Psychopaths and Malignant Narcissists do not have normal emotions. They are deep dark voids of emptiness. They search for "Narcissistic supply" to feed their void. Their main "supply" comes from healthy individuals. They particularly love highly emotional Empaths. They will feed of an Empaths positive emotions and once bored will abuse the Empath to get negative emotions. They will typically have a secondary source of supply in other lovers and tertiary supply of groups/ family members.
At some point a healthy target will see the Psychopath/Narcissists for who they really are. The Psychopath/Narcissists has prepared for this. It has happened to them before. Psychopath/Narcissists false self image/mask is everthinging to them. They must destroy anyone who knows them for who they truly are. So the target typically becomes the victim of a smear campaign/character assassination to eject them from the group/family so the Psychopath/Narcissist can continue to gain supply from the group. In fact, they may even get more supply if they are successful in their character assassination as their victim is made to appear like someone who did them harm and the Psychopath/Narcissists gains the sympathy of the group. They have planned for this by grooming the group long before they assassinate the character of the victim/target. They have 'seeded" (see "seeding", "lie seeding") the group with negative information about the target and primed them gifting them dinners, entry into exclusive parties, clubs, vents, trips, jobs. (Think Harvey Weinstein.) T. If the group allows the Narcissist/Psychopath to get away with attacking the victim/target and let them stay in the group looking the other way they show the attacker their bad behaviors will be tolerated.
The group becomes their tertiary supply and they will create drama in the group to feed them often by triangulating group members pitting them against each other. The Psychopath/Narcissist craves a main source of supply and will search for another lover/Empath. If the group gives them no supply, no drama the Narcissists will disappear from the group when they find them and only reappearing if they lose the lover/Empath.
Empaths
If you truly want to understand how smart warm wonderful women are targets of Psychopaths read the research of Sandra Brown:
“The seminal aspect of the research was in detecting these women's unique and astounding elevated 'super traits' of temperament, personality strengths and weaknesses. These proved to be an amazingly compatible match for the strengths and weaknesses of a psychopath and brought a natural 'balance' to the honeymoon aspects of the relationship.”
“While the uncovering of her innate traits and conditioned behaviors explained much about this dangerous relationship and has brought huge intellectual and emotional relief to the victims, it does not seem to have gone very far in modifying the public misperceptions about psychopaths or their victims. On a recent radio show, after describing the huge elevation of some of the victim's temperament traits and explaining how it could affect her patterns of selection and even tolerance in these relationships, the host said, "That's a crock of crap! You're telling me that a few temperament traits can do that? I don't believe it. She picked him, she stayed, she needs to own it and she was probably abused as a child." These simplistic answers are what have been, and continue to be, at the core of the abysmal lack of public psychopathology education.”
“As mentioned, my research has revealed that women who love psychopaths (and other Cluster B personality disordered individuals) possess rather unique and extraordinary 'super traits' of temperament that make them the perfect target/victim of the psychopath. While the following does not cover all of her traits, these were the ones most highly elevated and were thus likely contributing factors:
Here is the research by Sandra Brown on what psychopaths look for in a romantic partner:
§ Extraversion and excitement seeking (Psychopaths are also extraverts and excitement seekers.) In other words, these women started out being the least dependent types on the planet!
§ Deep Investment in all relationships (The victim gives great emotional, spiritual, physical, financial investments in any of her relationships, not just the intimate ones.)
§ Sentimentality
§ Attachment – Deep bonding capacity (She has a deep bonding capacity.)
§ Competitiveness – stand ground – not codependent (She is not likely to be run out of relationships – she will stand her ground. Again, not the co-dependent type at all.)
§ Low Harm Avoidance – does not expect to be hurt (She doesn’t expect to be hurt, sees others through who she is. In other words, not a person looking to recreate an abusive relationship of childhood. In fact, more often than not, these women were never exposed to abuse of any kind as children.)
§ Cooperation
§ Higher Empathy – can be genetic
§ Responsibilty and Re
Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
