Shaming - Dan Cassenti, Novelist

Concept: Shaming attempts to get victims to incorporate negative personal qualities into their self-concepts. Narcissists employ this technique to establish their superiority over their victims. One common technique to build up the material for shaming is to find fault with something the victim did, then demand an explanation. The narcissist will listen and twist anything they hear into making the victim look bad. After lobbing these new false narratives at the victim, the narcissist will speak as if the distortions are fact and demand that the victim explain those distortions. Depending on the narcissist’s ability to manipulate, anything the victim says can be leveraged against them until weariness brings the victim’s defenses down and they start incorporating the shaming into their self-concept.

How this leads to greater control over a victim: Victims of successful shaming generally wish to prove that they’re overcoming the negative attribution. Narcissists often provide a remedy that involves serving their needs as evidence of their commitment to transcending the problem.

Examples:

“Only a narcissist would go out with friends when his poor girlfriend is home alone for the night. Did you even think about me once that whole time?”
“You’re so defensive all the time. I’m only telling you these things so you can grow and learn. You know, I hate to say it, but you’re a really ungrateful person.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself, the way you moped around during the party. You brought everyone down. Do you realize how selfish you acted?”

Advice: Don’t let others define you in any negative way. If they try to do so, ask yourself what kind of person would do this and if you’d be capable of crossing that boundary yourself. That should help you see which of you acts in a more shameful way. Also, when anyone demands an explanation out of you, think twice about whether you owe them one or not. No one’s perfect and maybe you did do something that requires an explanation, but if your wrongdoing is not a foregone conclusion, it’s generally better to state a boundary of not explaining it.

For more depth: Watch this TheraminTrees video.

Narcissism Encyclopedia

Techniques