[00:00:00] Speaker A: This show is not a substitute for professional counseling, and no relationship is created between the show hosts or guests and any listener. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863 if you are not a UA student, please contact your respective county's CRIS service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911. Go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Again for brain matters, the official radio show of the UA Counseling center. We are broadcasting from the campus of the University of Alabama. Good evening. My name is Dr. B. J. Gunther and I'm the host of the show along with my colleague and producer Catherine Howell, who is out sick tonight. Get well, Catherine. In case you don't know, this show is about mental and physical health issues that affect college students and in particular UA students. So you can listen to us each Tuesday night at 06:00 p.m. On 90.7 FM, or you can listen on wvuafm ua.edu. You can also download the Mytuner radio app and type in some of our shows and hopefully type in WVUA FM 90.7 and listen to us live on Tuesday evening. Don't forget, we've got a few more shows left for this semester. I had a student tell me today we've got about seven weeks left in the semester, and if you have any ideas for the remaining shows that we've got, send those topics to me. We've got some of them already filled up, but we probably need two or three more ideas for topics to finish out this semester. We don't do shows in the summer, so even if we don't use your topic this semester, I'll try to incorporate those in for the fall coming up. But if you have ideas, email those to me at brainmattersradio at wvuafm ua.edu and hopefully I'll remember to give out this email address throughout the show tonight. Tonight's topic is I can't believe we've not done this. In the years that we've done this show, we have not talked about narcissistic relationships. We may have talked about personality disorders, but we haven't specifically talked about narcissistic relationships. And I was just talking with my guest, Sandra Brown, and I'm going to give her an introduction in just a minute. But I was telling her that I feel like the college years are critical in helping students and also warning students about boundaries, setting boundaries with a narcissist or what to look for when you're starting a relationship. And hopefully that's what we're going to get into later tonight. Dealing with a narcissist, whether it's a romantic partner, a roommate, or a family member, can be challenging. Learning all you can about narcissistic traits and understanding some of the ways to deal with them can also help you feel better able to cope. And tonight we'll be talking about what it's like to deal with someone who shows frequent narcissistic behaviors and how their behavior might affect you and what you can do to care for your own emotional well being. As I mentioned just a minute ago, my guest is Sandra Brown. And Sandra has, this is what she does, y'all, and I just feel honored and privileged and a little intimidated to have her on the show because she's got so many years of experience and has written books and we're going to talk about that. But she's a former psychotherapist in the field of psychopathology, community educator on the intersections of mental illness, personality disorders, violence, and recidivism. And she's also a clinical lecturer, trainer and author, as I mentioned. So, Sandra, thank you so much for taking the time out to be on the show.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: I've got so many questions. But first of all, I gave you a little bit of an introduction. But tell the listeners a little more about yourself, your credentials, what's your background in and why you're interested in this topic.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: So I have a master's degree in counseling.
I've been working in the field of personality disorders and survivors of those relationships for my whole career. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea right out of graduate school. I mean, that's not an easy thing. Usually people, if they go into that, it's many years after they have something under their belt.
When you make a decision to go into the field of psychopathology, like I said, I don't think that was my best decision.
However, I ran a personality disorder clinic for twelve years working with narcissists, antisocials and psychopaths. And then I switched teams.
Of course, they began to bring in their partners that they deemed as the problem.
And I was also domestic violence trained and also a trauma therapist. So I noticed in their partners an enormous amount of trauma. And my first thought was they don't understand personality disorders enough to understand why this is problematic and going to be an inevitably harmful relationship.
And so I began just a group for partners of personality disorders. Then we began working with children of personality disorders. And it was during that time, especially as a trauma therapist, of working with the survivors and getting very frustrated in the long term result in personality disorder counseling, that I decided to switch teams.
And that led into 30 years of work in creating this as a new genre of counseling and doing a lot of the data collections and research and science that has begun to back up this genre of trauma counseling.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Let me see if I can ask this correctly. Is trauma always a result or a side effect of a narcissistic relationship?
[00:07:07] Speaker C: Well, we did a separate trauma study on this population.
My earliest books are credited with starting this field, that this wasn't even a word, it wasn't a concept. So all of the data about this has been created over the years, largely from our agency. And we did a trauma study looking at, studying survivors coming out of these relationships.
And shockingly or not shockingly, 90% of survivors will at least have trauma symptoms, but 75% of them will go on to develop a trauma disorder from the relationship. And when we think about that, it shouldn't be surprising to us that what a narcissist, an antisocial or psychopath, can do to someone is more than the average abuser. I mean, all abuse is horrible. All abuse is traumatizing. But we're talking about the creme de la creme, the creme de la creme of the DSM.
These are what we call the red zone personalities, inevitably harmful. And so, yes, there's a very small percentage of survivors who will not have trauma symptoms or a full blown trauma disorder when they act.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: I can't imagine. When you mentioned when you first started out and got into working with personality disorders, you're right. Many therapists do not want to work with personality disorder. They're so difficult. And I think, I don't know for sure, but the outcomes are so poor sometimes. So poor.
But I read an article when I was doing the research for the show today where sometimes they weren't necessarily talking about a therapist working with someone who has a personality disorder. But if you're in a relationship, they talked about how you can't take things personally because it's really not about you. It's about that narcissist. That's all they're caring about. Does that make sense? And I probably didn't say that, right?
[00:09:44] Speaker C: Well, absolutely.
That's what I've said from the get go. It's not about you.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:51] Speaker C: But most of us don't come into the world with how to deal with personality disorders, to know, to not take that personally.
As you said, most therapists don't even know how to do that. So it isn't about them. It is about the disorder being what the disorder is, and it wipes out everyone.
It doesn't matter how strong you are, how healthy you are, how anything you are. I mean, I always take comfort in Dr. Robert Hare, who is the world's leading expert on psychopathy, who tells on himself all the time, who know, I've been duped by them, I've been wiped out by them, I've been calmed by them, they've taken my self esteem down. This is the world's expert. And so if they can do that to him, right, we're all at risk.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
I always say somebody with a personality disorder, there's always ten steps ahead of anybody.
[00:11:09] Speaker C: Their skill set, I always say it's a matter really, their abnormality is no match for our normality of skill set. It's why they win.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:11:24] Speaker C: It's why they win. They come wired differently. Yeah.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: And I think that's why so many people on the outside are fascinated with personality disorders. That's why there's so many books, that's why there's so much conversation about it. Because you really just can't figure it out sometimes.
[00:11:45] Speaker C: No, because we use our own normal psychology to try to understand psychopathology.
Even in the psychology field, millions and millions of dollars are spent every year on, for instance, psychopathy research to get one more glimpse of the psychopathic mind. There's a fascination with it, I think, with the general public and even with clinicians that we are fascinated by a skill set we do not possess.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: And have a hard time, I don't want to say conquering, but a hard time treating and having a positive outcome, like we said.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: No, you know what? The first twelve years, right out of graduate school, I ran a full blown personality disorder clinic and I spent more on my education, flying all over the United States getting the latest and greatest and hottest.
What's going to cure this kind of the crap? Doesn't work.
I don't care. I mean, psychiatry all the way back 100 years has been working on this with medication, with psychoanalysis, with DBT, with schema therapy.
And if we're honest, and a lot of times we're not honest, but when I had my come to Jesus moment with my staff was that this crap doesn't work.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Thank you for saying that, because you'll wear yourself out. You'll beat yourself up over.
[00:13:53] Speaker C: Not only the know.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: I hate to sound like a Debbie Downer, but I'm a realist.
[00:13:59] Speaker C: But this is where we don't get that the field of psychopathology is different than general counseling, that this is not an episodic disorder like depression or anxiety or even addiction or trauma, that psychopathology is its own field for a reason. And that is because there are such poor treatment outcomes, no matter the bed and no matter that we have spent 100 years in trying to work at this. And so if it's that unpenetratable for us as clinicians working in psychopathology, how much more for a survivor or a partner who is trying to make an impact? If we can't make an impact in psychopathology, of course they can. But they don't know that. And they stay. And they stay. Yes.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Well, let's take our first break, and then when we come back, I want you to tell us about the main trait of a narcissist. So for anybody who's listening, who's just starting a relationship and starting to wonder why things aren't working or why they feel bad about themselves or whatnot, I want you to talk about the traits of a narcissist. A narcissist. So we'll be right back. You're listening to brain matters on 90.7 the capstone tuscaloosa.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: This show is not a substitute for professional counseling, and no relationship is created between the show hosts or guests and any listener. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863 if you are not a UA student, please contact your respective county's Cris service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: You matters on 90.7 the Capstone. I'm BJ Gunther, and we're talking tonight about narcissistic relationships. And my guest is Sandra Brown. Sandra has years of experience working with personality disorders and has written books. I think her most famous book is how to spot a dangerous man. And I love that title.
Should be on every college campus. I think there should be groups about this, and maybe I've just come up with that idea on the University of Alabama campus because I see so many and. Sidebar, Sandra, I don't know. Can this also pertain to, like, you know, what mean, like, we're not pinpointing men.
[00:17:14] Speaker C: Absolutely. It is a mental health issue, not a gender issue.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:20] Speaker C: And so, yes, it presents a little bit tweaked indifferently among the sexes, but absolutely, we have a lot of male clients.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Well, before we went to the break, I wanted you to kind of tease everybody. We're going to talk about the traits, the main traits of narcissism. So please tell us what they are.
Joy.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: So I preface this with, there's a lot of bad information out there on the Internet that makes every jerk of a partner uses the term narcissistic, and it is a discredit to the severity of true personality disorders. All abusers are not narcissistic. They should be differentiated. I think domestic violence shelters, I think better intervention programs should differentiate it, because, as we talked about, there's four outcomes, which means risk for the survivor. So to begin with, that not all jerky kind of partners truly have narcissistic abuse. They might be toxic in other kinds of ways over the years. And now that narcissistic abuse has become more popular as a topic, you're starting to see a lot of this discussion about all these different types of narcissism. But really, there isn't. I mean, if we're going by a DSM, a diagnostic criteria, there isn't.
But the popular thing is to look at two different types, the grandiose narcissist and the vulnerable narcissist.
I think there isn't a lot of differentiation, personally, in that, but we'll talk about that.
And so the grandiose narcissist is a lot easier to, I think, identify, which is in that grandiosity, there is a lot of this self importance, this need for admiration, a lot of bragging, a lot of bragging, a lot of elevating self and their superiority or their importance. There's a lot of entitlement for being special or how they want to be treated, and there's a lot of manipulativeness and exploitiveness.
And so that self grandioseness is pretty easy to spot.
What's less easy to spot is what they have called the vulnerable narcissist, which has how they identify it.
Again, I don't differentiate these because underneath the grandioseness, it's all the same. And so they define the vulnerable narcissist as having a very fragile sense of self worth, very hypersensitive to criticism, a lot of fear or reactiveness to rejection, the seeking of attention and validation because of the low self worth, and is easily offended. But I find the same thing true in the grandiose.
It's under the same umbrella. So while the manifestation to other people might be the same, the root cause, the root ideology, is still the same.
It just manifests a little bit different.
But the diagnostic, the DSM, the APA, is starting to move in a different direction about looking at personality disorders. And instead of looking at them individualistically, like narcissism, antisocial, borderline, et cetera, is that they are looking at that umbrella. What is common in all personality disorders, because tonight we are talking about the cluster b group of personality disorders, but there's cluster A and there's cluster C, and they truly are all a cluster and what they do to other people. So how are all of those connected?
The APA has been working at understanding core impairments that are true in cluster A, B, and C.
And I think that's an easier way for people to identify that in relationships. And that whether you're a narcissist or whether you have dependent personality in one of the other cluster disorders, is that there are four core impairments in all personality disorders. That is much easier to identify than remembering all the behaviors in the DSM about narcissism or antisocial or psychopathy. And that includes impairments in empathy and intimacy. And so, yes, those are identified as interpersonal skill deficits or impairments.
And then the other set has to do with the narcissist self identity and self direction. And so if we're trying to do public pathology education with people, it is much easier to teach them about all personality disorders than only teaching them about narcissism, that there will always be empathy deficits, there will always be intimacy deficits, there will always be self identity, where they have that distorted sense of self, like in narcissism, where there's grandiosity, or in borderline, where there's no collapse, no sense of self. There's always some distortion in the self identity or in self direction, where they're, like, in narcissism, a lot of times, they're preoccupied with their own goals. In antisocial, they're parasitic, they have no goals.
Right?
And so if we look at this at a bigger umbrella, and we get out of these lists of characteristics, this is a narcissist, this is an antisocial. It's too much to know that there's four core impairments. They're always going to have impacts in empathy, intimacy, self direction, self identity.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: What would be. Sandra, I don't know how to say this. What would be a red flag for you if you were talking to, like, a college woman, like I do. What would be the first red flag for you if someone was telling you about a relationship that they're just entering?
[00:26:09] Speaker C: First of all, the relational dynamics, especially cluster B and psychopaths, have a typical relational dynamic pattern, and that is fast furious 24/7 they now call it love bombing.
Most normal men don't date like that.
I don't know any normal man that wants to move in and get married in one week.
Right? That's just not a male pattern.
Right? A normal male pattern. Right.
A lot of that fast paced, intense kind of dating, lots of love proclamations, wanting to move in, get married, all.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Of that, like immediate attachment. That's immediate attachment. One of the articles I read, I think it was an article from Psychology today, the author said, narcissists cannot be left. They can only leave.
[00:27:24] Speaker C: Exactly. So there's an intensity in that early part of the relationship, but because they are the example of the ultimate attachment disorder, and so they can easily, I don't care if they have six kids and a wife of 25 years, there's no deep attachment and bonding. They can just up and move on. And it's what's so shocking to survivors. But they are like the original poster child for attachment problems.
Therefore, usually those relationships have lots of rotating partners.
The survivor might not be aware of that initially, but comes to be aware of that, a hidden life, the intensity of the love bombing and the beginning of the relationship, then beginning to become aware of other people in the pipeline.
Right. Because there is no monogamy, usually, within personality disorders. There's a lot of hypersexuality within that.
And so the problem is that their skill set is not our skill set.
By the time a survivor sort of gets a hint to start looking, that they could be months, years, or decades into the relationship, because the pathological person's skill set is much better than for deception, than our skill set.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: And I think the partner is always trying to make that relationship better, trying to work on it, thinking that it's going to change. And it never changes.
[00:29:38] Speaker C: It never changes.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: One of the things I read, too is are they unapologetic? Are they unapologetic? Since they have little empathy, little regard for other people's feelings? It says the only time they will apologize for hurting others is when it's going to benefit them in some way.
[00:29:56] Speaker C: Well, and that's the nature of personality disorders in general, that they are reward and consequence oriented. Yes.
And words coming out the mouth is not the same thing as emotional experience.
Right.
Personality disorders develop in childhood, and by the time they're dating you, when they're 2030 or 40 years old, they have had that many years to adapt their skill set. They're little human psychologists. Do they know what to say in that moment to squelch that? Of course they do. Is there an internal experience of insight change?
Remorse, conscience? Guilt?
No.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: I'm sorry. Have you ever seen a narcissist in a healthy relationship?
[00:31:02] Speaker C: Never.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Okay. I just had to ask.
[00:31:07] Speaker C: But that's why we're talking about psychopathology, right?
Psychopathology is a whole different feel for a reason.
These are the people with the sad stories and low treatment outcomes. So, no, I think that's part of general public pathology education is trying to get people's level of expectation equal to the level of the disorder that we come in expecting. This person over here is basically normal when they're not normal. And then we have a level of expectation that normal people can change, grow, and develop insight. But in personality disorders, that's what psychopathology is, the inability to grow, change, and develop insight into their behavior.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: Okay, so what kind of person is attracted to a narcissist?
I guess I should say. What personality traits does someone have for them to be attracted to a narcissist? Did I ask that? Right? You know what I mean?
[00:32:24] Speaker C: Yes, I do. That was part of our research. So the reason that we hooked up with Purdue University is because there was an assumption that anybody that ended up in these relationships is because they had an adverse childhood that predisposed them to normalizing abnormal behavior.
And so that's true.
A little less than half of the population we went and studied, we understand why people that were abused end up with abusers, and narcissists are the biggest abusers of all. So we get that. We don't have to go research that. I went to research why women who were never abused ended up with a narcissist.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:33:24] Speaker C: Because we were always taught from domestic violence theory that it's history. History.
That all survivors have childhood adverse experience. All of that. That's what led to this. And yet I had hundreds of patients that didn't have that experience, so it could not be history. So I went to Purdue and studied it. And that there is more than history. That is the commonality of who.
Pathological types, narcissists, antisocial psychopath target.
Sure, there is the adverse childhood that have all sorts of unresolved issues and self concept issues, but then over here was this group that I had in counseling that were judges, surgeons, they did not set the domestic violence standard profile. They didn't have the adverse childhood history. They didn't have the low self concepts that go with that.
It was fascinating to me, like, how do these people.
You just assumed it was all the same history, and it's not the same history.
Pathological partners are adaptive. I will say that. So, sure.
Will they target people that already normalize abnormal behavior and have low self concept and low boundaries and things like that? Sure, they'll do that.
But they're also interested in this other group.
Some of them like to take down high achievers.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: To control.
[00:35:44] Speaker C: Well, it's the dominance thing.
Like, I took down one of my prior clients was a psychiatrist, and the guy laughed as he was getting arrested, getting taken into the van, saying, I took down a psychiatrist.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:36:06] Speaker C: But some of them, that dominance issue and that conning issue is so strong, I took down an attorney. I took down a surgeon. I took down somebody that worked in the friggin White House.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: Oh, gosh.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: Right? And those were who my clients were. So we can see that this isn't all about just early childhood adversity, that these people are versatile. Some are motivated. They'll take the easy route. They'll take the person already highly damaged. But who we studied were people that grew up in normal families. Yeah, they just got conned in adult life. They weren't abused as children.
This is a testament to the skill set of the pathological.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: That's right. I've had clients before who were in relationships with narcissists, and if it's possible to be too nice, they were just nice. They were just too nice. And they weren't somebody who has a personality disorder. They hone in on that. They identify that, they manipulate that. Like you said, they're clones.
[00:37:27] Speaker C: Right. But in old theory, going back to the. We called people that were too nice codependent.
Right?
[00:37:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:37:38] Speaker C: So, again, why went to Purdue with us to study? Is that true? Because Melody Beatty associates codependency with early childhood adversity and low self concept. But can you really ascend into the White House administration and be codependent and have low self esteem? Probably not. Can you really be the chief of staff of surgery?
These are the people I had as clients. I'm saying that crap doesn't work.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Doesn't fly.
[00:38:16] Speaker C: No, it doesn't fly. That's why I went to Purdue. And so it turns out that there's a lot of things that look like codependency. That are personality aspects, that are hardwired, that have nothing to do with your history.
In our personality, that there is a trait of agreeableness that makes people naturally, not by history, naturally occurring in the personality. Trusting, tolerant, straightforward.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: It's like normal, typical.
[00:38:57] Speaker C: Well, their trait was one step over the line, but we always assumed that it had to do with this crippling self concept issue, and it wasn't. It was naturally occurring in the personality and that narcissists and psychopaths are versatile. Yeah, sure.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: Excuse me, Sandra, let's take another quick break, and when we come back, I want to cut to the chase and talk about how to get out of a relationship like this because so many people may be listening and need help with that, with this situation. So when we come back, we'll be talking more about narcissistic relationships. You're listening to brain matters on 19.7 the Capstone Tuscaloosa.
[00:39:57] Speaker A: This show is not a substitute for professional counseling, and no relationship is created between the show hosts or guests and any listener. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863 if you are not a UA student, please contact your respective county's crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: You're back listening to 19.7 the Capstone. This is brain matters. I'm Dr. B. J. Gunther and we're talking tonight about narcissistic relationships. Sandra Brown is my guest. Sandra has authored many books that I hope she'll talk about in a few minutes if we don't run out of time. But this is a fascinating topic and really, let's just cut to the chase. How does someone get out of a narcissistic relationship?
Because they don't let go easily.
[00:41:06] Speaker C: No, they don't. And so that puts the ball, most of the time, it puts the ball in the survivor's court.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:41:16] Speaker C: Every once in a while you'll luck out and they'll move on to a new target.
Usually they move on because there's more resources in that target, whatever that is, job promotion, money, housing, whatever it is, a personal benefit to move on.
But survivors need to know that, first of all, that these cycles with partners that have psychopathology are rarely, and I can count my 30 years on one hand, monogamous. So if that matters to them, that is an issue and part of the reason they move on is because there are a lot of people in the pipeline, right? And they move by opportunity, especially ones that are prone to parasitic kind of behavior. And the interesting thing is, even the wealthy narcissists and psychopaths can still be parasitic, right? They may have Donald Trump's supposed money, but still will move on based on other forms of reward or opportunity.
And so, if a survivor suspects this, I think there are two compelling reasons for them to want to move on. Number one is that the trauma rate from these types of relationships ranges from 75% to 90%.
So the longer you stay, the more apt you are to develop a full blown PTSD.
No one should want that.
And the second thing is that this ranges in the psychopathology area and that there are low treatment potential outcomes. It's why I switched teams. It's why, after 100 years in psychology, we are still struggling to find anything that works consistently with this population. And so we have called these relationships, relationships of inevitable harm, that their consistent treatment outcomes are so negligible as to be almost unmeasurable.
And so I know that lots of survivors who end up in these relationships have those personality traits I was talking about earlier, that they're trusting and hopeful and optimistic about human behavior. I call it Oprah ology, that everybody kumbaya. We can all grow, change and be better people. But that doesn't apply to the whole field of psychopathology. And if you happen to have one of those people with that, is that you are at 75% to 90% risk of developing a trauma disorder, and you are probably in the 20 or 30% rank of ever having any sustainable change in that partner.
And so all the ODs are stacked against them and making anything meaningful of this. Yes, I see lots of books about narcissistic personality disorder treatment, and yet we are still in the whole 100 year cycle of trying to find treatments that are consistently effective with these people. Medication, every kind of treatment you can think of, poor, poor treatment outcomes. It's like betting in a casino. The house always wins.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: What's aftermath treatment? Some of the things I read when I was doing research about, you mentioned aftermath treatment. Is that what we're talking about now?
[00:46:22] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.
Because 75% to 90% of them have trauma. And so a lot of aftermath trauma incorporates trauma treatment, but with a tweak, because there are additional factors that being exposed to this level of psychopathology, that most narcissists are not just narcissists, they're also antisocials. A lot of them are psychopathic that impact to a person creates additional atypical trauma symptoms that need specific types of treatment, which is a whole nother reason to exit right early is because not only is there trauma, but there's atypical trauma that goes with this. So our aftermath approach is not just trauma 101. It takes into account that you have had exposure to the most problematic symptoms in the DSM, and consequently, they produce even more traumatic kinds of responses. So we have had to tweak traditional trauma treatment to include these additional effects that happen from exposure to narcissists and psychopaths.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I mentioned your book, how to spot a dangerous man, which is a bold. That's a bold book title to be. Grabs you. It grabs you. But not to put you on the spot, Sandra. But I'm going to. Can you name some of the chapters in your book? I'd be curious to know a few of them.
[00:48:29] Speaker C: Well, let me say this. That book came out in 2005, so next year, it's going to be pretty old.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:46] Speaker C: Since that book, I wrote our primary book, which is women who love psychopaths.
[00:48:55] Speaker B: Oh, my. That's a bold book. Toddler.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: Right. Inside the relationships of inevitable harm with psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists. That has been the bible of the creation of the narcissistic abuse field. And so if today, would I write how to spot a dangerous man now that we're almost 20 years into our research, more treatment, treatment methodology? No, I would not. I mean, if I'm honest, I'm glad the book is still selling. I think it's a good primer for understanding dangerousness in context of personality disorders. But the women who love psychopaths is like the Bible, what they call the Bible of narcissistic abuse.
Much deeper. Yeah.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: Besides that book, what would be another book you would recommend for a college aged person?
[00:50:06] Speaker C: I still believe that everybody, which is why the dangerous man book is still being used in middle schools, high schools, colleges.
I hate to say this right next to colleges, but women's jail programs. Women's prison programs, because it's broad enough for you to understand the eight dangerous man types and how to identify them.
Then the women who love psychopaths takes one of those dangerous man types, the pathological, the narcissist, and the psychopath, and really dives in. And so I think those are still worthy resources that the dangerous man, even though it's coming up in 20 years, still sound like hotcakes because it's a great primer to understand that. And then if you think out of the eight dangerous man types, you are with the emotional predator, which is narcissistic or psychopathic. Here's the next book to dive in deeper.
[00:51:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. I love that idea. And I think I mentioned to you before we started recording, I'd love to do a group like that here on this campus. I think it would be fabulous. We've never really thought about that. We've probably had groups before just on relationships. But I like this specifically because I think there's many women who are entering into these types of relationships and do not know how to get out or do not know how to recognize it well.
[00:52:00] Speaker C: And the issue is, the sad issue. Yeah, it is sad as a psychopathologist, is that one in five people has a personality disorder. One in five in that. Psychopathology is the area in psychology. We have no magic wand.
This is not episodic.
And so if there's any focus, where our focus should be is that this is a prominent problem, one in five, and that's clusters A, B or C.
But they all have problems in empathy, they all have problems in intimacy, which is where people get hurt, normal people get hurt, and self direction problems and self identity.
And so if we are thinking about intervention, is that any normal person is going to have their knees solved off by people that fall within psychopathology. Our normality is never a contender for their psychopathology.
[00:53:32] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:53:34] Speaker C: And this is all part of risk factor. This is why I decided to work on creating a separate field of psychology in pathological relationships, is because over the years, is that I recognize, even as a therapist, that my normality is not ever equal.
[00:54:00] Speaker B: It never will be.
[00:54:02] Speaker C: No, never will be. And how much more for the general public?
[00:54:09] Speaker B: Yeah, we recognize it. We know, right? Can you imagine? Okay, last question. Sandra, this may be a strange question, but me with my true crime obsessive self, have you ever been interviewed as a specialist? As a specialist, have you ever been interviewed for a true crime show?
[00:54:37] Speaker C: Yeah, years ago. I figured.
I did a lot more back then, pathology, profiling, a lot more in psychopathy.
I did a documentary with the canadian Broadcast Corporation, the CPC, which then translated to the National Geographic Channel on the psychopath next door. I've done true crime, where they've called me on specific cases.
[00:55:15] Speaker B: That's what I'm talking about.
[00:55:17] Speaker C: To be an expert, talking about the mindset and certain crime things. Yeah, I did that quite a bit, actually, before treatment, treating survivors.
[00:55:32] Speaker B: That's fascinating. I figured you with all your teas and years in training of this thank you so much for being on the show. It's gone by really fast and I hope where are you located right now?
[00:55:48] Speaker C: We are.
Website wise, if you are a survivor, we
[email protected] we also run a 52 week intervention, trauma oriented recovery for narcissistic abuse. If you are a therapist and want to get trained in this, we
[email protected] and offer a certification in narcissistic abuse.
[00:56:23] Speaker B: There you go. There you go. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. This has been fascinating. We could have talked another hour about our we could. Don't forget, if you're listening, our shows are recorded and podcasted on the Apple podcast and audioboom.com voices ua.edu. You can just type in brain matters. You'll find some of our past shows there. There's also a link to voices ua.edu on the counseling center's website at counseling ua.edu. I like to thank the people have made the show possible. Our executive director here at the counseling center, Dr. Greg vanderwald, my producer who's absent out sick tonight, Katherine Howell, and also my colleagues here at the counseling center, Catherine Ratchford and the WVUA staff who edit our shows. And of course, my guest tonight, Sandra Brown. Join us next week when we've got another exciting and interesting topic. It's going to be breaking free from love addiction. So it's not like what we're talking about tonight, but another unhealthy relationship.
So if you're interested, tune in. We'll be here, same place, same time. Thanks again for listening to brain matters and good night.
[00:57:46] Speaker A: This show was not intended as a substitute for professional counseling. Further, the views, opinions and conclusions expressed by the show hosts or their guests are their own and not necessarily those of the University of Alabama, its officers or trustees. Any views, opinions or conclusions shared on the show do not create a relationship between the host or any guest and any listener, and such a relationship should never be inferred. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, please contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863 if you are not a UA student, please contact your respective county's Cris service hotline or their local mental Ah agency or.
