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May 9, 2018 16 mins

George Noory and psychotherapist Ross Rosenberg examine his research into sociopaths and psychological manipulation, and ways to identify the personality traits of abusive people to protect yourself.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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from Coast to Coast AM on iHeart Radio and welcome
back to Coast to Coast George Norri with you. Ross
Rosenberg is with us. Has been a psycho therapist since

(00:44):
and as an international speaker, author, professional trainer. He's considered
an expert in the fields of codependency, narcissism, gas lighting.
Will tell you what that means. Ross owns the Clinical
Care Consultants, which is a multilocation in the Chica Go
suburbs of counseling Centers and Self Love Recovery Institute, which

(01:05):
is an educational company promoting personal and professional development. Fascinating work. Ross,
welcome to the program. Well, George, thank you so much
for having me on and staying up so late to
be with us. I'm impressed. Well so is my wife. Alright, great.
Gas Lighting is a phrase that I'm beginning to hear
a lot, and it has to do with somebody who's

(01:28):
a manipulator. Tell me a little bit more about that,
because that's important to tonight. Gas Lighting comes from this
movie in the forties with Charles Borrier and and um,
and it kind of lingered in our society and never
really caught on until the politics of the last four years.
Gas Lighting is when a person who has sociopathic or

(01:51):
or psychopathic tendencies purposefully manipulates a person into believing they
have a problem that never existed, manipulating the environment to
prove to them that they have this problem, and once
they finally they fully accepted they are if they fall
within their control, it's it's a scurge as that's impacting

(02:14):
so many millions of people globally and and even in
our political system. People don't even know that these ideas
that have been implanted in their head are not theirs
and follow under the predatory control of these of these
despicable pathological narcissists. What these people rush, well that these

(02:39):
pathological narcissists who have the you know who are sociopaths.
They come from backgrounds where they were born into families
that destroyed their capacity to have empathy. So you think
about what creates a criminal, it's it's during the deformative
years there they were crushed psychologic So they come into

(03:00):
adulthood and all they care about is getting their own needs.
To them, it's better to be the bug instead of
on the windshield. They will do anything to get what
they need, even if it's at the cost of hurting people.
And without empathy, they don't have that internal what we
say in the psychological field, they don't have that cognitive
dissonance and internal unease that maybe perhaps they're doing something wrong.

(03:25):
How can you tell, uh, you know, the average person,
how can they tell that they're dealing with somebody like
this because the very coy aren't I yes, and and
and In my book The Human Magnet Syndrome, I explain
that gas lighters like pedophiles, or I should say gas
lighters like people who prey upon younger children. They look

(03:48):
for the weak ones. So gas lighters require a person
who's codependent, a person who was raised to be selfless,
to be altruistic, to always believe people even so they are.
They seek that person who is susceptible to their manipulation.
It's not a coincidence. Gas lighters cannot fulfill their control

(04:13):
destiny with the average healthy person. They need a certain
person who lacks psychological strength or has really low self esteem.
So as much as I can tell you about what
are the red and I will what are the red
flags for a gas lighter and how do you find them?
They find their victims. Any person who has been gas

(04:35):
lit comes from a background where they have already been
beaten down. They've already been any any self esteem or
any feeling that their intuition is correct has been surgically
removed from them, and gas lighters can spot them, they
can sniff them out, and that's where the human magnetsenter

(04:56):
comes to bear. The narcissists need the code dependent, and
the codependent needs the narcissists like a dancing couple without
there it's almost like a parasite host on a host. Yeah,
it's like that. But that in the part that I
emphasize in my book is the codependent actually feels like
they're getting something from the narcissist, and that's why they

(05:18):
fall prey to these translating monsters. They feel good about it,
absolutely it so to understand the human magnisiner misunderstand that
when codependents meet narcissists, they fall in love with them,
they experienced joy and and it's such wonderful soulmate crowd. Really,
how long does that continue? It continues until the narcissist

(05:42):
comes out of their shell, their their their masks is
taken off. And at that time the codependent, by their
very nature, because of their personality, their weakness or low
self esteemed, their lack of experience and setting boundaries, they
are trapped. And then when they are trapped, they make
the decision that they've known their whole life. And every

(06:02):
codependent will tell you is why fights something Because it's
better to be in a relationship than to be alone.
And that combination that what I call the metaphorical dance
partnership that the leader needs the followers. They both are
getting something from it. And as much as as much
as I can tell your listeners and I will look
out for these traits, you also have to look out

(06:24):
for yourself because if you are suffering from horrible self
esteem and you have no self love and you and
you fit, you know this codependent description that's going to
get you at the end. It's not the guy who's
going to trick you. Because to a healthy person, George,
that not only do these monsters not even trying to

(06:45):
connect to or manipulate healthy people, they're afraid of them.
They can smell them. Who is what is a healthy person?
These days? We'll see I've always had this definition, and
you know, being in the psychotherapy field thirty one years
and having a few years on the side of the couch.
Healthy is someone who has problems normal and healthy as

(07:05):
a person who has problems who has internal resources to
solve them or seeks external resources, whether it's a rabbi,
a priest, a therapist. To me, that is healthy where
you love yourself and respect yourself enough to know, hey,
this really sucks. I don't like what's going on in
my life. I need help. I gotta fix it. I mean,

(07:27):
that's that is the definition help. Because I don't believe.
Maybe I'm jaded. I don't believe that people there's people
that don't have problems. I think that's everybody does. We're humans, right,
and to me, to me, that's a red flag. Someone
someone's hiding something interesting. Now the person who is the
manipulated one, the person who gets manipulated by this narcissist,

(07:52):
to this, this gas lighter, are they weak? Generally? They
are weak. See to understand it. Codependent is understand they
just don't happen because of their personality. These people, just
like the narcissists, they come from families that have created
this psychopathology, this mental health problem. So they are by

(08:12):
nature afraid of being alone. They are terrified of loneliness.
They have so much shame and and they're conscious of it.
And so when they need someone to feel good about themselves,
so when they fall in love with the beautiful, charming,
seductive narcissist or the bold, funny woman, right, well absolutely,

(08:33):
I was gonna say, man, they feel like they hit
the jackpot they had and they don't see a narcissist like,
oh I'm a I'm a poor, pathetic codependent I'll take
the narcissists. Now, they think of that handsome, edgy, bold,
charismatic man or woman, and they think, oh my god,
I've met my soul mate. And conversely, the patholostical narcissists

(08:55):
find someone that they can talk about their problems all night.
They can go on a date and talk for an
hour and a half straight, not be interrupted, talk about
their three failed marriages, why they won't pay your child support,
and that person across the table from them grabs her hand,
cries and says, oh my gosh, I feel so bad
for you. It's like they it's like the two are
matched so perfectly, and that's the human magnet syndrome, that's

(09:16):
the draw that brings them together. But if you are
the gas lighting type of narcissists, because not all narcissists
are gas lighters, that's the target you want. You are
looking for that. And and generally, let's say out of
ten people, what percent would be the narcissist or the

(09:38):
sociopath or the gas lighter. Well, they say, statistics are
hard to compile when it comes to narcissists. For one
reason is narcissists don't know they're narcissistic to they do
not no, no. The part part of the diagnosis is
for narcissistic personality disorder or what we call the sociopath.
The diagnosis is an antisocial personal disorder. Because you know,

(10:00):
we in the field, we actually have to abide by diagnostic.
It means that they're not outgoing. No, they don't know
that there's anything wrong with them. They tend to externalize
all the problems. If something bad happens, they see it
in other people, they blame everybody else's blame and it's
called projection. They put they put onto others what they
can't accept in themselves. So if a narcissist meets another narcissist,

(10:23):
they will like be mad because that person is selfish
and self They hate each other right because yeah, it's
funny because they're talking about themselves and they don't even
know it. And so it's so easy to spot if
you're mentally healthy. And again according to my normal mental
healthy definition, it's so easy to spot because they're so

(10:46):
broken and need another broken person to feel normal. I want,
I want to get a better picture of this if
we can ross so kind of give us, give us
a story or or an example, first of all, of
the narcissist, a stick person, or the gas lighter. Absolutely so. Well,
first of all, all gas lighters are what I call

(11:06):
pathological narcissists that have a disorder that's either a narcissistic
personality disorder or antisocial personal disorder, which most people know
as sociopath They are um, they lack empathy. They are
very selfish, They are entitled. They believe that their needs
supersede everyone else's. They have this grandiose belief in themselves.

(11:30):
In other words, they they sincerely believe that they are
bigger and better than they really are. And and it's
a distorted sense of self. They they are pushy, they
can be arrogant, they can be vain. So and so
this is what I would call your standard, run of
the mill narcissists. The gas lighter is that narcissist. But

(11:52):
now you have to add what sociopathy. You have to
add um, not having a conscience, not having empathy, not
not feeling at all bad at hurting someone. They have
to be not only tune out, but having no connection
because they hurt someone so badly that having any empathy

(12:15):
would disrupt them. So so I'll think of one. I
have a client who's who's a husband was a a
medical doctor. Husband was a medical doctor, and she was
twenty one and she came from the family that was
so typical of codependence, but we're talking about narcissists, and

(12:38):
he immediately took control of the family, and she felt
she was fulfilling her dream. She found a man, she
found the doctor, she got a house, and he immediately
started arranging not only the family in her life. She
found herself pregnant once twice, three times, and little by

(12:59):
little he would barrate her and tell her what is
wrong with her. He would manipulate her or the environment
or other people to prove that she was in socially,
that her anxiety was out of control. She already had
anxiety because she had low self esteemed well, not only
the magnified he created. He manipulated the environment to prove

(13:24):
to her that she had something that she didn't have.
So at the end of the night, he would say, wow,
you're really anxious, and you know, people came up to
me and asked me if you're okay, you know, maybe
you should get some help. Yes, that's that they are.
They are manipulating the environment systematically in order to implant

(13:44):
a narrative, and a narrative is a story about yourself.
They're more than liars. They are their sociopaths that that
they had a plan to hurt, dominate, and destroy someone's
individual psychological spirit for the purpose of control and domination.
I mean, do they isn't exciting to them to do this?

(14:05):
Why do they do this? They have a need for it, right? Um?
My experience is that the gas laders don't do it
because of excitement. Um, it is because they have this
need to feel safe and control in a world that
doesn't love them, in a world that hates them. So
they have to figure out a way to exist in

(14:26):
their own little bubble, secret bubble, feeling like they are
on top of the world in which they are godlike,
where they can control people and make people love and
admire them and keep them trapped without outside interference. If
one of these people comes to you for help, how
do you get them out of this situation? I don't

(14:49):
And it's not easy, is it? Well, well, it's impossible.
Research shows that it's virtually impossible to have successful outcomes
for people who are sociopath You can't help someone who
not only doesn't think they have a problem, but who
doesn't feel bad about a problem. You have to have
some form of dissonance in your thinking. You have to

(15:11):
have guilt, sadness, regret. Therapy relies on the fundamental psychological
function of feeling bad about what's going on in your
life for yourself. If you if you are a sociopath,
gas lighter, or extreme narcissist, you are only feeling bad
if someone's catching you. You are feeling so satisfied and

(15:34):
fulfilled because you have created your own little bubble where
you have your little zombie slave who who has been
inculcated or manipulated to believe there's someone else and they
don't even know it. You've cut off their relationships with others.
You've sometimes cut them off from working. You've interfered with
their ability to get help from psychologists. You've you've interfered

(15:57):
with the relationships with families. You have I sellated them
so perfectly and masterfully that you are guaranteed to maintain
this godlike, powerful persona that makes you feel good. And
listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coast

(16:18):
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George Noory

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