My BIG TAKEAWAY from Trump's absurd press conference is that he is finally undergoing something called NARCISSISTIC MORTIFICATION. We dusted off this Freudian term back in April during his criminal trial, and it's extra-relevant today.
Narcissistic Mortification is when a narcissist like Trump crosses over to a place where he sees visions of his own demise. A malignant narcissist who once held the loftiest of titles, cannot cope with this. Trump's fears have become "dread." He is very unhinged, yet uncomfortable in the feeling itself, because he knows he's partly responsible. Reality is being forced upon him, that's not of his making. He can't have that!
To put it in more psychological terms, narcissistic mortification is EXTREME fear experienced when one with a rigidly grandiose pathology sees his sense of self as exposed, defective or inferior. It was coined by Freud in his book Moses and Monotheism. It's described there as deep injuries to ego/self, triggered by one's own compulsiveness (unforced errors -- like suggesting Putin would only release prisoners to him which set him up for embarrassment, or choosing Vance as his running mate against his better judgment, which drives him crazy daily, or repeatedly attacking the popular Georgia Governor Kemp against his own interests, because he can't control himself).
THIS is where I think he is. He's become his own worst enemy, and this conflicts with his pathology of being unable to admit fault. It's a very severe and very dissonant conflict.
Malignant narcissists need their grandiosity. For them to become exposed and weakened, is narcissistic injury - that happens. BUT - for them to become weakened to the extent of being able to visualize their own demise and know it's partly due to their own frailties - frailties they spend a lifetime avoiding and denying - this is irreconcilable. For a malignant narcissist like Trump, it's hell.
Bringing it back to the press conference, it causes him to become even more sensitized ("that was a stupid question"), to become more easily triggered (especially about "crowd size" - the symbol of his fading grandiosity - which he rambled about excessively), to use even more projection ("America" is failing, "America" is in danger means HE is failing and HE is in danger), and it has made him physically haggard (he looked gaunt and hunched over, with stiffness in his facial muscles), and finally - got disoriented (the Willie Brown/Jerry Brown helicopter story being the most pronounced example from yesterday).
Look for him to be carefully coddled by aides. They may not know the psychological terminology, but they know he's slipping away.
Narcissistic mortification is a precursor to narcissistic collapse.
Narcissistic Mortification is when a narcissist like Trump crosses over to a place where he sees visions of his own demise. A malignant narcissist who once held the loftiest of titles, cannot cope with this. Trump's fears have become "dread." He is very unhinged, yet uncomfortable in the feeling itself, because he knows he's partly responsible. Reality is being forced upon him, that's not of his making. He can't have that!
To put it in more psychological terms, narcissistic mortification is EXTREME fear experienced when one with a rigidly grandiose pathology sees his sense of self as exposed, defective or inferior. It was coined by Freud in his book Moses and Monotheism. It's described there as deep injuries to ego/self, triggered by one's own compulsiveness (unforced errors -- like suggesting Putin would only release prisoners to him which set him up for embarrassment, or choosing Vance as his running mate against his better judgment, which drives him crazy daily, or repeatedly attacking the popular Georgia Governor Kemp against his own interests, because he can't control himself).
THIS is where I think he is. He's become his own worst enemy, and this conflicts with his pathology of being unable to admit fault. It's a very severe and very dissonant conflict.
Malignant narcissists need their grandiosity. For them to become exposed and weakened, is narcissistic injury - that happens. BUT - for them to become weakened to the extent of being able to visualize their own demise and know it's partly due to their own frailties - frailties they spend a lifetime avoiding and denying - this is irreconcilable. For a malignant narcissist like Trump, it's hell.
Bringing it back to the press conference, it causes him to become even more sensitized ("that was a stupid question"), to become more easily triggered (especially about "crowd size" - the symbol of his fading grandiosity - which he rambled about excessively), to use even more projection ("America" is failing, "America" is in danger means HE is failing and HE is in danger), and it has made him physically haggard (he looked gaunt and hunched over, with stiffness in his facial muscles), and finally - got disoriented (the Willie Brown/Jerry Brown helicopter story being the most pronounced example from yesterday).
Look for him to be carefully coddled by aides. They may not know the psychological terminology, but they know he's slipping away.
Narcissistic mortification is a precursor to narcissistic collapse.
Like I mentioned few months ago when I first tweeted about narcissistic mortification, there actually IS a wiki page for it (and yes, I was utterly shocked there WAS a wiki page for it) and here's an interesting sentence from it, that I thought I'd echo here: Narcissistic Mortification is "the primitive terror of self-dissolution, triggered by the sudden exposure of one's sense of a defective self ... it is death by embarrassment."
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
