Dr Ramani Durvasula: The Narcissist’s Playbook, Love Bombing, Gaslighting & How to Heal

Sarah Grynberg (0:00)

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Dr. Ramani is a clinical psychologist and one of the world's leading experts on narcissism and narcissistic relationships. Through her work, she has helped millions of people recognise narcissistic behaviour, understand its impact and learn how to protect themselves from relationships that can leave them questioning their own reality.

In this conversation, we talk about how to spot a narcissist, the warning signs we often miss, what to do if you're in a relationship with one, how to navigate a narcissistic boss or workplace, what gaslighting is and how to deal with it, and perhaps most importantly for parents, how we can raise confident children without raising narcissists.

Ramani Durvasula (1:20)

This is what parents can be doing. I think parents are so focused too often, getting their kids on the right economic track, to make them competitive for the global economy.

My just empathy, emotional regulation, accountability, and meet them where they're at. Do that and this child will thrive as a human being. I don't know if they're going to be rich, I don't know what they're going to be, but they're going to be good people and God knows the world needs more good people.

Sarah Grynberg (1:56)

I'm Sarah Grynberg, and this is A Life Of Greatness.

Through my years of studying and researching the connection between human behaviour, personal growth and transformation, I have discovered the keys to unlocking greatness within others. In this podcast, I share stories and experiences from my own teachings along with conversations with inspiring guests to help you learn the simple tips, habits, practices and strategies to cultivate an extraordinary existence. My hope is that this conversation gives you the clarity to recognise unhealthy behaviour for what it is. Trust yourself when something doesn't feel right and understand that protecting your peace sometimes means changing how you respond to the people around you. Dr Ramani, welcome to A Life Of Greatness. I've wanted you on the podcast for so long, so I'm really excited to have you here today.

Ramani Durvasula (2:56)

Oh, it's such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Sarah Grynberg (2:58)

Thank you. Can you talk to us? Obviously, a lot of people know you for the topic of narcissism, but I'd like to know why this topic became so important to you.

Ramani Durvasula (3:10)

Yeah, so there's a lot of reasons this topic became important, and it's a good way to put it, important to me. Initially, a boring way, I was doing academic research on narcissism, and I was looking at how it was associated with different things in health care.

Then I had a private practice, and I was seeing more and more clients coming in, talking about relationships with the same dynamics over and over, and I thought, why isn't anyone talking to them about narcissistic dynamics? Because this might actually turn a light on for them. It did, and it really changed how I practice. Then something got me really angry, which was that the field of mental health didn't want to recognize this for what it was. They were talking about, oh, it's communication problems. Relationships are difficult. I'm like, these aren't communication problems. It's not a communication problem. Someone keeps lying and twisting another person's words. That's something very different.

It was funny. People like this must have happened to you. It did happen to me, but that's actually not why I got into it. Then years down the road as I did this work more and more, I was like, whoa, yeah, this really did happen to me. So it was funny that how that full circle had to happen almost in a place that felt safer, which was work, before I was able to recognize how this had showed up in so many places in my life. But I actually started it from a very geeky academic place.

Sarah Grynberg (4:23)

And you're a psychologist. Tell us a bit about your background as a psychologist and how long you've been practicing and the sort of practice of psychology that you do.

Ramani Durvasula (4:34)

Yeah. So I did my undergraduate first four years of college at University of Connecticut. Fantastic experience. And then I came to UCLA, which was a phenomenal experience. So the educational experience I had there, I worked with world-class researchers and I did all kinds of research on a lot of different things, on HIV, on pregnancy, on multi-ethnic issue, multi-ethnic mental health, all of the things, ethnic minority health, social class, all kinds of different things. Everything but narcissism, interestingly, but it was there I learned to be a therapist. I then did what's called a fellowship at UCLA, in a different area of UCLA and studied more about HIV, and then I got my first academic position at a university called California State University of Los Angeles, taught, did research, but it was there, I was at 25 years ago or more, I got into doing research on narcissism.