The Covert Narcissism Audit
Covert narcissism is an overlooked and under discussed character deficit among a cohort of seemingly functional adults. I’ve written about different expressions of covert narcissistic traits across workplace leadership, social activism, gendered expression, therapy culture, project collaborations, moderate cults, and friendships over the years, and I’m still not done. Given covert narcissistic strategies are so effective at disarming people into trust and emotional investment, often to their own disadvantage later on, I thought it would be useful to compile my existing and emerging work on the topic into an audit to help people identify patterns they might already be sensing in someone else...or in themselves.
People with more grandiose narcissistic traits engage with the world with visible self belief. Their confidence shields them from doubt and criticism. They assume they deserve recognition and often pursue it directly through status, attention, visibility, achievement, dominance, or admiration. Their entitlement is obvious because they express it openly. They’re the world’s alpha wannabes carrying a truckload of entitlement.
People with more covert, also known as vulnerable narcissistic traits, experience the world very differently. They still believe they deserve recognition, importance, admiration, influence, or authority and experience themselves as exceptional in some way. The difference is that they lack the same certainty embodied by more grandiose personalities. Shame sits underneath narcissistic traits because narcissism depends on protecting a particular self image. They engage with others, especially those with higher status, with a painful awareness of the gap between who they believe they are and how they are perceived by others.
The gap is where the wound of embitterment festers. Embitterment is the emotional hardening that develops when a person feels repeatedly overlooked, underestimated, bypassed, excluded, unsupported, or denied the recognition they believe should have been theirs by now. The emotional elixir of inferiority, envy, resentment, grievance, shame and contempt congeal into a sense of perceived injustice. This is partly why covert narcissistic traits can be harder to recognise in helping professions, activism, and therapy culture. The person often experiences themselves as caring or empathic, while projection helps preserve that self image in moments of shame or inferiority.
Another person’s success, visibility, or recognition can become difficult to tolerate because it intensifies the feeling of being overlooked. Unlike people with more grandiose narcissistic traits, they don't pursue status directly as they're more sensitive to rejection and social failure. They want all the payoffs of risk taking in the public or social sphere but are afraid of putting themselves in situations where their importance or credibility could be tested openly.
The covert aspect of these narcissistic traits is the pursuit of status in stealth mode. Rather than openly dominating, they attach themselves to people who already possess the admired traits or characteristics that they want for themselves, and become an extension of that person.
Once emotionally bonded to a desirable person, they begin assimilating the traits they admire in that person. Over time, they experience those traits as their own, believing they always possessed them and eventually no longer needed the original source.
Envy often appears through imitation and subtle competition with the very people they once idealised. The shame underneath these traits is often mistaken for humility, while the fantasy of deserved greatness remains fully intact.
People with stronger covert narcissistic traits dominate through manipulating the emotional conditions of the dynamic so they’re always having a worse day than you, even if they do it through self-deprecating humour. They might also support you when things are going well for them, but use the support itself as a way to dominate or diminish in order to stay above you.
Here’s a checklist of patterns of behaviour (not a diagnostic screening tool) embodied by people who sit further toward the covert narcissistic side of the behavioural spectrum. My interest is always and has always been on relational dynamics of interpersonal narcissism, which means that the other party is contributing to the situation in which they find themselves at the mercy of covert narcissistic behaviour. Being aware of what’s being done to you, intentionally or not, is the first step to planning your way out.
The following audit is intended for recognising recurring interpersonal patterns, not diagnosing personality disorders. Upgrade your subscription to continue reading.