describing the whole thing, which is I have a friend who was married, and whenever I was around them, he was so verbally abusive to her, you know, and it was really uncomfortable for people to be around them because you'd say, oh, what do you know, you're so stupid you don't know,

or well, you just won't lose that baby fat, and you know, just it was so it was horrific, and but you know, people at that level, people go, well, I guess there's got to be good points to that, because she's still in it. And then one day she showed up at my apartment and he had beaten her up because she found meth and a pipe in his belongings. And so for me, thinking quite rationally, I said, we have to call the police, and she kept saying, oh, no, no, I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want

to get him mad. He's a father of my children, you know, protect him, protect him, protect him. Anyway, long story short, they went through a horrific divorce. He's a meth addict, he's also gay, and he showed all the extreme signs, the red flags that you're describing. But at the beginning, it was that kind of narcissism. Seemed like he was incredibly you know, he was a proud man and he was so secure and he knew himself and

that's what attracted her to him. And then over time all these things developed to an extreme obviously, Yeah, an alpha male in the beginning. Yeah, and he controlled the finances and all those other things. But you know they're now finally divorced. And but for me as an observer of this, this to me was an extreme example of everything you're talking about. Such a classic example too, of how insidious this is in an abusive relationship, where again,

obviously he got worse and worse over time. But yeah, I don't think the drugs helped either, No, no, And they often go hand in hand as well. Nothing exacerbates personality or character pathology more quickly than substance abuse or addiction. So obviously it was all it was all escalating with him. But it's horrible to witness that. And it's the classic depiction that you're describing right now, where the person in the abusive relationship is just in it and they do

a number of things. One is they take on responsibility for the bad behavior. We just have to wait for a pass. They're going through a difficult time, we've got to make sure things are better at home. Don't want to rock the boat. That's taking responsibility for someone's abuse, and it's inevitable if you're trying to stay connected to someone who's abusive. We see this, and this is why it becomes harder and harder to leave over time. Yeah,

I was going to ask you about that. It seems like it's incredibly difficult to extract yourself from a relationship with a narcissist. How do you do that? For practical reasons and emotional reasons. Yeah, one of the biggest barriers, I would say, And this will speak particularly to people who struggle with echoism because it's sort of central to their defensive style. There are ways of protecting themselves. One

of the biggest berries of self blame. So you're in a bad relationship and you've got sunk cost as we call it, where you've invested a lot, it's been years, you've got kids, your lives are inextricably bound together or seemingly inextricably right, it's going to be hard to untangle things. There are a lot more reasons to explain to yourself why you should stay than why you should go. And one of the ways that people accomplish that is they tell themselves, well, I'm being too sensitive. I need to

approach this differently. I need to understand that he's going through a difficult time. I've always been this way, where I have really intense emotional reactions. I have to be mindful of that that self blame stands in the way of the anger that's natural and healthy and important that you felt watching this happen. I'm sure you weren't just sad. I'm sure you were angry at times on your friend's behalf.

Oh yeah, well, I mean I wanted to do all kinds of legal action and absolutely, and that is the process. When I work with people who are in abusive relationships, whether it's a mild form, but regardless of whether somebody's extremely narcissistic, whatever it's causing us, one of the first things I do is try to get them in touch with healthy anger. I don't know if you know, people are always surprised when I talk about anger being important

and healthy. It is. It's wired in it's primary Anger helps us stand up and say no and connect to feelings about what matters and what's right for us. Part of dignity feelings, and if we learned that it's dangerous to express anger, which is the other in cities impact of an abusive relationship, like it makes things worse often when we try to express our anger, all right, So then it gets easier and easier to try to silence

or swelch it. But the tradeoff then is that you're cut off from the kinds of impulses and awareness and insight that help you leave. So my first step is helping people end self blame and instead of asking what am I doing wrong, to ask am I disappointed or angry? Right? Yeah, I would assume it's how you acquire agency of your

own life, you know. And I watch somebody who had none, you know, and now it would seem to me, even though it's counterintuitive that they then repeat this pattern, like this friend of mine, you know, I don't know what she's going to do, but I hope she doesn't now meet another narcissist and sort of get into the same cycle that can have. And this is one of the

reasons I developed the concept of echoism. Remember, kind of the rule of living for an echoist is the less room I take up, the better, And that's their stance in life, and they're caring and generous people that they can have relationships with, and they're lucky to find them.

But the reality is that anybody who needs you to give up your voice in order to feel connected to you or to feel comfortable with you, anybody who needs you to continue that way of living that you've become comfortable with, is probably going to be more narcissistic because

they're kind of flip sides of each other. Would narcissists have an extreme drive to feel special, echoists are afraid of special attention, and when that becomes a way of living life, staying connected to people and moving through the world, you've got to think about who's drawn to that. The person who's going to be comfortable, most comfortable with you is the one who likes that you don't take up any room, right, who likes that you don't challenge their

extreme drive fuel special. So what starts out feeling as you being careful or mindful of others in a relationship can become what I call defensive empathy right where it's kind of the mirror of the what about me stance in extreme narcissism. The echoing side of that is, well, what about him, what about her? Look what they've been through. They've told me about their childhood. Often people who are extremely narcissists have been abused and elect themselves, so they

have that as part of their backstory. And often people who continue to get into abusive relationships, one of the things that they struggle with is they trade their anger for empathy when you should be able to have both. Right, So it sounds like there's two different types of childhood trauma that then inform kind of who they are or will be as adults. So I'm calling it a submissive and the other abused child is sort of cooked into the narcissistic traits. That seems like a perfect match. It

is narcissists in echo. It feels like low versus high self esteem in a way. The high self esteem takes up all the room and the low self esteem just powers in the corner and takes what it can get it can be. I prefer to think of it as addictive self enhancement or drives people special versus a failure to self enhance or fear of special attention. Alright, the reason because you lecture at Harvard, So I'm putting it

in this is yber. But the reason also is because narcissists often don't even have high self esteem, but they mask it well. The loud, brash kind you remember, the introverted or covert narcissists may visibly suffer from low self esteem.

They might even endorse statements like I'm not all that special, nobody really cares about me, right, which is the harder narcissist to spot, because I think in our culture we always equate narcissism with big, loud bullies, like I said before, so the quieter ones are very hard to label narcissists. They could be so many other things. Yes, and it's time for a short break. Welcome back to go. Ask Galley, what would be your advice to people that have familial

relationships with people that are narcissists. How do you preserve your own dignity self control when you're constantly having to deal with a narcissist. Yeah, Often people can't just take off, they can't just go no contact, as it's often described. Could you never abandon your mother because she was a narcissist?

I didn't, So what I did is again, in non abusive relationships, something alcohol empathy prompts I used these with my mother all the time, and that is when she was being critical or accusing me, for example, of using funds from selling off stuff that was at their house after my father died to help her move because she was a destitute, because she'd spent down all her cash, and I needed to use some of it to pay

for the move. Because I was a poor, starving graduate student, I didn't have I didn't have the money to do it without some help. So we got a few thousand dollars, some of which went to the move, and she spent an hour interrogating me about what had happened to the rest of the money. With her, I used an empathy prompt.

It's like, Mom, I love you, I care about your my mother, You're one of the most important people in my life, and it's devastating to hear you ask me this as though you think I might have just taken the money. It makes me feel like you think I'm

a horrible person or nothing in your eyes. That's an empathy prompt where you first emphasize the importance of the person to you, the specialness of the relationship, if you will, and it kind of lights up those blocked areas of the brain devoted to connection and carry and concern, and somebody's extremely narcissistic, and then you share from a vulnerable place. It would be tempting for me, It would be tempting for anybody to say, what the hell are you talking about?

Are you out of your mind? How could you even ask me something that awful? Which you can do, but as anybody on the receiving end of that is going to get more defensive and protective, and with a narcissist that means they get more narcissistic. And it actually cuts me off from the point, which is I want my mother to be caring and I want to have a connection to her, and me blasting her is actually about distance, which is great if you don't have to be in the room with a person and you just want to

get away. Not so great. Of what you're saying is I need you to be kinder to me right for us to be close. So that's an empathy prompt. That's what I did with her. I mean there are other things that I did that were more about managing the relationship, but that's something worth trying. If you have connection with this person and they're more in the mild range. Remember that spectrum from zero that I talked about to give from zero to ten left to right zero extreme echoist,

ten is pathologically narcissistic. Someone around a six or seven. It's worth trying. Empathy prompts with it's good to know. What else are you learning? Like, is there any kind of medication that's going to come out so we can medicate narcissist and block those brain scepters that tell them to be the way they are? Well, you've got a point that you're making there that actually taps into what

we do know works one medication. So the people I see who have narcissist in personality disorder, there's kind of a selection bias, as we call it, where for somebody to get in my door, for example, they are not likely to be the kind of person with narcissistic personality disorder who won't admit to problems. And we know this is confirmed by research. It's usually people with introverted narcissism.

They're the ones who show up for therapy because they're willing to say, I'm upset, I'm anxious, I'm depressed, and will you give somebody like that in the room. One of the first things I do with them. I do this with everybody to some extent, but especially somebody who's

extremely narcissistic, as I help them reduce their anxiety. So anything that helps somebody with particularly vulnerable narcissism feel less anxious, whether it's medication or whether it's psychotherapy, is going to reduce their narcissism over time eventually, because the less anxious someone is, the less they're operating in defense mode. The whole point of these automatic or unconscious defenses, like pathological narcissism, which has a collection of defensive responses, you know, they

can all boil down to the vulnerability dodge. As I said, like with any of these, the more anxiety drops, the less people are operating in the defensive mode. So it's not atypical for me to have somebody in the room, whether it's bases, a combination of us talking about in them getting on some anti anxiety meds, or just working with me to help them know what it feels like to not be in that fight or flight state, or

tense or angry, which is also anxiety masked. So often people with covert narcissism are irritable or briskly but it's anxiety, right, and so when I help them reduce that anxiety, that's often an event in and of itself. I had somebody recently come to me and they said, I've ever felt this calm in my life. Wow. And they started using these techniques. And once I've got them there, somebody who's calm isn't going to go on the attack. They're not going to put you down. They don't need to. They

don't have the insecurity firing up in them. Right. So direct answer to your question is I, I mean, you get them on me on medication that reduces their anxiety, it's going to help, right, I mean it's going to help most problems really if they get lower the stress factor. So yeah, before I let you go, Um, this is going to sound very narcissistic, but it's my podcast, and I ask the people that come on is my guests a lot of questions, and so I like to turn it at the end and let my guests ask me

a question about anything. So do you have a question for me? Can you call me schmoopy? I'll call you smoopy. Course that's not my question. It is related though. Yeah, there are certain shows that we grew up with that that we watched addictively. For me, it was Gilligan's Island I was little, but in my twenties it was in Living Color. Oh Wow. Yeah, I watched that show again and again and I watched it with my friends. And I'm not going to assume that it was a great

experience for you. But my question is, what's your most memorable time on in Living Color? Wow? Well, I'll tell you one thing that you'll appreciate because of what you do, which is, you know, very early on, I learned that I thought that humor and comedy could actually be kind of healing tools. And it was on in Living Color that I realized making people laugh was actually a superpower. And so that was one of the great things that

came out of it. And I talk a lot in my podcast I use humor to parent, yeah, because I find it more effective than saying, like, you go to your right now. So let's say, there's a lot of memories within Living Color. And I got to me Jim

Carrey and David Ellen Greer and Jamie Fox. I will say I had a lot of fun with Jamie Fox, and we did a lot of crazy sketches together, and one sketch we did was he had a character called Ugly Woman where he yeah, he will make up in a way, and we did a basic instinct ugly Woman and I was Sharon Stone, and so in the sketch, now we did it live, so you know, there was

no changing anything. And so in the sketch we're supposed to kind of fake kiss, and Jamie was chewing gum and he just stuck his tongue in my and he deposited the chewed gum in my mouth. So rather than you know, sort of freak out or hide it, I took the gum out of my mouth and held it up and the whole audience was like, you know, but that was that was how off the rails we were, which was exciting. I mean, they would never be able

to make this show today everyone be canceled. But at the time, you know, it felt very groundbreaking, and you know, you felt like you were pushing the envelope a little, which was pretty cool. You are awesome on thank you and thank you for thank you for all your work you're doing and rethanking narcissism. I've so enjoyed your book, Doctor Malkin, and I really I bought a bunch of them to send us some friends, not because I was calling them narcissists, but I think it's an important read

and recognizing and coping with narcissists in the world. So I really appreciate you coming on and talk to me about this. Thank you, You're so welcome. Thank you for listening to Go Ask Alli. I've got to hop off this podcast because I just realized I am riddled with narcissists in my life and I need to go get rid of them. Please read doctor Malkin's book Rethinking Crassism,

The Secret to Recognizing and Coping With Narcissists. Follow him on Instagram at doctor Malkin or YouTube at Craig Melkin. For more info and what you heard in this episode, just check out our show notes. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review Go Ask Gali and follow me on social media on Instagram at the Real Alley Wentworth. Now. If you'd like to ask me a question or suggest a guest or a topic dig dig into, I'd love to hear from you, and there's a bunch of ways

you can do it. You can call or text me at three two three three sixty four sixty three five six, or you can email a voice memo right from your phone to Go Ask Gali podcast at gmail dot com And if you leave a question, you just might hear it and Go Ask Gali. Go Ask Gali is a production of Shondaland Audio and partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.