What exactly is Narcissistic Supply?

I've searched threads a bit, but can anyone help me understand what Narcissistic Supply (NS) is exactly? I find the term and how it is used rather confusing. People talk about it like it's a thing to go get. Is it just a fancy way of saying, "someone who gives love and affection". Why call it supply? People naturally need love and affection.

The first is quantitative. The normal person is likely to welcome a moderate amount of attention – verbal and non-verbal – in the form of affirmation, approval, or admiration. Too much attention, though, is perceived as onerous and is avoided. Destructive and negative criticism is avoided altogether.

The narcissist, in contrast, is the mental equivalent of an alcoholic. He is insatiable. He directs his whole behaviour, in fact his life, to obtain these pleasurable titbits of attention. He embeds them in a coherent, completely biased, picture of himself. He uses them to regulates his labile sense of self-worth and self-esteem.

To elicit constant interest, he projects to others a confabulated, fictitious version of himself, known as the False Self. The False Self is everything the narcissist is not: omniscient, omnipotent, charming, intelligent, rich, or well-connected.

The narcissist then proceeds to harvest reactions to this projected image from family members, friends, co-workers, neighbours, business partners and from colleagues. If these – the adulation, admiration, attention, fear, respect, applause, affirmation – are not forthcoming, the narcissist demands them, or extorts them. Money, compliments, a favourable critique, an appearance in the media, a sexual conquest are all converted into the same currency in the narcissist's mind.

This currency is what I call Narcissistic Supply.

It is important to distinguish between the various components of the process of narcissistic supply:

1. The trigger of supply is the person or object that provokes the source into yielding narcissistic supply by confronting the source with information about the narcissist's False Self.

2. The source of narcissistic supply is the person that provides the narcissistic supply

3. Narcissistic supply is the reaction of the source to the trigger.

another site that talks about it: http://www.healthyplace.com/personality ... u-id-1469/

dimeo wrote:I've searched threads a bit, but can anyone help me understand what Narcissistic Supply (NS) is exactly? I find the term and how it is used rather confusing. People talk about it like it's a thing to go get. Is it just a fancy way of saying, "someone who gives love and affection". Why call it supply? People naturally need love and affection.

The way I understand it, Narcissistic Supply is any data recognized by a Narcissist as supportive and affirming to his glorified view of himself.

This could take the form of direct praise of the N's abilities, or clear backing of his views, or clear attack against his opposes, or obvious recognition of his powers (whether real or imaginary). It can also take many other forms.

Although praise and affirmation of one's abilities have a positive effect on all sorts of people in general, even those who do not suffer from a Personality Disorder, yet for an NPD person, such praise and affirmation have a crucial importance Narc’s attaining inner peace ande offering “nourishment” to their highly anemic self confidence.

This could be better explained via understanding the causes of NPD and how it such disorder is formed. The main cause of narcissism is the person’s fear of all his surroundings, which is developed at a very early age (10 month - 4 or 5years of age), and became an integral part and a main foundation of his/her personality.
This fear is, presumably, caused by severe fluctuations in the parents/care-takers ability to offer comfort and basic fulfillment for the infant, and to losing his trust in them and to heightening his fear his surroundings.
NPD occurs when such early fear is assuaged through increased activity of the infant's imagination, which gradually creates a virtual world in which he is a master/controller and center of everything. This could grow into the formation of the Glorified Self Image, which is the basic defect in the character of the Narcissist.
Since The Glorified Self Image is a fictional creation of the Narc’s mind, it usually contradicts with deta from the real world, and hence, the Narc is in constant need for confirmations that The Glorified Self Image is true and capable, hence the need for Praise/affirmation of abilities and skills/support of views (i.e. narcissistic Supply).

So, in that context, any data perceived by the narcissist as belittling or contradictory with his view of himself as perfect and impeccable (even in the form of a fleeting remark on how his tie doesn't match his shirt) could be translated as an attack on his very existence. Similarly , any data perceived as affirming of the narcs perfection and power would act as fuel or supply for his self-confidence and his ability to handle the perelious and nightmarish external world.

Sources of supply could be:
- People(praising N's skills, obeying N's orders),
- Events (the event of wining in a game/a fight/an argument)
- Thoughts or concepts ( any idea or concept or doctrines that could be translated or understood as supportive of the narcs powers/skills/abilities, etc)
-Objects( any trophy of previous triumphs, like medals won is a competition- also any tools that enable him to be more powerful, like money- any artifacts produced by the narc or products of his / her intellect which were praised and admired, e.g. a poem or a drawing or a sculpture they produced and earned them applause).
-Memories (of previous triumphs, which are relived several times to gain supply)

It might be is worth noting that an NPD is unaware of his extreme fear and never regards himself as scared of his surroundings, and hurriedly resorts to complete denial and/or aggression whenever his fearful nature is exposed to him by someone else.

A Narcissist is also unaware that his need for praise and sensitivity towards criticism are much higher than usual, unless this fact is brought to his attention another person.

I hope that helps.

i prefer my supply in the form of physical attention and flirtation.