How Extreme Narcissism Wreaks Havoc On Your Life and How To Handle It

From the minute I learned of something called narcissistic personality disorder during my Master’s program in marriage and family therapy, a whole lot of what had happened to me throughout my life (at the hands of toxic friends, bosses and colleagues) made a great deal more sense. As a therapist, too, I saw first-hand the crushing effects of narcissism and what it does to those in its wake. If you’ve ever been exposed to a narcissist at work, you know that the effects can be truly devastating.

Even more surprising to me was the fact that I had been attracting narcissists into my life repeatedly throughout my 18-year career. I finally learned what I needed to do about it so it would never happen again. (And here’s more about how not to get fired by one). Last year, when I wrote a LinkedIn post on the 6 Toxic Behaviors That Hold You Back: How To Recognize Them In Yourself and Change Them, and it went viral (at that time, it was the most-read piece ever on LinkedIn at 2.8 million views), the comments and responses demonstrated that people all over the world are dealing with toxicity and narcissism, and simply don’t know how to handle it.

To learn more about extreme narcissism, I was eager to connect with Dr. Joseph Burgo, a psychotherapist of 30 years and the author of the book The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me World and Why Do I Do That? Psychological Defense Mechanisms and the Hidden Ways They Shape Our Lives. Joe’s blog, AfterPsychotherapy.com, draws more than 30,000 visits per month, and he is a regular writer and commentator for news outlets including The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and NPR and the voice behind the Psychology Today blog “Shame.”

Here’s what Joe shared about extreme narcissism, how to recognize it and deal with it:

Kathy Caprino: Joe, what contributes to the emergence of Extreme Narcissism in an individual? What happens in childhood that brings rise to it and how can parents behave differently to ensure a child grows up healthy and secure?

Joe Burgo: In my book, I explain Extreme Narcissism as a defense against core shame, defined as an internal sense of damage, defect or ugliness. Core shame takes root in the earliest months and years of life and results from gross failures in parenting and attachment: a severely depressed mother, a physically absent father, drug or alcohol abuse, violent parental discord, etc. The late British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott talked about an innate “blueprint for normality” – an inherited expectation for what each child will encounter upon birth. When early childhood departs dramatically from that expectation, core shame is the result. It doesn’t depend upon shaming behavior from the parents but may be compounded by it.

Because the experience of core shame is unbearably painful, the growing child may develop a false and idealized self-image to ward it off, a “winner” self-identity meant to deny and disprove the experience of being ugly, damaged, or defective – that is, a “loser.” Defending this winner self-image often depends upon identifying someone else as the loser. Just as a comic depends upon a straight man to support his identity as the funny one, an Extreme Narcissist exploits other people as losers to carry his sense of defect or damage. My book identifies different types of Extreme Narcissism and shows how each of them exploits other people to sustain a defensive and idealized self-image.

Caprino: Does being “shamed” and shaming behavior from parents contribute to narcissism? What else is involved?

Burgo: Being shamed by parents and other people compounds the agonizing experience of core shame. Some parents use their children to carry an off-loaded (and unconscious) sense of shame of their own, turning their offspring into losers and then feeling superior to them. Such children are usually crippled by this experience and never thrive.

While some people who are shamed by their parents succumb to depression and a sense of inferiority, others develop a defensive identity to ward off the shame. An idealized false self embodies that defense, where defensive character traits (contempt, blaming, self-righteousness, etc.) become embedded in the winner personality. The Extreme Narcissist feels this defensive personality as synonymous with the self and has no conscious awareness of the core shame behind it.

Narcissistic parents who are themselves invested in being perceived as winners often exploit their children for narcissistic gain, encouraging them to become winners as an extension of the parental self. (I use the example of Tiger Woods and his father Earl as an example, where a narcissistic parent nurtures a narcissistic child, both of them needing to perceive themselves as winners.) Narcissism begets narcissism.

Caprino: What are the hallmarks of it among your colleagues or peers – the top five signs?

Burgo: There’s a lot of valuable and widely repeated information available online, about how to identify narcissists, most of it tied to the DSM diagnostic criteria. My book distinguishes different types of Extreme Narcissism, each one characterized by a different prominent feature. Rather than repeating those five common signs available elsewhere, I’d like to suggest five different types of Extreme Narcissism with their prominent features:

The Bullying Narcissist
Builds up his or her self-image by persecuting you and making you feel like a loser.

The Seductive Narcissist
Makes you feel good about yourself, as if you’re a winner, in order to secure your admiration … then dumps you.

The Know-It-All Narcissist
Constantly demonstrates superior knowledge in order to make others feel ignorant, uninformed, and inferior.

The Vindictive Narcissist
When challenged or wounded, will do everything possible to destroy the perceived cause of shame.

The Addicted Narcissist
Seeks fulfillment of an idealized self through drugs, sex, or fantasy, in ways that are often invisible to outsiders.

Caprino: What are your best strategies for helping people deal with extreme narcissism in both the workplace and personal life?

Burgo: Here are strategies that I’ve found to be effective:

Don’t engage in battle.
Remember that the winner-loser dynamic is always at play in Extreme Narcissism, even if it’s not readily apparent. Because Extreme Narcissists are relentless in defending their winner self-image, you will never prevail if you fight back to prove you are actually the winner.

Do nothing that might stimulate shame.
Bear in mind that shame is always the issue, even though the Extreme Narcissist is almost always unaware of it. For this reason, be excessively cautious not to wound his or her self-esteem, even when you don’t see your comments or behavior as hurtful.

Set aside expectations of fairness and justice.
Objections such as “I didn’t mean it that way!” or “That’s not fair!” are meaningless to the Extreme Narcissist. Winning is all that matters and you need to recognize that you will never persuade the Extreme Narcissist to be reasonable.

Document everything.
Because Extreme Narcissists are often ruthless and vindictive, take every precaution to defend yourself. This often means laying the foundation for legal action that may prove necessary, including preserving emails or other written exchanges, getting witness statements, etc. The endgame often depends upon having legal proof.

Get as much distance as possible.
You will never change the Extreme Narcissist. Don’t delude yourself that you can get him or her to “see the light.” Don’t think you can save the Addicted Narcissist, or convince the Seductive Narcissist to come back.

Caprino: What happens to children of narcissists? What do they need to be aware of in themselves and why is it common that adult children of narcissists attract more narcissistic people and responses in their lives?

Burgo: The adult children of narcissistic parents are attuned to the needs and expectations of self-absorbed people because this is how they survived childhood. They learned that to be accepted (if not truly loved for who they are), they must shape their behavior/personality to meet the needs of others. As adults, they naturally fall into the same pattern with other narcissistic people because it is familiar to them. They believe such self-abnegating behavior will earn them love and acceptance. Each new relationship revives the hope that this time, at long last, someone will give them the love and full acceptance they have always longed for.

For this reason, the adult children of narcissistic parents need to be aware of the ways they will sacrifice their own needs to serve other selfish people; they need to place a value on their own needs and develop a sense of self-worth apart from the approval they constantly seek from their partners, friends, and colleagues.

For more information, visit Joe’s blog Shame, and his new book The Narcissist You Know. Other helpful resources include the book Shame: The Underside of Narcissism by Andrew Morrison and The Workplace Bullying Institute.

To build a happier and more successful career, visit kathycaprino.com, Breakdown, Breakthrough and The Amazing Career Project.

(Originally published on Kathy Caprino's Forbes blog "Career Bliss.")