The Music of the Narcissist's Emotions
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 2017-02-27

Everything You Need to Know about Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Abuse - click on this link: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq1.html

Of course narcissists have emotions. All human beings have emotions. It is how we choose to relate to our emotions that matters. The narcissist tends to repress them so deeply that, for all practical purposes, they play no conscious role in his life and conduct, though they play an extraordinarily large unconscious role in determining both.

Like everyone else, the narcissist goes through a cognitive phase which allows him to conceptualize, contexualize, and identify physiological reactions and behavioral patterns and label them as emotions. But unlike healthy people, narcissists, having labelled them, do not experience these emotions as well.

In other words: the narcissist deduces the existence of emotions in others and in himself by gathering data and then analyzing their meaning and significance. He uses his intellect to answer the question: “what is happening (to me, to others)?” He has no experiential correlates: he does not experience these emotions in others (because he has no empathy) or in himself (because, probably owing to past traumas, he has repressed them so effectively so as to permanently deny access to them). He, of course, is aware of his thoughts and knows that everyone calls these physiological and behavioral responses “feelings”, so he makes use of this common vocabulary.

Everyone goes through a cognitive phase when they emote. Normal, healthy people are usually not cognizant or only dimly aware in passing of these underlying cognitions (thoughts). They fully experience their emotions, though. In contradistinction, narcissists and psychopaths are aware only of their cognitions and do not experience emotions (they have no emotional correlates).

(From the book "Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited" by Sam Vaknin - Click on this link to purchase the print book, or 16 e-books, or 3 DVDs with 16 hours of video lectures on narcissists, psychopaths, and abuse in relationships: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/thebook.html)