Her er et innlegget med tittel: Hvordan forstå en narsissist. Jeg vet at mange leter etter svar på hvordan forstå en narsissist. Og idag vil jeg gi dere et innlegg med svar på dette spørsmålet. Og innlegget er utdrag fra en engelsk fagartikkel som opplevdes veldig nyttig å lese om dette.
Fagartikkelen jeg refererer til idag, er skrevet av den anerkjente amerikanske gestaltterapeuten Elinor Greenberg Ph.D, CGP, som har spesialfelt NPD og andre personlighetsforstyrrelser. Hun har fått publisert mange viktige fagartikler innen sitt spesialfelt, og flere av dem har jeg gjengitt på bloggen. Nederst i dette innlegget, finner du lenke til hele fagartikkelen. Innlegget er på engelsk.
Les også: En anbefalt bok om psykisk vold og hvordan reise seg igjen
Les også: Hvorfor narsissisten gir deg skylden
Hvordan forstå en narsissist
Greenberg sier dette i fagartikkelen:
I have developed a simple way to explain narcissistic behavior. I focus on the fact that most of the negative behavior of people with narcissistic personalitydisorder can be attributed to two things:
- Narcissists are unable to regulate their own self-esteem without external validation.
- Narcissists lack emotional empathy.
Narcissists cannot pat themselves on the back and say, “Good job!” and actually believe that they did a good job. They need to believe that people outside of themselves believe that they are doing a good job—and not just a good job, but the very best. This means that if narcissists want to feel good about themselves, they require regular doses of external validation from people whom they respect. They need to feel like winners. This means that they are highly competitive. For them to be a winner, you need to be a loser. (Note: I am using the terms narcissist, narcissistic, and NPD as shorthand ways of referring to someone who qualifies for a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder.)
Their lack of emotional empathy makes it easy for narcissists not to care when they hurt other people. They are untroubled that the price of their self-esteem is a willingness to devalue or destroy other people’s happiness. When I confronted a narcissistic man about how unhappy his actions made his wife and family, he calmly said: «I am not intentionally trying to hurt them. Their pain is just some unavoidable collateral damage.»
Å forstå en narsissist som en bil
Being a narcissist is a bit like being a car. Cars run on fuel. They have a gas tank to hold fuel. However, they cannot produce fuel for themselves or even refuel themselves without external help. Once they use up the fuel inside their tank, they need someone else to refuel them.
Therefore, an easy way to understand narcissism is to imagine being a car with a leaky gas tank. The fuel you run on is self-esteem. Even if you start the day with a full tank, you can feel your self-esteem start to diminish as you go through the day.
You have learned to stay focused on potential sources of new fuel—praise, chances to outdo someone else, proximity to high status people and things—and the things that deplete your self-esteem—criticism, being ignored, devalued, or discarded.
If you run out of fuel, you not only stop moving forward, but you start to sink into a pit of deep emotional mud. The deeper you sink, the worse you feel about yourself. At the very bottom you become immobilized by your shame and self-hatred. This makes you motivated to keep finding new sources of fuel.
En narsissist ser på andre som kilde til drivstoff
The way you see it, every other car on the road is competing with you for fuel. You are so preoccupied with your own needs that you could not care less about their situation.
The only other cars that interest you, are potential sources of more fuel for you, like the gorgeous expensive vehicles that seem to have their own inner gas stations that give them the continuous supply of self-esteem that you lack. You hope that, if you play your cards right, they will let you use their source to refuel.
Oppsummert hvordan forstå en narsissist
Although Information about narcissism is widely available, it can be hard to find accurate, easy to understand explanations of narcissistic behavior. Most of what is written either demonizes people with narcissistic personality disorder or explains their behavior in a highly complex theoretical way. I have found that the simplest way to explain why narcissists behave the way that they do is to conceptualize narcissistic personality disorder as a chronic problem with self-esteem regulation coupled with a lack of emotional empathy. From this point of view, narcissistic personality disorder can be explained as a self-centered, desperate, never-ending search for emotional fuel in the form of self-esteem.
Her er lenke til hele fagartikkelen:
Her kan du lese om Elinor Greenberg:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/elinor-greenberg-phd
