Everything You Need to Know About Narcissism from 3 Experts: Dr. Les Carter, Dr. Peter Salerno, and Bill Eddy

Today you are in for a treat with a longer interview, featuring three of my favorite experts on narcissism: Dr. Les Carter, Dr. Peter Salerno, and Bill Eddy.

In this episode, each of these men will describe what is narcissism, how narcissists view relationships, and why they behave as bullies.

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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D., a mental health specialist and author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships, deconstructing narcissism, and understanding various other mental health-related issues. Her memoir, Love You More: The Harrowing Tale of Lies, Sex Addiction, & Double Cross, gives an uncensored glimpse into the dynamics of narcissistic abuse.

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Transcript

Ep. 96 Everything You Need to Know About Narcissism from 3 Experts: Dr. Les Carter, Dr. Peter Salerno, and Bill Eddy

Kerry: [00:00:00] In light of the holidays, today I'm featuring three of my favorite interviews. Three men who each had a different take on narcissism and narcissistic abuse. We're going to hear from Dr. Les Carter, Dr. Peter Salerno, and Bill Eddy. And I hope this finds you having a wonderful holiday celebration with your family and loved ones. 

So I'll let you introduce yourself, Dr. Carter. Tell us a little about what you do, how you got into this, and sort of your specialty.

Dr. Les Carter: Well, first, Kerry, let me say thank you for allowing me to be on your program with you. I'm living in Waco, Texas now. I retired here a little over two years ago, and I had maintained a very active counseling practice in the Dallas, Texas area, which is about an hour and 40 minutes north of here, for 41 years.

I had graduated from Baylor University. Then I got my doctorate at the University of North Texas and stayed in the Dallas area, which is where North Texas is just barely north of that. And wound up being for 25 [00:01:00] years with the Minirth-Meier Clinic. Some people might still remember that. And we did a lot of radio and writing and things like that.

Then I set up my own practice with a colleague of mine. And we wound up having a clinic with 7 therapists for the last 16 years of my practice there. I started out doing a lot of anger management work and that comes a lot from trying to figure out the old Carter family system and what was going on way back when with all the men in the Carter family.

And then it began morphing as I began developing a deeper appreciation for how narcissistic patterns play into the way that we deal with conflict and friction and things like that. And so I've written both on anger management as well as narcissism. And of course, as you mentioned, I have my YouTube channel now with Surviving Narcissism.

And it's just, you know, I love my work. I love the career that I've had. And then just to be able to speak out about this now on platforms that I have and people like you are gracious enough to allow me to be on, it's just an honor to be able to speak into this and [00:02:00] hopefully be a help to somebody.

Tara: Yeah, thank you so much for being here, Dr. Carter. So here's our first question. What do you think people get wrong about narcissists or being in narcissistic relationships or those of us with narcissistic patterns, as you mentioned?

Dr. Les Carter: You know, one of the biggest questions, it's a simple question that people will ask whenever they are encountering narcissistic individuals, is "Why are you doing this to me?" You know, and they begin just seeing narcissists as having them in their scopes, thinking you're just taking target practice on me. And one of the things I try to remind people of is narcissists are going to be narcissists. You just happen to be a player on the stage.

What they want to do is they bring their drama to you, and they have a real high attitude of entitlement and control and manipulation, and they operate with what I call alternate reality. And when you say, this doesn't work for me, or I don't understand quite why you're treating me in the way that you [00:03:00] are, then they'll come along and say, "Well, that's because you're dysfunctional." And so we think, well, then you're just taking all your problems out on me. And obviously in a sense they are, but then when you ask, "Why are you doing this to me?" Just drop the "to me" and ask, "Why are you doing this?"

They want us to take responsibility for their garbage because they don't do that well themselves. And sometimes we can fall into the pattern of thinking we've got to convince them otherwise. And then what they do is they just take you down that little rabbit hole and have fun with you when that begins to happen.

Kerry: Do you think that they consciously are doing this? How do you understand the makeup of a narcissist?

Dr. Les Carter: One of the things that's so necessary to understand about narcissists is they live behind the shield of their false self. Okay, now to make it real simple, you and I, hopefully, as we engage with one another would buy into that old saying, "Honesty is the best policy." You know, I just want to be straight up with you, you'd be [00:04:00] straight up with me. We have a word for that—it's called authenticity.

Narcissists, they're thinking, no, honesty is not necessarily the best policy here for me. They want to be in control. Beneath it, they tend to be very fear-based and shame-based. Very much. Now, almost never will a narcissist come out and say what I just said, but what you'll hear is a lot of defensiveness when you say, "Hey, we have a conflict between the two of us. Let's talk about that." Their defenses are part of their fear-based way of thinking, and so they can throw their walls up very quickly. They rationalize, they justify.

And then they do the classic projection—they see in you what they won't come to terms with on the inside of themselves. And then when we say they're shame-based, narcissists started out just like you and I probably did as well, knowing that there's a judgment system out there. That people are going to grade you, and they're going to see if you measure up to their schemes or not. Healthy individuals begin realizing, you know, I don't really feel [00:05:00] like I need to live according to someone else's judgments, but narcissists don't have the confidence to think that way.

What they've done, they've decided, I'm not going to let you see the real me. Honesty is not always the best policy. What I'm going to do, though, is I'm going to pronounce shame on you. And that's their projection. They see in you what they don't want to have to come to terms with on the inside of themselves. And so when you're dealing with narcissists, you're dealing with people who are playing this smoke and mirrors game with you constantly.

Tara: So as a clinician, how was it for you working with these types of individuals? Was it easy for you to sort of point them out? You're like, "Oh, this person definitely is." Or did you find it difficult even working with them to see through that false facade that you talked about?

Dr. Les Carter: I mentioned that I did a lot of work in anger management. And in fact, as a young therapist, way back when I finished my doctorate in 1980, and there's not a real high demand for 26-year-old therapists. But what I did back then is I began conducting workshops and that really helped out and folks [00:06:00] began realizing maybe this young fella knows what he's talking about.

And so what I did is I began realizing that these individuals carry a great deal of anger on the inside of themselves. And over time, as these individuals would come into my office, I began seeing all sorts of patterns that were repetitive. We go back to that defensiveness. They could be pathologically justifying, and then with those walls up, they had to be in the superior position.

These are individuals who wanted to superimpose their thoughts on other individuals. They didn't want to hear anyone else—low empathy, high need for control. And then the longer I was working in that realm, the more I realized this is narcissism. And this, that's what we're dealing with. We're dealing with individuals who have concluded that there's really only one person in this world whose opinion matters. And wouldn't you know it, it's me.

Kerry: This is what I find. I mean, I understand it's, we're always interpersonal. We're always involved with other [00:07:00] people. But what's intriguing to me is how narcissists need relationships in a way that's different than an average person. We want relationships. Yeah, most of us don't really want to be alone. Maybe we've had fear of being alone, but there's something even more compulsive about a narcissistic use of a relationship. Can you talk more about that? How it's almost kind of a parasitic experience?

Dr. Les Carter: Yeah, it's not wrong at all to say, I like being in a relationship, or when someone is kind to me, I appreciate that. Or when I have someone that's loving or friendly or helpful, that really makes my day. That's all great. Narcissists, however, are basically empty on the inside. One of the things that they lack is introspection. They lack a sense of trying to know and understand who they are from the inside out.

And because of that, they don't really have an inner strength to draw upon. So guess what that means when they latch [00:08:00] onto you—it's like you're going to become my strength. And if I can get you to think this way, which is why they're so pushy, or if I can get you to do my bidding, which is why they're so manipulative. If I can get you to defer to me, which is why they have to be in that superior position, then I'm going to feel great about who I am.

And so their sense of well-being is very externally based. And so when they say they want a relationship, it's like, I need somebody to feed me, feed me, feed me, feed me. Tell me how wonderful I am. Prove that I'm better than better than you, starting with you and then everyone else. And so there's this seemingly high opinion of oneself that they bring to the equation when, in fact, beneath the surface, what we're drawing upon is just raw emptiness. And that's something that we need to see on the inside of them because they can't see that.

Tara: So a lot of our listeners are usually in that place of sort of discovering that they may be in [00:09:00] a relationship with a narcissist or they realize or recognize that something's at least unhealthy or toxic about their relationship. What do you think are the signs that someone can start to look at or point out and be like, "I'm absolutely in a relationship with a narcissist?" And I see these things.

Dr. Les Carter: Going back to their need to be in control. How many times have you thought this person just continues to nitpick at me? That would be a sign, or this person has a pretty loose temper. In other words, all I have to do is one false move and I'm going to catch it. That's a sign. It may be that they're just super stubborn.

And it's like, if I have something to say to that narcissistic person, it's like, why would I listen to you? That's low empathy. That's part of narcissism. These individuals might be secret keepers. And it's like, I want to know as much as I can about you, because that allows me to have an upper hand, but there's certain things you're not going to know about me.

So that's a sign, or it may be that they are real good about talking to other [00:10:00] individuals about how wonderful they are, but you see behind the scenes that they struggle and you realize, you know, there's this lack of consistency. Their inner self and their outer self doesn't really match.

And the more of an insider you are with them, the more you're going to see, there's a whole lot of that. They can argue easily. They're easily critical and negative. I mean, if you see one or two of those kinds of things that I just mentioned, occasionally, don't we all have some of our own blind spots or our moments where we're not really on top of our game.

But with narcissists, the more you see them, you realize, man, this is persistent. And probably one of the biggest things is they absolutely won't take responsibility for relationship problems. Let's say that you and I have a conflict and a difficulty. And so I might say something like, "Hey, Tara, or Hey, Kerry, there's something that's bothering me."

In our healthiness, we would say something, it doesn't surprise us that we differ. In our healthiness, [00:11:00] we would say, well, let's just sit down and talk about it. What were you expecting and what did you receive instead? And what would you like for me to know? And then I would sit down and listen to your concerns and we would have a sense of mutual regard in the way that we would talk with each other.

Narcissists, I mean, that kind of thinking just is completely lost on them. They see relationships as a competition and guess who's the designated loser, by the way, and they're constantly wanting to one-up and it's like, no, if there's a problem here, it can't possibly be me. So something's going on with you. We've got to fix that. And so that's where they come with their bossiness and criticism and all the rest that goes along with it.

Yeah. And it's frustrating, but going back to my opening comments, one of the things you can think, what did I do here to warrant this? You have to remind yourself, this isn't about you, this is about their dysfunction. And they happen to be bringing it to you, you're a player on their stage with [00:12:00] them. But this is about who they are and it's so important to be able to make that distinction and develop the objectivity there that they're not going to bring to the equation.

Kerry: Yeah, that really leads me great to my next question because I see people get stuck there so profoundly. When somebody is in a relationship with this type of individual and the problematic person makes it about the partner, the problem we're having is because you bring up the problems. We wouldn't have a problem if you didn't bring the problems up. But then they end up struggling about what do we do? Do we get more help? Do we stay? Do we go see our pastor? Do I just need to suffer this out? I mean, what do you recommend people do when they recognize, you know what? This is habitual. I'm seeing the signs that Dr. Carter just outlined. What do you think they should do? Because I know people stay there stuck and then they do a lot of work trying to change the problematic person.

Dr. Les Carter: Yeah, bingo right there. What you said right there at the very end, I'm trying to change that problematic person. And my [00:13:00] alternative to that would be go find a brick wall and bang your head on it. You'll get the same results, you know. Sure enough, and by the way, one of the things that you'll hear people say is just if you have a narcissist in your life, go no contact.

Well, wouldn't that be nice? But some, and sometimes that's exactly what you need to do. And sometimes you can do it because you don't have people hanging on with you and you can just move on down the road. And if that's possible, that's a great possibility. Other times, though, it's not quite that simplistic, and when you hear my videos or my writing and all, I tend not to put these one-size-fits-all kind of solutions on individuals, but you want to remind yourself, again, I'm dealing with somebody who's not reflective, they don't want to take responsibility.

And so I can talk with them, perhaps, about strategies that might be more helpful than what we've been doing here in our relationship so far. But by and large, if there's going to be any kind of healthiness, well, being healthy means you [00:14:00] have to have a certain healthy interior. And narcissists don't have that. They've got that emptiness I mentioned, the shame base, the fear base, the false self, the entitlement, the selfishness, all that goes with it.

So, we go to the use of a word that's very popular and has been quite some time in the field of psychology, and that's the word boundaries. And a lot of times people think boundaries means just tell everybody no and that'll solve the problem. But boundaries is something much, much bigger than that.

Boundaries begins with you defining within yourself who you want to be. And that's no small kind of a task that individuals are required to maintain. When I was in my counseling practice, I would ask people, let me know what, tell me what kind of characteristics that you want to have dominate who you are and how you want to be known.

And so typically people come up with two or three. They'll say, well, I want to be patient and I want to be understanding and I want to be friendly. It's like, okay, let's come up with about 17 or [00:15:00] 18 more and let's just kind of come up with a real good, well-rounded notion of who you want to be. And sometimes that would be a homework assignment.

And then the next question that I would want to then ask them to ponder is in what circumstances are you least inclined to be what you just described to me? And you know, well, when that person is argumentative, there goes my patience out the window. Or when that person discounts me, there goes my sense of inner well-being and calmness. And before you know it, you begin realizing that we wind up in this codependent dance with the narcissist. And make no mistake, they're the ultimate codependents. They're feeding off of you, which is what codependency is all about. Just playing off of one another, as opposed to operating on your own initiative.

And then the question becomes, well, can we be in a position here where I can go ahead and live and act upon the ingredients, the traits, the qualities that I want to be? And if that person joins [00:16:00] me, that would be wonderful. And if they don't join me, I'm still going to stick with my initiatives anyway.

And that's hard. Because it does require a certain moving off or moving away from them emotionally, even though physically you may have to still be in their presence. I mean, that's the stuff that therapy consists of. And then breaking that down into the theoretical parts, but then breaking it down into real life circumstances with individuals.

Kerry: I'm so excited. I'm joined by Dr. Peter Salerno. He's a psychotherapist I came across on Instagram and was really blown away by his understanding of the narcissist and the narcissistic mind as well as personality. So how did you get interested in this, Dr. Salerno?

Dr. Peter Salerno: Well, I guess like most people, probably personal experience, but also professionally, in all my degree programs, my master's degree, my doctoral degree, there's not much emphasis on personality science, personality pathology. [00:17:00] So we were trained and licensed once we get licensed to treat them and diagnose them, but what I noticed is there's just a lot of theory biases and things that just kind of get in the way of really understanding what's going on in the narcissist and in personality disordered individuals.

And so these treatment interventions or these symptom-oriented psychotherapies just don't seem to be working on a particular group of people, but we keep attributing it to the same thing. You know, these individuals must be traumatized. They must have an inferiority complex. I investigated that because the interventions weren't working. And in my personal life, I was trying to apply what I knew to try to get out of a dangerous situation.

And it was just making things worse. And what I noticed is that's what happens in therapy too with victims of these individuals. So I was kind of on a quest to figure out, is there anything else that's not common knowledge, right? That's not widely accepted but makes more sense. And so I just started reaching out to and studying under the experts in personality pathology [00:18:00] who seemed to be getting it right, not according to popular media, but that's really what kind of jump-started this interest in that.

Kerry: What was one of the first myths that you blew apart for yourself, that you realized you'd been getting wrong?

Dr. Peter Salerno: Individuals who meet the criteria for pathological narcissism or a narcissistic personality disorder—that they are behaving the way they do because there was some stunting in early development that interfered with their ability to attach or there was an empathic failure or an overindulgence or some sort of a chaotic, traumatic, neglectful environment that was the cause of why they are doing what they're doing. That's the first myth. Just doesn't hold up in clinical practice.

It doesn't hold up in research outside the fields of, like, the psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, sort of humanistic backgrounds, those modalities. It's just not consistent as far as what research is saying now from behavioral genetics, molecular genetics, neuroscience, neurobiology. There's a division [00:19:00] in the research and there's people who are on one side or the other and some who are kind of in between. But that was the main one, is that these ideas that trauma causes narcissism, this has been discredited decades ago, and most people aren't aware of that.

Kerry: I got to hear Dr. van der Kolk speak in Washington, D.C., at a workshop, so I got to hear him personally say this, and he said that in the United States, roughly 80 percent of the population has experienced what he called a Class A trauma, which not for sure exactly how he categorizes what a Class A is, but to me it sounds pretty significant.

Then he goes on and talks about trauma recovery. But if you just use that statistic for a moment—80 percent—and if we think based on the best statistics from government right now, which says 7%, which I still think that's too low, but let's just use 7 percent of the population is narcissistic. That doesn't correlate. If 80 percent of the public has been traumatized and only 7 percent of the public ends up being a narcissist, then how could you say trauma causes narcissism? It's not even a strong correlation; it feels random almost to me. You've mentioned there's two camps. What are the two camps of beliefs about how narcissistic personality disorder [00:20:00] develops?

Dr. Peter Salerno: Well, I guess the two mainstream popular camps are trauma, neglect, abuse, chaotic upbringing, or overindulgence, overvaluation. And then where both of these fall short is like you just said, only some are narcissistic in those environments. And so we have to look at ideology, cause versus risk factor, and even correlation. But if this environment isn't consistently producing the same thing, or even similar, then we have to kind of go back to the drawing board and figure out, well, what are we missing here?

The less widely accepted camp that is starting to rear its head and the facts are just kind of discrediting what most people either don't want to believe is true, or they don't really quite understand what it means, is that we're kind of starting to understand that [00:21:00] we've been wrong for almost a hundred years. Mental health science has been just wrong when it comes to classifying personality disorders. The adult problems we see in narcissists are not the direct result of something breaking down in childhood.

That if somebody is a narcissist as an adult, when we talk about narcissism, we're talking about pathological narcissism, not this cultural narcissism or "we're all kind of narcissistic to a degree and we outgrow it." Not that type. The diagnostic form of narcissism, which is the one that's the problematic one, is highly heritable. That's what we are learning and have learned based on controlled studies, right? Objective studies. Not studies based on self-reports of patients or interpretations from therapists where they have a specific lens of how they conceptualize a patient and how they conceptualize psychology in general.

These are now controlled studies that are producing the same results and that can be replicated, and then longitudinal studies that can [00:22:00] examine two different points of time are showing this has a lot to do with genetics. This has to do with heritability, just like physical traits are heritable, and so moving into that realm, then we have to look at neurobiology. We have to look at neuroscience. We have to look at the way these brains are operating, like the operating system. We have to look at how it's different than what we typically refer to as like a normal or neurotypical brain.

Kerry: Right, in fact there's a fascinating article in Nature where they actually have images of the brain and compare it to a typical brain to a narcissistic brain and they do look different. It's obvious the kind of discrepancy between the two. But why do you think this matters, the heritability of it, why does that matter?

Dr. Peter Salerno: Because we have to know how to treat it. Because as you know, treatments have historically failed with these patients, personality disordered individuals in general, not just narcissists, but even the ones that share the same cluster, so the antisocial, the histrionic, the borderline, they don't respond to treatment, symptom-oriented psychotherapy treatment, and they don't [00:23:00] respond to trauma treatment in the way that other people do.

So right there, we're also wondering, well, if it is all related to trauma, why are only some people who are not narcissistic responding to the trauma interventions? And the ones who are narcissistic either are getting worse or there's just not an impact whatsoever. And so, if we don't know what the cause of the dysfunction is, then we cannot sufficiently treat it. One of the things that most people complain about is, these people don't change, they don't want to change, they know what they're up to and they refuse to change.

If that's true, maybe it's one of the reasons that they're not changing in treatment is because we're using the wrong tools. And so we need to look at what might actually work with these individuals because these trauma-oriented interventions and symptom-oriented interventions just are not getting the job done.

Kerry: I also think it's really important because victims get told about trauma, first of all, out of sympathy. Here's somebody who's had a bad childhood or maybe things that got wrong with their parent that you end up thinking, okay, we can overcome [00:24:00] this. And also there's some reasons for me to have a lot of compassion because then it's not their fault.

We see that as sort of an excuse or an explanation. But knowing this for me, I know if I had really understood that more deeply at the time and I was in a narcissistically abusive relationship, it would have helped me been able to say, "Okay. I'm not going to save this person. It's okay to leave."

Dr. Peter Salerno: Yeah, yeah. Because you hold on to this kind of what I'd call like a fear-based hope that if it is trauma, something's gonna eventually get through. We can convert this person into a nicer human being with the right treatment. But the problem is, the treatment fails with victims because of what you just said, because they're being told by the professional they hired that your partner just needs to do a little bit of therapy, maybe they do the really dangerous thing where they ask their patient to invite their partner, their pathological partner into therapy, which is a huge no—like it's not good, but basically that's one of the main treatment failures is that the therapist is telling the victim you are dealing [00:25:00] with a trauma victim at home and that trauma victim just needs those wounds healed and then your relationship can get better.

Well, the research is showing that because a lot of this personality pathology is hardwired, you can't give people this false hope that they're going to change. It's just causing a lot more harm.

Kerry: So let's get into what is the truth about a narcissist? What is their mindset? To the degree that you and I can try to imagine, how would they see and experience the world? What is their point? What is their goal?

Dr. Peter Salerno: Yeah, so narcissists in the way that I understand the research and the research that I typically share and promote is we have to start looking at these disorders as trait deficiency and trait excess disorders. So we all have a psychological toolkit that we call a personality and we can pull out these different aspects of our personality, these different traits which make up our character.

And we typically, if we are reasonably within the spectrum of what we call normal in the [00:26:00] culturally, socially, morally acceptable range, we have a distinct number of traits. So, I don't have to convince myself or teach myself how to behave at a wedding versus a funeral. To me and to you, it's kind of common sense. I know which trait I need to pull out and how to behave that's appropriate so that I don't cause any trouble in those settings, right? Even being interviewed here, there's just like, there's a certain adaptability that's required and just having a dialogue here.

Kerry: I once heard Dr. Gregory Lester say, it's like they know one song, say they know Jaws, the theme song to Jaws. Yes. And they know that it's really good at a horror flick to play that theme song, makes people scared. But they pull it out at the wedding, or they pull it out at a funeral, keep playing that one song in every situation.

Dr. Peter Salerno: Right, and so going off of Dr. Lester's research, who that guy is, I mean, he's incredible, he's worked for the Department of Justice, he's the personality disorder guy, his office was the site of the DSM-5 for personality disorders, like, he knows what he's talking about. [00:27:00]

So, that one trait, that predominant trait for narcissists, for example, is grandiosity. What that causes them to be deficient in is the idea of equality. They don't believe or perceive in equality. So, from their fixed trait of grandiosity, which is this unearned, undeserved sense of self-importance that can't actually be backed up by anything. It's just, the expectation is you know that they are better. It prevents them from being able to see other people as equal to them. This has been shown to start to develop and actually be seen in preschool-aged children.

Regardless of upbringing, regardless of environment, regardless of adoption, regardless of biological parents, like whatever your environment is, this is a trait that is not being caused by an environmental factor, right? It could absolutely be amplified by certain environments, but that would be a risk factor, not a cause.

Kerry: Yeah, I came across an example with my ex. He had his identity stolen, and the person who had stolen his identity, and I [00:28:00] actually had proof, so I know it was real. And I found the individual, by the way, I found the individual on Facebook who's using his name and his social security number, and this individual had gone on and earned an MBA. My ex had a college degree, but he confessed to me that he had paid people to write his papers and that it was a non-accredited program, so really it wasn't worth a lot.

He said, since that person who's using his name and social security number has this MBA, he should contact the school for another copy of the diploma, as well as for the transcript, because it's in his name. So technically wasn't it his? You can't pull it off. How would you pull off that you have an MBA? Just because it's in your name, but in his mind, that kind of ties into this grandiosity. He really believed that it was his, because his name was on it, that he had earned it just because of who he is in the world, he thinks.

Whereas the rest of us would say, well, you need to show knowledge base, you need to show education, can you back it up with work [00:29:00] experience? We would say there's all these markers of credibility and you don't have them. But in his mind, he did, because he believed he did.

Dr. Peter Salerno: Yeah. It's just wild. So this brings up a really important point too is, they really do believe these things. There's this other myth that has already been discredited but is pervasive in culture. If someone's acting this way, it's because they are compensating from some inferiority, some deep-seated fear, low self-esteem, self-loathing. Like, these people go home and they hate themselves. And everything we see of them is this mask that's artificial.

And is really just a front to conceal this deep-seated inferiority. When narcissists believe something, they believe it 100%. So if they believe that they earned a diploma they didn't earn, and they portray it as if they did earn it, that's not a facade. They truly do believe that they are entitled to that.

It has nothing to do [00:30:00] with low self-esteem, low self-worth, that is one of the biggest misconceptions and one of the most dangerous ones because that is what keeps perpetuating this idea that we can just find the wound here and heal it and so then they're going to stop being narcissistic and we have to start realizing these traits are for the most part hardwired.

Now some people, including Dr. Lester, whom you mentioned, so he can work with these individuals and get them to no longer meet the criteria for narcissism. That would require the narcissist to be collaborative enough in treatment to stick with it. And it would require a clinician who knows exactly how to talk to these types of individuals because you don't talk to them the way you'd talk to a trauma survivor or victim. Right. They don't respond to that.

Kerry: So, to follow up on that, do you then disagree with the fact that there is a core of shame at the root of them? Because I know that Dr. Simon, George Simon says he sees it more as a lack of conscience versus the core of shame. What's your thoughts on that?

Dr. Peter Salerno: I'm more on board with Dr. Simon. I don't believe narcissists are suffering from this deep shame. And it depends on how you define shame too, [00:31:00] but I think people need to understand that there's a difference between even the emptiness that is experienced by a cluster B personality, like a narcissist, it comes from these trait deficiencies, it doesn't come from an experience that has wounded them to the core and they feel bad.

They don't feel bad about themselves. When they feel bad, they feel bad for themselves, which is a huge distinction. One is feel sorry for me. The other is, I'm so displeased or disgusted with myself, they don't go there, they have an emptiness in them for sure, but it's because they are lacking these traits that most of us take for granted, which would be the ability to collaborate, cooperate, be agreeable enough, be sensitive enough, because they don't have that, there is an emptiness that they experience, but it's coming from a deficiency that's not related to not being loved or some empathic failure. That's not why they feel the way they do. So I don't agree that they are experiencing shame. [00:32:00]

Kerry: I'm super excited today to be joined by Bill Eddy. I don't know how you can be in the narcissistic abuse arena and not be familiar with his work because he wrote BIFF, B-I-F-F, which stands for a technique to use with highly conflictual people, but he has a new book out called "Our New World of Adult Bullies."

I'm curious, what prompted you to write "Our New World of Adult Bullies"? What did you feel like you needed to speak into around with that book?

Bill Eddy: Well, I started during the end of 2020, which was the first year of COVID. And a couple things were happening. One is in the news, we were seeing a lot of bullying [00:33:00] around masks, around vaccines, around the George Floyd murder, around protests with the George Floyd murder. And on both sides of a lot of these things, people are getting a lot of attention for really bullying each other, bullying people in stores, bullying people on the streets.

And so I've worked with bullies and families, domestic violence, parental alienation, stuff like that. I've worked with bullies in the workplace and I've worked with bullies in legal disputes. And I thought people need to know the patterns of bullies and not get hooked into them because they can really diminish your self-esteem. Or get you angry at somebody else that you maybe really shouldn't be angry at that you don't even know—people started hating people that they didn't even know.

So I want to explain the same patterns at all levels of society and also some of the background of it. And my theory that these bully personalities really overlap with personality disorders and that they really may be ancient personalities that thousands of years ago these personalities may have thrived. [00:34:00] But today they don't work well in an office or in a home. And so I wanted to explain we shouldn't be angry at these people. We should learn to set limits on them and have consequences and maybe even coach them to change their behavior if that's possible.

Kerry: Yeah, what I really like the way you laid it out was you described the dynamic in the chapter. And then you also described some of the stereotypes or the assumptions that we commonly make. And then you break that stereotype apart by saying why it doesn't work. I'm curious. Why do you think we develop these almost like myths about bullying behavior that when you actually try to practice it, it doesn't work? Like you said, they're myths. Or stereotypes.

Bill Eddy: Yeah. Well, two things. I think human nature is to be open to people that, you know, we're very social creatures. And so we're very forgiving and fear, "Oh, they made a mistake." And so people really take a long time to catch on to, "Hey, this is a bully. I'm being bullied and I have to do something about it."

So there's that. But I also think that our culture [00:35:00] really promotes fantasies about bullies like there's a lot of movies that show people being a bully at the beginning of the movie and at the end they have this insight about their behavior and suddenly they become more lovable and friendly. Sometimes I call it the Jack Nicholson syndrome, because he's in a lot of movies where that happens.

He's just a total jerk at the beginning, and at the end he's kind of warm and cuddly, and that's not real life. And I want people to know, it's very unlikely that their behavior will change, especially if there's no form of intervention. And that's what real life is, but most people haven't experienced it also because bullying mostly goes on in private. And so people don't know how it works and the extent to which it exists.

Kerry: What do you think is the biggest myth that we culturally hold about bullying behavior?

Bill Eddy: Um, I think it's the first one I address, which is that they will stop [00:36:00] themselves. They will come to their senses that they will realize this is bad behavior. And that I probably don't need to do anything and it'll stop. And so the biggest myth is that they will stop themselves when, in fact, usually we're going to have to do something, either some kind of intervention or getting away from the bully. But they really don't seem to have the self-control that our culture thinks that they do.

Kerry: Do you think we actually have the means as a society to curb behavior, to affect behavior? When you talk to victims, they often feel like they've been exhausted, they've gone to the extent that they can, and they still end up feeling in a very helpless position.

Bill Eddy: Well, I think because I'm a lawyer, I think when you really look at the history of the legal systems and such, is laws and rules were established to curb the worst behavior. And over the evolution of humanity, we've really developed [00:37:00] more and more refined rules so you can say certain things, but you can't yell fire in an auditorium. You can do certain things, but your freedom ends where my nose begins.

Part of our culture is to set limits on behavior. I think what's happened in the last 30 or 40 years is a good thing and a not so good thing. One good thing is we've really opened up society. People can travel, they can meet people from anywhere in the world. We've increased access to justice. When I became a lawyer, that was a big part of the legal system, is we want everyone to be able to afford coming to court and being heard. So like fees are waived if you're low income and you don't have to have a lawyer to go to court.

So all of this openness, I think, was good, but the not so good part, I think, is the media culture with images of [00:38:00] extreme behavior. And when you think of it, entertainment gets attention because it shows extreme behavior. A well-functioning society works because we don't use extreme behavior or we have limits on it and so we've really been shifting society from being mostly working and functioning to mostly in many ways becoming an entertainment society.

Which values the exact opposite behavior. We have all these media sources, cable, 24/7 news, social media. All of this is really showing images of bad behavior. And yet, if we did those in our home, if we did those in our workplace, they wouldn't work. And we're starting to see that. It's kind of like life imitating art. And it's happened without us even realizing it.

But to me, that's the stark difference. A well-functioning community relationship [00:39:00] has lots of roles and expectations and responsibilities, but the entertainment culture doesn't have roles really and responsibilities because it's fictional. But we're getting fiction now mixed up with reality. I think that's a big part of it.

Kerry: It is interesting how there has been this confusion of what civil behavior is. And I know a lot of people do blame social media. It feels that way. I mean, but I don't know if it's always historically been this way or it's just my awareness has changed.

Bill Eddy: I think we've had it before social media for maybe 10 years before that when news went into the courtroom, when news went into Congress, then we started seeing court and Congress as entertainment and, you know, Judge Judy and all of that. And people get excited. They like that. The adversarial, because that's what drives drama, you know, is crises and evil villains and superheroes. Then social media speeded it up. Research shows us that false statements on social media travel faster and farther [00:40:00] than true statements.

My theory is, and when I read the research, it says that false statements have more emotion to them. And I think it's because of the emotion. Emotions travel further and faster than facts and boring discussions of reality. And so what social media has speeded up is our exposure time and our reaction time. So we're now more emotional, and we're reacting fast with emotions and reflecting less. So social media, I think, heightened emotions and reduced reflection.

Now, add the pandemic to that, I think that really was the ultimate, because we were really on screens all the time and not interacting with real people. And then, so I think people lost some social skills with the [00:41:00] pandemic, and we're still seeing the outcome of that. We're more emotional, less reflective, and more quick to respond with, you know, not very smart responses.

Kerry: It's interesting that you use the word bully versus why not use the word narcissism or some other word?

Bill Eddy: Because I wanted to make it broadly accessible to people. For much of the last 20 years, I've been focused on the term high-conflict personalities, people with personality disorders or traits who are in conflicts. And that's what I saw in the legal system. So I've been talking about high-conflict personalities, but I find the average person thinks of the same thing really as bullies.

Everybody knows kind of what a bully looks like and how they act and how uncomfortable it can make you feel. So what I explained in the book is I think that the foundation that there's three personality disorders that may be [00:42:00] present in a lot of bullies and narcissists may be the biggest one, but also antisocial because of their lack of remorse, very aggressive behavior. And also borderline with mood swings and male borderline seem to be the most prevalent in domestic violence. And research says that male borderlines and antisocials are the most overlap with domestic violence.

Kerry: We don't talk a lot about the male borderline personality disorder. Why do you think we don't focus on them much?

Bill Eddy: Well, I think historically people have mixed up male borderlines as antisocial. You think of a lot of criminal behavior and violence, more associated that with antisocial, more criminal. But the big study I looked at from 2004 to 2008, done by the National Institutes of Health, [00:43:00] shows that borderline seems to be about—their statistic was forty-six percent male, fifty-four percent female.

So almost equal, and I know Marsha Linehan, the borderline expert that we hear about the most, agrees with that and says that male borderline should be just about as probable as female borderline. I think the big difference is historically female borderlines have gotten treatment or attempted to get treatment, and male borderlines certainly don't seek treatment and haven't been recognized as borderlines by mental health professionals.

But good research shows that male borderlines and male antisocial personalities are the two personality disorders most common in domestic violence. They're both in Cluster B. Let me say a little bit about Cluster B. So Cluster B in the diagnostic manual includes borderline, narcissistic, antisocial, and histrionic, which is more [00:44:00] dramatic.

But research now tells us Cluster B tend to be domineering, vindictive, and intrusive. That all four of these disorders tend to, kind of as a cluster—and to me that's describing bullies—domineering, vindictive and intrusive. Bullies want to know what's going on in your head: "You have to tell me your secrets but I won't tell you mine," and they're domineering and they're very vindictive: "If I don't get my way, I'm gonna hurt you," and we see that.

In families, workplace, online especially we see it today and in politics, international relations, in business. So that's why I like the word bully. It's kind of a comprehensive term.

Kerry: They're so difficult to spot in the beginning because the self-confidence that they're leading with their full chest, you know, is very appealing quality. Why do you think we miss that? This is actually a danger sign, not something that we should see as admirable.

Bill Eddy: I think it's human nature. We default to being trusting. And people might be surprised to know that, but if a stranger comes up to you and asks for directions or what time it is, we want to help. I fly a lot. [00:45:00] This year, I took some trains more than usual, and at airports and train stations, people are often lost and confused and will come up and ask a question and everyone wants to help.

There was a movie years ago that showed airports are one of the happiest places because people get to greet their relatives and friends arriving—it was a Hugh Grant movie. It was a rom-com kind of thing, but we just default to wanting to help people and consequently we're suckers when it comes to bullies.

Because they know this about us and play on that, and of course, narcissistic bullies are probably the most skilled at this. Charm, we now say charm is a warning sign, doesn't mean someone's going to be a bully or a narcissist or whatever, but most bullies and narcissists [00:46:00] are very charming because that covers up the other side of them.

Kerry: Yeah, they're very good at the first impression. But boy, they're lousy when it comes to sustaining a relationship. And I think what frustrates survivors so much is that it's difficult to get out. They want to burn the whole world down. They certainly want to destroy you in that process. How can we navigate that in a more sophisticated way? Because I'm thinking of someone right now that literally this person is exhausting her emotionally as well as financially in this process. Just won't end. It won't give her closure. They're wrapping up their divorce.

Bill Eddy: Yeah. Well, divorce is particularly difficult with this because that's where the domineering and vindictive can really come out. And I see that in a lot of what I'm used to calling high-conflict divorces. But several things I think—for one is getting a therapist can really help. Don't go it alone. And in my book, I have six strategies [00:47:00] that I address with each of these patterns of behavior.

The first is really recognize I'm dealing with a bully. I'm not dealing with an ordinary person. I'm not dealing with someone who can stop themselves. So they're going to need to be stopped by me, by other people, or by getting away from them. The second is pulling the plug on them. You may be participating. You may be keeping things a secret that shouldn't be kept a secret. You may be supporting in some ways, because you feel obligated to. So, check yourself for, am I supporting the bully in any way? Can I pull the plug on those things? Especially secrecy. And with that, I say, talk to other people. Talk to somebody, and that's where a therapist can help.

Kerry: What would be an example of a secret?

Bill Eddy: Oh, don't tell anybody that I've hit you.

Kerry: Oh, that kind. Okay. Yeah. Don't talk about what's happening in the house. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Bill Eddy: Yeah. So that black eye—don't tell anybody where you got that. Tell them you fell down on a doorknob, you know, or you were drunk or something like that. And I'd say most bullies tell their victim survivors, don't tell anybody. [00:48:00] Don't say what really happened. And I have examples in the book of that.

There's a touching example of the young woman assistant to the New York governor and he apparently was touching her way inappropriately and she was keeping it a secret and she thought to herself, "I'm going to take this to the grave." Then he's on TV saying, "I've never touched anybody inappropriately" and "I've never done this and that." And she was horrified because the impression she got is this is probably going on with other people.

And so she talked to the administrators and it eventually led to him resigning when it came out in public, but she was very brave to no longer keep that a secret. And I saw that in other [00:49:00] examples, too, where when people stopped keeping it a secret, then action was taken and the bully was stopped.

Kerry: It's tough because, you know, I shared with you before we went on air that I also survived a narcissistically abusive relationship. That's one of the things he established right from the beginning was what happens in this relationship needs to stay in this relationship.

And he kind of laid a rule down, but the other piece for me that made it so difficult to talk about was I felt shame for his shameful behavior. I owned what he did, even though I know it wasn't me and I didn't even blame myself. I know I didn't make him do those things, but because we're a couple and it creates an identity as a couple, then when he really does something horrifically awful, well, I feel like it's a reflection on me, too.

Bill Eddy: Right. Exactly. And people lose self-esteem, become immobilized. In fact, I talk about how bullies immobilize people. They immobilize your defenses and self-esteem goes down. It gets harder to get out rather than easier. [00:50:00]

Kerry: Yeah, it is really hard. And that's why I shared my story as well and wrote "Love You More" is because I want people to know that you can even be a psychologist and still get trapped in one of these relationships.

In fact, my sons at the end when I had this big conversation with my adult sons and I was feeling really ashamed and they looked at me and said, "Mom, he used your best qualities against you." And that felt like so releasing because that's what they do. Like you had said earlier, they're very good at weaponizing our natural trusting, good nature, our desire to be cooperative and collaborative. They utilize those things against us.

Bill Eddy: Absolutely.

Kerry: Well, that's a wrap for this week's episode. Are you following me on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube? Find me at Kerry McEvoy, PhD. And whether you're in or out, considering leaving or have left a narcissistic relationship, find community support at my Toxic-Free Relationship Club. You can learn about this resource as well as others at KerryMcEvoy.com. And I'll see you back here next [00:51:00] week.