People who behave co-narcissistically
share a number of the following traits: they tend to
have low self-esteem, work hard to please others,
defer to others' opinions, focus on others' world views
and are unaware of their own orientations, are often
depressed or anxious, find it hard to know how they
think and feel about a subject, doubt the validity of their
own views and opinions (especially when these
conflict with others' views), and take the blame for
interpersonal problems.
Often, the same person displays both narcissistic
and co-narcissistic behaviors, depending on
circumstances. A person who was raised by a
narcissistic or a co-narcissistic parent tends to
assume that, in any interpersonal interaction, one
person is narcissistic and the other co-narcissistic,
and often can play either part. Commonly, one parent
was primarily narcissistic and the other parent
primarily co-narcissistic, and so both orientations
have been modeled for the child. Both conditions are
rooted in low self-esteem. Both are ways of defending
oneself from fears resulting from internalized
criticisms and of coping with people who evoke these
criticisms. Those who are primarily co-narcissistic
may behave narcissistically when their self-esteem is
threatened, or when their partners take the co-
narcissistic role; people who primarily behave
narcissistically may act co-narcissistically when they
fear being held responsible and punished for
another's experience.
Narcissistic people blame others for their own
problems. They tend not to seek psychotherapy
because they fear that the therapist will see them as
deficient and therefore are highly defensive in relation
to therapists. They do not feel free or safe enough to
examine their own behavior, and typically avoid the
psychotherapy situation. Co-narcissists, however, are
ready to accept blame and responsibility for problems,
and are much more likely than narcissists to seek
help because they often consider themselves to be
the ones who need fixing.
The image I often keep in mind, and share with
my patients regarding narcissism, is that the
narcissist needs to be in the spotlight, and the co-
narcissist serves as the audience. The narcissist is
on stage, performing, and needing attention,
appreciation, support, praise, reassurance, and
encouragement, and the co-narcissist's role is to
provide these things. Co-narcissists are approved of
and rewarded when they perform well in their role, but,
otherwise, they are corrected and punished.
One of the critical aspects of the interpersonal
situation when one person is either narcissistic or co-
narcissistic is that it is not, in an important sense, a
relationship. I define a relationship as an
interpersonal interaction in which each person is able
to consider and act on his or her own needs,
experience, and point of view, as well as being able to
consider and respond to the experience of the other
person. Both people are important to each person. In
a narcissistic encounter, there is, psychologically, only
one person present. The co-narcissist disappears for
both people, and only the narcissistic person's
experience is important. Children raised by
narcissistic parents come to believe that all other
people are narcissistic to some extent. As a result,
they orient themselves around the other person in
their relationships, lose a clear sense of themselves,
and cannot express themselves easily nor participate
fully in their lives.
All these adaptations are relatively unconscious,
so most co-narcissistic people are not aware of the
reasons for their behavior. They may think of
themselves as inhibited and anxious by nature,
lacking what it takes to be assertive in life. Their
tendency to be unexpressive of their own thoughts and
feelings and to support and encourage others' needs
creates something of an imbalance in their
relationships, and other people may take more of the
interpersonal space for themselves as a result,
thereby giving the impression that they are, in fact,
narcissists, as the co-narcissist fears they are.
Co-narcissistic people often fear they will be
thought of as selfish if they act more assertively.
Usually, they learned to think this way because one or
both parents characterized them as selfish if they did
not accommodate to the parent's needs. I take
patients' concerns that they are selfish as an
indication of narcissism in the parents, because the
motivation of selfishness predominates in the minds
of narcissistic people. It is a major component of their
defensive style, and it is therefore a motivation they
readily attribute to (or project onto) others.
There are three common types of responses by
children to the interpersonal problems presented to
them by their parents: identification, compliance,
and
rebellion (see Gootnick, 1997, for a more thorough
discussion of these phenomena). Identification
is the
imitation of one or both parents, which may be
required by parents in order for them to maintain a
sense of connection with the child. In regard to
narcissistic parents, the child must exhibit the same
qualities, values, feelings, and behavior which the
parent employs to defend his or her self-esteem. For
example, a parent who is a bully may not only bully his
child, but may require that the child become a bully as
well. A parent whose self-esteem depends on his or
her academic achievement may require that the child
also be academically oriented, and value (or devalue)
the child in relation to his or her accomplishments in
this area. Identification is a response to the
parent
seeing the child as a representative of himself or
herself, and is the price of connectedness with the
parent. It results in the child becoming narcissistic
herself.
Compliance refers to the co-narcissistic
adaptation described earlier, wherein the child
becomes the approving audience sought by the
parent. The child is complying with the parent's needs
by being the counterpart the parent seeks. All three
forms of adaptation (identification, compliance, and
rebellion) can be seen as compliance in a larger
sense, since, in every case, the child complies in
some way with the needs of the parent, and is defined
by the parent. What defines compliance in this sense
is that the child becomes the counterpart the parent
needs from moment to moment to help the parent
manage threats to his or her self-esteem.
Rebellion refers to the state of fighting to
not
accept the dictates of the parent by behaving in
opposition to them. An example of this behavior is that
of an intelligent child who does poorly in school in
response to his parent's need that he be a high
achiever. The critical issue here is that the child is
unconsciously attempting to not submit to the parent's
definition of him despite his inner compulsion to
comply with the parent's needs. He therefore acts in a
self-defeating manner in order to try to maintain a
sense of independence. (If the pressure for
compliance had not been internalized, the child would
be free to be successful despite the parent's tendency
to co-opt his achievements.)
Part Three follows in January.
