Can an INFP be a narcissist?

In this article, we will explain if a person with an INFP personality can be a narcissist. For that, it will explain what a personality is, and the personality type indicator created by Myers-Briggs Type, we will also clarify what it means to be an INFP person, its traits, strengths, and weaknesses. 

Besides that, the article will explain what does it mean to be a narcissist, its characteristics, and how they act in society and concerning other people.

What is personality?

Personality refers to a person’s individual qualities, patterns of thoughts, and behaviors. Every person is different, the personality is created in our childhood years, and it is impacted by our life experiences since our personality is developing in interaction with our environment. Once we turn into adults it is possible to observe personality traits in every one of us.

What is the Myers-Briggs type indicator? 

To better identify personality traits, an indicator was created, called the Myers-Briggs Type indicator, that divided the types of personality into 16 personality types based on the dichotomy of these 4 categories:

• Introversion/Extroversion
• Sensing/Extroversion
• Thinking/Feeling
• Judging/Perceiving

The indicator says that each person will identify better with one of the characteristics of each category said above, producing 16 unique types of personality. They are:

• ISTJ: the inspector
• ISTP: the crafter
• ISFJ: the protector
• ISFP: the artist
• INFJ: the advocate
• INFP: the mediator
• INTJ: the architect
• INTP: the thinker
• ESTP: the persuader
• ESTJ: the director
• ESFP: the performer
• ESFJ: the caregiver
• ENFP: the champion
• ENFJ: the giver
• ENTP: the debater
• ENTJ: the commander

What does it mean to be INFP?

Being the mediator means that a person can be more idealistic, creative, and driven by making the world and the community they live in a better place, and help others. They are people that want to understand more about themselves, the place they fit in the world.

They are usually more introverted people that can feel social situations as draining, because of that they prefer to interact mostly with people they are close to. 

People with an INFP personality type usually focus on the big picture of things and tend to follow their intuition, being that they use their feelings more than their rationality when making decisions.

The biggest qualities of a person with an INFP personality are being a loyal and devoted person, caring, values their close relationships although can also work well alone. 

A person with that personality type also has some they need to improve during their lifetime, such as: dealing with their overly idealistic, since that can lead to a lot of frustration and high expectations; they also tend to take things too personally and might close themselves up, making it hard for people to get to know them. 

Because they are usually focused on the big picture of every situation, they can often overlook details.

What is a narcissist?

Now that we’ve got a better understanding of what it means to have an INFP personality, let’s clarify what it means to say that a person is a narcissist.

A narcissist is what we call a person that has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), which is a mental illness that happens when a person has a distorted view of themselves and unstable emotions.

They usually expect superior treatment from others because they tend to want to feel special. They are power seekers that want to be admired. Narcissists have a great sense of entitlement and are willing to manipulate others for their gain, being unable to feel empathy towards others.

On the other hand, people with narcissistic personality disorder tend to become aggressive when they don’t receive enough attention or feel like they might be losing control. 

They usually have a lot of problems in interpersonal relationships and don’t deal well with processing and dealing with emotions, as well as dealing with changes and stress. The sense of frustration narcissists feel when they fail is enormous and although it might not seem like it, they are people driven by shame, insecurities, and vulnerability.

So can a person with an INFP personality be a narcissist?

Not really, it would be rare. As shown before, people with an INFP type of personality are usually greatly empathetic people, caring, that want to help others and the world around them. 

This sense of genuinely caring for others, without considering their benefits in the situation is something that feels far-fetched for a narcissistic person. They will usually take action only in an attempt to fulfill their supply of narcissism so they can go back to feeling special and desired again when they start to feel vulnerable.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS(FAQ): Can an INFP be a narcissist.

Do narcissists feel attraction to a person with an INFP personality?

They might be because people with INFP are usually seen as gentle and caring, a narcissist might feel like they are an easy target to manipulate. 

But it is important to know that an INFP will not only tend to attract narcissists, they usually attract people that are unhealthy.

That happens because of their over-empathetic trait. They usually have such a way of helping and caring for people that people in trouble might look for INFP to feel accepted and heard.

How can an INFP avoid being in a relationship with a narcissist?

The first thing to do in this situation is to not feel guilty about your ability to care for others. Embrace that great quality and understand that the problem lies with people that take advantage of that.

When you have a narcissist that wants to be in a relationship with you, remember to set boundaries. They usually feed on you being there for them, they want to feel special and desired, so if you feel your needs are not being heard, set your boundaries, and if they are still not listening, cutting contact might be a way to deal with it.

People around you might not understand why you are cutting ties with someone, because you are usually so attentive, but remember that even if it doesn’t make sense to others, you shouldn’t be in a relationship where you feel disrespected and drained.

What are the unhealthy traits of an INFP?

A person with an unhealthy INFP personality can be controlling and self-conscious. Because they always see the big picture of things, they have a clear idea of what they want to do, and where they want to get with their actions, so when people disagree with their views, they might find it offensive.

What does a narcissist do to keep you connected to them?

Narcissists are self-obsessed, they tend to want all the attention to themselves, and to get that, they might even be deceptive. The first thing to know is that narcissists usually target people with a codependency pattern. 

In doing that, they have all the power in the relationship and will make the other person think they are the only one responsible to fix and deal with all the problems in the relationship.

So one might ask why would someone stay in that relationship. But it is important to remember that when trying to seduce the person, they win control over the person by making them feel special.

 After that, the narcissist continues to keep control of the person by generating feelings of shock and guilt in the other person.

The person might want things that the narcissist doesn’t want to oblige to, they might do a guilt move to keep the person under his control. In that, they might make use of gaslighting as a way to destabilize and weaken the other person.

Narcissists enjoy playing games with other people’s emotions for their benefit. A great way to keep a person close to them is by playing the hot and cold game. 

They will be extremely sweet and flattering at one moment and aggressive at the other. And when the person starts to think about leaving the relationship because of this aggressive side, they turn sweet again, and the person might not notice that they are being manipulated.

What will a narcissist do if you cut them out of your life?

It depends on how the relationship was, but since a narcissist needs attention, when they find themselves alone, they might try to contact you as a way to refill their narcissist supply. 

The loss of contact can be something that torments the narcissist because they lose control over the other person.

It might happen that they won’t be the ones to initiate the contact, but since they like games, they might hover around to try and suck the person back to the old dynamics. By doing that, they can be the ones to say it wasn’t them that initiated contact again. 

If the person allows the narcissist back in their life, there will be a great phase. The person will feel great because the narcissist will be so attentive and seductive, but it will take no time for the relationship to go back to its old pattern until the person might decide to cut that tie again.

CONCLUSION

In this article, it was discussed if a person with the INFP personality type can be a narcissist. To answer these questions it was shown what are the personality types established by Myers-Briggs, and the main traits of an INFP person. 

Aside from that, the article revealed what it means to be a narcissist and its main characteristics. As a consequence of all that, it was shown that an INFP can’t be a narcissist, since they are highly empathetic people, something that is lacking in a narcissist person.

If you have any questions or comments about this article, feel free to write it in the area below.

REFERENCES

https://www.apa.org/topics/personality

Ronningstam, Elsa Ph.D. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Journal of Psychiatric Practice: March 2011 – Volume 17 – Issue 2 – p 89-99.