Are a narcissist's "games" intentional?
By Tom Ewall
Narcissism is a disease characterized by an arrested development in the areas of self integration, emotional maturity, and defense mechanisms, as a result of early childhood abuse/neglect/trauma stunting their growth.
A typical thought for a neurotypical adult is something like this: “I am usually a kind, thoughtful person, but sometimes I lose my temper, especially if stressed out and tired or hungry.” A narcissist is unable to have nuanced thoughts like this. Because of problems with object constancy, they perceive things, and think of things, in terms of black and white. There is no in between for a narcissist. They are either 100% good or 100% bad, and 100% bad is far to painful to deal with. Hence they have a whole slew of defense mechanisms designed to protect themselves against the idea that they may be flawed.
Narcissists have an extreme need to feel special about themselves. They may go about this in different ways. For example, a vulnerable narcissist may play the victim to elicit sympathy (these may have borderline personality disorder comorbidities), and an exhibitionist narcissist may seek to impress others, fish for complements, and obtain a feeling of specialness in that way. Malignant narcissists (these have antisocial personality disorder comorbidities) obtain a feeling of specialness by egosyntonic aggression. They feel superior by dominating their victims. They are not sadistic because they derive joy in making others suffer, as the sadist does, but indirectly, because of the ego stroking the domination provides.
Narcissists have learned the “games” referred to by trial and error. If your whole purpose in life was the manipulation of others to get your way, you’d be good at it too.
The games are intentional from the standpoint that narcissists know, from trial and error, what works. However, it’s not intentional from the standpoint of being planned. Narcissists are not master minds, planning out a strategy, but can see no further than “I want what I want when I want it,” and are very good at using the manipulative tactics they learned from childhood to do so.
