Dan Shaw, a psychoanalyst and the author of Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation, writes at The Huffington Post that certain kinds of narcissistic individuals, such as those who view themselves as “supreme leaders,” demand “total submission and compliance” from those who fall under their domain. Whether you are a girlfriend or a follower, it can be difficult to move out from that position, because by doing so you threaten not only the person’s basic beliefs about himself, but also an underlying vulnerability that he has hidden from himself and from the world.

Like Ni, Dan Shaw writes that this kind of pathological narcissism is an attempt to hide from underlying vulnerability: “His delusion of infallible omnipotence, however, is his way of completely denying how profoundly unstable his mind really is.”

Miriam says that Harry became like a living piece of shrapnel, exploding on everyone in his way. This kind of explosiveness can result when one’s already shaky internal stability is threatened. And it usually happens when the admiration and attention that provides some kind of balance for the person has dried up.
It’s often hard to tell whether someone is a pathological narcissist without getting to know them well, and even then you may not be able to tell if someone is going to explode when you stop being part of their admiring audience. But Shaw suggests these telltale signs of malignant narcissism:
• Someone who is “infinitely entitled and grateful to no one.”
• When telling the story of his life, he “leaves out any trace of his own significant misdeeds and failures.”
• Someone who “never hesitates to lie for the purpose of self-aggrandizement.”
• Someone who “blames others for his own errors and failures.”
• Someone who “is erratic, thin-skinned, belligerent, and constantly engaged in attacking and belittling perceived enemies.”
• And in the case of malignant narcissistic leaders of cults and political movements, Shaw says, “he persuades followers to see their lives before joining his group as wretched, and he claims exclusive possession of the power to transform followers’ lives in miraculous ways.”

They may seem off-kilter or off-the-mark, but in their worst form, these people can be abusive partners and dangerous leaders. Shaw writes:
“Fromm called such people ‘malignant narcissists,’ people out of touch with reality, who exhibit more and more extreme behaviors as the pressures of living up to their delusion of perfection mount, and as they inevitably become exposed to scrutiny and criticism. All too often, enraged by challenges to their fantasy of omnipotence, they lead their followers on to acts of violence, against others or even against themselves. In cults, we have the examples of this horrific violence in the Manson Family, Heaven’s Gate, Jim Jones, and many, many others. When it comes to political leaders, the history of the 20th century, the extreme nationalistic narcissism that proclaims the exclusive validity of one nation and the right to deny life and freedom to members of another; the mass murders perpetrated by its dictators—this horrific, tragic history is still being written, and still being perpetrated.”
People often laugh at the outrageous behavior and comments of a narcissist, but what you are actually seeing may be the unraveling of an unstable personality. As a narcissist further unravels, they can become more and more destructive, to themselves and to others. Shaw told me that this is one of the hardest things for people involved with such individuals to believe:
“People who have become enthralled by a narcissistic leader of a movement of some kind, whether it be religious, political, or even therapeutic, are often approached by family members or friends, desperate to persuade their loved one that they are worshipping a false prophet. But once this kind of attachment has been made, and a person has become a ‘True Believer,’ in Eric Hoffer’s famous phrase, people will cling to the commitment they’ve made, no matter how crazy or destructive it would seem to others, as though their life depended on it.”