Defensiveness - Dan Cassenti, Novelist

Concept: Anyone is liable to defend themselves when getting attacked. We wish to negate the criticisms against us to maintain self-esteem that allows us to pursue our goals in life confidently. However, narcissists take the tendency to defend themselves to an extreme. Most of us can discern the difference between criticism and advice and are ready to listen to advice so we can learn from it and apply it to achieve our goals better. However, a narcissist’s insecurities prevent the distinction and force the narcissist to consider every insignificant point of feedback as a personal attack with a reactive and inappropriate counterattack.

Testing someone who you suspect of narcissism: Find a minor point of feedback and offer it to the suspected narcissist. If the feedback results in an outburst or counterattack, you are likely dealing with a narcissist. Please note to be careful not to offer criticism, as anyone could get upset about that.

Examples: (Outbursts to the following comments)

“I wouldn’t have chosen that parking spot. There was a pull-through spot a little further away, which could have kept you from needing to back out of the spot later.”
“Looks like I was right. The Bears were the better team.”
“That might have turned out better if you had….”

Advice: Most of us consider small mistakes and expressed opinions that don’t align with a personal viewpoint as natural occurrences with little significance. For narcissists, these are existential threats to their fragile egos. Defensiveness is a means to counterattack these threats. We all get defensive in the face of criticism, but narcissists go on the attack in the face of advice or neutral feedback and thus reveal themselves as psychologically unstable.

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