 Okay my last day here and I'm in this month and a long night ahead so I'm gonna give you a parting gift I'm going to tell you how the narcissist eyes how his gaze turns you into stone from under his narcissistic eyebrows no don't worry I'm just I'm just kidding I haven't I haven't degenerated that far yes I know that there are videos online about the narcissist demonic eyebrows and other typical I must say unfortunately nonsense today though we are going to discuss tangential issue something that includes eyebrows among other parts of one's anatomy today we're going to discuss the conflicted relationship between the narcissist and the psychopath and their bodies and how this manifests and expresses itself through their body language and I want to start what else when we discuss psychopaths I want to start with the FBI the Federal Bureau of Investigations in the United States of America in 2012 the FBI published enforcement bulletin number 28 and it included the intriguingly titled entry the language of psychopaths new findings and implications for law enforcement those of you who can lay your hands on it it's a recommended reading it's in the description one sentence caught my narcissistic eyebrowed eye psychopaths say the FBI psychopaths highly persuasive nonverbal behavior often distracts the listener from identifying their psychopathic nature and their spoken lies and here's the thing the psychopaths body language is geared at concealment at disguise at misleading people at distracting them with an a at redirecting redirecting their attention this is what psychopaths do so psychopaths either appear to be lying all the time even when they're telling the truth or they appear to be telling the truth even when they're lying in other words everything you think you know about how to spot liars and the various tells TELs and the various signs of lying and that you are skilled and so on so forget all this when it comes to psychopaths none of this works the physiology of psychopaths is also atypical not normal skin conductance heart rate amygdala responses everything is totally inhuman in a way in psychopaths so psychopaths easily defeat lie detectors and polygraphs where normal people would find it very difficult so if you watch if you come across a psychopath and you tell yourself don't worry I'm gonna know when he's lying forget it you're not gonna know when he's lying and you may make the mistake of misjudging what he says to be a lie when it's actually the truth or misjudging it to be the truth when it's actually a lie the psychopaths body language is determined by the environment psychopath is goal oriented so he reshapes his body he shapeshifts he molds his body yet like you know this molten molten metal in determinators franchise so he molds and shapes his body to convey messages he uses his body for overt signaling actually what the FBI said fully concur the psychopaths communicates mostly through his body through his body language so that you don't pay attention to what he is saying psychopaths body and body language are environmentally determined and this applies to the narcissist as well when the narcissist for example finds himself in a threatening environment coercive environment frightening environment everything changes he loses the narcissist loses his narcissism suddenly he is not abrasive he's not anti-social he's nice he's kind his attention attentive he's compactly compassionate when the narcissist for example finds himself in prison there's no way you could tell that he's a narcissist he's a totally transformed person same in the military same in a hospital same in a life-threatening situation same in the throes of a life crisis so the narcissist body language and the narcissist be narcissistic style is be the behaviors that comprise narcissism these are cued they are reactive to environmental cues now this raises fascinating questions for example if a narcissist seizes to be a narcissist in prison why would we consider him a narcissist outside prison and if a psychopath fully controls his impulses in a variety of environments and situations why would we say that he is defined in short narcissism and psychopathy appear to be more role-playing kind of role play or a choice rather than a personality disorder and this is this is this is an issue which puts in doubt casts in doubt the whole post-traumatic scenario because people in the throes of trauma people in the aftermath of trauma complex trauma com CPTSD or a one-time event which induces post-traumatic stress disorder they can't control their behaviors the behaviors are not modifiable there's no willpower involved there and yet the narcissists and psychopaths can so you see body language in this case is a philosophical issue it raises important queries and important questions regarding the very fundamentals of these two disorders if these are role-play disorders if these are simply dysfunctional anti-social roles if this is play acting if this is the derivative of the spian skills on a theater stage then maybe we should approach narcissists and psychopaths differently both narcissists and psychopaths invade your personal space they do it for two reasons invading your space your territory in your face you're not expression in your face literally signals a power matrix hierarchy like I'm more powerful than you I'm omnipotent you're not I can I own your space so there's a power hierarchy signal involved in in invading your territory and it's a form of ritualized pain invading your territory causes extreme discomfort and this discomfort can escalate and become intolerable it is a form of inflicting pain it is sadistic invading one's territory deliberately ignoring one's one's discomfort and requests causing distress intentionally that is of course sadistic but narcissists and psychopaths associate this sadistic strain of their behavior with extreme intimacy after all invading one's space could lead to physical contact including sex so it's associated in the narcissist mind and the psychopaths mind with intimacy the most extreme form of intimacy actually serial killers have described the act of killing as the ultimate in intimacy when two bodies merge in effect a sexual act that's why we consider most serial killers to be sexual sadists they conflate intimacy with pain and with the invasion of someone else's personal space to the maximum now before I proceed I owe you that I mean I'm sadistic but there's a limit I owe you a comment on the narcissist eyes and how the narcissist eyes allegedly go black on you or go blank on you depending on the on the victim so there's a lot of there are many reports about the change in the narcissist eyes or the narcissist gaze and they are not and they cannot be entirely debunked because the narcissist eyes do change they do go blank in a way owing to changes in in the size of pupils dilation and so on so forth and in the ratio between pupil and cornea and so on so the whole eye the eye of the narcissist changes its dimensions but this happens only when the narcissist dissociates or when his aggression is provoked when he feels contempt disdain impatience and the wish to inflict punishment to be punitive or to inflict pain the narcissist then withdraws inwards and everything I say applies to psychopaths the narcissist withdraws inwards and decompensates both his force and his true selves are temporarily deactivated and what you see in the narcissist eyes at that moment in time when he maximally dissociates or becomes maximally aggressive what you see is his famous empty schizoid core you see into his non-existent soul if you wish to use a metaphor you see come face-to-face with these upsets okay I owed you this clarification now let's get serious now this was serious what I just said but let's get more serious one way to tell if someone is a narcissist is to observe their body language the narcissist adopts a physical posture which implies and exudes an air of superiority seniority hidden powers mysteriousness amused indifference etc etc is above the fray is far from the madding crowd is sui generis is unique is so special etc though the narcissist usually maintains sustained in piercing eye contact with potential sources of narcissistic supply he often refrains from physical proximity even with these kind of people so the narcissist is highly territorial the only time he invades your territory is when he wants to coerce you to convert you or to punish you he never allows you to invade his territory he always invades your territory now many of you would confirm that when you try to touch the narcissist or to kiss the narcissist or to hug the narcissist or to show any physical compassion the narcissist recoils he goes back he there's a look of disgust and disdain that passes like so much storm clouds so many storm clouds on his face he he doesn't like to be touched he doesn't like to be touching any way shape or form he doesn't like imposed intimacy is very territorial however he does not hesitate to invade your personal territory your personal space now I've identified in my early work in the 1990s I've identified about 10 postures of the narcissist portion number one hyper vigilant paranoid it's when the narcissist stands aside scans the room or the environment trying to spot threats slides insults references to himself referential ideation and so on so forth so he's hyper vigilant is a bit paranoid that the posture number one next posture pleading expectant it's when the narcissist solicits narcissistic supply from you tries to please you or to captivate you or to charm you or to enchant you into giving him narcissistic supply next dismissive contemptuous posture it's when the narcissist regard you regard you as less than human unworthy of his resources and attention someone who has wasted his time or presumed to be his equal or even his superior in some way and he holds everyone in contempt and disdain and his dismissive that's another posture next posture is superior boastful it's when it's the narcissist sales pitch it's when the narcissist tries to sell himself to you to demonstrate to you how amazing he is how unique how special how unprecedented and while doing this the narcissist is likely to lie about him's he's not lying he's actually confabulating but as far as you're concerned these are lies the narcissist believes in his own lies narcissism is a fantasy defense remember that the narcissist cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy this the problem and that's not working in that is Kernberg and many others Seinfeld many others so the narcissist when he's boastful is likely to slip into extreme confab and extreme and massive confabulations all pervasive confabulations just to try to convince you that he's got life and worthy of your admiration adulation attention and even fear next posture in patient scornful it's when the narcissist deems you to be moronic stupid inadequate in the intellectual department missing a few nuts and bolts here and there or too basic to grasp the narcissist's magnificent range of intellectual accomplishments and penetration so then he becomes impatient with you and he's scornful it puts you down humiliates you he punishes you it's punitive it's a punitive posture the next posture is impatient entitled it's when the narcissist feels that he's entitled to special treatment by the by top level top echelon people and he's not getting what he what he expects now his expectations are incommensurate with wheeze and with these accomplishments but still he feels entitled and he becomes impatient everything I'm describing are forms of body language anyone who has been with the narcissist for longer than a few hours will recognize instantly all the postures that I'm describing the body the narcissist body changes to reflect these four postures he slouches he stands erect he smiles he smirks he I mean his whole body is at the service of reshaping itself to reflect and signal the posture in an unequivocal way the next posture is membership gravitas it's I belong here I'm a serious person I'm respectable I'm venerable you should accept me as a member of whatever it is so it's membership gravitas and then there is this pretension I'm already a part of you and one of you I know your arcane lingo I know your secrets and you know I'm privy to all the mysterious all the mysteries all the ceremonies and rituals and so on so forth great for free mason's next converting empathic posture it's when the narcissist pretends to be a savior a rescuer a healer compassionate empathic kind and nice this is usually this is usually typical of covert narcissists and you have many of them online as coaches and experts and so on so forth pretending to be this one actually and nothing but virulent covert narcissists so converting and why converting because the empathy and the kindness and so on convert the target convert the victim the prey into having sex with the narcissist into admiring the narcissist into spending time with the narcissist and into of course giving narcissistic supply to the narcissist and the final posture is observer detached it's when the narcissist pretends to be an a disinterested scientist it's just observing it's none of his business he is not affected by his untouchable is immune even to the consequences of his actions he's invulnerable he's superior in distance that is above it all and and so this allows him to observe to catalog to classify taxonomy he deals with taxonomy people around him are like insects and he is the chief entomologist these are the postures of the narcissists narcissists I said and psychopaths have very complex relationships with their bodies the psychopath uses his body and the way the psychopath and the somatic narcissists use their bodies the way an artist uses a canvas the way a sculptor uses clay marble so they treat their bodies the somatic narcissist and the psychopath treat their bodies as raw material they work on it and in it they shape it and mold it to yield outcomes in the case of the cover in the case of the somatic narcissists to yield narcissistic supply usually via sexual conquest and in the case of the psychopath any outcome so of course this kind of conflicted relationship or complex dissonant complex relationship with your body means that your body gradually becomes a source of frustration the body has a mind of its own we now know we treat trauma via the body the body has its own brain so to speak its own will and so when you try to impose yourself on the body to use the body as so much raw material when you mistreat your body in this way the body rebels the body becomes mutinous and there's bad blood between you and your body you push it to the limits and then it pushes you back pushes back and this leads to somatophon disorders somatic for somatophon disorders include somatization the expression of psychological problems via physical symptoms somatophon disorders include conversion disorders which are this is basically the same illness anxiety disorder which used to be known as hypochondria or hypochondriacinth it's a belief that you're sick when you're actually not sick when you're fit believe that you're physically ill when you're not physically so all these are much more common among narcissists and psychopaths than in the general population why because of this arms length relationship outsourcing the narcissists and psychopaths needs to the body as if the body were an employee or a subcontractor and then getting angry at the body for not delivering or late delivery or whatever they treat the psychopath analysis treat their body as if it were Amazon Amazon you know it needs to come with a drone and deliver the results and the consequences possessing a distorted physical self image is called body dysmorphic disorder or body dysmorphia all narcissists have it to some degree somatic narcissists are especially prone to misjudge their bodies either positively or negatively somatic narcissists and psychopaths believe themselves to be physically irresistible exuding sex and energy statuously shaped this is counterfactual of course it's all in their minds in what they do somatic narcissists and psychopaths they create an internal object they snapshot their own body they internalize and interject their own body and then they continue to have a relationship with this internal object rather than with their physical body with its limitations and problems and disorders and so on and diseases so they believe themselves because they are because the internal object representing the body proprioceptive object is the clinical term because the internal object representing the body is idealized of course snapshot is Photoshop they have a relationship with their body the same way they have a relationship with a potential intimate partner so because it's idealized the narcissists and psychopaths somatic narcissists cycle that lie to themselves and say that they their body is perfect stunning that their hunks and hunks or whatever you call them and these grandiose self imagery rarely corresponds with realities counterfactual as I said aware of this some somewhere in the resources of his mind the somatic narcissists dedicates in ordinary amounts of time and effort to bodybuilding martial arts exercising mastering sexual advances and foreplay the intricacies of sex they spend hours at the gym and then post on Instagram showing themselves demonstrating how hard they work they sculpt the body they shape it then they were close that emphasize their musculature and they do it publicly even in an inappropriate settings so clinically this is inappropriate effect to enhance this belief system the somatic not somatic narcissists especially the some the covert somatic noses co-ops other people by coercing them or forcing them to compliment his build his body shape his constitution his muscles his health sexual prowess his physical regime his attractiveness his skill at martial arts or whatever bodybuilding or wrestling the somatic narcissists is a compulsive consumer of body compliments and extensions objects medications supplements surgeries that he thinks would increase his attractiveness irresistibility appeal and the value of his propositions and that includes physical objects fancy cars flashy clothing sumptuous residences first class flights luxury hotels latinum credit cards lavish parties name dropping celebrity friends high-tech gadgetry all these serve to enhance the narcissist self-image and to bolster his grandiose fantasies so this positive dysmorphic disorder it's a positive disorder you overvalue the shape the functioning of your body and its attractiveness so this positive dysmorphic disorder serves to elicit narcissistic supply and to buttress the distorted unreal self-image but it is also a control mechanism it allows the narcissist's false self to manipulate both the narcissist his human environment and his targets or victims it is as if it is as though they by morphing his body by shape shaping it somehow the narcissist molds and designs his world his nearest and dearest his self-influx his projected image and the reactions to his image by misrepresenting his body in a variety of ways by lying about his health his sex appeal his longevity sexual conquest his possessions his bodily extensions his sexual prowess his attractiveness his irresistibility his friends and lovers adventures affairs while by confabulating about all this the narcissist transforms the real world into his fantasy as far as a narcissist is concerned the real world is how people perceive him to be by changing people's perceptions by indoctrinating and then training them and brainwashing them the narcissist secures what I call pathological narcissistic space in which his false self can thrive fully nourished with narcissistic supply now admittedly this phenomenon is not only is not limited to somatic narcissists and psychopaths the cerebral narcissist also distorts and deforms the true image of his body in his mind the cerebral narcissists may exaggerate the dimensions of his head the height of his forehead or the length of his sensitive fingers the cerebral narcissists may attribute to himself ailments and syndromes and diseases typical of high-powered intellectuals for example consumption to be a call tuberculosis tendonitis headaches the cerebral narcissists almost always exaggerates everything about his mental capacities his intellectual accomplishments his skills and so on so forth but this is closely aligned and attached to a negative body image negative dysmorphia the cerebral narcissist tends to completely ignore and belittle and neglect the rest of his body except his brain he cultivates his brain he nourishes his brain he nurtures his brain it's the only organ in his body that he takes real good care of the rest is neglected as far as narcissists of cerebral narcissists is concerned the body is a burdensome and unnecessary appendage the cerebral may complain of the need to maintain the flesh and of the decried dependence of his magnificent brain on his object ugly and decaying body a cerebral narcissist might say I would have willingly place my brain in a vat in a laboratory jar to be artificially nourished there via tubes I would have willingly given up my body they may say I know I have said it quite a few times cerebral narcissists rarely exercise they load exercising and physical activity they disdain all these for clivities and predilections of the somatic narcissists they regard somatic narcissists as grotesque as the epitome of ugliness and lack of good taste and aesthetics physical pursuits sex included are perceived by cerebral narcissists to be bestial demeaning common degrading defiling wasteful meaningless and this of course is also a result the outcome of body dysmorphic disorder the cerebral narcissists underestimates the needs of his own body misreads his body's signals and ignores its physiological processes the body to the cerebral narcissists becomes an abstract a concept background noise and constant annoyance and nuisance cerebral narcissists sometimes go through somatic phases and somatic narcissists if they're capable of it adopt cerebral behavioral patterns the attitudes change accordingly there's no type constancy when the somatic becomes cerebral he begins to resent and reject his body even punishes body in many ways he may develop for example an addiction or he may self mutilate when the cerebral becomes somatic he begins to regard his body as a source of pleasure and as a very attractive irresistible proposition it totally misjudges his flabby neglected seriously disgusting body he convinces himself that he is irresistible for example to women if he's a men heterosexual men and of course this is all counterfactual the cerebral narcissists in years and decades of extreme maltreatment and neglect has rendered his body an abomination an aesthetic abomination I've no other words to describe and yet when he transitioned to a somatic transitions to a somatic phase the cerebral narcissists loses instantly his negative body dysmorphia and develops equally instantly a positive body dysmorphia it's another example of the narcissist's total detachment from reality impaired reality to extreme extremely impaired reality testing bordering on the psychotic the temporarily somatic narcissist suddenly begins to exercise to groom himself undergoes cosmetic surgeries he becomes seductive and he engages in creative and imaginative possibly kinky sex the somatic narcissists made cerebral tries to read more becomes contemplative and a social and consumes culture and art to the best of his very limited ability usually but these are passing phases and the narcissist always reverse to his true or should I say false form I want to make one one comment which has this doesn't have direct bearing on narcissism and or psychopathy but is I think of it could be of interest I I suggested so I I described the condition that I core that I called labile body dysmorphia or labile body dysmorphic disorder women and to some extent men misjudge the shape of their bodies or parts of their anatomy and they see them sometimes as floor or defective and at other times is irresistibly perfect as I've described above a client with labile body dysmorphia will point to herself and say I could get any man I want and a minutes later she would complain bitterly about how fat and repulsive and deformed her body is or had become so these ups and downs of body self-image and attitude towards one body is what I call labile body dysmorphia this fluctuation between ego dystonic self-loathing and ego symptonic histrionic grandiosity this fluctuation these are both facets of a severely impaired reality testing the problem is that such delusionality such delusional disorder yields reckless and self-destructive behavior disinhibition grandiosity substance abuse eating disorders and severe impairment of impulse control the person afflicted with labile body dysmorphic disorder seeks to reaffirm her fantastically grandiose view of her body via unbridled promiscuity these risky choices reckless choices often lend such a person in hot water and danger her for him and profoundly affect their relationships with nearest dearest and loved ones now luckily body dysmorphic disorder and somatopharm disorders in general are treatable with mind body somatic therapies and CBT so if you identified yourself in anything I've just described in this video rush to the entrance and seek a therapist the prognosis here is excellent these are treatable conditions even eating disorders which is the most extreme end of the spectrum of dissonant body disorder if you wish bad relationships with your body even eating disorders are treatable all these disorders involve control issues narcissism in in the sense of grandiosity and disrupted object relations and so on and so forth and of course impaired reality testing and fantasy defenses some of these things are easily treatable some are not but they are all they can all be tackled in in therapy and I encourage you to seek a licensed therapies and to get help