How to Extinguish Narcissist’s Rage

Summary

Sam Vaknin, discusses the nature of malignant narcissistic rage, emphasizing its self-reinforcing, internal origin and disconnect from external reality or fault. He presents two methods to cope with such rage: careful submission that focuses on flattery and amends centered around the narcissist, and mirroring the rage back to a bullying narcissist without escalating to real-life consequences. Caution is stressed, especially with psychopathic narcissists, where mirroring can provoke violence, highlighting the complexity and danger in managing narcissistic rage.

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  1. 00:02 Nothing more terrifying than the rage of a narcissist, especially a malignant narcissist. If you don’t believe me, just ask my long-suffering wife. The narcissist rage is explosive, disproportionate, menacing. It sucks all the air out of the room and it is the raification of
  2. 00:30 the guillotin or a democ sword about to decapitate you. Seriously, it’s a harrowing terrifying experience. There are two ways to cope with narcissistic rage. Two methods which I will describe in this video. Neither of them is fail proof. Neither of them is
  3. 00:56 fail safe. Neither of them is perfect. They don’t work all the time. But these are your best chances. Narcissistic rage feeds on itself. It’s what we call a self reinforcing effect. It feeds on itself. It’s not related to external cues or stimuli. It is reflective of internal
  4. 01:20 dynamics. Let me translate this to English. There’s very little you can do about it. And it’s not about you. It’s not your fault. It’s not something you’ve said, not something you’ve done. At least not intentionally or deliberately. There was no premeditation here. You
  5. 01:36 were not trying to trigger the narcissist or provoke him or humiliate him or denigrate him or whatever. In the majority of cases, what happens is narcissists misinterpret cues, including verbal cues and speech acts. They have a dictionary all their
  6. 01:56 own. This dictionary is idiosyncratic. It’s a kind of private language. You say one thing, the narcissist hears another. You offer help and advice. This is perceived as slight or humiliation or attempt to shame him. I say him half of all narcissists are women. So
  7. 02:20 it’s very difficult to communicate with a narcissist. It’s very difficult to interact with the narcissist without triggering time and again narcissistic rages multiple. They are recurrent. They’re a feature, a clinical feature feature actually of
  8. 02:37 pathological narcissism. Take away the narcissistic rage and it’s not much of a narcissist, not much of a narcissist left. And so narcissistic rage is not only a dominance tactic. It’s not about establishing not only about establishing a hierarchy. It is not intended to
  9. 02:54 modify your behavior or to convince you of something or to communicate the narcissist’s emotions. And it’s not about any of these things. Narcissistic rage is self-regulatory. The main aim of narcissistic rage is to reestablish a fantastic grandio
  10. 03:15 unrealistic counterfactual self-concept. The narcissist by raging is communicating to himself or to herself, you see, I am superior. You see, I am godlike. Look at the terror on people’s faces. Look how they recoil. Look how they submit. This proves that I’m
  11. 03:38 omnipotent and you know divine. So narcissistic rage is a signal. It’s a signaling signaling behavior but the signal is not public facing. It’s not outwardly directing directed because narcissists don’t recognize the existence of external objects. Rather
  12. 03:59 than rather the signaling is intended to generate a cascade of internal regulatory functions that would lead to the reestablishment of an equilibrium homeostasis which revolves around a fantastic grandio detached from reality self-concept. The narcissist rages as a way of telling
  13. 04:24 himself, convincing himself that he is immune, invulnerable, impermeable, all powerful, that he prevails, that he subjugates, that he owns and controls people, that he is in charge, that he is the boss, that he’s superior and supreme. Having said all this, there are still,
  14. 04:49 as I said, two ways to cope with narcissistic rage, which may somehow quell the rage, soothe the narcissist, reduce, silerate, and mitigate the more abrasive, antisocial, and dangerous aspects of narcissistic rage. My name is Sam Baknin. I’m the author of Malignant
  15. 05:10 Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, and the often raging professor of psychology. Let us del right in. Someone has written to me when this triggered this video. Is it even possible to deescalate a pro-social sadistic narcissist once their narcissistic rage is activated and
  16. 05:32 the internal aggression becomes external? It seems like a bottle once opened cannot be recapped situation once that hammer falls so to speak. Well, that’s not entirely great actually. So, let’s discuss the first method, submission. You can calm the narcissist down by
  17. 05:54 ostentatiously displaying submission and flattery. You can flatter the narcissist and you can obsu and conspicuously and visibly submit to the narcissist. But you have to do it very very carefully. You have to walk on eggshells. It has to follow a highly specific sequence.
  18. 06:18 And the messages you should be sending to the narcissist are as follows. And in this sequence, the pattern should be identical each and every time. The first message you’re sending is, “Oh my god, I am awakened. I’m enlightened. I haven’t seen it this way, but you have opened my
  19. 06:37 eyes. I am now elevated, educated, improved. So, thank you. It’s a message of gratitude. The rage is ongoing in the background. You are being called names. You are being debased. You’re being degraded and denigrated and humiliated and chastised and and castigated and you
  20. 06:58 name it. He’s he’s doing a number on you. The narcissist is is putting you down. He’s taking you apart. And at the same time, you should cool cooly and calmly communicate to the narcissist, I’m seeing your point of view. I’m beginning to see your point of view. And
  21. 07:18 oh my god, it’s far more superior to mine. Uh you are a teacher. You’re an educator. You’re a guru. You’re amazing. I now see the world completely differently. I have changed my rose tinted glasses with, you know, I’ve taken the pill. I’ve taken the red pill.
  22. 07:36 So enlightenment awakening is the first message to be followed immediately with a display of submissiveness, a concession. So you you tell the narcissist that you’re right and I’m I’m going to behave this way. You’re right. I’m going to change my behavior. You’re
  23. 07:55 right. I’m going to give you money. You’re right. I’m going to have sex with you. You’re right. You’re right. You’ve opened my eyes. You’ve changed my mind. And this has caused a modification in my behavior. I’m going to change my behavior. I’m going to cater to your
  24. 08:10 needs. I’m going to com I’m going to comply with your demands. I’m going to meet your expectations and and so on. Concessionary concessionary signal. So enlightenment, awakening, you you’ve made a whole new person out of me. Followed by a concession. And finally, amends.
  25. 08:31 making amends, compensating the narcissist. Reparations. You acknowledge that you have somehow damaged the narcissist. You have somehow hurt the narcissist. You have some somehow misbehaved. And you make amends for your misconduct, egregious as it may have been. And the
  26. 08:52 amends could be anything. You know your narcissist. You know what turns him on. You know his soft spots. You know his predelections. and proclivities. You know what he loves best. These are the amends. You need to offer the narcissist a sacrifice. Sometimes it’s a human sacrifice
  27. 09:10 yourself, but you need to offer him something. So, having been enlightened, having been made aware of your transgressions, you concede to the narcissist and then you make amends somehow. If he likes sex, you offer sex. If he likes books, you buy him books. Hint hint. Whatever
  28. 09:30 it is, you make amends. But be very careful. Be very careful with this method because narcissists hold submissive, dumb, and weak people in contempt. And contempt feeds into the aggression. The narcissist wants to annihilate people he holds in contempt. A
  29. 09:55 contemptuous narcissist is actually the most aggressive type there is. So if your submission is overt, if your obsiciousness is self- negating and indicative of some kind of vulnerability, some kind of weakness, some kind of stupidity, inanity,
  30. 10:15 this is going to trigger the narcissist even further. This is going to make you render you contemptuous and the narcissist disdain for you would feed into his aggression and would fan the flames of the narcissistic rage. It would compound the rage.
  31. 10:34 So when you go through the pattern of awakening, concession, amends, when you go through this pattern, make it about him or her, about the narcissist, not about you. Don’t talk about yourself. Don’t self-refer. Don’t describe your state of mind, your
  32. 10:58 behavior. Rather talk about the narcissist. So don’t say for example um I have changed my mind. Say you have changed my mind. Don’t say I’m going to modify my behavior. I’m going to change my behavior. Say you have taught you have taught me to change my behavior.
  33. 11:20 Emphasize the narcissist. Do not talk about yourself. Do not self-denigrate. Do not self-demean. Do not self-criticize. Do not play the game because if you do it that way, if you if you conform to the narcissist’s view of you, it’s going to enhance the rage. It’s going to it’s
  34. 11:45 going to inflame the situation. On the very contrary, you communicate to the narcissist that he or she, the narcissist, is the cause of all things. the primaca the the mo the movements prim primus moments the the main the mover and shaker you do you you make the entire
  35. 12:08 sequence the entire message the entire pattern revolve only around the narcissist you are non-existent. So if you describe a moment a light bulb moment of enlightenment and awakening and change of mind make it about him. If you offer a concession, make it about
  36. 12:28 him. He made you concede. How? By educating you. By opening your eyes. If you offer amends, play on the narcissist’s entitlement. Don’t say, “I am offering you this.” Say, “You’re entitled to this. You deserve this. You You did everything in your power.
  37. 12:50 You’ve earned it.” And so, make it 100% about the Nazis. Because if you talk about yourself, the narcissist is going to rage even more. And don’t be too obvious. If you flatter the narcissist too obviously, the narcissist will experience this as an attempt to
  38. 13:09 manipulate you. And this will trigger even more aggression. Be subtle, surreptitious, and make it 100% about him. Everything is his idea. Everything that’s happening is his making. He’s in charge. He’s the boss. He is the mover. He’s the shaker.
  39. 13:29 You’re a nobody. You’re nothing. You don’t exist. The second technique is a bit dangerous, especially with malignant narcissists who are also psychopaths. And that is a technique of mirroring. You must be very judicious. You must know your narcissist real well. Is he
  40. 13:49 just a bully? Because bullies are cowards. When you confront bullies, they cower. They they go back. They’re craven. They they disappear. They they submit actually bullies. But if your narcissist is not merely a bully but also a true blue psychopath, do not use this
  41. 14:09 technique because it would lead to violence. So you need to to know your narcissist real well. A bullying narcissist who is merely narcissistic but at heart is a craven pusilanimous coward use the mirroring technique. Rage back. Rage back and outdo the bully. Threaten abandonment
  42. 14:39 but do not threaten any real life consequences. Don’t threaten to blackmail the nar. Don’t blackmail the narcissist. Don’t threaten to expose him. Don’t threaten to go to the police. Don’t exclude real life penalties and real life consequences.
  43. 14:58 It con uh confine yourself, concentrate, focus on the relationship and on
  44. 15:07 emotional inputs into the relationship. So you can threaten him or her with abandonment, rejection, silent treatment, the cold shoulder, rage back. If he is raging at you with intensity eight, rage back with intensity 10 again. It is going to work. The rage
  45. 15:28 will seize immediately like turning turning off a spigot. But only if it’s a classical narcissist who is a bully, Donald Trump, not a psychopath. A psychopath is really, really dangerous. And if a psychopath perceives you as a threat or if a psychopath perceives you
  46. 15:50 as out to shame him or humiliate him, a psychopath would transition easily on a dime from mere externalized aggression to bodily harm, violence, and worse. Okay, there’s the only two ways I know to cope with narcissistic rage. If you can come up with other techniques and so
  47. 16:12 on, I’m always open to learn even after 30 years of studying the topic. And that’s not very narcissistic of me, I must say.
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https://vakninsummaries.com/ (Full summaries of Sam Vaknin’s videos)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/mediakit.html (My work in psychology: Media Kit and Press Room)

Bonus Consultations with Sam Vaknin or Lidija Rangelovska (or both) http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ctcounsel.html

http://www.youtube.com/samvaknin (Narcissists, Psychopaths, Abuse)

http://www.youtube.com/vakninmusings (World in Conflict and Transition)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com (Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/cv.html (Biography and Resume)

Summary

Sam Vaknin, discusses the nature of malignant narcissistic rage, emphasizing its self-reinforcing, internal origin and disconnect from external reality or fault. He presents two methods to cope with such rage: careful submission that focuses on flattery and amends centered around the narcissist, and mirroring the rage back to a bullying narcissist without escalating to real-life consequences. Caution is stressed, especially with psychopathic narcissists, where mirroring can provoke violence, highlighting the complexity and danger in managing narcissistic rage.

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