What if I told you that compassion can cause terrible physical and emotional pain – even unspeakable?

“But Kim, isn’t empathy the glue that holds relationships together and creates a positive environment for connection?”

Yes, but not all empaths are created equal.

A narcissist uses a very specific type of empathy as a tool to get into your head, manipulate your thoughts, and abuse you.

Here’s how it works and why the concept of “narcissistic lack of empathy” is such a travesty.

Different types of empathy

Empathy itself can be good or bad – it depends on how a person experiences it, interprets it, and reacts to it.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term as “the act of understanding, perceiving, being sensitive to, and directly experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another person from the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experiences fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.”

No, Merriam-Webster is not a psychology journal or an expert in the field, but this definition is very topical.

Why?

It doesn’t say anything about empathy, remorse, or humanity. Here are the different types of empathy and how they come into play.

Emotional empathy

This is when you feel like you’re in someone’s shoes. You are crying with your friend who is experiencing hardship such as the death of a loved one. You feel the same pain as those around you even though you are not in pain.

The problem here is that this feeling can almost paralyze a person. If you get so overwhelmed by the suffering of a homeless person that you give up all your possessions and become homeless yourself, it doesn’t help the situation much, does it?

Nectar empathy

This type can be helpful: you understand the person’s suffering but because you’re not facing it yourself, you can take action and improve the situation.

If someone is drowning, you shouldn’t jump in the river yourself because you’ll both be stuck. Instead, you must hold onto a branch or rope that they can grab onto. This is compassionate sympathy.

Cognitive empathy

This is where things start to get dark. Think of every sleazy lawyer, salesperson, or detective you’ve ever heard of or encountered—they all use cognitive empathy.

This gives the narcissist the ability to see things from her point of view and then act in a way that will benefit them the most. Cognitive empathy is still empathy—just not the kind most people are familiar with.

Why the concept of a narcissist’s lack of empathy is a myth

Narcissists don’t lack empathy the way we usually think they do – they lack empathy, remorse, and remorse.

We tend to confuse feelings like sympathy with sympathy, but as mentioned earlier, a person can understand what another person is feeling, thinking, and experiencing without feeling the human emotions that go along with them.

This is exactly why a narcissist’s lack of a concept of empathy is a travesty — and a dangerous travesty at that.

He tends to let them off the hook due to extremely hurtful behavior. Narcissists’ lack of the notion of empathy indicates that their abusive behavior is completely unintentional.

It’s very manipulative and very deliberate.

How a Narcissist Uses Cognitive Empathy to Hurt and Manipulate You
When you’re on the receiving end of a narcissist’s abuse, do you feel like you’re being tortured?

Well, that’s because you are.

In December of 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” methods. The report details how the CIA collaborated with psychologists for years to develop a program that forces a person into a state of learned helplessness.

When you are in a state of learned helplessness, you have experienced so much external trauma that you give up your independence. Learned helplessness can lead to depression and other mental illnesses.

If the investigator (or narcissist) wants to force his subject into learned helplessness, the first step is to establish a connection.

And what is a narcissist’s tool for creating a relationship? Cognitive empathy.

When we read that a narcissist lacks empathy, we are only referring to empathy in the way we feel ourselves…and this is one of the glaring omissions when reading the DSM criteria for narcissism. The guide does not include or mention cognitive empathy.

When a narcissist is seemingly nice to you, they get to the root of your hopes and desires for how you want to be treated, and later turn around and use these all-important desires and dreams to torture you…and that’s no accident.

Using cognitive empathy to get what they want

As you can see, narcissists’ lack of empathy is a myth because they need to use cognitive empathy to get what they want from those around them.

The detective wants information, the seller wants to sell a car, and the lawyer wants to win his case. In all of these situations, they need cognitive empathy to get into the subject’s head. They need to understand the feelings and thoughts of a person who they can then manipulate to achieve a result that is more beneficial to them.

That’s why you’ve likely found yourself going back and forth a few times wondering, “Do they love me or hate me?” It is much easier to believe that this is not intentional and that narcissist has no control over their emotions and actions – but that these actions are calculated.

Like an investigator, narcissists interpret feelings such as love, openness, kindness, and generosity as weaknesses. And if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile, come back up, and drive the same mile over and over until you pull your hair out.

How to protect yourself from their harmful words or actions
The first step is knowing when the narcissist is using cognitive empathy to achieve his or her goals. At first, this isn’t easy because you’re human and able to respond to perceived kindness with kindness.

But the narcissist’s faux kindness doesn’t come without a price.

It is also important to determine what the narcissist wants from you. This can be anything including money, housework, child care, or any obligations the narcissist feels are under them and should be dumped on someone less than that.

In other cases, the narcissist may just want the proverbial punching bag to blame them for their problems or unleash their emotional (and sometimes physical) abuse.

But responding to their false kindness and sympathy by returning the favor will get you nothing but more offense.

Inexplicable narcissists.

This is why you need to do everything you can to avoid narcissists and keep them out of your life at all costs. Otherwise, the narcissist will use cognitive empathy indefinitely to take advantage of you and destroy you.

They won’t respond well – far from it – but it’s the only solution.

What to do next to begin your journey of recovery from narcissist abuse
If you’ve already downloaded our Free Beginner Healing Kit, your next step would be to consider joining me and my Inner Warrior tribe inside The Break Free Program, where you’ll learn everything you need during the first weeks of liberation and receive support and encouragement from us every step of the way.