Rob: So I want to get into one thing, just to continue where we were. You describe how when a victim goes into therapy, they have experienced a long trajectory of failed attempts at connection and a painfully broken and un-repaired connections. Now I have a couple thoughts about that. One is, the whole concept of attachment theory and attachment disorder. How does this fit in with attachment theory and attachment disorder?
DS: Well it completely fits. Of course, the language of attachment theory and disorders is specific, it's a specific vocabulary. It's very useful vocabulary. I have tremendous respect for that work. I personally speak in a slightly vocabulary. Somewhat more along the lines of trauma theory. Okay, but these vocabularies are useful ways of communicating to some extent. And in some ways maybe they put a barrier, so let me try to just say that a disorganized or insecure attachments, or an attachment disorder, reflects a traumatic rupture of the bond in development. So for whatever reason, but you see there are many kinds of ways that an attachment bond can be ruptured. You know, for example, the pre-mature death of a caregiver. Now you know this is not a traumatizing narcissist, this is a caregiver who may have been a wonderful caregiver but who dies pre-maturely. Now that's likely to create a certain kind of disturbance in the person's stability around attachment. The stronger the bond had been previously, the more that person will have internalized the strong, secure sense of self and sense of attachment. But if this pre-mature loss happens very early, well that may, in fact, be very disruptive to the security of attachment.
Rob: Well let's talk about - go ahead.
DS: No, you go ahead.
Rob: Let's talk about the traumatic narcissist in terms of very early attachment development. What does a traumatic narcissist look like in raising an infant?
DS: Well there's again going to be a range from subtle to gross, okay. So let's start with gross. Well the traumatizing narcissist immediately resents the infant because the infant is needy, and the infant is therefore being ungrateful and selfish. And the traumatizing narcissist parent lets it be known to the infant that their needs are selfish and greedy and they should be ashamed. They should be ashamed of themselves for needing to be fed, needing to be held, needing to be loved. That's the most extreme kind of example. And that can be communicated verbally and/or nonverbally, okay. So this is subtle. It's why infant research is so fascinating these days and has been for a while now because they can watch these interactions and break it down frame by frame to see that infants are related, from the get go, and they're looking to attach, they're looking to feel secure, and that there are many many little micro ruptures that occur. And some caregivers know how to jump right into and repair those little micro ruptures, so that the overall sense is one of security. And other caregivers create rupture after rupture after rupture, and so the child basically gives up or just becomes impossible to console. So you know, there are different kinds of personalities that could, in a caregiver that could cause different kinds of ruptures. But the narcissist specifically, you know, the narcissist makes the child feel ashamed of the fact that they have needs.
Rob: How about in a newborn, how would a narcissist behave with a newborn?
DS: Well look, a newborn wants to be held, wants to be left alone, wants to held, wants to be fed, wants to take a nap, and then wants to kind of wake up and sort of hang out, and then maybe wants to poop and then maybe wants to get fed again. Like there's a cycle, newborns just have a few basic things they're doing right, but they're all important. All of them are important. I'm hungry and I need to be fed, oh look there's mom. Or, oh look now I'm tired I'm going to sleep, oh mom is being oh so gentle and helping me go to sleep. Oh now I'm awake and I kind of want to hang out, look around for a little bit, mom's not going to be too intrusive or infringing she's going to just hang out there. Oh now I need somebody to come pick me up and change me. Well there they are. Okay so the narcissist resents having to perform any of those functions for the infant. The narcissist feels like the infant is just a needy, selfish, whiny kind of baby who is just being bad and a nuisance or a pain. And, oh you know, they just need one thing after another. Narcissist will say oh, you know I'm not, let the nanny take care of all of that. I just want the child to look adorable, I don't want to have to deal with all this other stuff. Now that's extreme versions, it sounds almost like a caricature, but it's out there. It's totally out there. I see many people who can describe that kind of upbringing. That would be the specific ways that a narcissist would be right there, right at the get go, traumatizing the baby in the sense of cumulative relational trauma. Not traumatizing like raping or murdering or blowing up bombs, but traumatizing in the sense of, impinging and either through invasiveness or through neglect. Like constantly, sort of, pervasively getting it wrong, making the infant feeling bad about itself. That's relative relational trauma.
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