How Narcissists Hijack Empaths
New psychobabble episode. Watch on Youtube or listen on Anchor below.
Show notes
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233
There are a lot of games that narcissists play, but one game I’ve never heard mentioned is the game of state transference.
Transference (or repetition compulsion) happens a lot in abusive relationships where the abuser will replay their trauma onto or in front of you without any acknowledgment or awareness that they are doing so. The problem is that the narcissist doesn’t care that they are replaying their trauma by abusing us, and so they have no motivation to stop.
State transference is when someone changes their emotional state to match another person. Then, they intentionally switch into a new emotional state, and the other person unconsciously follows them. In this way, state transference is a form of manipulation and control over another person’s emotions because it allows them to hook into us on a deep subconscious level. Sometimes, they will even do this by changing their body language to match yours.
They do this because narcissists are parasitic, and they feed on strong emotions, even anger.
If we borrow from the animal behavior field, we can look at this phenomenon through the lens of operant conditioning.
In operant conditioning, you use rewards and punishments to influence how an animal behaves.
Punishment is used to decrease a behavior, and reward or reinforcement is used to increase a behavior. When you add the terms “positive” and “negative” to these terms, they don’t mean good or bad. They mean you are adding something to change a behavior (positive), or taking something away (negative).
Positive Punishment = Adding something bad to decrease a behavior
Negative Punishment= Taking away something good to decrease a behavior
Positive Reinforcement= Adding something good to increase a behavior
Negative Reinforcement= Taking away something bad to increase a behavior
When normal people are faced with an angry reaction by another person, this would be considered positive punishment. We don’t like dealing with angry reactions (adding something bad) and we are less likely to repeat the behavior that caused it (decrease the behavior).
But when narcissists get an angry reaction from someone, this is actually reinforcing to them. It makes them feel powerful and important that they can push reactions out of you in this way and make you act out of character.
One thing that makes empaths vulnerable to this control is that we are coping with our trauma by acting as responsible “managers” who are always in control. We don’t give ourselves permission to relax and play very often, and that makes us tired and burnt out. We are subconsciously desperate to give up control so that we can rest.
Misplaced blame also helps to feed this cycle. With empaths, our trauma manifests as a really harsh inner critic. But with narcissists, their trauma manifests as a really harsh outer critic. And so our critic and their critic are both agreeing that we are the problem, when really, it’s them.
The common advice in dealing with narcissists is to grey rock them or go no contact, but it’s really hard to get rid of a narcissist who isn’t done with you yet. They will use all kinds of manipulation strategies like love-bombing and hoovering to suck you back in.
So, one secret trick that I don’t hear anyone mention is embarrassing them. If there’s one feeling that narcissists hate, it’s being embarrassed (please prioritize your safety before trying this strategy).
Narcissists are all about appearances, and if you embarrass them in front of people, they might decide they’re done with you, which is exactly what you want.
