What Is a Narcissist?

TikTok presents tidy lists of traits. The answer is a little more complicated.
BY RUCHIRA SHARMA
JAN 17, 2023 • 10:00 AM

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus.

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Narcissism is absolutely everywhere, according to TikTok. Your boss—a narcissist. My ex?

De initely a narcissist. Me? Videos with narcissist coaches present a compelling case that I’m a
“covert narcissist.” If you’ve ever been passive-aggressive toward a friend, or humble-bragged
about your achievements, you may also have a personality disorder, according to the app.
Sorry!

On “NarcTok”—videos on the app dedicated to educating the world about narcissistic behavior
—“self-aware narcissists” (both formally diagnosed and not) share insights into how they
think. Victims of narcissistic abuse o er educational-style videos like “How to Spot a

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Narcissist.” A coach shares “5 Ways to Mess With a Narcissist’s Head,” and a neuroscientist
o ers narcissist protection hacks. Videos in the narcissism genre routinely hit millions of
views; the phrase “NarcTok” itself had 3.9 billion TikTok views as of November.

You can be more than a viewer on NarcTok. The scene is home to a cottage industry of self-
styled experts claiming to o er victims of narcissistic abuse emotional support, and even help
with plotting escape plans, at rates from $35 to $100 per hour. There’s also merch: In addition
to one-on-one classes, one coach who goes by the name “coach_mike01” has o ered T-shirts,
mugs, and notebooks with slogans like “Healing, Not Dealing” and “Looking through your
bullshit.”

Coaches on the platform say that they are helping people. But the vision of narcissism o ered
by NarcTok is drastically oversimpli ied.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders, or DSM 5. People who put themselves irst, even outright assholes—they
are not all narcissists. Symptoms of actual NPD include “the unending, unrelenting motivation
to enhance oneself and feel superior, and an inability to regulate one’s emotions, or one’s
behavior if the world doesn’t cooperate with that need to be the superior,” says Aaron Pincus, a
professor of psychology at the Pennsylvania State University who studies narcissism. Survey
evidence shows that up to 6.2% of the population has NPD, but the real igure is likely more,
says Pincus, as diagnosis is complex—and naturally many narcissists don’t want to be
diagnosed.

So, yes, there are a lot of narcissists out there. But people “are throwing the term narcissist,
and narcissism, around a little too loosely and pretty much labeling lots of bad behavior as
narcissism,” says Pincus.

As for the di erence between someone with NPD and someone who is simply kind of sel ish,
intention is key, says Pincus. Someone with NPD will showcase a lack of empathy, along with
interpersonal entitlement, exploitativeness, arrogance, and envy—all of which is speci ically
driven by a desire to uphold their sense of self. Narcissism really has to do with the person’s
intentions and how they view the world. Many people act entitled and arrogant here and there
just because they’re having a bad day; that’s di erent. Like many personality disorders, NPD
exists on a spectrum, and the further along someone is, the less in touch with reality they are,
psychotherapist and trauma specialist Kim Harries tells me.

You’ve probably guessed that it’s impossible to diagnose someone with the disorder from
watching a few TikToks. In one video titled “5 Signs You Have a Narcissist Co-Worker,” a
mental health “coach” looks directly into the camera and claims that the following are clues
that your colleague is a narcissist: being lazy, taking credit for your work, demanding attention,

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loving gossip—and being well-liked, in spite of these tendencies. First, who hasn’t been lazy at
work for one stretch of time or another, especially with the pandemic upending our lives? Who
hasn’t actively enjoyed of ice gossip? Further, a TikTok video can tell you a few traits that may
or may not be a sign of NPD, but it can’t allow you to know what’s motivating the behavior.

NarcTok goes beyond just boiling down complex ideas into oversimpli ied sound bites.
Gaslighting, for example, is a common theme. The term—which has been generally overused
and misconstrued by everyone from women’s magazines to people on Twitter—refers to the
experience of manipulating someone to make them question their own reality. NarcTokers
often explain that gaslighting is one of the key traits of a narcissist.

So I checked in with Pincus about gaslighting. The reality is that he hasn’t seen any high-
quality research on the concept of gaslighting, or how it relates to narcissism as a clinical
diagnosis.

If interactions with your co-worker or partner make you extremely confused and frustrated,
you may need help and perspective—just not from a NarcTok coach. It could be that your
partner is genuinely manipulative, or it could be that you’re having a misunderstanding that
could be worked through. Either way, those feelings are the kind of thing a trained therapist
might help with over the course of a few sessions.

Someone claiming to be a “coach” is not necessarily a reliable source of expertise. While

therapists undertake an accredited training program at the university level and have
supervised clinical experience before getting their licenses, a life-coaching certi icate can be
obtained online and in a matter of weeks. Coaching is a nebulous industry, with no oversight
boards and no industry-standard codes of ethics. According to an International Coaching
Federation study, 74 percent of all coaching practitioners reported that they had a credential or
certi ication from a professional coaching organization in 2019. Further, many NarcTok coaches
don’t even say they’re certi ied by any particular organization. Rather, the fact that they’ve
been abused is their expertise.

Sarah Robles (@le_disco_mama) is a TikTok narcissist coach with 120,000 followers (she does
have a coaching certi ication). She works full time in the medical industry and coaches in her
spare time, alongside being a single parent.

Like many “narc coaches,” Robles was a victim of narcissistic abuse. She discovered NarcTok as
she rebuilt her life after leaving her romantic relationship. She posted TikToks on her
experiences last year, and was surprised to see many regularly hit tens of thousands of views
immediately. Users soon began asking her for advice and coaching, she says. It seemed like a
great it: “I always knew that I wanted to do something on this planet that mattered.”

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Robles quali ied as a life coach in March of 2022 after taking the International Association of
Professions Career College’s six-week life-coaching course. Robles has since taken on 50
clients and charges $75 per hour. The life-coaching quali ication includes modules such as
“How to Coach Individuals” and “Life Coaching Tools.” Also, students can specialize in life-
coaching topics such as relationship, retirement, or spiritual coaching. There is no speci ic
course on narcissism.

“I would say the bulk of my work is more so on the validation side, really giving survivors an
understanding of what they’re going through, giving them a space for someone to listen and
provide insight on my experiences,” Robles explains.

When asked how she sees her services in relation to counseling, Robles said: “It’s not therapy—
therapy is when you’re doing a deep dive on your psyche of what happened in your childhood
and how to heal those things. Coaching is really developing a plan of action to get you, irst of
all, away from the abuser and into a space of rebuilding your life.”

Even on TikTok, narc abuse coaches face criticism. “There’s a misconception by other creators
who say narc abuse coaches are exploiting victims of abuse to make money,” says Robles. She
added that no one is forcing people to turn to narc coaches for help.

Harries, the psychotherapist and trauma specialist (who is not part of NarcTok), treats both
victims of narcissism and narcissists themselves. The irst thing she does for victims of this
type of abuse is psychoeducation, she explains. “I would have a conversation where we
establish: This is what we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with a fragmented ego who is
overcompensating for feeling less than.” Then, she listens to the person work through their
story.

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“Then my work with trauma starts coming in,” says Harries. “The person is probably having
anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and there’ll be their defense mechanisms, which are the
normal defense mechanisms of when you’re under threat.” She works to understand whether a
person’s family of origin contributed to why they related with the abuse. She may use

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techniques like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy to tackle
beliefs victims may have, such as “The abuse was my fault” or “I’m insigni icant.”

Like narcissism itself, Pincus says the impacts of TikTok coaches are nuanced. In one sense,
people who are actually struggling with narcissism or a narcissistic partner could feel
misunderstood by the videos on NarcTok, or even be taken advantage of by coaches. But on the
other hand, even if someone isn’t experiencing medically de ined narcissistic abuse, they may
still learn coping skills from some of the videos.

When I gaze into NarcTok now, I see a community of hurt people helping others the best they
can. But I also see a cycle of con irmation bias: people learning about symptoms and then going
out into the world and identifying “narcissists”—and then validating others who do the same—
which ultimately obscures the truth: Sometimes people aren’t narcissists. They’re just jerks.

State of Mind is a partnership of Slate and Arizona State University that o ers a practical look
at our mental health system—and how to make it better.

Psychology TikTok

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