Interpersonal narcissism, dehumanisation and why hacking narcissism matters right now

Photo by Maria Thalassinou on Unsplash

Dear Hacking Narcissism subscribers and readers,

Thank you so much for being here and for helping me reach another milestone - 2000 subscribers!

I see it as a privilege to be able to share my observations, analysis and theories about relationships shaped by interpersonal narcissism and having a captive audience who wants to read it. It’s especially satisfying to discover many resonating with my work and its positive impact in their lives.

The focus of my writing and work is making visible the invisible relational dynamics occurring between people at the beginning, middle, end and aftermath of any type of relationship that contribute to suffering, bullying, domination, control and abuse, and how to navigate them. The other part involves offering alternative approaches to deliberately cultivate satisfying relationships that are mutually beneficial and embody reciprocity, transparency and respect for each other.

Revisiting what I mean by interpersonal narcissism

Relationships involve the input of two people and can become soured by one having more say and control than the other. Power differentials can work in some types of relationships and with individual temperaments. More often, however, power differentials can make those who experience these relationships feel powerless, intimidated, silenced and unable to do anything to level the balance of power.

Some might even go as far as saying they are in an oppressive relationship or feeling oppressed by their situation. Whether it is true oppression or not requires another discussion on the impact of one’s intent buffered from the ideologically captured definition of oppression that enables people of a similar class to claim oppression. But that’s a topic for another day.

Some of you reading this might be confident and self-assured enough to be able to speak your mind and be totally ok with the relationship discontinuing. You’re a minority. The majority of people, at least those who read my posts, talk openly about their issues on social media and consult with me professionally are either unaware of the power differential or too afraid to disturb status quo for fear of retribution. You cannot underestimate the fear that any of us can have speaking up against any authority - a bossy friend who is very popular, a well liked narcissistic leader, declaring your stance on Israel-Palestine or the failed Voice Referendum in Australia on X, or to a controlling spouse.

You’re unlikely to speak up to challenge the way things are when you don’t believe you have equal power, lack confidence in acting as if you have equal or more power, and have repeated experiences of being bulldozed and punished by the dominant person (the relationship’s authority). If they aren’t strategic about how they speak up, things can and do get worse for them because those who are given, attain and hold more power and control are unlikely to relinquish it. Instead, the person who wants change is accused of being the problem. And it’s true. Their desire for a different relationship dynamic is a threat to the leader who is benefiting from the way things are.

Interpersonal narcissism is mirrored in the macrocosm of relationships. Citizens vs government institutions, factions in the American culture war, staff vs toxic leadership in workplace hierarchies, geopolitical conflicts and war. Severe and violent power struggles led by autocratic types morph from interpersonal narcissism into dark triad/tetrad dynamics. This isn’t only reserved for political leaders who are merciless in the protection and defence of their interests. This is what can happen between friends, lovers, colleagues, family members, peers when hatred overtakes reason, humanity and morality.

On one hand it’s important to be able to identify what the other is doing that qualifies as interpersonal narcissism. On the other hand, it’s even more important to identify what YOU are thinking, saying or doing that is contributing to and perpetuating the dissatisfying relationship dynamic.

What this Substack is NOT

It’s not about shaming or actually hacking a narcissist. It’s about hacking our tendency to overpower and control others to feed our egos. Yes, we all do it and it’s also done to us. It sucks and it’s damaging to our ability to trust each other, be ok with differences and repair past betrayals.

This is about your role in your relationships - identifying how you might be re-enacting your relationship blueprint of your family in diverse relationship types and how to identify and navigate relationships that are nearing an expiry date. It’s also about you becoming more conscious about your perceptions and their influence on your behaviours in relationships while also spotting relational patterns that are negatively and positively impacting you. It’s about you exercising control over your reactions to avoid perpetuating relational difficulties while cultivating beneficial relational dynamics with those who are capable of doing that with you.

I don’t develop content about how to manage relationship dynamics that involve family violence or severe abuse. I will discuss co-parenting issues and navigating parent-child dynamics in the near future.

I don’t discuss culture war dynamics, geopolitical events or leaders. There are plenty of Substacks dedicated to those topics. I will, however contribute my ideas to some of those Substacks/podcasts if I’m asked and I will seek contributions from them for future pieces.

I don’t call people narcissists. When I speak of narcissism I am referring to the dynamic between two or more people, and what the dominant person is doing that qualifies as narcissistic behaviours. That is, the need to hold power over the other. I am not referring to ‘the narcissist’ under the DSM-5 description. There are several writers I subscribe to who focus on the obvious traits of clinical and subclinical narcissism in line with the DSM-5.

I’m more interested in the subtleties that play out in our day to day reality that directly impact our mental state more than needing to constantly spot and critique the political and cultural psychopaths.

Why? Because the term is dehumanizing. Like each of us, these people were shaped by their earliest experiences with their own caregivers and authorities. Experiencing emotional and physical neglect, abuse or misattuned responses to their needs as children by their parents/caregivers, combined with other individual and environmental factors, without corrective/restorative can result in manifestations of Cluster B traits.

About Dehumanisation

As we’re seeing right now as we witness events and reports from Israel and Gaza, alongside the running commentary of everyone who choose to speak about it, we don’t help our humanity by constantly dehumanizing each other. We dehumanise ourselves when we dehumanise others. It can feel really satisfying to point out the persecutors, hypocrites, grifters and Social Injustice Warriors and expose their attempt to command and control society. But if you’re someone who values integrity, moral behaviour and regard for other humans, you might notice over time a gradual drain of your energy levels, angrier, less patient and greater irritability about things that never used to piss you off. Dehumanisation can do that and erode empathy so that it’s harder to consider the perspective of others (without needing to agree with it). Eventually you become like the target of your dehumanisation and will require ongoing effort to recover your humanity.

We can point out flawed reasoning processes (see Gurwinder Substack for these) without character assassination. We can condemn the sadistic and evil actions of terrorist groups because it requires zero humanity to torture another human. We can also understand the conditions, indoctrination and dehumanisation processes that leads to radicalization, violent extremism and terrorism. And we can disagree with other’s positions without dehumanising them for their version of reality.

To preserve our empathy - the ability to see things from another’s perspective without needing to agree with it - and our humanity, we need to be steadfast in our ability to hold multiple truths and realities in our minds, tolerate discomfort, critically examine our own beliefs and be objective and curious as to what has informed them to consider if they’re still valid, avoid echo chambers, and act in accordance with what we preach.

This Substack provides practical resources on HOW to avoid getting stuck in believing in your own superiority that can turn you into the object of your contempt.

Hacking Narcissism asks each of us to think and do something DIFFERENT than the stuff we’re experiencing in our relationships and in the world around us that contributes to misery, fear and division. It’s about breaking the relational patterns that hurt others and ourselves in the process AND preventing relationships that re-enact the default dominance-based hierarchy that features in what I described here as narcissistic relationships.

If you don’t like what you’re seeing out in the world and you have limited influence in what you can do, take a long hard look at your own close relationships and consider if they’re working for both you and the other person.

We tend to judge what we reject in ourselves.

If you don’t like seeing a group of people trying to overhaul social cohesion, values that underpin social stability and the existing social hierarchy, it’s necessary then to ask yourself how you might be contributing to that same dynamic in your own microcosmic orbit or personal and professional relationships. I’m sure many reading the previous sentence will want to assume everything is just fine or want to push back on the idea that addressing the microcosm (your relationships) can influence the microcosm (society and the wider world). I’m happy to be challenged about this.

Check out the compilation of my work here:

The Hacking Narcissism Compilation

A little about me

Speaking about narcissism…

I realise I don’t share a lot about myself and my life. My preference is that you, dear reader, are more interested in the content and its application to enhancing your own relationships and life rather than in getting to know me.

I suppose there is fear in disclosing a little more about myself because I’m not a fan of parasocial relationships or how growing communities inevitably form into culty echo chambers. I hope to keep it that way while continuing to connect with readers who want to engage with me on this platform.

I also know that finding trustworthy voices is extremely difficult in a time of deep distrust of authority, institutions and mainstream media. Your trust in me is a privilege I don’t take lightly, which is why I attempt to maintain a consistent tone and philosophy underpinning a need to hack our own narcissism.

The content you read emerged from examining my suffering as well as the method/process I uncovered to examine my suffering; from burnout and moral distress prior to leaving academia, to year long depression without a known cause, to being a constant outsider unable to assimilate into any group or community (grateful for that now), to being picked on, excluded and mocked throughout my adolescence in my friendship groups, to not knowing ‘my place’, being a natural born status quo disrupter, and to having friendships, community-based relationships and professional relationships that featured emotional manipulation, exploitation and domination. All of this running in the background of marriage, motherhood raising girls into reasonable, ethically-minded adults and being a Canadian Jew living and still adjusting to life in Australia (it’s been 18 years), not feeling like anywhere is home.

I’m an excellent outsider. I don’t belong anywhere. I’m great at pretending I can be an insider. Being an outsider enables objectivity to discover problematic stressors in a system that are invisible to those inside that system. I’ve studied medical culture for ‘fun’ because high numbers of physician suicides intrigued me to want to uncover the root cause of their deep suffering. Doctor-patient and other therapeutic relationships were also great places for me to dive head first into analysing power dynamics and their outcomes for patients and clients. Being an outsider has also helped me to spot the patterns of dysfunction in seemingly functional relationships with clients who can’t put their finger on why it’s not working.

My interest in interpersonal narcissism and interpersonal dysfunction came from my interest in understanding power in relationships, and why we dominate or get dominated by others, especially in the relationships we think are going well. Most importantly, I learned how to navigate retaliatory tactics when attempting to create change or extract from these relationships. Everything I write about comes from years of theorising, applying what I’ve learned with others and refining my processes to a predictable model.

My overall expertise is in facilitating change in individual perception, behaviour and relational change while navigating the backlash of disrupting status quo.

Nothing about human behaviour surprises me. Humans in uncertainty, who feel betrayed, outraged, defensive and insecure and who are in perpetual survival mode act predictably. Yes, I believe human behaviour is predictable unless they choose to improve their responses and engage in practices that contribute to emotional maturation.

I have learned there is peace in accepting reality as a confluence of multiple invisible forces, mythologies, ecosystems, consciousness, history and ancestry contributing to emergent events that expose the breadth and depth of the human condition, and our capacity for benevolence, malevolence and anything in between. Acceptance of our behavioural spectrum and potential to act in integrity (or not) in any given situation gives me a realistic sense of what’s in my control and what isn’t. Since I care about cultivating humility, being in my integrity requires me to be honest about my own tendency to overpower others for my own benefit so that I can fulfil my/our primal (yet narcissistic) need for superiority, significance, recognition, attention and specialness.

What emerges from hacking your narcissism is deep tolerance for shame as an ally and embodied knowledge of your own value without needing to prove your valuableness to anyone.

I’m at a stage in life where genuine connection, positive impact, reciprocity and learning from others matters most to me.

I strive to continue to disturb and enhance your ideas about humanity and relationships while producing useful content that you can apply to create desired change in yourself and your relationship situations.

If we want things to change in this world, it does require all of us to do our bit to preserve and restore our humanity, heal our hurts and repair the damage that was done in the past through cultivating mutually beneficial, harmonious relationships with each other and our communities on the ground.

Please share this Substack with those who might resonate (please don’t subscribe them without asking them first) and consider subscribing if you haven’t. Seeing it grow has continued to nudge me to keep producing content you don’t find elsewhere that is informative and practical.

I would also appreciate if you could provide feedback in the comments section or by email about your experiences of this work and content you would like me to provide.

Thanks for reading, supporting, subscribing and sharing,

Nathalie Martinek, PhD

The Narcissism Hacker

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Hack narcissism and support my work

I believe that a common threat to our individual and collective thriving is an addiction to power and control. This addiction fuels and is fuelled by greed - the desire to accumulate and control resources in social, information (and attention), economic, ecological, geographical and political systems.

While activists focus on fighting macro issues, I believe that activism also needs to focus on the micro issues - the narcissistic traits that pollute relationships between you and I, and between each other, without contributing to existing injustice. It’s not as exciting as fighting the Big Baddies yet hacking, resisting and overriding our tendencies to control others that also manifest as our macro issues is my full-time job.

I’m dedicated to helping people understand all the ways narcissistic traits infiltrate and taint our interpersonal, professional, organisational and political relationships, and provide strategies for narcissism hackers to fight back and find peace.

Here’s how you can help.

• Order my book: The Little Book of Assertiveness: Speak up with confidence

• Support my work:

  • through a Substack subscription

  • by sharing my work with your loved ones and networks

  • by citing my work in your presentations and posts

  • by inviting me to speak, deliver training or consult for your organisation