So what I’m hearing you say, Sam, is that society is so full of pain and during wars there was a lot of pain, and that there is correlation with narcissism, because narcissism is about turning off that pain, because it just becomes too overwhelming, so in war there is a huge amount of pain so people become shut down, it’s almost like an avoidance.

Then you’re kind of like avoiding pain, you don’t want to empathize with others because you know that pain, it just becomes too much.

And in fact that maybe people who are narcissistic are actually very empathic, but that they just can’t deal with that constant stimulus of pain, and so that they start shutting down and go into this narcissism, but actually underneath that might be a deep sense of empathy, I mean it’s being the narcissist is trying to shut down.

Yes, exactly what you said, I do think, and that’s one of the tenets of my work on narcissism, where I made what I consider to be an original contribution, because a lot of what I do is the rehash, but where I made an original contribution I think is where, when I suggested that actually narcissists are highly empathic people, and it’s what I call cold empathy, what they have done, they’ve turned off the emotional resonance of that empathy, they turned off the emotional component of the empathy, they turned off the video, they’re left only with the audio if you wish, so they have the cold empathy, in other words they have the ability to identify with other people, to put themselves in other people’s shoes, to read other people’s body language and so on and so forth, but they don’t have the emotions that usually go with that, because they turn them off, and they learn to turn off these emotions, because when these emotions were on with their children, it was painful, it was a painful experience, they were surrounded with abusive adults, and they were subjected to recurrent trauma and recurrent abuse, and they learned that if you want to survive, it was a survival instinct, it was a mechanism, they learned that if they want to survive, if they want to avoid becoming suicidal for instance, they have to turn off the emotions.

And so they were left with a kernel of empathy, which I call cold empathy, but there is no envelope of emotions, and there is no emotional reaction to their perception of the other, but they disagree completely with current so-called knowledge of current textbooks, which say that narcissists don’t have empathy, because in a narcissist doesn’t have empathy, how can the narcissist manipulate other people?

To manipulate other people, to exploit them, you need to rig them well, you need to understand human psychology, you need to resonate with your victims, you know, and so it’s exactly what you said, narcissists used to have full-scale, full-fledged empathy, and then they turned off the warm empathy, they turned off the emotions, because they were too painful.

So you’re saying that the narcissists actually do have empathy, they were maybe growing up very empathic, and they just couldn’t deal with the pain, so they kind of shut that down, and they can still kind of read people, but there’s no kind of emotional effect, they kind of read people for getting, maybe getting something from them, but it’s a cold empathy, it’s without the kind of the emotional warmth or emotional feelings that are within that.

Exactly why I say that narcissists are for robotic artificial intelligence, because in laboratories all over the world today, machines, devices are being developed. Some of them are robots, some of them are not robots, some of them are sophisticated cameras that can read social cues, body language, and even emotions, you know, so these machines have cold empathy, they can, in the future, and not too far future, like ten years from now, you have a camera on your laptop, and that camera will be able to identify when you’re sad, when you’re happy, so the camera would have the rudiments of empathy, it would have cold empathy, but of course the camera is not gonna have emotions, it’s the same with the narcissist, narcissists turn off their emotions because the adults around them abused their empathy, the adults around them tormented, tortured them, traumatized them repeatedly, time and again, day after day, hour after hour, it became too much. The circuits were overburdened, the circuits were overwhelmed, and so the empathy circuit in the narcissist’s brain was short-circuited, and what’s left is the hardware, but not the software.

So you’re using kind of the metaphor of machines, that machines can kind of read kind of the cold empathy, but not the feelings of it, and it’s the same thing with the narcissist, that they were kind of emotionally abused, kind of growing up, and then they kind of shut down that emotional part of the empathy, and just left the kind of mechanistic cold empathy.

Yeah, the empathic circuitry, well one thing with the empathic listening is that I’m going to just keep listening to you until you feel fully heard.

Once you feel fully heard, you can just let me know, and then I will share something of myself.

Oh sorry, I’m just sharing that with you.

So whenever you feel ready that you feel satisfied to have been heard, there are some things I would like to share too.

I definitely heard and overheard.

I’ve heard, I’ve heard.

So what comes to mind is, I have a friend who, her mother was very much a narcissist, and she is very sensitive to narcissism, and we were doing one of these empathy circles, you know with reflective listening, and then she was kind of dealing with that narcissism, she was afraid that she was narcissistic, because her mother was so narcissistic.

And then I said, well let me play the narcissist, I will become the narcissist, I will take on the role of your narcissism, and we’ll have a dialogue as your, so if you would reflect what you’re hearing so far.

You described a situation where one of your acquaintances or friends was exposed to narcissism, and you suggested to put yourself in, to make yourself available as a stand-in for the narcissist and the life, and to see whether this can elicit reactions or a dynamic which might be beneficial to them, if I understand correctly.

I said exactly, and we started doing a dialogue, and I acted as her narcissist, you know.

And I got into a state of mind where it was so enjoyable to only have her empathize with me.

It’s like, when she empathized with me, it’s like it felt good.

It was like, oh this is so good, I’m totally in my own head, in my own world, and this person is empathizing with me, and it was like, oh then I’m interested in you, I’m not interested in you unless you’re empathizing with me.

And so it was, and it was so interesting, it was such an interesting, it felt really good to have people empathize with me, and I’m only interested in her as long as she’s empathizing with my state of being and moving me forward in my self-absorption.

So when you emulate the narcissist, when you put yourself in the shoes of a narcissist, when you try actually to empathize with a narcissist, you discover that the experience is gradually becoming kind of addictive, because you discover that it’s great, it’s very gratifying to be the center of attention, but more importantly it’s very gratifying for her to provide you with empathy that you could consume, and that you did not have to reciprocate.

That said exactly, it was such an insight for me.

And the other thing is growing up, I would say my mother has some of those narcissistic tendencies in that she will talk and talk and talk, but she just doesn’t give any space to anyone else to talk.

And she went through a lot of trauma, World War II, just really terrible things in Germany, and nervous breakdowns and all this kind of stuff, so I kind of have a sense of feeling and compassion for what she went through, but it’s hard, if you’re growing up and you’re not being heard, you’re not being seen, and the person is only just sharing where they are and they don’t have space and time for you, it’s very difficult.

So as you were growing up, you were actually exposed to someone who has, I don’t know if she’s still alive, but who has, she said, well, I’ll use this.

So as you were growing up, you were exposed to someone who has, at the very least, narcissistic traits or behaviors, and it was a very difficult experience because you felt that you were not being seen, that you were not being heard, that you’re not being validated in a trait or a following.

Exactly, yeah.

And that you served merely as a foil, as a kind of projection screen and a sounding board for your mother in this case.

However, equally, you felt pity, you empathized with her, you took into account emotionally where she came from, her very traumatic past, the difficult experiences she went through in her life and so on and so forth.

So while you felt that you were not being validated and that’s not a very nice experience, you still were able to understand her, if not to justify.

Yeah, it’s more now I understand, you know, now with time, as time has gone on, I kind of understand it.

Right.

So they are not simultaneous experiences.

When you were an adolescent or a child, you felt only the negative aspects, but now you were more understanding.

Exactly, yeah.

And so that’s the need for empathy.

I think, you know, for my own personal development, my need for empathy would have been to have heard more, you know, to have been seen and heard more fully.

I think it would have helped my personal development, you know, growing up.

So I was kind of asking about our needs for personal needs for empathy.

And I think that’s one of the needs for empathy that I had was having would have liked to have been seen more deeply and heard more deeply, you know, kind of growing up and even though I was raised.

Do you believe this?

Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry.

Do you believe that your preoccupation with empathy is doing your personal background?

It’s an obsession.

It’s a preoccupation.

It has to do with your personal background since you have lived with and grown up with a very important figure in your life who was not empathic in the sense that she didn’t hear you and she didn’t see you as an autonomous individual with needs and emotions and priorities and so on.

Since you’ve gone through this harrowing experience, you believe that your personal background is the reason that you’re so interested in empathy and so on.

Yeah, it wasn’t a harrowing experience.

A little inaccurate and I don’t know if that’s my I’m not sure if it’s really why I’m interested in empathy.

You know, Paul Rogers, he came from an evangelical Christian background, conservative background. So he talks about, you know, growing up in that environment, your family, your parents love you. You feel the love.

But there’s things that are kind of suppressed and you’re not really deeply heard.

And so when he started being heard, it was in hearing other people, it was just very fulfilling feeling, something that he hadn’t had.

So I think it’s I feel more along the lines of Carl Rogers that, you know, come from a loving background.

And it wasn’t harrowing.

And you know, I had a lot of self independence, but just, you know, feeling empathy, it feels pretty good.

So I just really that’s rather than rather than reflecting you.

I would make a comment on what you just said.

If you finish reflecting, then I’ll be complete and then you can move, we can move to I still want to relate. I still want to relate to what you have said as soon as you reflect, then I will say I’m fully heard and we’ll turn it over to you if that just to use the format.

But what I’m about to say has to do with you.

So it’s still the same protocol.

Yeah, that’s the same protocol is that we just the person speaking speaks until they’re fully heard. And then they say, I’m fully heard, and then you can say anything you want, and I’ll reflect what you have to say.

All right.

So do you feel that you’re pulling her? Or do you want to do that last piece just about the car Rogers and seeing a similar level, yeah, well, you feel some affinity with the car Rogers, both of you came from families that you described as loving families, however, with a lot of suppressed content and suppressed material in these things you don’t talk about in these families.

So if there’s some affinity with him, you believe that you’ve come, you spread forth from us from a similar background.

And for him to discover empathy, both as a recipient and as a giver, was a liberating experience.

And you believe that you are undergoing the same kind of experience of transformation.

And that now that you are deeply into empathy, both as a giver and as a recipient, you believe that you’re experiencing the same thing that car Rogers went through.

That’s it.

I feel fully heard.

Thank you, Sam.

I just wanted to make a comment about something you have said.

You said that you came from a loving family and almost with the same breath, you said that you were not being heard and seen.

And I think these are two mutually exclusive propositions.

I do not believe that it is possible to be loved without being heard or seen.

I think the essence of love and the epitome of love is exactly the ability to discern the other as an autonomous entity with needs, with emotions, with wishes, with fears, with priorities, with preferences, with personal history, and so on.

For instance, I say that I love this person, I love my wife, I love this, but I’m aware because of my inability to actually see or hear people, I’m also incapable of loving them in any sense of the word.

I think people often confuse love with dependence, or they confuse love with provision, with a provision of existential essentials like food and shelter.

This is not love, this is a working arrangement, it’s a business arrangement.

The love entails being seen and heard.

There is no love without full-scale empathy, it’s not a spectrum, it’s like pregnancy.

You either are capable of loving or you’re not.

There are no gradations of empathy, you can’t be 40% empathic and 26% loving, it’s a binary state.

When you say that your mother did not hear you and did not see you or your friends that you were not heard and seen, and therefore did not validate you, I am not sure in which sense you can equally state that she loved you, it’s between you and yourself of course, none of my visits, but I’m just commenting on the, I’m perplexed by the juxtaposition of these two statements because they are incongruous, they don’t go together.

This is the first thing.

The second thing is…

Well let me reflect that so I can…

So what I’m hearing is, I had said I did have felt not seen in some cases, but loved, and you’re seeing that as a juxtaposition, that you can’t really, that they don’t go together, that it’s binary, you’re either seen and loved or you’re not seen and loved, and there’s no kind of gradations between the two, it’s either on or off.

And so you’re just kind of noticing about that, about what I’ve said, and you see that as kind of, I don’t know if it’s maybe an, you’re seeing it as maybe an inconsistency or something like that.

Yeah, exactly.

It is an open question why you feel the need to protest and to say that you did come from a loving home and so on, but that’s between you and your therapist.

We are dealing now with the issue of empathy, not with your specific psychodynamics.