How Narcissist is Mortified (Empathy Aphantasia)

1. Behavior Modification and Treatment of Narcissism

• Pathological narcissism is immutable and cannot be fundamentally changed, but certain attendant behaviors and mood disorders can be treated or modified using various therapies and medications.
• Modification occurs when the narcissist’s grandiose self-perception is shattered, commonly through humiliating or shaming experiences that undermine their defenses, leading to a psychological breakdown or mortification.
• Mortification is described as the closest the narcissist gets to their true self, exposing their wounded, vulnerable core.
• External challenges can trigger this mortification and lead to temporary modification.
  [00:00 – 10:00]

2. Aphantasia and Empathic Aphantasia in Narcissism

• Aphantasia is the inability to conjure mental imagery; in narcissists, this is specific to people-centered or empathic imagery.
• Narcissists can analyze but cannot visualize or empathically resonate with others, lacking a mentalization or theory of mind for other people.
• This leads to the narcissist being disconnected from the inter-subjective agreement—shared human consciousness and empathy—which makes social interactions baffling and unpredictable for them.
  [10:00 – 22:30]

3. Narcissist’s Memory and Misinformation Effect

• Memory is fluid and can be altered by post-event information (misinformation effect), as shown by Elizabeth Loftus’s studies; this effect is drastically stronger in narcissists.
• Narcissists have dissociative, fragmented memories with gaps often filled by fabricated or confabulated narratives to maintain a plausible facade.
• They adopt external information more readily than trusting their own memories, making them highly suggestible to misinformation.
  [22:30 – 40:00]

4. Internal and External Inputs Affecting Narcissist’s Perception

• Negative external input (e.g., insults about appearance) resonates and amplifies pre-existing negative internal voices (introjected parental or social criticisms), creating an echo chamber that intensifies mortification.
• This leads to rewriting personal history and self-perception in a self-destructive manner, eroding previous grandiosity and defenses against reality.
  [40:00 – 55:00]

5. Personality Traits Impacting Susceptibility to Misinformation

• Narcissists are typically introverted (per Carl Jung’s theory), schizoid, and experience fluctuations in empathy (either heightened or absent) which paradoxically both lead to poor interpersonal understanding and increased susceptibility to misinformation.
• Traits such as self-absorption and hyper self-monitoring also increase misinformation susceptibility.
• Group settings amplify misinformation effects through social influence and peer pressure, creating shared or blended memories.
  [55:00 – 01:06:00]

6. Cognitive Processes Behind Modification and Memory Revision

• The narcissist lacks confidence or reliability in their own memory, leading to dependency on external sources for reality testing.
• Upon receiving mortifying information, their psyche enters a chaotic internal debate resulting in massive rewriting of memories and identity, often inventing entire false biographical segments (“rich false memories”).
• This rewriting preserves the narcissist’s grandiosity in a paradoxical way; even when adopting negative views, the narcissist believes they control and cause those external events.
  [01:06:00 – 01:25:00]

7. Challenges in Reversing Modification and Mortification

• Once modification sets in, reversing false memories and mortification is extremely difficult; the narcissist is emotionally invested in the newly constructed self-narrative.
• The surviving defense is the narcissist adopting shame and guilt as integral to their identity while maintaining grandiosity by believing they control their circumstances and others’ actions.
• This complicates efforts to assist or treat the narcissist as their false memories and self-views are rigidly defended.
  [01:25:00 – 01:43:15]

Note: The timestamps ([mm:ss]) correspond to approximate points in the meeting transcript where the topics and details were discussed.