Baited, Ejected: YOU in Narcissist’s Shared Fantasy (CLIP, University of Applied Sciences, Poland)

Overview: The speaker presented a detailed account of the “shared fantasy” construct (credited to Sander, 1989) and its relevance to narcissistic relationships. They framed the shared fantasy as a collective, co-created narrative — effectively a piece of fiction or a “movie” — in which both people participate, accept, and live by the fantasy’s rules. Clinically, the speaker related the shared fantasy to older concepts (“folie à deux”, shared psychosis) and to the DSM diagnosis of mass psychogenic illness.

Key concepts and metaphors:

• Shared fantasy: A mutually maintained narrative that supplants consensual reality for the participants; likened to a movie, play, or story.
• Machine metaphor: The shared fantasy functions as an inexorable machine with stages/phases; participants become cogs in it.
• Hall of mirrors: The narcissist idealizes the partner and provides an addictively flattering reflected image (a photoshopped introject), causing the partner to fall in love with that idealized self.
• Dual mothership: An implicit, transactional contract in which each partner becomes the other’s mother — offering unconditional love, protection, regulation, and a second chance at childhood.
• Cold empathy: A specific empathic style attributed to narcissists — cognitive/reflective empathy without genuine affective emotional engagement.

Mechanics of the shared fantasy (phases/stages):

1. Spotting: The narcissist identifies a suitable target (vulnerable, needy, damaged) using a “scan” for weaknesses.
2. Auditioning: The target is tested to determine whether they can be idealized and supply the narcissist’s needs.
3. Resonance/Exposure: The narcissist reveals an inner child to evoke protectiveness and to create a sense of kinship or soulmate connection.
4. Idealization (co-idealization): The narcissist constructs an idealized internal image (introject) of the target and simultaneously idealizes himself by possession of that image.
5. Lovebombing: Intense attention, praise, and admiring communication designed to bind the target to the narcissist and to reinforce the idealized image.
6. Devaluation/Discard: The previously idealized target is later devalued and expelled — reenacting the narcissist’s early relational trauma with his mother and the failure of separation–individuation.
7. (Mentioned) Hoovering: The speaker briefly referenced hoovering as another phase but did not expand on it.

Psychological functions and motivations:

• Addictiveness: The fantasy is addicting because it offers a return to childhood dependency (being made a child again), relief from reality, admiration, and emotional regulation supplied externally by the narcissist.
• Transactional contract: The unwritten, mutual (but asymmetrical) bargain expecting unconditional nurturing and worship in exchange for the narcissist’s projection of idealization and rescue.
• Reenactment/Ritual: The cycle of idealization followed by devaluation mirrors the narcissist’s unresolved childhood dynamics, particularly the inability to successfully separate and individuate from the maternal figure.

Clinical vocabulary and diagnostic links:

• Sander’s shared fantasy (1989)
• Historical precedents: folie à deux, shared psychosis
• DSM reference: mass psychogenic illness (mass psychogenic disorder)
• Terms used by speaker: introject (snapshot), hall of mirrors, lovebombing, hoovering, dual mothership, cold empathy, four S’s (sex, supply, narcissistic, sadistic)

Additional points and examples raised by the speaker:

• Cultural context: The speaker suggested that modern life already involves extensive escape from reality (movies, video games, social media), increasing vulnerability to accepting an alternative shared fantasy.
• The “four S’s” criterion: The narcissist evaluates potential targets for sexual access, attention/services/safety (supply), narcissistic gratification, and sadistic opportunities.
• The narcissist’s evaluation process is described as clinical and predatory—an MRI-like scan mapping vulnerabilities, needs, fantasies, and fears.

Concluding summary: The shared fantasy is a structured interpersonal mechanism used by narcissists to recruit, idealize, addict, control, and ultimately discard their partners. It operates through identifiable phases (spotting, auditioning, resonance, idealization, lovebombing, devaluation/discard, and sometimes hoovering), and it powerfully exploits human desires for safety, validation, and a “second chance” at childhood. The cycle reenacts the narcissist’s early attachment trauma and is sustained by an implicit transactional contract (the “dual mothership”). The speaker emphasized the conceptual overlap with established psychiatric constructs and highlighted the addictive and pathological nature of these relational dynamics.