Narcissists have secret lives. They lie effortlessly. They are two faced - appearing with a perfect public image that most people believe. In the shadows, when no one is looking, they do tremendous damage to family, friends, coworkers and those who live with them.
Narcissism can be similar to a cult in a few ways:
Narcissistic families
Can be like small cults, with a narcissistic parent as the leader, submissive followers, and people who want to please the leader. Family members may feel isolated from the world and have difficulty developing a sense of self outside of the family.
Narcissistic relationships
Can be like cults, where one person, such as a romantic partner, friend, or workplace colleague, hijacks reality and controls the other person. The leader may use manipulation, lies, scare tactics, and coercion to control the other person, who may then provide the leader with praise and adulation.
In narcissistic families, personality disorders can cause intense emotions to circulate and be passed down through projection, transference and identification. This can lead to a distorted reality for family members, who may have difficulty developing a sense of self outside of the family system.
Narcissistic personality disorder is a lifelong mental health condition, but treatment can help manage symptoms and reduce its impact on relationships, work, and self-esteem. People living with narcissists can also try to preserve their well-being by setting strong boundaries, building a support network, and working with a therapist who's knowledgeable about narcissism.
Just like every self-respecting cult, the narcissistic family has its own deep-seated secrets and bizarre traditions. Unquestioning obedience is usually valued over freedom of thought and action. The narcissistic parent is all-powerful, all-knowing and intransigent.
Yes, they are very talented at playing the victim role.
"The thing that concerns me most about cult groups is the unconscious manipulations that I have described in detail in my work. It is the way in which the repressed and unreflected childhood biographies of parents and therapists influence the lives of children and patients entrusted to their care without anyone involved actually realizing it. At first glance, it may seem as if what goes on in cults and cult-like therapy groups takes place on a different level from the unconscious manipulation of children by their parents. We assume that in the former instance we are in the presence of an intentional, carefully planned, and organized form of manipulation aimed at exploiting the specific predicament of individuals.
In my view, however, this allegedly conscious exploitation can also be traced back to unconscious motives. Terrible as the consequences were, I do not believe, for example, that the two initiators of “feeling therapy,” discussed earlier, actually set out to establish a totalitarian regime. It was the power they gained over their adherents that made them into gurus. And this is what I have in mind when I refer to the unconscious aspects of manipulation. In the end, they themselves become the victims of a process with an inexorable logic of its own, a process they were unaware of because they had never given it any thought.
Thus they sparked off a conflagration they were unable to control, much less extinguish. First, they had learned how to reduce people to the emotional state of the helpless child. Once they had achieved that, they also learned how to use unconscious regression to exercise total control over their victims. From then on, what they did seemed to come automatically, in accordance, with the child-rearing patterns instilled into them in their own childhood." Alice Miller
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