 We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is The Therapy Show, behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome to the next episode of The Therapy Show with myself, Jackie Jones and the wonderful Bob Cook. And we're going to be looking at narcissism but it's a really meaty subject this one. I get asked an awful lot about this online and I talk in quite a few groups, particularly one that I'm thinking around, with alienated parents kind of saying that their partner is narcissistic and asking me how they can improve it. So maybe I'll point them in the direction of this door where we can discuss all that. It's a good disadvantage around an awful lot. If it's not people talking about being gaslighted or gaslighting, narcissistic, you know, the disorder, I talk about narcissistic tendencies, which I think we all have, you know, to a certain extent. So over to you, Bob, where do you want to take this conversation? Well, of course, healthy narcissism is the basis of self-esteem. Yeah. So, you know, this podcast is more about narcissism as a disorder level or a trait level. You know, if you want to talk about negative narcissism, your toxic narcissism we could do. But this is what the podcast is going to be about. So let's take the definition of narcissism. Let's go back into sociology. So narcissists, you know, the gods gave him, if you like, internal beauty. And that was his destiny, internal beauty on one clause. And that is, if he ever looked at his own features, he would wither away and die. Now, of course, what he did was, he did look at his own features through a reflection and a pool. And he did wither away and he did die. And in this place, of course, you've got the flower called narcissist. Yeah. So that's the sort of, that's the sort of background of the definition of a narcissist or narcissism, if we're going to talk about in this podcast. So it comes from the Greek mythology, the term, and it's very much seen in the literature as somebody who is the center of their own universe. So in other words, they see themselves as extraordinarily special. They see themselves right at the center of their own universe. And they have a high sense of entitlement. Now, somebody with a narcissistic disorder, you don't usually see in therapy. No. Because they're too, anybody who's perfect, especially at that level, wouldn't come to therapy. Yeah. I always say, I work with people who have parents that display narcissistic tendencies and partners of somebody that displays that behavior. Yeah. So if I think of, you know, I have work of course, narcissistic people cost a spectrum from, if you're a mild narcissistic tendencies, all the way at the spectrum, probably to a disordered level. Now, the more disordered they are, the more unlikely they are to come to therapy, their own volition. Yeah. In fact, you would hardly ever see them. Yeah. I probably, I always think of two people, perhaps at least of the high narcissistic order, still not a disorder in the sense of being fixed, lacking spontaneity and rigid with an element of psychosis, but pretty high in that continuum of what I call a narcissist. Now, the first person came to therapy because he came with his then partner and really, I want to say his partner sent him to therapy, but he didn't come, he didn't seek me out of saying, I want an individual therapy. The other person I'm thinking about was in training, believe it enough to be a psychotherapist and had to by definition have some therapy. Yeah. So there's neither came of their own volition. That's interesting. Yeah. At the high end of narcissism, you will never see them. Yeah. So you're right. Usually you'll see people of narcissistic traits. And again, I'll just repeat it. The second narcissist I'm thinking about, high narcissists came because they they were in training to be a psychotherapist. That's interesting itself, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was meaning was interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's look at the features of somebody who's coming in with this frame of reference. Perhaps we don't say a disorder level because I don't think you'll see them. Perhaps with people who are quite high up the continuum, they've certainly got quite very intense traits. And let's go through a few of the features of EI. So I've got a list of them here. Let's start off with the first one, grandiose sense of self-importance. Yeah. So grandiosity means an inflated sense of your own worth. So that's when somebody talks about themselves in an exaggerated manner. You know, I have the most wonderful sense of humor. I've got an IQ of 183. In fact, I think the last reported sense of IQs was the second highest in the United Kingdom. Yeah. You know what? I'm not afraid of telling people about my level of intelligence. So they know how intelligent I am. So do you see the grandiosity there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They might work for a company, but say that the company couldn't run without them or the backbone of everything. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So there's a huge grandiosity and a self and inflation of the self. Yeah. So that's really important. So any sense of person who comes from a narcissistic sense will be grandiose to a certain extent about their self-worth, their level of specialness. Yeah. And usually often about their level of qualities like intelligence or beauty or we could list the different qualities. You just gave a good example. Somebody who came along and said, right, this business will collapse without me. I'm totally indispensable. Yeah. So there's a grandiosity in the way of looking at things. So why wouldn't any woman be attracted to me? You know, I always dating science. I can't believe them. I mean, if I went on a dating site, but lie me. I'd have them all wanting to fall over and swoon at my feet. Quite right. Quite right. But the interesting thing is if they were on a dating site and nobody swiped left or right or whichever way you swiped to get a match, they wouldn't take responsibility for that. It would be a rubbish dating site. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I remind me of somebody's narcissist tenders I was thinking about who had a series of dates and couldn't understand why they didn't want to meet them again. Yeah. And then when we were talking, we found out that the dates that he had, he talked about how marvellous he was for the whole of the two hours over the meal. You know, I'm a super athlete. I have been to the most out wonderful places in the world. You know what? I know many, many chefs who've got seven Michelin stars. And do you know, I've walked up, you know, I've had for a story, whatever it is, you know, and they spend the whole date talking about themselves and their super achievements and they don't understand why the person doesn't come back for a second date. It is completely not even their, you know, awareness that the other person might feel completely discounted and no, and there's never been any question about how they are. Yeah. But they don't, they don't even, they do not even think about it like that. See, that's the thing. When I talk to people about narcissism, it's kind of like it's not that they're aware of it and they do it anyway. They're aware of discounting the other person and they still do it. It's kind of like they don't even get the fact that they are discounting the other person. It's not in their awareness at all. It's not their awareness. And it's a really important point to be aware of and the reason why that is and the reason why that is is because they are protecting themselves against their own real self and their own real self, if you ever got to it, would be feeling depressed, inadequate, devalued and extraordinarily sad. Now, they, it's really important to go nowhere near that. Yeah. So in many of the literature, they, you know, they'll talk about a real self and a false self. So they create this level of grandiose self so that they will not have to go anywhere near their perceived sense of inadequacy. Yeah. And then they kind of build a fortress around that false self so that nobody can penetrate it. Well, at least, at least to learn themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like I said, a lot of people I speak to, it's kind of like it's really difficult to get across to them that it's, it's just not in their awareness how the behavior impacts on the other person. It's not that they know they're doing it and they do it anyway. It's just not on the horizon at all. No, it's in transaction analysis terms. They're in, they're coming from the child eager state from a part of themselves, which is they're not really aware of. Yeah. This is another language. This is a coping system. Yeah. So do you want to talk a little bit maybe about how a narcissist is born, so to speak, where it comes from? Why are certain people narcissists and others aren't? Fine. But let's just go through the features first. Is that okay? No. I quite happily do that because it's important to look at. And before I talk about that briefly, narcissists are usually born from narcissists. But I can talk about them in a minute about that. The second one is they are preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love. Absolutely. So they fantasize a lot about how successful they are, how powerful they are, how they can just have, like I've just said, all the desirable women in the world. People will find them, the person, a sense of beauty, absolutely overwhelming. And they spend a long time fantasizing about that. It's one of the dangerous things about these people that they actually do achieve an awful lot because of the belief around it. Oh, that's a very good point. Most people who've got narcissism at this level are usually extremely successful people, extremely powerful people, and they surround themselves with people who actually reinforce that narcissism. So the sense of grandiosity, the sense of perfectness and everything else kind of comes true to a certain extent because they are usually quite successful. Well, the really important thing is that they surround themselves with people who stroke and support their sense of narcissism, so they become more narcissistic. Because one of the things, when I was looking at this for research, not just for this podcast, but generally, is kind of cult leaders are usually falling to this bracket that do have people that worship the ground that they walk on, that do believe everything that they say, that do follow them, even into danger. That's how idealized sometimes these people can be. And they're usually highly charismatic. Yeah. Yeah. They have a sense of distorted reality in the sense of their own grandiosity. And they will surround them. I've said again, this is a really important point. They will surround themselves with people who idealize them, who support their grandiosity, so they become more grandiose. Yeah. These are not people who surround themselves with people who will disagree with them. They're not going to surround themselves with people who actually support, idealize them and believe their grandiosity. Yeah. And it's not kind of like you or I could suddenly decide to be narcissistic tomorrow because we would have a sense that we were making it all up. This happens early on. So it's not that somebody can suddenly become a narcissist. I think a person can actually create a sense of self, which is narcissistic. How long they can keep that up is another story. Yes, you're correct in the sense of will. A person has narcissistic injuries will have a distorted sense of reality. So you know, it's very hard for people to play that. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was meaning to keep up that pretence. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same with all these disorders. If you have somebody to play somebody being obsessive, for example, or if you ask somebody to play somebody being highly withdrawn, you might do it in a role play, but you wouldn't be able to do it for long. No. No. So it's the same with all these disorders, all these types of clients we're talking about. So I'll just repeat this for you. I have a great sense of fantasy about wealth, success, power, and this feeds them internally. Yeah. This feeds themselves internally because they have to have the internal strokes, if you like, or recognition internally to keep the grandiose self going. Going. The other thing they need, of course, is a supply of what in TA we call positive strokes. In other words, a supply of people who will idealize them. Yeah. Who will say they are wonderful. Tell them how special they are. And if that supply starts to do wither away, they will start getting in touch with their internal depression, their fragile sense of self and their internal hopelessness and go into what I'll call a deep depression where other people might call a narcissistic injury where there's a narcissistic collapse and they go to bed or they capacitate themselves or they're finally difficult to function. So they have to surround themselves with people which give them this type of recognition. Interesting. Especially if you think about therapy. Yeah. Because they will need, they will go on to how you work with these people, but they need the therapist to support the narcissistic frame of reference. Otherwise, they feel this cue sense of shame, humiliation, depression. They fall straight into a black hole of shame and you won't see them again. So yeah, that's one of the reasons I would have thought why they won't come to therapy. Yeah, they won't. They won't. They might come a couple of times, but as soon as you start to chink their armor, they're off. Yeah, chink their armor. What do you mean by that? When you start to do what? Well, in a therapeutic setting, if you're not, you know, buying into the game, if you're not idealizing them and believing every word that they're saying, they will see that as something wrong with me, I would imagine and go back again. You won't see them. So the treatment, which I'm not going to probably never get, not going to get into this podcast, but the treatment is to do exactly what we're talking about here, which we'll get on to later. You need to idealize them, but I'll explain how you do that through an actual term, which cohort who specializes in narcissism called and that is empathic attunement. I'll probably talk about that another time. In the TA world, empathic transactions. But let's go on to another feature of somebody who comes to our room, our clinical practice with this framework. And that's a need for specialness. They, above all, have to be special. Yeah. And they have to be special to the therapist as well. They have to have people who will admire them. They have to surround people who will admire them and be loyal to them, tell them how wonderful they are, and continue many, many times in different ways, reinforcing this sense of specialness. Yeah. And I would imagine as well, you know, even in the therapy room that you couldn't compare them to another client, or not that you would compare clients, but do you know what I mean? That if I said, you know, I've worked with clients like you before, for example, that wouldn't sit well with them because that would mean that they aren't unique and special. Unless you're correct, unless you're talking about a different type of narcissist. So there's different types of narcissists as a closet narcissist. Yeah. And that's a business narcissist, which I'll also talk about in a minute. So in general, you're correct with a caveat. Yes. And generally correct, I remember somebody who's highly narcissistic who I asked them, I don't think I felt was thinking very well at this particular time. Or I just didn't occur to me. I've seen them for only three sessions. But I asked them to wait outside while I was finishing off work. Not good. With another client. And when they came in, they spent the first 15 minutes at least raging at me about how they have felt humiliated, how they felt in the pecking order discounted. How could I do this to them? And I assure you, Jackie, it was at least a 10-minute rant of huge proportions. And I learned from that. I mean, I knew this anyway, but I really learned from this to exactly what you've just said there, to make sure you don't leave them in waiting rooms or you see them. So if they're coming at two o'clock, you meet them at the door or you ask them straight up. Yeah. Because if you don't, and we do things like I did, or even what you just suggested, they will go into a real, what I'm going to call narcissistic rage. Yeah. But I feel like I need to say it says something about the relationship that you had with them that they came in. In the first place. Yeah. Yeah. That they didn't just leave in utter distaste. Well, I'll tell you again, it's into the treatment of narcissists, but you have to get into their frame of reference in the service of attunement. Now, if you can get into their frame of reference in the service of attunement to coming alongside them, they'll calm down really quickly. No. The problem for therapists is if they go into some sort of battle or go into some sort of parent process or some counter-transferential place where the actual client doesn't feel met, then they're into losing wicket. Yeah. So it's, I haven't seen a narcissistic person in the therapy room, but I would imagine it's exhausting and really quite difficult to meet their needs at the level that they want them to be met at and still keep your sense of self in that transaction. Yeah. You need to start off from a position which is this, that it's impossible to do what you've just said. Yeah. You know, so therefore if you're starting from that position, that is impossible to meet their needs. You can't provide the needs. You're in a better frame of reference. Another way to look at it also is this injury we're talking about happened a long time ago and we need to get to that injury. So if you look at it that type of way and we think about the injured child and the client that's got to produce or defend by having a grandiose sense of self and needs to be admired and needs to be specialed or costs, then hopefully the therapist's compassion might save the day. The question's just come up, Bob, and I'm not sure if you know the answer. Are narcissists usually only children? Is there any relation to being an only child and a narcissist? I'm not quite sure the question is, but I'll answer it the way I'm going to answer it and then you can say that's not the question. But anyway, I'll answer it as much as I can. They don't really have access to much adult in the clinical room. So usually what you're actually coming across is a younger sense of self, which is defending against the real self being actually met. So their adult usually goes out of the window in therapy. Is that what you meant? No. Well, tell me, say it again in a clear way that I can understand that. In a family unit, are there any statistics that only children are more likely to have narcissistic tendencies? Oh, you mean real children on psychological terms? Yes, actually in the family. Yes. So you're saying, real children, okay, you're saying to me, is there any statistics to show that real children have, say that again to me, still not quite clear? If only children, if mum and dad just have one child, statistically, are they more likely to have narcissistic tendencies than if they're one of five children, say, for example? Oh, that's okay. I can tell you why I think about that. I haven't read much research on this. I don't know the statistics, but I can tell you my thoughts, especially as I have an only child. So Jessica, as my daughter was 22, is an only child, okay? I think she's got histonic traits and not narcissistic traits, and I think there's a difference. Yes, yeah, yeah. So I think only children fall into a challenge often by the parents in that the parents may not allow the child to grow up. They may allow them to keep them young and not equip them with the social skills, if you like, to deal with relationships in later life. But that's the profile more of a histonic. And I think the Jessica has histonic traits, even though she was brought up by two psychotherapists. Interestingly, and we'll talk about this in another podcast particularly, the misdark notices of hysterics with narcissists. But I think Jessica is more in the world of the hysterical traits rather than the narcissistic traits. So I don't know the statistics. I don't know the research, but I understand the query. Yeah, because there's something about them not separating out appropriately. You said earlier on about narcissistic people often have narcissistic children. So is that you saying that that's potentially learned to behavior or the fact that they feed each other's narcissism? Well, you're right. I mean, I'm not sure it should be this podcast, but rather than the other one when we look at the diagnosis and treatment plan of narcissists. But we are going back to what is called the individuation separation phase, usually called the repostment stage in the French terminology, which is really one and a half to probably three and a half where the child starts to differentiate out and starts to separate. And if things go wrong in that time period, then different challenges will occur. Now, if you think about it this way that say you've got a narcissistic parent and they feel wounded when the actual child needs to separate normally, healthily, in an individuated way. And the person who's narcissistic feels wounded by that, they may deny the child the strokes and validation to grow up, but give them strokes and validation if they come back and stay infantilized and look after the mother. Yeah, yeah. So that's some of the problems you can get there. And from that, many things can happen. But if they're kept young and they aren't allowed to grow up, then you've got problems, haven't you? Yeah, which in my mind, I think that's the reason why I asked, as well as the way that the narcissist displays their behavior, that would make sense if they're not allowed to grow up. And being a parent of an only child, I've got three kids, but if I was, I would imagine that you want to keep them close. If this is your only child and your protégé and everything else, there's going to be a lot of that. The danger is, you may, like you've just said, you may not give them the strokes, the recognition, the validation they need to actually separate. To be independent, yeah. And you may unconsciously, out of your awareness, give them strokes for actually staying young. Yeah. The good person on all this is Margaret Mahler, who is probably one of the best psychoanalytical child development people I know who talked about this, co-hearts another person who talked about this. And when we get to the next podcast on diagnosed treatment and features of the narcissist, we can perhaps talk more in depth about that. But at the bottom level of narcissistic traits or disorders is what's called in the literature the empty core. In other words, I get sad when you say that, Bob. That really makes me feel sad. Because they feel like inadequate, hopeless, abandoned, you know, and feel they have no identity. Yeah. And that is why they defend the way they defend. Grandiosity, being special. And another feature they need is they require excessive admiration from everybody around them. Trying to fill that empty core. Correct. That's exactly it. Trying to fill that empty core. Yeah. Now, it's impossible because no one can do it. There is no amount of that. No. The injury was, the injury was in their history. Yeah. Not. Not. In fact, I think of it. I think of when my narcissistic class had talked about nothing, you know, whatever they did was not enough. That had to be so perfect. If they weren't perfect, they wouldn't get the validation. So by being perfect, and by being special, and by being a high achiever, they got some validity and strokes. But it was never enough. Because they couldn't be perfect enough. Yeah. And couldn't be special enough. Yeah. They could get it to a certain degree. So they would seek out. They had memories of, you know, their mother or their father coming and reading books to them and could tell them special stories. But it would always be linked to achievement, being perfect, being special, doing wondrous things. Yeah. Which they can't maintain. So it's kind of like, I see it is to get the juicy recognition and validation. But it's not long enough. It doesn't last long enough. They need it again and again and again because it's not enough. Yeah. No satisfaction. Yeah. Short lived. Yeah. Because there's no satisfaction. Because the parents want them to be even more perfect, even more special, even more unique. Yeah. And if they can't do those things, they fall into desolation, which is what is called the narcissistic injury. Like I said, it makes me sad. So is there anything else that you wanted to say to finish up on this episode? Yeah. I want to talk about interpersonally exploitative. In other words, narcissistic people look who will often appear cold, calculating and exploiting other people. Now, have I got five minutes left? You have. Okay. Or perhaps we have. Okay, let's start it here. Maybe we'll have to finish it in the next podcast. But there's a wonderful psychoanalyst. Well, really, she's, she's now a Gestalt Psychotherapist. I think she must be about 80. Eleanor Greenberg. And she's, she is a Gestalt Psychotherapist now. She lives in New York. And she's written extensively about narcissism and actually the borderline condition. And she has a monomic and easy way to remember the characteristics of a narcissistic personality. You know, if somebody walks through the door with those sorts of traits. And it's special God. God. So these are the features you're going to see. And it's an easy way of remembering it. So S is for splitting. Yep. So in other words, there's a split between the real self and the false self. They'll split. And so what you're going to experience isn't the real self. You're going to experience the false self. And you're going to experience this person who's coping mechanism is to actually be very, you know, she's, you know, very special, very, all the things we talked about. So that's one S splitting another S splitting or status. And explain what I mean by this. So narcissists need to be top of the pecking order. So if a narcissist goes into a room, and there's say 15 people in the room, they aren't thinking about things like, Oh, I wonder what if they look very kind or perhaps they're going to like me or not feel a bit anxious because they're in social company, they are going to look around the room. And they're going to think, well, who's number one round here? I am. Yeah. So they have to be one in the pecking order that only ever be two. If they're what we're going to call a closet narcissist, which Mike and the next podcast as well. And they allow the exhibition narcissist to take the alpha position. But basically, they clock everything, everything in social circumstances, in terms of a pecking order. So if they're in a training group, say you're 16 people, like you are in, and like, why wasn't my own training for four years, they would need to be number one or at least number two. And they don't think about in terms of levels intimacy, where they're going to get on with people. But they think about in terms of alpha male and being the top dog. You will see that in Love Island. Do you watch Love Island, Bob? Have you seen the program? I like the thing I'm looking at it from psychological points of view. My daughter disagrees with me. But anyway, you watch Love Island, you watch all those alpha males and how they rate themselves or may not rate themselves in pecking order. But somebody who's got narcissist traits will rate themselves in pecking orders. And that's how they operate in a social environment. So status is number one for them. So E special. Let's go down the line. E. Have we done P? What's the P? Oh, P is perfection. Perfection. Writing these down as you're doing them, Bob. Oh, right. Sorry. They have to be perfect. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There is a part, just let's go back to somebody else about S's. There's a, there is another S there that's often brought into the Sprite and then the Greenberg. And that's sensitivity. Now, people don't often think of sensitivity when they think of narcissists, but they are very, very, very intensely sensitive about slights of humiliation. So that person that I left inadvertently outside the waiting room felt they've been humiliated, shamed, and they were very sensitive to any slights of anybody passing them in the corridor. For example, if they're passing in the corridor and say, Oh, how are you? How are you then? Oh, I've seen you come to therapy or whatever it is. So they're very, very, very sensitive to the most acute sense of transactions. They're not sensitive to other people. They're not sensitive at all to other people. No. They're the complete opposite. But to themselves, they can't take any slights. So we can have splitting status and sensitivity up there. Yeah. Perfection. Yeah. Perfect. And we've talked a little bit about that, haven't we? Yeah. Yeah. Now that's really interesting. So therefore, there need to be a perfect client, which is a really interesting one. I was just going to say, how did you work that one out then in a therapy? I thought you were coming to therapy in the first place in a way, but also they expect the therapist to be perfect, which is also another story. But what they want is a lot of validation from the therapist for coming in the first place, for doing therapy perfectly, doing the homework well, and everything that goes with that. Now that's an important thing to remember for down the line. Yeah. The next is entitlement. They have a huge sense of entitlement. Yeah. Yeah. So I talked about that earlier. But what about envy? Envy goes with entitlement. Another E. So interestingly enough, they can get very envious of other people, especially a closet narcissist will get very envious of exubitious narcissists, even though they don't show it. But they'll also be envious of other people in this pecking order system that I'm talking about. Next one is C, is it? Yeah. Cold and calculating. So they're very cold and calculating people externally. It's interesting about sensitivities. They have no sense of sensitivity to other people because they lack empathy. Yeah. Yeah. They have no sense of empathy with other people. Now, Linda Greenberg talked about a story in her article about this. And she's one of a class whose narcissistic came in and ranted and raved, if I want to read those away, had a narcissistic ranting and raving session about just before they came up to the actual therapy room, they'd gone from a burger next door. And the waitress had given the client mustard on their beef burger instead of tomato. And the client fell humiliated, slighted, shamed and yelled and screamed and tried to get the waitress sat. Wow. And then came up to the therapy room and ranted and raved at the therapist about how they felt shamed, humiliated and could the therapist go round and sack, make sure that this waitress had been sacked. So how does, what does the therapist do? Now, what Greenberg said, and again we'll talk about it again, but what Greenberg said she did was she had de-centre from any thoughts about the feelings of the waitress and centre on the shame and humiliation that the narcissistic person must have felt in the service of getting alongside the child in the client and the earlier injury. Interesting. That's an interesting example, which we'll talk more about how you treat narcissists, how you work with them. Because, you know, to de-centre from the poor old waitress was enough, but you must keep away from that as a therapist and go to the feelings and the terms of reference from the shamed, humiliated client. Wow. This is a very long five minutes. Idealising transference. I'm sure, sorry, this is a long podcast. I'm enjoying it. I've got so much information from this. Yeah, idealising transference. So they need, so they need to idealise you. Now, that's an interesting example I've just talked about, isn't it? Yeah, so they need to see you as a super therapist who never gets anything wrong. No pressure, then. You know, you need to be as special as them or even more. So they can take a picture of you and take it to their bedroom or their lounge or wavities and frame it and look adoringly at you every night and say, you know, I'm in safe hands here. I'm with the best therapist in Manchester. And why? Because in terms of number one protection, they'll feel safe and secure that they're with the best. Yeah, not the best. Yeah, idealising transference. Eventually, of course, which is down the line from this podcast, they need, of course, to see that everybody's normal, including themselves, which has actually the real goal of psychotherapy, that all humans make mistakes, includes themselves, and that is normal. But that's down the line. What's next? Did I special? I think that's admiration. Just look at this, Lizzie. Yeah, we've had that admiration. They need to be acknowledged, admired, everything else that goes for that. L is for low self-esteem. The real self has incredible low self-esteem. And that's why they defend in such an incredible grandiose way so that you'll never, ever, ever, ever suspect that. Let alone work with it. So, and God stands for grandiose omnipotent defence. Oh, omnipotent, like that one. All powerful, like a God. Grandiose omnipotent defence. That's their defence. So, I quite like that. I've not heard it put like that before. It's the special God and what it all stands for. It's quite a good way of remembering things. Yeah. I had to think of how you would work with the narcissist. So, I apologize slightly going over time in your podcast, but I think it's a really important monomic. If anybody's really interested in the service out there working with narcissists, I suggest you look up Eleanor Greenberg for people who's listened to it about, you know, maybe, you know, narcissistic profiles. I hope you can find some compassion. Yeah. Because without compassion, I wouldn't work with them. No. And it is that scared child. It is when, you know, as soon as you said about that emptiness inside, that it that really triggers something in me, you know, yeah, we need to be empathic towards them, even if they're not empathic towards us. Yeah. So, let's move on to the second podcast next time we show. And I want to talk about how you work with these people, because this is just as important as being able to spot them. Yeah. So, we'll finish this one and then we'll come back looking at how we work with them. Yeah. How to work with a narcissistic person. I can't wait to learn, Bob. I haven't seen anybody, so I've got a lot to learn here. So, we'll be back very shortly. Well, in a week's time. Yeah. Speak soon. You've been listening to the therapy show behind closed doors podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back next week with another episode.