One of the biggest things that I learned from this documentary was a concept created in 1995 by one of the specialists, Sam Vaknin. This concept is known as “Abuse by Proxy” and involves the perpetrator recruiting third parties (friends, police officers, therapists, etc.) and making them believe that the victim is actually the perpetrator and, thus, they become additional perpetrators of the abuse (Vaknin, n.d.). These third party, and usually unsuspecting followers, are known as “flying monkeys” who are manipulated by the perpetrator into thinking they are doing good by negatively impacting the real victim (Meijer, 2019). 

Something that I found very interesting was that the documentary discussed that most individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are also psychopaths (Meijer, 2019). This makes sense to me since both narcissists and psychopaths present a lack of remorse or empathy towards others. It is later discussed that this empathy can appear but only when the emotions directly impact the perpetrator and not the victim (Meijer, 2019). 

This documentary exceeded my expectations. I thought that the documentary was very well created and the narrative structure made this complex topic very easy to follow and understand. I thought it was incredible that the director/producer of the documentary, Alessa Meijer, was also one of the victims that were sharing their stories throughout. This personal touch made gave this documentary more engaging and helped to show the need for education in this field by showing the lengths that victims are willing to go in order to be heard after years of psychological or physical abuse. 

References:

Meijer, A.. (2019). Narcissistic Abuse Documentary (Video). YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfE-u2NzyQw

Vaknin, S. (n.d.). Abuse by Proxy. Published in Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited. Retrieved from the Vaknin website at https://samvak.tripod.com/abuse11.html