by Silvia Polivoy, Psychologist.
Narcissistic and sociopathic manipulation is a sophisticated and insidious sickness, infiltrating every level of society. Families, friends and it thrives especially in spiritual communities and charitable organisations, where trust and goodwill make for easy prey.
Spiritual centres, where people often retreat to focus on healing, consciousness, and well-being, can be especially vulnerable to these predators.
In Part 1 of this Quintet, I will discuss the characteristics and causes of narcissism, how and why somebody is a narcissist, why they feel so entitled, and the kinds of people that are attracted to them.
Is Having Narcissistic Traits the Same as Being a Narcissist?
Having narcissist traits is not the same as being a narcissist. Narcissism is a spectrum, with narcissistic traits lying at the beginning. Individuals with these traits can have reciprocal relationships, accept feedback, feel compassion, and tolerate other people’s opinions. They view others as individual beings that exist beyond mere objects to please them.
This is entirely different from the rigidity of narcissistic personality disorder, where individuals regard others as extensions of themselves because narcissists never complete the individuation process. They don’t see people as individuals with their own needs and feelings. While they can expertly pretend to care, their concern is never genuine. They don’t love people for who they truly are; they only love the idea of them—so long as that idea fits within their delusional reality.
Narcissists’ main characteristics are their entitlement to special treatment, their need for validation and to be pleased. If you don’t please them, they feel the right to play the victim and attack you, you will constantly feel that you are walking on eggshells, feeling guilt or fear. Their relentless need to judge and shame others, their abusive nature, and complete disregard for boundaries—these will ensure you feel deeply uncomfortable at first. Then, over time, you will feel exhausted, confused, and trapped. But it won’t start that way. They will not reveal their true nature until you are completely hooked. Until then, they can be incredibly charming, intelligent, and fun. Some may even appear vulnerable. They are masterful actors, and deception is their greatest skill.
The Individuation Process
As babies, we are one with our mother, as though we are a single cell. Gradually, we begin to learn that we exist separately from her. However, when the mother, for various reasons, does not facilitate this separation, the baby – and later, the child and then the adult – will continue in a state of self-centeredness, where everything revolves around them. There is no individuation.
At times, there may be no mother present, whether due to death, illness, or severe trauma. Sometimes, the father is absent, or the child has no good caretaker substitutes. It is also very common for them to be raised by one abusive caretaker while the other enables the abuse and does not protect the child. This may manifest as negligence and psychological, emotional, or physical abuse. This child never learns emotional regulation, has no one to calm them or provide warmth, and has no one to see them or ask, “What do you need?” This combination of self-centred perpetuation with neglect, abuse, and shame causes the creation of a fantasy world as the only means of surviving. “The narcissist is a perverted child inside an adult body, living in a delusional reality.”
The parents of a future narcissist or a future enabler may also be narcissists themselves.
Narcissistic parents or Narcissistic families, when they have 3 children, create the Golden Child, the Invisible Child and the Scapegoat Child. Which one are you?
The golden and perfect child is just an extension of their parents’ grandiosity ideals. They don’t love this child for what he/she is, they love this child only if she/he is what they idealized. The golden children don’t have permission to be themselves, they don’t know what they want. Sometimes, one of the parents adores this child while at the same time, the child may be invisible to the other parent. The narcissistic parent adores the Golden Child not for who they truly are, but as an extension of their own self and their own experience. This love is conditional, leaving no room for the Golden Child to connect with their essence. The Golden Child, in the future, can become a Narcissist. Nobody suspects how much the Golden Child suffers, and how much pressure and anxiety they feel considering the possibility of failing. Sometimes they may suffer from Impostor Syndrome because even if they can perform efficiently, they are not in contact with their essence.
The Golden Child is the idealized extension of the narcissistic parent, while at the other extreme, the Scapegoat Child embodies everything the parent rejects about themselves—their shadow. From an early age, the Scapegoat Child is brutally mistreated, forced into the role of the family’s emotional dumping ground. Unconsciously, they sacrifice themselves, absorbing the burden of all negativity. These extremes often manifest in opposing dynamics:
- Adoration and/or abandonment
- Lack of boundaries and/or constant criticism
- Spoiled and/or nullified
- Overprotected and/or neglected
- You are special and/or you are nothing
- You are very important and/or you are a burden
- You are a genius and/or you are an idiot
- You are my life and/or you are killing me
- You are brilliant and/or you are invisible
- You are wrong and/or you cannot fail
- You are perfect and/or you are a pest
Narcissists live in a delusional reality perceived as dangerous and confusing because they never completed the “Individuation Process” where the child is separated from the mother and can perceive other people as individuals with different needs and other opinions. On the contrary, they created a fake self, in their reality, people are objects, and they have to protect this fake reality to survive. They will continue being children with a polarized mind, black or white, or you are what I think you are or you are against me: “me or you”.
In transactional analysis, this reflects the belief that “I am okay only when you are not okay.” Anything that falls outside their idealized, false self must be projected onto others, particularly those they cannot control. These individuals become their emotional ‘trash cans,’ serving as outlets for all that the narcissist rejects in themselves—necessary for their own psychological ‘hygiene’.
They learned to be hypervigilant and read body language to control others. They become excellent actors who are completely disconnected from their essence because they don’t have an essence; they have a void inside. They created a character in a fake reality, where others are only service providers, with poor or no boundaries because they don’t see others as people; they are stuck in a self-centered, childish state, and their existence depends on external validation (narcissistic supply).
Abusive Tactics and Methods
Narcissistic and sociopathic abuse share similarities, as both seek power and control, but the key difference lies in their motivations. Sociopaths do not seek validation; they simply lack empathy and remorse. While they see others, they don’t care about their needs or feelings. In contrast, narcissists create a fake reality and do not truly see others as people. They view them as sources of validation, services, sex, money, power, or as enemies to be diminished. Narcissists need competitors to belittle, even their own children. While they can sense people’s emotions, they exploit this awareness solely for their own benefit, using it as a tool for their own gain. Their empathy is more of a theatrical performance, an act they play 24/7 to manipulate those around them.
Narcissists are abusers who believe they are entitled to special treatment. Their false self masks their deep emptiness and excruciating shame. They overcompensate by embodying grandiose characters with ‘special powers’, judging others, acting as moralists, and putting people down. They destroy the self-esteem of loved ones by highlighting their failures, imitating, competing, and fabricating lies. They gossip maliciously about you to family and friends, orchestrating a smear campaign to isolate you from your support network, and working to recruit allies (often referred to as Flying Monkeys) to help further their agenda and ultimately take control.
When a narcissist enters our personal or professional lives, whether directly targeting us or focusing on someone close to us, it can serve as a wake-up call to better understand our own vulnerabilities. The abuse or behavior of a narcissist highlights our blind spots and provides an opportunity to recognize manipulative behaviors early. The worst thing to say is ‘This is not my business’—if you are there, it is your business. This lesson is also for you. By becoming more aware of the red flags, we make it harder for narcissists to exploit or ‘hook’ us in the future.
How a Narcissist Will Hook You:
Narcissists use powerful, hypnotic seduction techniques. At first, they bombard you with love, placing you on a pedestal and hyper focusing only on your positive traits. They offer constant validation and flattery. Once they’ve successfully hypnotized you and are sure they’ve hooked you, they shift to intermittent validation, leaving you confused. Eventually, they withhold validation for the same reasons, creating cognitive dissonance. You’ll become so disoriented that you’ll start questioning if you did something wrong.
I’ll dive deeper into their techniques for hooking victims and the concept of the ‘Trauma Bond’ in the next article.
If Guilt and Suffering are your Addictions, then you Will Attract a Narcissist
Without fully realizing it, you gradually become their garbage can. They project onto you everything they refuse to see about themselves, and anything they dislike becomes your fault. You become the receptor of all their toxicity—draining your energy, planting doubts in your mind, and manipulating you to feel your favorite emotion: guilt.
If you sacrifice yourself by adopting the role of the martyr, then your best match is a narcissist.
Narcissists mainly attract Enablers and Persistent people who will “Keep Trying and Trying and Trying”, basically people who deeply inside feel Unworthy, love Drama and have an addiction to suffer
Lack of Healthy Boundaries and the Trauma Bond
Why do some people feel they don’t have the right to say no? Why do some feel guilty or abusive if they set boundaries?
The cause of this “crack” is unconscious. Because we don’t know what we don’t know, we cannot see or understand it, it is essential to seek help from a trauma specialist.
The root of this blind spot in the enabler is a crack formed in early childhood. One or both caregivers exhibited contradictory behavior, creating cognitive dissonance. At best, they might have expressed love while simultaneously neglecting the child, or spoken kind words while acting in ways that contradicted them—normalizing hurtful behavior. This creates confusion, leading the child to take full responsibility, believing they must have done something wrong. In more severe cases, caregivers may have been openly abusive or violent, inflicting a higher degree of harm. As adults, those who experienced such abuse may remain in denial. Having needed to survive in that environment, they learned to take full responsibility. They may not recognize when someone is abusive because, to them, it feels familiar. They struggle to see that the same person who showed them love was also the one who caused them harm and created trauma. As a result, they unconsciously repeat these patterns, gravitating toward familiar dynamics. They may even overprotect the abuser, believing deep down that they are the problem.
The Trauma Bond is the attachment to the person who is hurting and mistreating us.
There is a need to overcome these limitations: if we don’t go deeper to find the cause of our addiction to suffering, vampire teachers, vampire relationships, or vampire collaborators will come into our lives. Once we learn the lessons the narcissist brings, they will disappear and the enabler will be free. However, if they reappear in different forms, we must look deeper to identify what else needs understanding. Sometimes, the cause is so unconscious that we can’t even imagine what it might be.
A trauma specialist can guide you with techniques to uncover buried wounds and weaknesses that are sabotaging your peace of mind and relationships.
What Types of People Are Magnets to Narcissists?
Surprisingly, they do not always go after easy targets, as they sometimes prefer more challenging prey. Typically, they require several sources of attention, dividing their providers between safer easy targets and the more challenging alternatives that offer more exciting environments or opportunities. For example, they may have both a submissive and codependent wife and a strong, independent lover. A wife may have both a provider husband with very low self-esteem and an adventurous younger companion.(the yoga teacher or a masseuse).
The easier prey that provides a more stable attention supply is characterized as:
- Empathic and sensitive, saviours, people pleasers, having low self-esteem, emotionally unstable, co-dependent, abandonment issues, vulnerable, guilty, martyrs, lacking boundaries, those who assumed the role of adults in childhood, those who feel invisible, those who feel like a burden, unlovable, or undeserving of love, those who had an ill sibling or parent and carry the guilt of being healthy, and those who grew up thinking they cannot express their feelings, needs and desires.
The more challenging prey who can offer ‘plan B’ entertainment are usually:
- Strong and successful people to compete with and destroy, wise people to imitate, wealthy people to make them look more important, beautiful people to show off, independent and successful people to undermine gradually, and healers, therapists, gurus, healing centres, charity organizations and churches. What these people have in common is that they are very persistent and loyal. They will keep trying to make it work.
These are people who will allow them to continue the abusive behaviour, they legitimize toxic interactions, minimize danger and deny consequences, justify them, and/or provide financial support. Sometimes the whole family can become enablers. I will describe more extensively the structure of Narcissistic families or Narcissist clans in Part 2.
If one member tries to make you aware of the abusive behaviour, the others will plead the need for patience and forgiveness; after all, it is your mother or your father. Enablers always feel they must continue doing it because it is their responsibility and also their fault, and narcissists use guilt as a form of manipulation and make the enabler to prolong the agony for everyone involved, feeding and indulging these vampires.
Because enablers grew up in dysfunctional families where abuse was normalized, some enablers may not discriminate when somebody mistreats them, because for them this is normal, they don’t have good models and inner permission to set boundaries. Abusive people give enablers a sense of familiarity, drama and remorse are the enablers’ comfort zone, because they learned in childhood that abuse and drama are normal. Only a trauma specialist can help to overcome the Trauma Bond, because it is so unconsciously rooted it is impossible to see the red flags without help.
Other types of enablers are more conscious about the abuse but they will allow it because they are obtaining something they want, which can be money, prestige, trips, or whatever they don’t want to lose.
Some enablers will only stop legitimizing toxic behaviors after the Narcissist provokes a tragedy, for example:
-While the enabler is enabling, the narcissist is very actively recruiting “Flying Monkeys” to work in their smear campaign against a family member or against you
-Or filing a police report against their partner with false accusations and fake evidence to incriminate them, just for revenge
-When their own scapegoat child tries to commit suicide due to a prolonged depression and excruciating shame and criticism
-When their own golden child becomes addicted to stimulants to fulfil the role assigned by the narcissistic parent or becomes an alcoholic to numb the pain of never discovering their true essence, or both at the same time
-When being scammed by a criminal hired by the narcissist to simulate a kidnap and steal money from their own family
More Tactics to Manipulate You
Narcissists live in a fabricated reality where you serve as their emotional dumping ground. They will never take accountability for their actions or decisions—everything is your fault. In their world, they alone decide what is good and what is bad.
To maintain control, they often provoke “Reactive Abuse”—pushing you to the breaking point so that you explode in response to their manipulation. This reaction is exactly what they want; it is like delicious food for them, they will use your reaction to demonstrate how unbalanced you are. They will use it as proof that you are the unstable one. If you never react, however, the emotional toll can manifest in other ways—chronic stress, health issues, or even turning to alcohol, food, or substances to numb yourself.
Living for a long time with a Narcissist is like living with an inquisitor.
There is no point in proving your point to them because you are only a service provider and they are the owner of the reality you live in.
They need to control you using your “persistence and loyalty” in trying to fix the relationship, you will give them the theatre to unfold their drama, and you will give them positive or negative feedback, which is their food. They need you to “keep trying”, because your persistence will guarantee their supply. That’s why they will exhaust you, stress you, and damage your mental and physical health. They will try to isolate you, shame you, damage your business and trap you into a dead-end path.
RED FLAGS are more evident in Overt narcissists due to their aggressive speech and intense disappointment when disobeyed. Covert narcissists typically feign humility while attempting to control others by faking vulnerability. The covert ones can be particularly challenging to identify due to their seemingly helpful, apparently vulnerable and generous nature. And sometimes, they are both covert and overt, depending on convenience.
Communal narcissists are the ones manipulating the needs of their community to benefit themselves, they want people to think they are in service to others, but what they really seek is validation and power.
The most dangerous is the Malignant narcissist—a combination of narcissism and sociopathy—is the most dangerous of all. These individuals have no moral boundaries and will do anything to get what they want. They are capable of hiring criminals to scam their own family for money, power, control, or revenge.
“Why This Combination Is So Harmful: Most narcissists crave admiration and fear shame, which can sometimes act as a restraint. A sociopath, however, has no internal brakes—they feel no guilt, no remorse, and no concern for morality. The result is a person who is not only manipulative and self-serving but also completely ruthless.”
In my opinion, all types of Narcissists are antagonists, the only difference is that the Covert and the Communal ones will pretend to be nicer.
Author: Silvia Polivoy, Ph.D. Co-founder and Facilitator at SpiritVine Center
