In a study of 57 ritual abuse cases it was discovered that 97% of perpetrators fell into four large occupational categories; 35% were professionals, either doctors or lawyers, 25% were teachers, 22% priests and ministers, and 15% were police officers. These professions have one thing in common - they attract people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Narcissism, while it may have a genetic or cultural component (i.e. being taught from an early age that they are superior), usually develops in childhood as a coping mechanism due to an adversarial environment. It’s very likely that these people suffered some form of abuse themselves in childhood/ adolescence. To mediate tensions cause by their environment while growing up they developed a FALSE SELF. A bit like a child who thinks they can fly to the moon, is God like, or all powerful, these people live in a fantasy world divorced from reality where their fake concocted personality called the “False Self” reigns supreme. In essence a Narcissist always remains as a malformed child in an adults’ body.
The "False Self" is based on feedback from others, kind of like a hall of mirrors. They need constant feedback from others to maintain the false beliefs about themselves, and their mental stability. Attention (known as "Narcissistic Supply") is an essential component of the Narcissists personality – without it they would collapse. Narcissists are addicted to attention, adulation, affirmation, applause, obedience, or even notoriety and being feared.
Narcissistic are clustered and concentrated in the teaching profession, among the clergy, medical profession, politics, law enforcement and the judiciary.
They gravitate to these professions in order to garner Narcissistic Supply.
Narcissist seek to interact with people from a position of superiority, from a position of advantage, from a position of authority.
All Narcissists operate within what is known as a Narcissistic Pathological Space. This is a geographical area in which they derive Narcissistic Supply (adulation, accolades, fame & celebrity) used by the narcissist to regulate his or her sense of self-worth. They gravitate and migrate towards certain professions in order to construct these self-enclosed spaces, where they are divine, god like figures and they have a coterie of fans, admirers, followers and devotees.
They are addicted to Narcissistic Supply and like a junky, they don’t care if they’re liked or hated so long as they get their fix – in this case “attention”. Being an addict the narcissist tends to pursue an ever larger dose of narcissistic supply. He seeks more adoration and even bigger fix of attention while gradually loosing what’s left of his moral constraints. The people who place these predators in a position of power act as though they are Co-Dependants stuck in a cycle of abuse.
Through time the Narcissists "False Self" supplants the Real Self - the ego in a health individual. Because the False Self is a concoction, a fake construct, it is not grounded in reality it fails the reality test. Hence, it fails the Narcissist – it’s not working well most of the time!
The Super EGO is the executive function carried out in a normal person, which mediates between the inner landscape and the outside world. The Narcissist is constantly on trial by a ferociously harsh inner critic, constantly being judged, punished and criticized by a Sadistic Super Ego. If they fail to garner Narcissistic Supply they will feel shame, self loathing, powerlessness and humiliation. When they receive Narcissistic Supply they are elated, at that point the evil inner god of the Super Ego stays silent, they become God like, the Supreme Being in their own universe.
When they fail to acquire narcissistic supply they experience the opposite - Narcissistic Injury. When you are experiencing the Narcissist in depletion, not in elation, you will see someone who looks beaten down, beaten up, very stressed, but they are not being beaten down externally but by internal psychodynamic processes. They punish themselves in brutal terms for their failure to achieve Narcissistic Supply. Sadism is played out mechanistically and structurally within the shattered core of the Narcissist - they are in effect the victims of their own sadism. In order to negate these tensions, they inflict pain on others as a form of self-medication, by doing so they spare themselves from the self-inflicted torture.
DEHUMANIZATION AND OBJECTIFICATION (Abuse )
People have a need to believe in the empathic skills and basic good-heartedness of others. By dehumanizing and objectifying people – the narcissist attacks the very foundations of human interaction. This is the "alien" aspect of narcissists – they may be excellent imitations of fully formed adults but they are emotionally absent and immature. Abuse is so horrid, so repulsive, so phantasmagoric – that people recoil in terror. It is then, with their defenses absolutely down, that they are the most susceptible and vulnerable to the narcissist's control. Physical, psychological, verbal and sexual abuse are all forms of dehumanization and objectification.
Child abuse occurs because Narcissists are “AUTOEROTIC” in other words they are primarily attracted to themselves. A child who is a blood relative is the closest thing genetically to themselves and hence seen by the Narcissist as an extension of themselves. Because narcissists view others as mere extensions of themselves, like another organ or limb, when they have sex they are essentially masturbating inside another person.
Narcissists view children as an internal object (an extension of themselves). In contrast, Psychopaths view children as completely autonomous, as a distinctly different entity to themselves, like a mini-humanoid or small human robot. Psychopaths view children this way, to a greater extent than normal people do, because that’s how they themselves viewed the world in childhood. Children don't work, have limited knowledge and aren't sexually mature - so essentially they are useless to a Psychopath.
Malignant Narcissism (the extreme form of NPD) is a syndrome characterized by a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), antisocial features, paranoid traits, and egosyntonic aggression (criticism which goes against their Ego ideal self-image can result in them becoming angry/ punishing and vindictive). Other symptoms may include an absence of conscience, a psychological need for power, and a false sense of importance (grandiosity). Essentially they have the GOD complex – Omnipotent (unlimited power), Omnipresent (everywhere), Omniscient (all knowing/ all Seeing Eye).
Malignant Narcissists require constant attention to validate themselves and are pathological liars because subconsciously they are always lying to themselves. The “False Self” is adapted to whatever Pathological Narcissistic Space they currently inhabit. Question them about something bad they did in their past and they will react with disbelief/ indignation, because that’s the actions of a different “False Self” which operated at a different time/ in possibly a different pathological space. This is why they appear to have been taken over by entities, or been "body snatched", but in reality it’s just a psychodynamic of Narcissism. They rarely accept responsibility for their actions ("alloplastic defenses"). This often leads to antisocial behavior, cover-ups, and criminal activities on a mass scale.
Malignant Narcissists are intrinsically irrational and dangerous (especially to children). By comparison Psychopathy, which is genetic in nature, is a cold logical state, where the motivation is the best logical outcome from any given set of parameters (except when threatened or not in control). Psychopaths like Money and to an extent power but are not interested in attention. Psychopaths are not narcissistic unless being so makes it easier to achieve some goal. Psychopaths are not interested in people unless they have some purpose for the Psychopath. "Either you're of use OR you're in the way". Whereas Narcissists NEED people and their attention to supply the conscious altering drug, that is used to regulate their sense of self worth and maintain the dissociative bubble that they inhabit. It is this NEED for peoples attention, this weakness as they perceive it, that deep down angers the Narcissist. They need people - but they hate the fact that they are dependant on people at the same time.
WHY DOES NARCISSISM EXIST?
A Narcissist starts off as a normal person in childhood, and was subject to abuse of one sort or another along the way. This can be imagined as the personality sliders on their internal mixing desk becoming misarranged.
The circuits that are invoked to create a Narcissist are more than just a simple coping strategy. In fact, they are nature’s way of increasing the status and success of a low status individual. Think of a low status beaten-down chimp in a troupe. Shouting, screaming, acting out, getting attention - gathering supporters/ admirers, attracting a good mate - this is a great short/medium-term strategy to artificially raise its status and ensure its genes survive and prosper. Its an adaptive strategy that works for the Narcissist and one into which they are heavily emotionally invested.
Their emotions are about species survival and prospering within a group/ troupe – in short it’s just a strategy used by animals that live in social hierarchies.
NARCISSISM’S DESTRUCTIVE OUTCOME
The Malignant Narcissist has a desire to destroy and hurt beyond any perceivable benefit, as seen through the eyes of a normal person. In fact, as Dr Steve Pieczenik states they are "very self-destructive people" - they almost want to be caught and punished. The narrative runs "If I were not so special, people would not persecute me so." and "Persecution is evidence of my uniqueness."
Gill Stribling-Wright an ex-BBC producer who worked with Jimmy Savile over 30 years said: "I once had the conversation with him (Savile) about the perfect crime. And he said, the problem is it’s not a perfect crime unless you can get the Kudos for having committed the perfect crime, but the second you get the kudos for having committed the perfect crime i.e. by telling somebody, it’s then no longer the perfect crime." Gill Stribling-Wright goes on to say: "I sometimes wonder if he was teasing the world in an effort to be discovered.”
I HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY & IT IS I
It is believed that Narcissists exist in a permanent state of internalized RAGE, but are unaware of it. And that this rage is all-consuming, pervasive, unrequited and diffused.
"I have seen the enemy and it is I and this should be every Narcissist motto. His rage is self rage, his hatred is self hatred. And his denial of his self-aggression is what makes him such a menace to others. He has to displace these self-destructive very dangerous emotions - by torturing others he avoids torturing himself."
{Sam Vaknin}
REFERENCES:
Narcissist: You All Exist Only in My Mind (Hive or Swarm False Self and Ego Functions) - Sam Vaknin
Narcissist and Incest: The Incestuous Narcissist - Sam Vaknin
Louis Theroux BBC - 2016 Savile {23min}