Narcissism and Dentistry, Part 2 (E.268)

“Narcissists cause most other people a great deal of duress and pain, and they are completely unaware of it because they are so well-defended.” ~Dr. Will Corrado

In Part 2 of our in-depth discussion with Dr. Will Corrado on narcissism, we dive into the complexities of self-awareness, empathy, and the defensive behaviors that characterize this personality trait. Join Regan Robertson, Dr. Chad Johnson, Dr. Maggie Augustyn and Dr. Corrado as they explore:

• Why narcissists often lack insight into their actions
• How the spectrum of narcissists traits ranges from occasional tendencies to pathological extremes
• The challenges of addressing narcissism in therapeutic settings
• Practical strategies for protecting yourself from narcissistic behaviors in personal and professional environments

This episode also tackles the broader cultural implications of narcissism, including its rise in modern society and its impact on leadership, relationships, and mental health. Whether you’re navigating these dynamics in your workplace, relationships, or practice, this episode offers profound insights into one of the most misunderstood psychological traits.

Tune in and gain a better understanding of how to identify, address, and set boundaries with narcissistic individuals while maintaining compassion and self-care.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Announcer: The Productive Dentist Academy Podcast Network.

[00:00:02] Dr. Will Corrado: We want to also keep very sensitive and personal information from them. Why? Because a narcissist is going to weaponize everything that they know about us. They have an amazing ability to just turn it into swords and daggers.

[00:00:22] Regan Robertson: Welcome to the Everyday Practices Dental Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson and my co-hosts, Dr. Chad Johnson, Dr. Maggie Augustine and I are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical proven methods you can take into your own dental practice. If you are ready to reclaim your time so you can focus on great patient care without sacrificing yourself along the way buckle up and listen in. Doctor, did you know that PDA coaching doctors grew 219, 000 on average in just the last 10 months? If your revenue goals fall short this year and you suspect that patient communication and inefficient systems are holding you back, Productive Dentist Academy can help, but you have to take action. Register today for the PDA conference, March 13th through the 15th in Frisco, Texas. Go to productivedentist.com to snap up your seat. It is the nation’s leading course for growing your practice and your team. Plus, while you’re there, you can set up a free 60-minute session to identify your own unique opportunities for growth, and if you act fast, you could score a one-on-one with PDA’s, co-founder Dr. Bruce Baird. That’s right. We’re only offering 10, and then his calendar is full. Don’t wait. Go to productivedentist.com right now and have a great 2025. We’ll see you in Texas. What I’m excited about with this interview is I love language. I love the written word. I’m passionate about it and how we put definitions to words is very, very powerful. So what, when we’re out there reading, because politically, remember the fake news thing was huge, it’s been huge for the past six years, the term fake news but how do we tell that when it comes to mental health definitions and it comes to topics like narcissism, how do we really know if somebody’s sharing a meme It’s just, here’s your red flags for narcissism. It’s like, okay, but is that also a red flag from someone who’s just an asshole? Do they have to be a narcissist just a jerk?

[00:02:14] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Right, right. Yeah. What’s the difference between narcissism and arrogance and being self centered or having a bad day? How do we differentiate all of that? I believe that you will bring very well balanced opinion to this podcast, and a very knowledgeable perspective, uh, rooted in, in psychology, psychiatry. He has a PhD in psychology and has been, you know, counseling patients.

[00:02:44] Regan Robertson: Well, Dr. Will Corrado is going to set it straight for us. We’re going to dive deep into this topic. I do have a question, Dr. Corrado said unconscious and you’ve given a really beautiful journey of how it can be introduced and it feels almost like protective armor, as you’re describing this, that this person, the actions are armor. Could we talk about self awareness? Are they aware of what they’re doing when they get triggered? They’re feeling that shame and they don’t want to feel the shame and their protective traits come up. Are they aware of that or are they able to be made aware of that?

[00:03:17] Dr. Will Corrado: Great question. Really great question. Unfortunately, they have a profound lack of insight and the ability to examine themselves because to do so would be that they would have to admit to themselves that they were something wrong and that again would be akin to kind of wounding themselves self wound.

[00:03:36] Dr. Chad Johnson: Self-wound. Yeah. Exactly. A very few people would come to you saying, I think I need to talk out that I’m a narcissist, right? I mean, no one, no one comes to you saying, I’ve almost self identified, I’ve pre qualified that I need to discuss this, right?

[00:03:51] Dr. Will Corrado: Bingo. Absolutely.

[00:03:54] Dr. Chad Johnson: So then, you know, someone comes and says, I need to talk out problems because I’m finding that everyone around me is always the problem. You’ve probably heard that and that’s more than just a narcissist saying that, but you know, like, I think it’s funny I say that all the time. Yeah. It’s funny when people are like, “Everyone around me is the problem.” And then, and what if finally you got to the point where you’re just like, have you considered that maybe you’re a narcissist? I mean, would they just be like, “No, that’s probably not it.”

[00:04:19] Dr. Will Corrado: Dr. Chad, they would probably blow them right out the door. There’s some do’s and don’ts with narcissists, especially in the, uh, therapeutic surround that we’ve, we’ve learned and work and don’t work and one of them is to actually confront a narcissist with their narcissism. I should say before that even, is that you’re not going to find a great many narcissists in therapy. Right. Okay, because remember, they’re perfect. They’re perfect and it’s everybody else. Okay, and they’re going to weaponize. You know, a therapist who would point something out like that. They’re going to, they’re going to become your arch enemy. How daring, you know, and it can be very dangerous actually, uh, to a practice. So, um, now narcissism is something like all of the mental disorders. They occur on a spectrum. Okay, everything in the world really is on a spectrum, you know, you have the. brightest, deepest rose red on one end of the spectrum, and you have the lightest, fairest kind of carnation pink on the other, okay, and then you have all these other shades in between, right? So it’s all graduated. Um, and so what I’m trying to say is that we all, each one of us, have narcissistic features and proclivities in moments, uh, when we kind of leak narcissism, all right? The, the key is to the degree. Uh, you know, how, what is that measure? If it is pervasive, if the features that we have are pervasive and pretty much constant, that’s when it becomes a disorder. Okay that’s when we start to move into psychopathology, uh, suffering, the suffering of the mind, you know, um, narcissists cause most other people, a great deal of duress and a great deal of pain. Okay, they’re unaware of it because they’re so well-defended and they will refuse to take responsibility for anything. If you try to engage a narcissist in an argument, you’re always going to lose because they’re fierce. They’re absolutely ferocious with arguing and they are so well-defended that they will make you feel embarrassed. They’ll make you feel ashamed. They’ll project all of their inner conflicts and kind of sturm and drang on you because it’s almost, I don’t know how else to say it, you know, it’s like a kid in a playground wiping a booger on somebody, you know what I’m saying? Now it’s on you, not on me, right?

[00:06:53] Dr. Chad Johnson: Oh, the old saying, I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks on you. There’s truth to that.

[00:07:00] Regan Robertson: I was going to ask for some examples, that was not what I was thinking. However, that’s very colorful.

[00:07:05] Dr. Will Corrado: What can I tell you? It’s just kind of came up, but that’s what they do. They will just become infuriated and, you know, depending on what level of narcissist you are, you know, there’s the covert narcissist where you kind of really don’t know if you’re with a narcissist because they can kind of soft pedal some of their attributes and then there’s the malignant narcissist and the malignant narcissists are the ones that are the most treacherous because they’re going to just give it to you, full tilt boogie, you know, on blast. Absolutely and they’re going to, they’re going to destroy you, you know? Um, so I guess what I’m saying is people who come into therapy most are those who are enduring narcissistic, not narcissistic wounding, but the abuse. of a narcissist. Okay? They’re the narcissistically abused. That’s who I see the most, is these people’s lives have been made miserable by the narcissist that is in their life, whether it be a boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse or even a boss. You know?

[00:08:10] Dr. Chad Johnson: Okay. So question, are there narcissist magnets? Is there a type of personality that almost invites it or does well for the narcissist’s sake? Like, is there a, you know, a receptor, a narcissist receptor?

[00:08:26] Dr. Will Corrado: Pretty much everybody in the world.

[00:08:32] Dr. Chad Johnson: I have a friend that like, he reminds me of someone who magnets that type. In other words, it draws those kinds of people to him. Right. Yeah. Just happens to be a good friend of mine, but I’m not saying I’m the, just happens to be a friend, but he draws a lot o fnarcissists.

[00:08:46] Dr. Will Corrado:  I’ll tell you, I’ll drive a lot of narcissists as people who, who, uh, have compassion. And yes, I think that’s what I’m talking about. Yeah. And who are willing to listen, who are patient and who can, uh, be with somebody in a very personable way and be present for them

[00:09:03] Dr. Chad Johnson: So regarding that narcissist magnet type, the compassionate person, the empath, what are the ways that they can either put up boundaries or recognize this narcissist abuse? And you know, how do they protect themselves better? Even though they probably don’t want to because they want to help because they’re empathetic.

[00:09:25] Dr. Will Corrado: The most effective form of protection against the narcissist is to not engage them. Okay, to keep your distance from them, to limit, the time that you spend with them in any capacity, uh, no communication with them is the best to completely let them go. All right.

[00:09:42] Regan Robertson: I had paused for that because two questions, one on the red flag side of things. So how does, how to spot one? So if you are hiring a team or if you are going to work somewhere, or if you’re about to get into a situation where maybe you can’t avoid them quickly or easily, what are some red flags that might give you an idea that they could be going down this narcissistic path.

[00:10:03] Dr. Will Corrado: Answer the first part of that question and how do you, how do you protect yourself against, for instance, if you have to be engaged by a narcissist, because we all have to be in the workplace or another place, you know, sometimes we’re married to them. Sometimes, you know, we’re their relatives and so on. Um, but we have to remember is to keep our answers to them brief, very brief. Don’t let them in. You do not want a narcissist trouncing around on your heart and soul because they don’t have empathy. They do not have it. They do not have empathy. They do not have insight and they are going to just destroy you. So you want to limit what you say to them, one word answers or just very simple answers to their questions. You know, you don’t want to be overtly rude. Uh, you want to address what the, you know, you want to, they want to hear a yes or a no or this or that, give it to them but try not to elaborate because the more information you give a narcissist, the more arrows they’ll have in their quiver. Okay, because they’ll know how to turn it against you.

[00:11:10] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Dr. Corrado, is, is more prevalent. today than it was when it was first entered into the DSM?

[00:11:18] Dr. Will Corrado: Great question. This is anecdotal on my part, but I’m going to give a resounding yes. Uh, even though the DSM will say that it’s about, you know, anywhere between like three and 6 percent of the population that has a narcissistic personality disorder. I think over the last, I want to say 10, 20 years with, you know, this unbelievable preponderance of uh, reality TV shows and the exaltation of the celebrity and the personality, it has just become an epidemic and you see it reflected. I mean, who would have ever thought, forgive me if this is going to hurt somebody’s political sensibilities, but I don’t think it’s any news to anyone that, uh, the president elect is a narcissist. Okay. I mean, it’s any channel you would tune into, you know, you’re going to learn this. Um, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve seen right before our eyes, our constitution is actually suspended right now. Our Republic is actually greatly, um, diminished right now because we have put, the American people have put a convicted felon, a multiple convicted felon and breaker of laws in just somebody who thumbs his nose at anything that contains him or restricts him or disallows him to become president of the United States. We’re doing it the second time and so what does that tell us? It tells us that there must be a certain amount of narcissism that has been normalized and how has it become normalized? It’s because it’s become more and more pervasive. It has become more and more part of popular culture. We see it more and more reflected in our society, in the special treatment of celebrities.

[00:13:03] Dr. Chad Johnson: This might be a softball question, but I mean, aren’t the people who are naturally running for president more likely to be in this category altogether? Great.

[00:13:14] Dr. Will Corrado: It’s a great question. Yes. We all have to have some healthy narcissism in us. You know, in order to have agency over ourselves, you know, you go walk, you have to,

[00:13:23] Regan Robertson: I couldn’t even, I couldn’t even stop talking. I’m glad you’re going there. Cause I was like, where’s the paradigm shift? Is there anything healthy about being like displaying narcissistic traits? So it came out.

[00:13:34] Dr. Will Corrado: I don’t think so, Regan. I don’t think so and I think we’re going to have to learn it the hard way but for whatever reason we have given leash, we have opened the Pandora’s box and said, it’s okay to have a raging narcissist lead and be the most powerful person in, you know, the civilized world as we know it.

[00:13:52] Dr. Chad Johnson: But I mean, historically, that’s been the case with the Caesars, with, uh, the French little guy, Barnapart.

[00:14:01] Regan Robertson: Napoleon right. French little guy,

[00:14:04] Dr. Chad Johnson: Absolutely. I mean, you know any king that’s been told that they’re awesome their whole life and that’s why Yeah. Oh, go ahead. That’s why the United States was formed , correct? I was gonna say, he said the presidency, he should be an anomaly to that.

[00:14:18] Dr. Will Corrado: Mm-hmm . Yeah. That is the huge, kind of like the paradox. I mean, the. Irony is that, you know, we are a democracy and a republic, you know, and that we, you know, we’re based largely on Roman law, you know, in Rome, they saw that, you know, the Caesars, uh, and the emperors just didn’t work. It wasn’t working and so they created a Senate. So the Senate would have a much more evenly, a kind of greater distribution of power among Um, Other people and that there’d be a consensus forming and then of course, when we created our own constitution, this nation, we were fleeing from the oppression of kings and emperors and, you know, autocrats. That’s why we came here. That’s why the American experiment is so amazing and, you know, it’s worked really well. Uh, up until now, and that’s why we’re kind of in a precarious state. Are we going to be able to keep this democracy, this experiment, if you will, are we going to be able to keep it going or have we killed it?

[00:15:22] Dr. Chad Johnson: Have we reached the term limit of the United States?

[00:15:25] Dr. Will Corrado: Yeah, there you go.

[00:15:27] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Dr. Corrado, you know, when we talk about narcissism, there’s a tendency to vilify it, right? We talk about it in a terribly negative connotation and my question to you is, this is pathological, especially in the way that we are talking to you about it as a psychologist and, you know, when, depending on, Depression was talked about, and it went from being, you know, hysteria into major depressive disorder with suicidality. It had a very negative connotation. It was almost vilified, right? And then we began to understand it as pathology, and we came up with treatment. I suppose, one of my questions is, and you know, I’m very open about my own struggles with suicidality and major depressive disorder, you know, as someone that suffers from mental disease, to a certain extent, I have control over it and to a certain extent, I don’t, if we consider narcissism to be pathological and you went back to talking about how it’s rooted in its inception, you know, going back to starting it in, in our very early days, possibly to attachment and parenting one is there treatment for ii and two, should we vilify it? Talk to me about that.

[00:16:38] Dr. Will Corrado: That’s a really great question, Dr. Maggie, and I’m really glad that you asked it. One of the biggest regrets is that individuals have chosen to weaponize mental health or mental disease, okay? Mental disorders. Um, it is, it’s most unfortunate that that’s happened. In answer to your question, no, we should not vilify it. We’re all part of the human grace. All right. We’re all human beings. We’re all here to learn and to exchange and to support and interact with one another and it’s the old, do not judge, you know, or there, but for the grace of God, go I. Okay, I don’t think it’s a good idea to vilify. And we, we must really see it as a person who is deeply, deeply terrified. Okay. That would be the key. Narcissist is, they’re terrified of being found out for being a flawed individual, just like everybody else. Okay. It is, once again, it is no less than a mortal wound to have law or a mistake attributed to them and so they are fiercely defended against anything like that. It is because they’re terrified. It’s all based on fear. It’s all based on fear and not feeling worthy of love, not really, you know, being cherished okay,

[00:17:58] Dr. Chad Johnson: So Dr. Corrado, it’s kind of funny. We talk about imposter syndrome. A lot of ways that I’ve heard it discussed is if you feel like you have imposter syndrome, you’re better than that. You need to step up to the challenge because you’re so awesome that you’ll do a great job at what you’re doing and you are worthy and, you know, this is actually. It’s, it’s playing into the narcissist and, or maybe perhaps the subclinical narcissism of each of us to be like, “I am good enough. I am worthy to give this Ted talk, a one hour speech of blah, blah, blah, of some or another,” and that it’s actually playing into that, your thoughts.

[00:18:35] Dr. Will Corrado: However, that is one of the ways that we kind of heal from narcissistic abuse because remember, we did talk about there’s a healthy kind of narcissism versus a pathological form of it and the healthy narcissism, which hopefully we all have a little bit of, is that that we do feel we can make a choice or we can achieve some, you know, we actually go about and do the work, uh, that we can reward ourself with a feeling of, Satisfaction with the feeling of, “Oh, look, I’ve accomplished something here, you know,” and we’ve actually done the work to do it. That’s healthy narcissism and so we can’t deny ourselves self love and in fact, self love and really kind of fortifying our self esteem is one of the most important antidotes to being abused by a narcissist.

[00:19:23] Dr. Chad Johnson: So what I hear you saying too, is that if it’s good for society to hear that, it’s not really going to help the narcissist, they already believe that anyway, it’s going to help the rest of the people that needed that extra bolstering. Am I hearing you right? Kind of?

[00:19:36] Dr. Will Corrado: You are, you are. Yes and in a very basic way, you are a doc cat. It’s to feel process of self-validating of having a, a healthy self. Narrative, you know, and one of the things that I promote a great deal in like therapeutic work is always check in, be mindful of what we are saying to ourselves at any given moment, you know, especially it’s called our self-talk. If we find ourselves coming down on ourselves just with unmerciful criticism and, you know, self doubt and indecision and just incapable of making a choice, then we’ve got to ask ourselves. Where did we get that? Whose voice is that? Some of it can be our own. And that’s, that’s the strange part. Some of it, we can be self destructive. We can do it to ourselves in a kind of masochistic fashion, but most often we’re going to find that the voice belongs to somebody else and probably somebody who comes from our past and from our early life. Somebody that just was less than kind, less than compassionate, less than gentle, less than humane to us, huh? Who just kind of let it rip, you know, and wounded us. Those are the voices that we’re going to remember because it’s like our parents essentially, they format our hard drive and if they give us a virus in the form of some harsh criticism or unfair, undisciplined discipline, I call it, it is going to create corrupted files in that hard drive. So that no matter what program we try to run throughout the rest of our lives, that program is still going to be corrupted by those corrupted files. Okay. It’s going to mangle it. It’s going to distort it in some fashion and that’s why we end up in therapy.

[00:21:29] Regan Robertson: That is a beautiful segue. What tools or resources do you recommend? So I heard talk therapy being one of them that people could seek out if they have experienced this firsthand and would like some support

[00:21:43] Dr. Will Corrado: Aside from having no contact or just discontinuing, just kind of like cutting them off. Which is more often than not impossible to do. One of the things we can do is called greystoning. Okay, we greystone the narcissist and by greystoning what we mean is that, I touched on this earlier, we give these short kind of non committal one word answers when they’re questioning us. We keep our interactions short. In other words, we limit our exposure to them. We avoid arguing with them no matter what, because if you want to throw it out with a narcissist, you’ve opened up a whole big can of whoop ass on yourself, because they’re almost indefatigable. You know, they’re going to fight to the death and an argument is always going to provoke them. It’s always going to threaten them. We want to also keep very sensitive and personal information from them. Why? Because a narcissist is going to weaponize everything that they know about us. They have an amazing ability to just turn it into swords and daggers and it’s all an unconscious drive. You know, it’s very primitive because they’re so fear based, they’re terrified. We don’t want to show if possible, this is really, it works against everything. I believe in that we want to not show them emotion or any vulnerability because. Again, they’re going to weaponize it and so that’s what greystoning is about. You kind of want to be almost like a stone, a very neutral kind of talos, you know, kind of like, um, you know, and not let them see it. You really have to have your game face on because they are extraordinarily adept at recognizing vulnerabilities. They can’t wait, frankly, to find out what your sore spots are or what your vulnerable parts are, because that’s where the sword will go in every time for them. You also, you want to minimize contact, uh, by for instance, like waiting long periods of time before responding to a text, you know, or even a call from them. You don’t want to immediately respond to them as if you’re waiting on, you know, what can I do? Totally. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, to please them, to respond to them, to give them what they want. You don’t want to turn into a narcissistic supply because if you show that you’re going to become a supply for them and they’re going to just keep tapping it and tapping it and tapping it. Don’t be afraid to let a text sit for a while and not be so Johnny on the spot to respond to them in the same with calls, you know, unless of course it’s an emergency of some kind and what happens is when you don’t feed the narcissist, you’ll find initially, you’re going to take a few hits because they’re going to be pissed. They’re good. They might rage at that because, “How dare you, how dare you not take my calls or how dare you make me wave so long,” but you have to kind of let some of that just blow by you and just, Oh, you know, and just kind of nod and listen to them, but not take it in because the more you’re able to gray stone them, the less They’re going to want to be around you. Why? Because you’re not reflecting their grandiosity, you know, magnificence, because you’re just kind of being chill, right? You’re being very kind of zen and very kind of noncommittal.

[00:24:57] Dr. Chad Johnson: And the way they see it, that person doesn’t support me.

[00:25:00] Dr. Will Corrado: Exactly. And it’s going to drive them nuts, you know, but they’re going to just say, Forget it. It’s kind of like not having somebody applaud after you do a big performance. It’s like, “Oh, that didn’t get me anywhere.”

[00:25:13] Dr. Chad Johnson:  Dr. Corrado, this is silly, but I like it to, to after you making such profound statements, but I like your laugh. I like your laugh. It is fun. It helps balance out that you’ve got these deep ideas and then like, And then you laugh. I’m just like, that’s great. It means you sure enjoy your work. And that is pretty awesome.

[00:25:33] Dr. Will Corrado: Dr. Chad, I’m going to say the same to you. Okay. Sense of humor. Please. If you do anything, keep your sense of humor. It’s a great survival tool. You know, it’s really key. It’s good for the soul. Oh my God. Yes.

[00:25:47] Regan Robertson: Well, on that note. Thank you. Thank you for an incredible episode, Dr. Corrado. It’s been our pleasure. Our honor. If people are in the Illinois area where you are licensed, are there ways that people can get in touch with you that you would like them to know?

[00:26:01] Dr. Will Corrado: You can find me in psychology today. I’m verified in psychology today. Just look me up. You can look me up on the internet, even. There’s enough. It’s interesting. The older you get, the more entries there are about you in the internet, I was like, Oh my God, what the hell is this? You know, it’s just kind of how it goes. So yeah.

[00:26:18] Regan Robertson: We will obviously invite you back. Not that you’ll come, but I think this is a very hot topic. It has been, like I said, it’s an honor.

[00:26:24] Dr. Will Corrado: I might come back.

[00:26:27] Regan Robertson: Thank you so much.

[00:26:28] Dr. Will Corrado: Listen, thank you. It’s a gas. Uh, it was just great being with you. Thank you for asking me for the questions. Thank you for tapping into it. Thank you for your attention for the format, Dr. Maggie, thank you very much for your.

[00:26:41] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. This was phenomenal.

[00:26:45] Regan Robertson: Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more awesome? Drop us an email at podcast@productivedentist.com and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts. See you next week.