Pathological Love Relationship
Glossary

It can be difficult to keep up with the terminology used in narcissistic/psychopathic abuse. This is a quickly growing field, so the terminology grows right along with the research. This list should help you understand the intricacies better and also may be quite validating for you.

For a broader list of terms that is better kept up to date, please visit the website
“Fairy Tale Shadows,” brought to us by the author of the book, “Why Can’t I Just Leave”
(See this book on my website under “Resources.”)

Anti-Social Personality Disorder (ASPD):
A personality disorder in which someone shows a strong disregard for norms, morals, and the law, and often the rights and safety of others. A typical person with the disorder has a willingness to manipulate and exploit others, behaves impulsively and irresponsibly to get what they want, and is unconcerned with what anyone else thinks. Lack of remorse and empathy are key characteristics.

Ambient Abuse:
Atmospheric abuse created through persistent gaslighting, isolation, information control, instability, covert manipulation of events, and other psychologically abusive tactics. It results in an erosion of the victim’s confidence, perception of reality, and independence so the abuser can control and exploit the victim in other ways.

Abuse Amnesia:
Involuntary denial in which the survivor of a pathological relationship suppresses awareness of the abuse during periods of love-bombing to avoid psychological conflict or anxiety. This develops subconsciously over time as an adaptation to extreme cognitive dissonance after suffering through multiple rounds of the narcissistic cycle of abuse to continue to function while surviving a relationship that feels impossible to escape.

Brainwashing:
A term used to explain the most repressive forms of mind control in which individuals know they are under a coercive influence, such as totalitarian societies and prisoners of war. Because of this, they may be subjected to the most overt and some of the most physically harsh methods of thought reform.

Coercive Control:
A term for excessive monitoring and covert or overt dominance over one or more areas of a partner’s life, such as finances, career, friendships, clothing choices, hobbies, or communication. It usually begins as concern for the partner, starts slowly, and can be subtle, when it can be cloaked and hidden in many seemingly loving behaviors. These include criticizing in an off-handed way the partner’s body, clothing, accomplishments, or friends; invading privacy by reading private messages or listening in on phone calls; accusing the partner of cheating when no evidence exists; insisting the partner remain in constant contact; and making it very unpleasant for the partner to do things that don’t involve the abuser. The results of these behaviors are to cause doubt and lower the self-esteem of the partner and to isolate him or her from others and give the pathological partner more control. 

Cognitive Dissonance:
The uncomfortable feeling of anxiety that results when our actions, beliefs, or emotions conflict with one another or when we hold two contradictory beliefs. The greater the dissonance, the stronger the urge to resolve it.

Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (complex PTSD, sometimes abbreviated to c-PTSD or CPTSD) is a condition where you experience some symptoms of PTSD along with some additional symptoms, such as…
-difficulty regulating your emotions
-feeling very angry or distrustful
-constant feelings of emptiness or hopelessness
-feeling as if you are permanently damaged or worthless
-feeling as if you are completely different to other people
-feeling like nobody can understand what happened to you
-avoiding friendships and relationships, or finding them very difficult
-often experiencing dissociative symptoms such as “depersonalisation,” “derealisation,” clouded thinking, or memory issues.
-physical symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, chest pains, stomach aches
-regular thoughts/feelings of self-harm or suicide
If you have complex PTSD you may be particularly likely to experience what some people call an ’emotional flashback’, in which you have intense feelings that you originally felt during the trauma, such as fear, shame, sadness or despair. You might react to events in the present as if they are causing these feelings, without realizing that you are having a flashback.
Symptoms of CPTSD can closely resemble borderline personality disorder symptoms, but a well-trained clinician can help identify one from the other.

Cult:
A group in which deceptive practices are used to recruit members, the members express very strong or absolute devotion to an idea or a person, and a leader or leaders exploit and manipulate the devotion of the group members to their own detriment.

Dissociation:
The state of feeling disconnected to what is happening around oneself, as if it has an unreal quality to it or is happening to someone else. This state is an adaptation to the trauma of the narcissistic abuse cycle. There are two types of dissociation: depersonalization and derealization.

Dual Identity:
After a person has been in a repressive environment that restricts his or her thoughts and actions, including a relationship with a low-conscience individual, he or she may develop dual thoughts and motivations that stem from the “authentic self” that recognizes the partner’s behavior as abusive and the “false self” that has adapted to the abuse and emerged due to the partner’s manipulation. This results in survivors of pathological love relationships developing a dual identity as a survival mechanism to avoid being absorbed by the partner. It allows them to protect their true self while also resolving cognitive dissonance and avoiding further punishment.

Final Discard: 
Pathological partners follow a relationship pattern (see Idealize-Devaluation-Discard), but they often return and keep their ex-partners in a rotation for months or even years (see Hoovering). A final discard is considered the moment when some pathological partners decide to discontinue the cycle on their own and leave the partner forever, sometimes in the most damaging way possible. Yet, with a pathological partner, partners can never know if the cycle is over or he or she is putting it on pause—even a long one. Therefore, an argument can be made that the “final discard” is theoretical.

FOG:
The mental state of confusion generated by the psychological and emotional abuse perpetrated by pathological partners. It stands for Fear, Obligation, and Guilt, some of the primary manufactured emotions pathological partners use to try to keep their partners bound to them.

Future-Faking:
Grandiose promises to survivors that pathological partners make about highly desirable events or tangible items the pathological partner knows are meaningful to their partner, but the pathological partner has no intention of following through on—unless it is beneficial and convenient to the pathological partner. The promises are made to fake intimacy and familiarity so the pathological partner can gain something in the moment.

Gaslighting:
Providing conflicting information or lying to someone in direct contradiction to what that person blatantly perceives for himself or herself. Over time, people subjected to repeated gaslighting can start to doubt their perceptions of reality. The term comes from a 1944 play turned film, in which a man purposely tries to drive his wife insane by making the gaslights flicker, then telling her she is imagining it when she points it out.

Gray Rock:
When there are barriers that prevent a partner from ending contact with their narcissistic partner entirely (see No-Contact), this is an alternative in which the partner remains in technical contact with the pathological partner out of necessity, however, has emotionally detached from him or her. The contact occurs only when necessary, is devoid of emotion, and does not provide the pathological partner with any information beyond what is essential to convey.

Grooming:
The process of slowly combining negative behavior with positive behavior in a relationship to erode a partner’s boundaries so he or she will accept abusive treatment. Sometimes a metaphor of “boiling the frog” is used to explain how this can happen, in which the heat is turned up slowly, and the frog doesn’t know it’s being boiled until it’s too late.

Hoovering:
A “hoover,” named after a brand of vacuum cleaner, is a tactic used by pathological partners to “suck” a survivor back into the narcissistic abuse cycle. It happens after a period of silence (a “discard”) during which the survivor and the pathological partner are not in contact with each other. During a hoover, the pathological partner reaches out to the survivor again to make contact using a predictable method that eventually consolidates in declarations of (undying) love. What characterizes a hoover is that it is insincere. Its purpose is to bring the survivor back under control, and despite any promises otherwise, no lasting change in behavior from the pathological partner will have occurred.

Hypnosis (or “trance”):
A trance state in which a person’s mental focus turns inward, and he or she disconnects from the external environment. This results in the body being able to perform acts without mental attention. This term is used to describe this specific dissociation. 

Idealize-Devaluation-Discard:
The stages of the narcissistic cycle of abuse. In the idealization stage at the beginning of the relationship, the pathological partner puts his or her partner on a pedestal and showers them with excessive praise and attention. At some point, the pathological partner will begin to see his or her partner as flawed or even grow bored, and the devaluation stage begins. The pathological partner begins to abuse the partner but sees himself or herself as the victim because the partner is not providing attention or not bending to his or her will. Finally, when the pathological partner no longer sees any value in the partner, perhaps if the partner has asked one too many times for an explanation of why something has changed or demanded to be treated with respect, the pathological partner discards the partner for a new partner. The cycle often repeats many times before the relationship ends.

Identity Erosion:
During all stages of the narcissistic cycle of abuse, narcissistic abusers use emotional control, behavioral control, information control, and thought control to reward and punish their partners. As a result, the partner adopts a perspective that identifies and protects the partner and his or her personality changes. This identity erosion is not “total” and, in other contexts, is referred to as a “dual identity” or “doubling” because partners may often feel as if they are in conflict with themselves over their own desires. 

Intermittent Reinforcement:
A pattern of behavior in which the pathological partner randomly intersperses kindness between acts of cruelty. Psychological research demonstrates this is an especially powerful method of influencing behavior. Because the partner never knows when the pathological partner will show kindness, the randomness is one of the most critical forces that keeps the partner tied to the relationship, hoping it could come at any moment, and that each time, the cruelty has come to an end.

Learned Helplessness: 
A psychological attitude the survivor of a pathological love relationship may develop in which he or she feels powerless to leave or escape the relationship despite having a desire to be free of it. It can result from traumatic or ineffective attempts to leave due to dramatic or aggressive responses by the pathological partner. As pathological partners repeatedly draw survivors back into the cycle, survivors begin to feel as if they have no control over their own lives.

Love-Bombing:
A period of intense, positive domination of the time, attention, and/or space of either a new partner or a partner who has been hoovered back into a relationship. The pathological partner bombards the partner with excessive flattery, over-the-top declarations of love and romantic gestures, gifts, sex, and many psychologically manipulative tactics to elicit fast-tracked familiarity and intimacy (see Mirroring, Future-Faking). As a result, partners form (and later strengthen) a powerful bond with the pathological partner. The pathological partner’s behavior elicits trust, vulnerability, and dependence, which makes the survivor easier to exploit.

Malignant Narcissist: 
A special sub-type of narcissist who shares some of the characteristics of those with ASPD, such as aggressiveness, deceitfulness, and remorselessness. They are often sadistic and gain pleasure from hurting others.

Mind Control:
The use of tactics or behaviors to influence a person’s autonomy and identity. They may be forcible or deceptive, known or subtle. The goal is to replace the person’s authentic self with a different identity that will act in ways that serve the interests of the controller. The mind control is usually not total when the environment is non-immersive, thus the dual identity emerges (See Dual Identity).

Mirroring:
One of the tactics used during love-bombing. It can be physical, such as when the pathological partner mimics the partner’s body language, behaviors, and actions. Mirroring may also be verbal/psychological. For example, the pathological partner could claim to enjoy the same activities or to have had similar experiences as a partner to make it appear as if the two have a lot in common.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD):
A type of personality disorder in which a person has fantasies of self-importance and grandiosity that they believe entitle them to expect deference and special treatment from others. They lack self-insight and often claim they are being victimized when deference from others is not forthcoming. Their lack of emotional empathy leads them to exploit others to benefit themselves.

No-Contact:
The deliberate physical and psychological act by a partner of leaving a relationship with a pathological partner or, if the pathological partner is not currently in the picture, of ensuring the relationship will never rekindle. No-contact includes taking steps in the material world to ensure the pathological partner cannot make contact with the partner and mentally preparing psychologically for not interacting with the pathological partner again.

Pathological Love Relationship:
A relationship in which a person experiences “inevitable harm” as a result of their partner’s low-conscience disorder.

Pathological Lying:
Known to be a common behavior of narcissists and sociopaths, this type of lying is done compulsively out of habit. Often pathological liars tell lies to establish control. The lies may not always seem to personally benefit the liar; however, some lies may be told simply for enjoyment in what is known as “duper’s delight.”

Projection:
A defense mechanism in which someone accuses others of their own wrongful actions to avoid shame. Pathological partners also project because they often see other people as extensions and reflections of themselves, so they often have an unfounded belief that others are exploiting them as much as they are exploiting others.

Reactive Abuse.
A method of entrapment in which pathological partners manipulate their partners through hidden violence, manufactured emotions, coercive control, and other tactics over a long period of time until a partner responds aggressively, saying or doing things they wouldn’t have done under ordinary circumstances. Also known as violent resistance, a coping mechanism for intimate terrorism. Pathological partners use the reactions to justify their own abuse or claim to be the true victim in the relationship.

Silent Treatment:
A period of non-responsiveness used as a punishment by pathological partners, in which they disappear and cut off their partners, treating them as if they don’t exist. It can be used for any behavior the pathological partner doesn’t like or arbitrarily when the pathological partner perceives a fault in the relationship.

Smear Campaign:
This is a covert operation on behalf of the pathological partner to attack the credibility of the survivor by spreading gossip or telling half-truths and lies to those in both their own social circle and the survivor’s social circle. The pathological partner does this to isolate the survivor from social support and to guard against their own exposure if the survivor decides to discuss the abuse. They may also do it to prepare for their exit from the relationship or to gain sympathy from others.

Stockholm Syndrome:
A phenomenon in which victims of trauma who are subject to horrific conditions or threats to their safety, identify with their tormentors due to moments of kindness the victims are shown during the event. Those moments of humanity enable them to develop positive feelings toward the tormentors as an unconscious defense mechanism to survive the trauma.

Stonewalling:
Refusal to engage in a conversation or provide information or other resources as a form of punishment when the survivor expresses thoughts or emotions the pathological partner doesn’t like.

Trauma Bond:
A loyalty bond that forms between two or more people who experience the same traumatic event together. When it is based on power and control, it’s a negative trauma bond because at least one of the people is exploiting the loyalty of the other(s).

Triangulation:
A tactic used by pathological partners in which a third party is brought into a conflict either literally or abstractly to make the pathological partner appear in high demand, pit two people against one another, or to manufacture emotions, such as jealousy.

Undue Influence:
A legal term for deceptive influence used to manipulate someone into doing something against their own best interests. It has only recently been argued for use as a legal defense against deceptive forms of mind control.

Walking on Eggshells:
A metaphorical term for the emotional anxiety the survivor of a pathological love relationship often feels, due to not knowing what might set off an emotional tirade from their pathological partner. The survivor begins watching everything he or she says or does and curbing his or her behavior to avoid upsetting the pathological partner.

Word Salad:
Circular language tactics pathological partners use that disable attempts by survivors to discuss their concerns. Word salad conversations can include rage, projection, stonewalling, blame-shifting, gaslighting, twisting words the survivor used to have a different meaning, using false equivalencies, playing the victim, covert put-downs for bringing up the issue, bringing up unrelated issues, accusing the partner of starting arguments, and others. These tactics absolve the pathological partner of responsibility for harm, instill fear and exhaustion in the survivor, create an atmosphere of “walking on eggshells,” and result in a lack of closure and resolution. They condition the survivor to avoid or to stop talking about anything the pathological partner finds unpleasant or offensive to avoid these verbal punishments.