How Narcissist Baits You to Become His/her Mother (Skopje Seminar Day 2 Opening, May 2025)

Details

• Speaker opened with informal greetings and brief background. Announced plan for Q&A later and noted the lecture structure: four lectures total, 10‑minute breaks between lectures, 45‑minute lunch after two lectures.
• Sponsors: Southeast European University (venue), Commonwealth Institute for Advanced Professional Studies — Cambridge (sponsor), organized by the Vaknin Reangelovska Foundation.

Overview and objectives

• The speaker introduced multiple models of narcissism to situate the day’s focus.
• Emphasis: today’s primary focus is the psychodynamic/psychoanalytic synthesis — described as the dominant model for understanding interpersonal dynamics of narcissists.

Models and conceptual framing

1. Sociosexuality and the Contextual Reinforcement Model (CRM)
   • Narcissists are often sociosexual (attitudinal openness to casual sex), preferring novelty and instability.
   • CRM: narcissists seek novel, short‑term contexts and destabilize stable environments because stability feels suffocating.
2. Agency model (five elements)
   • Agency orientation (performance, goal‑directed), inflated self‑concept, self‑enhancement and self‑regulation (soliciting feedback that confirms grandiose self‑views), entitlement, and approach orientation (focus on reward over risk).
   • Narcissists are agentic rather than communal; exception is rare communal/prosocial narcissist who displays ostentatious altruism.
3. Psychodynamic (psychoanalytic/object‑relations) model — primary focus
   • Psychoanalytic traditions (Freud, Havelock Ellis, Kernberg, object‑relations theorists) converged into a psychodynamic synthesis.
   • The speaker posits that pathological narcissism arises from early developmental disruptions and emphasized the concept of the shared fantasy as the core interpersonal script narcissists repeat compulsively.

Origins and developmental causes of pathological narcissism

• Two major schools synthesized:
  1. Trauma/abuse school: early childhood trauma and caregiver betrayal cause the child to retreat into an omnipotent “false self” (compensatory, godlike internal construct). Abuse is broadly defined as any parental behavior that prevents the child from becoming a separate individual (includes instrumentalization, parentification, pedestalizing/spoiling, overprotection, and other forms).
  2. Overindulgence/spoiling school: excessive idolization, pampering, or treating the child as a family tyrant leads to narcissistic development.
• Both pathways can produce narcissistic outcomes; the speaker integrated both and added Sander’s idea of the shared fantasy.

Key diagnostic and classificatory notes

• Critique: DSM (including its alternative model) is behind current knowledge; ICD (international classification) lists narcissistic traits and highlights obsessive‑compulsive features (anankastia/anesteria) — the speaker argued ICD is more accurate because narcissism exhibits strong obsessive‑compulsive/compulsive features.
• Repetition compulsion (Freud): narcissists repeatedly reenact early conflicts rather than learn from them; narcissists show little capacity for genuine learning or long‑term change.

The Shared Fantasy — central construct

• Definition: A compulsive, psychodynamic interpersonal program in which the narcissist unconsciously searches for surrogate caregivers (maternal figure) to recreate and attempt to resolve original early‑childhood relational conflicts. The process is automatic, obsessive/compulsive, and repetitive.
• The narcissist is likened to a pre‑verbal child (developmentally 2–3 years old) who scans the environment for a new maternal figure and then enacts a fixed interpersonal script.

Phases of the Shared Fantasy

1. Spotting
   • Hypervigilant scanning of environments (pub, church, home, workplace) for potential sources of narcissistic supply or participants in the shared fantasy.
   • Narcissistic scanning is largely unconscious and compulsive; it occurs more often in the narcissist’s local/social spaces (where followers/admirers are present) than among strangers.
2. Auditioning (three tests)
   • Test 1: Can the target be idealized? (Are there minimal traits/assets to aggrandize?)
   • Test 2: Can the target provide the four S’s (sex, supply, services/connections, safety/stability)?
   • Test 3: Is the target vulnerable (mental‑health vulnerabilities, tendencies to fantasize, borderline traits, self‑loathing, romantic/escapist tendencies)?
   • Passing these tests makes the person suitable for the shared fantasy.
3. Baiting (three vectors)
   • Narcissist presents a convincing simulation of an “inner child” (hurt, needy, endearing) to trigger caregiving responses.
   • Narcissist seeks and triggers the target’s inner child, regressing and infantilizing the target.
   • Narcissist advertises the enormousness/enormity (grandness) of the shared fantasy: a fantastic, tailor‑made, reality‑escape narrative that the target finds irresistible.
4. Co‑idealization
   • Narcissist introjects the target (mental snapshot) and idealizes (photoshops) that image internally. Once introjected, the external person is replaced by the internal, idealized object — interactions are with the introject, not the real person.
   • Co‑idealization: the target’s exaggerated qualities reflect back on the narcissist and aggrandize the narcissist (possession of excellence signals the narcissist’s worth).
5. Love‑bombing
   • Behavioral phase: intense, overwhelming praise/adoration used to communicate the narcissist’s internal idealized image and enforce conformity to that image.
   • Love‑bombing functions as a demand: the target must act according to the internalized idealized image or risk punishment. It is not merely a compliment; it seeks to shape and control.
6. Hall of Mirrors / Self‑infatuation
   • The target experiences an enhanced, idealized self through the narcissist’s gaze (hall of mirrors). This fosters intense attachment: self‑love, maternal feelings, and addiction to the narcissist’s reflective validation.
7. Dual Mothership (intense dyadic bonding)
   • Outcome of previous phases: the target becomes the narcissist’s mother (caregiver), and the narcissist functions as both child and mother for the target simultaneously — an extreme, bi‑directional, fused attachment.
   • The relationship becomes the stage for reattempting separation–individuation: the narcissist unconsciously seeks to separate from the new mother and finally individuate.
8. Testing via Abuse and Devaluation
   • To determine whether the target is a “good enough” mother (i.e., will allow eventual separation), the narcissist tests the target through escalating abuse and mistreatment. Persistence despite abuse signals unconditional motherhood.
   • Separation–individuation requires devaluation: the narcissist must change the internal object from ideal to devalued (to permit internal separation). Thus, devaluation is an interior process used to facilitate separation from the introject.
   • Devaluation creates cognitive dissonance: the narcissist must reconcile having been “wrong” in idealizing the target and now holding a devalued internal object — this leads to repeated cycles and continued pathology.

Clinical implications and behavioral signatures

• Narcissistic behaviors are often unconscious compulsions rather than deliberate strategies (in contrast to psychopathy where actions can be instrumental and deliberate).
• Narcissistic relationships follow a predictable template across contexts (romantic partners, friends, therapists, children, and professional relationships). The same shared fantasy pattern can be observed in therapeutic settings (idealizing transference) and family dynamics (introjection and idealization of children).
• The narcissistic cycle creates intense bonding and powerful grief reactions when relationships end, because targets have been both mother and child and have often experienced a unique sense of being loved and elevated.

Repetition compulsion and prognosis

• Narcissists repeatedly reenact failed early conflicts rather than learn; they show little evolution or genuine remorse. The shared fantasy is compulsive and persistently replayed across relationships.
• Devaluations and re‑idealizations can recur: the pattern tends to persist across the narcissist’s life unless deep structural therapeutic work occurs.

Practical takeaways for audiences

• Awareness of the shared fantasy’s stages helps potential victims recognize patterns early (spotting, auditioning, baiting, love‑bombing) and may enable earlier protective actions.
• Understanding that much of the narcissist’s behavior is compulsive and internally driven reframes the problem: it is not simply calculated malice but a pathological reenactment of developmental failure.
• Breaking away from a narcissist involves complex mourning because targets have been placed in dual roles; recovery requires acceptance of the surreal, internally‑constructed nature of the narcissist’s attachments.

Additional notes and references mentioned

• Historical references: Havelock Ellis, Freud, Kernberg, Otto Kernberg, and object‑relations theorists.
• Sander’s concept of shared fantasy adapted by the speaker; John L. Lachkar’s work on narcissistic–borderline couples and the idea of resonance of archaic wounds was cited.
• Terms introduced or emphasized: false self (compensatory godlike internal self), introjection, idealization, devaluation, repetition compulsion, idealizing transference, hall of mirrors, dual mothership.

Closing and next steps

• The lecture paused after the presentation of the shared fantasy and its early devaluation stage; subsequent lectures (later in the day) will continue to explore devaluation, abuse escalation, grief and mourning, and therapeutic/ recovery implications.