I would like to clarify another nuance, another subtlety in the endless hall of mirrors that is narcissism.

Narcissists idealize themselves, they idealize themselves through the gaze of other people.

This is known as narcissistic supply.

They regulate their sense of self-worth through input or feedback from other people.

But something that is less known is that narcissists make assumptions about the gaze of other people.

They observe other people observing them and then they construct a narrative around this gaze of other people.

They say they are watching me and this is what they are thinking as they are watching me.

This is what they believe.

And so narcissists react strongly, not only to the actual content of the gaze of other people, but to assumptions they make about the contents of the gaze of other people.

And actually I can say that narcissists react mostly to their assumptions about what other people think about them.

They say to themselves, they must be admiring me right now.

Or they probably find me irresistible.

Or she definitely finds me attractive.

Or they most assuredly think that I’m a genius.

So they impute to other people, they attribute to other people thoughts, beliefs, kind of attitudes, motivations and so on and so forth.

And then they come to believe their own attribution.

This is very typical of narcissists.

Narcissists inhabit an internal world.

They don’t interact with the external world.

They don’t perceive other people as external objects.

Narcissists are bad on reality, strong on fantasy.

So they look at other people, they observe the way other people observe them and then they attribute to other people thoughts and beliefs and so on and so forth.

And then they react to the thoughts and beliefs that they have attributed to other people without bothering to check with these other people whether their assumptions and presumptions are correct.

So for example, a cerebral narcissist may say to himself, they find me exceedingly intelligent, amazingly intellectual, a genius.

They love me.

I am lovable because in their eyes, I’m a genius.

And because they find me lovable, I can find me myself lovable.

I can become my own love object.

And so this is the way the narcissist experiences something akin to self-love.

I would call it infatuation by proxy via the good services of other people, via other people’s gaze.

So he becomes or she becomes, the narcissist becomes his or her own love object because he assumes that other people find him or her lovable by virtue of being a genius.

That’s a cerebral narcissist.

A somatic narcissist would say, “Oh my God, she finds me so irresistible, so attractive.

I am, I don’t know, a stud.

I am amazingly irresistible.” So he convinces himself or she convinces herself, the narcissist convinces himself that he is attractive, that he is irresistible.

He attributes this mental content to the observer and then it becomes reality because anything that passes through the narcissist’s mind must be reality.

The narcissist is never wrong.

He’s infallible.

So then the narcissist says, “She thinks I’m irresistible.

She finds me super attractive.

She’s very drawn to me.

She wants me.

She desires me.

She’s passionate about me.” And gradually he begins to perceive himself as a sex object, irresistible, attractive.

He begins to desire himself.

He begins to redirect sexual energy, also known as Eros, a part of libido.

He begins to redirect sexual energy at himself because of the gaze of others.

Because others find him irresistible and attractive in his own mind, at least, he finds himself irresistible and attractive and he becomes his own sexual object, sex object.

He begins to be attracted to himself.

He arouses himself sexually, a process known as auto-erotism.

So idealization is two-faced.

When the narcissist idealizes other people, he idealizes them in order to give them the power to idealize him.

If he associates with high-level people, if he’s married to a drop-dead gorgeous woman, if he’s considered a genius by his students, their idealization reflects on him and renders him ideal.

So now he can love himself.

He can become his own love object.

He can be sexually attracted to himself.

He can find himself sexually attractive.

Somatic narcissists masturbate with other people’s bodies.

They are not attracted to anyone whatsoever.

They’re attracted only to their own bodies.

They find themselves the primary sex object.

Other people are there to remind them how attractive and irresistible they are.

Okay, one last thing.

Remember, there’s no type constancy.

When the cerebral fails, when there’s a state of collapse, when the cerebral fails to obtain narcissistic supply or narcissistic supply is deficient and irregular, the cerebral becomes temporarily somatic.

Similarly, when the somatic fails because he’s getting older, because he’s not as successful as he used to be with sexual conquests and so on.

So when the somatic collapses, he attempts to become cerebral, which is usually a pitiful and pathetic site.

Okay, but there’s no type constancy.

A cerebral can become somatic even for years and a somatic can attempt to become cerebral even for years.

So when they do, the locus of the idealization changes.

The cerebral used to idealize himself as a genius through other people’s eyes.

Now having become somatic, he idealizes himself as an irresistible, attractive hunk or stud or whatever, and he finds himself sexually attractive to himself through the attribution of such attractiveness and irresistibility to the gaze of others.

Similarly, the somatic begins to consider himself a philosopher, a genius, an amazing mind, a public intellectual, a somatic.

So remember that what I’ve just said, narcissists transition between states.

What remains constant is the need, the desperate need for the gaze of other people, for input and feedback from other people.

Even though these other people, they are not perceived as external objects, they are perceived as internal objects, still their input and feedback is regulatory.

It allows the narcissist to regulate his internal environment, especially his sense of self-worth and to cater to his need to love only himself, to become the exclusive love object and to be sexually attracted only to himself, to become his own lover, his own sex object.

Now, of course, when I say love in this video, this is not love as we know it.

It’s much closer, I would say, to limerence or infatuation or lust even.

It’s not deep, it’s not profound.

Narcissists don’t love themselves. They actually loathe and hate and reject themselves, which is why they need other people to tell them that they are lovable, they are sexy, they are irresistible, they are amazing.

Okay, that’s known as co-idealization, another twist and turn in the endless saga of narcissism.