To summarise, the emotional life of the narcissist is colourless and eventless, as rigidly blind as his disorder, as dead as he. He does feel rage and hurt and inordinate humiliation, envy and fear. These are very dominant, prevalent and recurrent hues in the canvass of his emotional existence. But there is nothing there except these atavistic gut reactions.

Whatever it is that the narcissist experiences as emotions - he experiences in reaction to slights and injuries, real or imagined. His emotions are all reactive, not active. He feels insulted - he sulks. He feels devalued - he rages. He feels ignored - he pouts. He feels humiliated - he lashes out. He feels threatened - he fears. He feels adored - he basks in glory. He is virulently envious of one and all.

The narcissist can appreciate beauty but in a cerebral, cold and "mathematical" way. Many have no mature, adult sex drive to speak of. Their emotional landscape is dim and grey, as though through a glass darkly.

Many narcissists can intelligently discuss those emotions never experienced by them - like empathy, or love - because they make it a point to read a lot and to communicate with people who claim to be experiencing them. Thus, they gradually construct working hypotheses as to what people feel. As far as the narcissist is concerned, it is pointless to try to really understand emotions - but at least these models he does form allow him to better predict people's behaviours and adjust to them.

Narcissists are not envious of others for having emotions. They disdain feelings and sentimental people because they find them to be weak and vulnerable and they deride human frailties and vulnerabilities. Such derision makes the narcissist feel superior and is probably the ossified remains of a defence mechanism gone awry.

Narcissists are afraid of pain. It is the pebble in their Indra's Net - lift it and the whole net moves. Their pains do not come isolated - they constitute families of anguish, tribes of hurt, whole races of agony. The narcissist cannot experience them separately - only collectively.

Narcissism is an effort to contain the ominous onslaught of stale negative emotions, repressed rage, a child's injuries.

Pathological narcissism is useful - this is why it is so resilient and resistant to change. When it is "invented" by the tormented individual, it enhances his functionality and makes life bearable for him. Because it is so successful, it attains religious dimensions - it become rigid, doctrinaire, automatic and ritualistic.

In other words, pathological narcissism becomes a PATTERN of behaviour. This rigidity is like an outer shell, an exoskeleton. It constrains the narcissist and limits him. It is often prohibitive and inhibitive. As a result, the narcissist is afraid to do certain things. He is injured or humiliated when forced to engage in certain activities. He reacts with rage when the mental edifice underlying his disorder is subjected to scrutiny and criticism - no matter how benign.

Narcissism is ridiculous. Narcissists are pompous, grandiose, repulsive and contradictory. There is a serious mismatch between who they really are, their true accomplishments, and how they regard themselves. The narcissist doesn't merely THINK that he is far superior to others. The perception of his superiority is ingrained in him, it is a part of his every mental cell, an all-pervasive sensation, an instinct and a drive.

He feels that he is entitled to special treatment and to outstanding consideration because he is such a unique specimen. He knows this to be true - the same way one knows that one is surrounded by air. It is an integral part of his identity. More integral to him than his body.

This opens a gap - rather, an abyss - between the narcissist and other humans. Because he considers himself so special and so superior, he has no way of knowing how it is to be human, neither the inclination to explore it. In other words, the narcissist cannot and will not empathise.

Can you empathise with an ant? Empathy implies identity or equality with the empathized, both abhorrent to the narcissist. And being perceived by the narcissist to be so inferior, people are reduced to cartoonish, two-dimensional representations of functions. They become instrumental, or useful, or functional, or entertaining, gratifying or infuriating, frustrating or accommodating objects - rather than loving or emotionally responsive.

It leads to ruthlessness and exploitativeness. Narcissists are not "evil" - actually, the narcissist considers himself to be a good person. Many narcissists help people, professionally, or voluntarily. But narcissists are indifferent. They couldn't care less. They help people because it is a way to secure attention, gratitude, adulation and admiration. And because it is the fastest and surest way to get rid of them and their incessant nagging.

The narcissist may realise these unpleasant truths cognitively - but there is no corresponding emotional reaction (emotional correlate) to this realisation. There is no resonance. It is like reading a boring users' manual pertaining to a computer you do not even own. There is no insight, no assimilation of these truths.

Still, to further insulate himself from the improbable possibility of confronting the gulf between reality and grandiose fantasy (the Grandiosity Gap) - the narcissist comes up with the most elaborate mental structure, replete with mechanisms, levers, switches and flickering alarm lights.

Narcissism Isolates the narcissist from the pain of facing reality and allows him to inhabit the fantasyland of ideal perfection and brilliance.

next: Gender and the Narcissist