Speaking of Psychology: Recognizing a narcissist, with Ramani Durvasula, PhD

Narcissism is not just something attributed to people who post selfies and list all their favorite meals on Facebook. It’s a diagnosable personality disorder that causes people to have a delusional sense of self-worth and lack of empathy. In this episode, psychologist Ramani Durvasula, PhD, talks about how people can recognize a narcissist and what to do if you’re in a relationship with one.

Ramani Durvasula, PhDopens in new window, is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Santa Monica, California, and professor of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, where she was named Outstanding Professor in 2012. Personality disorders are a central focus of Durvasula’s research and clinical practice. She works with men and women on managing these issues as partners, employees and parents.

Durvasula’s expert commentary has been cited in a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, and The Guardian. She has also published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and scientific conference papers. Her latest book is “Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist.”

Audrey Hamilton: Narcissism – it’s the buzzword of a society that has become used to posting selfies on Instagram and chronicling their days on Facebook. But, psychologists say narcissistic personality disorder is more than just overconfidence. It can lead to an emotionally abusive and toxic environment. In this episode, we speak with one psychologist who studies and treats people with the disorder to see if it’s possible to be in a relationship with a narcissist and survive. I’m Audrey Hamilton and this is Speaking of Psychology.  

Ramani Durvasula is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Santa Monica, California. She’s also a professor of psychology at California State University in Los Angeles where she was named outstanding professor in 2012. She has been an active member of APA committees, including the committee on psychology and AIDS and was vice-chair of the committee on women and psychology. Most recently, she has written a book “Should I Stay or Should I Go? Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist.” Welcome, Dr. Ramani. 

Ramani Durvasula: Thank you so much for having me. 

Audrey Hamilton: I think a lot of our listeners can relate to being involved in a bad or a toxic relationship. But, your book sort of touches on something that surprised me – how do we or should we stay in these relationships? You know, that seems sort of counter intuitive. I think most people would say if you’re in a relationship with someone who is bad for you, you should leave. But you’re saying that’s not always possible. Correct? 

Ramani Durvasula: When I called this book “Should I Stay or Should I Go” it would have been so easy to just call it “Go.” But, the fact of the matter is that relationships aren’t that simple, are they? And that I felt that as a psychologist, I really had to look at it through that compassionate and realistic lens. People stay in relationships for lots of reasons – money, security, fear of being alone, culture, religion, children. I mean, the list goes on and they’re all very valid and very important reasons. So while a person is in a toxic relationship and doesn’t feel at that point that they can leave, I didn’t feel like then they should remain a human sacrifice or stay in something that’s truly a lost cause. But to really give them honest and actionable solutions for how they might be able to stay and honestly, what is a toxic solution without turning themselves into a human sacrifice? 

Audrey Hamilton: Now, the psychological term “narcissism” does get thrown around quite a bit as sort of a catch all term for someone who is self-involved or overconfident in themselves. You know, those people who post selfies constantly on Facebook or Instagram. What exactly is narcissism though and how can you recognize it in someone or even yourself? 

Ramani Durvasula: Narcissism is very much sort of the buzzword of our time. And it is woefully misunderstood. Narcissism is very much viewed as a disorder of sort of inflated self-esteem and grandiosity. It is those things, but in fact, it’s a disorder of self-esteem. People with narcissism are often the most insecure people in the room and they’ve established a way of showing themselves as anything but – that they often look like the most confident person in the room but there’s an emptiness there. 

I often say there are sort of four pillars to narcissism. Lack of empathy, grandiosity, a chronic sense of entitlement and a chronic need to seek out admiration from other people and validation from other people. Those really create the core of that disorder. And then that’s coupled with this sort of inability to regulate self-esteem – that sense of always peddling faster to get the regard of other people. And has even been viewed very much as a disorder of attachment – that inability to make deep, intimate, connected and phatic ties to another human being. 

When you’re with someone who’s narcissistic, it can often throw you off because initially, because they’re so good at putting on that admiration seeking show – they can be charismatic, often quite smart, charming and very gripping. But over time, all of that superficial façade is met behind with a real lack of empathy, often a lack of compassion, they often don’t listen very well, they’ll be prone to patterns like deceit and lying. It’s not the stuff that is good for very connected relationships. And the fact is, the impacts of narcissism aren’t just in the intimate relationship. We see them in any critical relationships. Narcissistic parents, narcissistic children, siblings, friends, co-workers and bosses. It behaves the same in all of those situations, but more than anything it often feels like we’re not being heard, we’re not being noticed and in fact we’re often being criticized and rejected on a chronic day after day way. 

The tough thing about a relationship with a narcissist is that they often run on hope. Most people, especially in an intimate relationship with a narcissist, these relationships run on the hope of a someday’s better. I always call it the Beauty and the Beast piece of this because what did Beauty do? She just sort of danced around and loved the Beast and one day he went from a raging beast to a prince. A lot of people have taken that fairytale and they have injected it into their lives saying if I love him enough, if I dance around enough, if I’m sweet enough, if I’m pretty enough, if I’m this enough, if I’m that enough, then I will please him and he will go from being a raging beast to a prince. It is never going to be enough and I think that’s the real paradox in the narcissistic relationship. 

So then the bigger question becomes, what do you do? If you’re never going to be enough, one thing you need to do is to stop exhausting yourself to try to be so. Every human being in the world comes into this world more than enough and exits this world more than enough. So that’s got to be the central premise. The key then becomes managing your expectations. Nothing is ever going to be enough for the narcissist and so it’s really to be your best version of yourself for yourself, for your meaning, for your purpose, to live in lying with that. If it works for that person, great. If it doesn’t, you’re never going to be the one to please them anyhow. That’s a really difficult thing to ask people to do because again, managing expectations often does mean giving up hope. I think it’s more like a re-rendering of hope. It’s re-writing that hope in a way that’s less about trying to run around in circles and trying to please one person, but really embedding it in your larger version of being again, a compassionate person yourself. 

And for many people to hear that this is all about a hope of a someday that’s never going to come, rather than making them feel more hopeless, for many of them they say, “I now feel like I’m living in less futility. Thank you. And I can manage my expectations.” And in lying with managing those expectations, comes a need to make sure that you build up supportive networks around you. So if you have that partner that doesn’t listen, if you have that boss that’s sabotaging you, if you have that friend who is chronically not compassionate, when you have something good happen to you or something you want a sounding board for, don’t take it to them. Take it to those people in your world, your stakeholders who are good listeners – who are your cheerleaders, who do support you. So many people exhaust themselves in the process of trying to please the unpleasable narcissist. They forget all of the great listeners and all of the compassionate and phatic people they already have in their lives. 

Audrey Hamilton: Have you ever treated a narcissist? Are they treatable or even open to being treated? 

Ramani Durvasula: The question of whether narcissists is treatable is a very controversial area in psychology. I’ve got my take on it and I know others are not in agreement and I respectfully hear their stand on it too. I have worked with several clients with narcissistic personality disorder, pathological narcissism and strong narcissistic traits. I often view it like a glacier moving. Glaciers do move, it’s just pretty small. And where we often have some of our greatest success with narcissistic clients is in changing behaviors. So for example, a behavior may be chronically being late, which really is a show of disrespect and a lack of empathy that you would make someone wait and not communicate with them. And so we might be able to do through a variety of behavioral strategies teach that narcissist that this is disrespectful, that it is important to show up on time. The problem is now they’re showing up on time and they’re still not empathic. Teaching empathy in an adult is a much taller order though there are many in the field who will say the process of psychotherapy and the attachment that can be created between therapists and client can in some cases, if the narcissistic client is motivated and has enough insight, can create some movement where you can actually see some significant change. It’s a relatively unlikely scenario because the key here is the insight -- that the narcissist has to be motivated to change and often they have to hit rock bottom before they see a need for that change. For example, a spouse leaving with the children, losing a job, losing their money, losing their home – there often needs to be some big slaps in the face. And I’m a psychologist and in many ways we are in the business of hope and I believe every human being, regardless of what they bring into a therapy room or into any human interaction deserves the best of us – our compassion, our empathy. That’s how I would operate in therapy when I do it but I have to say the changes I see are glacial and the people who most often suffer, even though we may be doing good work in therapy, they’ll often very quickly go back to their old habits when they’re in their relationships. 

Audrey Hamilton: I think there’s a lot of blame being put on technology and the rise of social media for a shift in how couples meet and communicate. How do you know when social media is working against you in your quest for finding the right person and when it’s beneficial? 

Ramani Durvasula: Social media is here to stay and as much as I could sit here as a psychologist and say it is the root of all that is evil, it’s here and it’s a new language in which we communicate. 

What it is not though is a stand-in for true human contact. We human beings are wired to like other three-dimensional human beings in our world. When social media is becoming a substitute or a go-to for face-to-face interaction with people, I do think then it’s impeding the ability for a person to really build a three-dimensional relationship – one that is full of empathy, respect, mutuality. The back and forth that makes a long-term relationship. 

Social media is making it very efficient to get to know people from all over the world. You may actually have somebody you have three times daily contact with in Italy or Scotland or something like that. That was once not possible. But it cannot be your sole go-to and I think I caution people, particularly young people, that this cannot be your only place to play. And while apps like Tinder can be a lot of fun, right swiping is probably not sufficient depth to create a relationship with somebody who is going to be your life partner with whom you may grow old and raise children. 

So it’s to view it as a tool, but one of many tools to facilitate the ability to meet another human being. 

The other thing that social media raises, in terms of relationships, is it definitely turns up the dial on superficiality in relationships. Social media is very visual. There’s a lot on sort of what a person does and how a person looks. And young people are very vulnerable to that. So, one of the real challenges is that as social media and technology and our various devices sort of threaten to make human relationships more superficial and sort of empty them of the kind of depth they need, it does require all of us – parents, people getting into relationships, teachers and young people to remain aware of the fact that we are becoming more superficial in the face of these sort of visual worlds. And to really be aware that many times the people who are doing best in those worlds or sort of having the most success sometimes do run toward the superficial. That’s a lot of fun in the courtship phase and that’s a lot of fun from a flash in the pant phase, but it often doesn’t have legs to go the distance. 

Mindfulness may in fact be the single most important tool in a relationship and it is so easy because it’s really retaining that awareness of what is probably one of your most important human interactions in your life. It is about taking that extra moment, that extra pause, being aware of plugging in and tuning into the world of your partner, the needs of your partner, the aspirations of your partner, and then for both of you to do that together. In a distracted world where we can get emails 24/7, where we’re getting pings and dings and we’re constantly being pulled at, mindfulness really requires now a very different kind of discipline. It really means you have to be on your game and make a conscious effort to say “I just walked in the door and I am going to put this down and go attend to this very important person rather than to sort of let that email demon follow you right through that front door.” It is so easy to forget about the living, breathing people in our lives when there’s something in our pocket vibrating 24/7. 

Audrey Hamilton: Well Dr. Ramani, this has been very interesting. Thank you so much for joining us. 

Ramani Durvasula: Thank you so much for having me. It was really, really interesting. 

Audrey Hamilton: Thanks for listening. To hear more episodes, please go to our website. With the American Psychological Association’s Speaking of Psychology, I’m Audrey Hamilton.