We all look for positive cues from people around us. These cues reinforce in us certain behaviour patterns. There is nothing special in the fact that the narcissist does the same. However there are two major differences between the narcissistic and the normal personality.

The first difference 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.

The narcissist, in contrast, is the mental equivalent of an alcoholic. He asks for more and yet more. 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 milieu, or 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 transformed into the same currency in the narcissist's mind.

This currency is what I call Narcissistic Supply (NS).

NS includes attention, fame, notoriety, adulation, fear, applause, approval. It is a mixed bag. If the narcissist gets attention �?positive or negative �?it constitutes NS. If he can manipulate people or influence them �?positively or negatively �?it qualifies as NS.

Even quarrelling with people constitutes NS. Perhaps not the fighting itself �?but the ability to influence other people, to induce feelings in them, to manipulate them emotionally, to make them do something or refrain from doing it.

NS releases libido (increases the sexual drive).

There are two immediate and easy Sources of Narcissistic Supply: publicity (celebrity or notoriety, being famous or being infamous) and having a mate or a companion. Publicity can be obtained by exposing oneself, by creating something, or by provoking attention. The narcissist resorts to all three repeatedly (as drug addicts do to secure their daily dose).

But the picture is more complicated. There are two categories of Narcissistic Supply and their Sources (NSS):

The Primary Narcissistic Supply Source is attention �?in both its public forms (fame, notoriety, infamy, celebrity) and private forms (adoration, adulation, applause, fear, repulsion). It is important to understand that attention of any kind �?positive and negative �?constitutes Primary Narcissistic Supply. Infamy is as useful as fame, notoriety as good as being renowned.

To the narcissist his "achievements" can be imaginary, fictitious, or only apparent, as long as others believe in them. Appearances count more than substance, what matters is not the truth but its perception.

The Primary Narcissistic Sources of Supply include �?apart from being famous (celebrity, notoriety, fame, infamy) �?mystique (when the narcissist is considered to be mysterious), having sex and deriving from it a sense of masculinity/virility/femininity, a projection of wealth, proximity to power (money/knowledge/contacts) �?in itself mysterious and awe inspiring.

The Secondary Sources of Narcissistic Supply include: leading a normal life (a source of great pride to the narcissist), having a secure existence (economic safety, social acceptability, upward mobility), and obtaining companionship.

The Secondary NSS include having a mate, conspicuous wealth, creativity and its products, running a business (transformed into a Pathological Narcissistic Space), the sense of an anarchic freedom, belonging to a group of people which make up a Pathological Narcissistic Space, being prestigious, reputable, or successful, owning property and status symbols (show-off).

All these sources, primary and secondary alike �?or rather the Narcissistic Supply that they provide �?are incorporated in a Narcissistic Pathological Space.

The narcissist internalises a "bad" object (typically, his mother) in his childhood. He develops socially forbidden feelings towards this object: hatred, envy, and aggression. These feelings reinforce the narcissist's self-image as bad and corrupt. Gradually he develops a dysfunctional sense of self-worth. His self-confidence and self-image become unrealistically low and distorted.

In an effort to repress the "bad" feelings, the narcissist is also forced to suppress the good emotions intertwined with them. His aggression is channelled to fantasies or to legitimate outlets (dangerous sports, gambling, reckless driving, compulsive shopping). The narcissist views the world as a hostile, unstable, unrewarding, unjust, and unpredictable place.

He defends himself by loving a completely controllable object (himself), by projecting to the world an omnipotent and omniscient False Self, and by turning others to functions or to objects so that they pose no emotional danger. This reactive pattern is what we call pathological narcissism.

To counter his demons the narcissist needs the world: its admiration, its adulation, its attention, its applause, even its penalties. The lack of a functioning personality on the inside is balanced by importing Ego functions and boundaries from the outside.

The Primary Narcissistic Supply reaffirms the narcissist's grandiose fantasies, buttresses his False Self and, thus allows him to regulate his fluctuating sense of self-worth. The Narcissistic Supply contains information which pertains to the "correctness" of the False Self, to its calibration, intensity and proper functioning. The Narcissistic Supply serves to define the boundaries of the False Self, to regulate its contents and to substitute for some of the functions normally reserved to a True, functioning, Self.

While it is easy to understand the function of the Primary Supply, the Secondary type is a more complicated affair.

The company of women and "doing business" are the two main Sources of Secondary Narcissistic Supply (SNSS). The narcissist mistakenly interprets his narcissistic needs as emotions. To him, the pursuit of a woman-SNSS, for instance, is what others call "love" or "passion".

As we said, the narcissist derives his Narcissistic Supply from PNSS and SNSS (Primary and Secondary Narcissistic Supply Sources). But this supply is perishable goods. The narcissist consumes it and has to replenish the supply. As is the case with other drug addictions, to produce the same effect, he is forced to increase the dosage as he goes.

While the narcissist uses up his supply, his partner serves as a silent (and admiring) witness to the narcissist's "great moments" and "achievements". The narcissist's female friend "accumulates" the narcissist's "grandeur" and "illustrious past". When Narcissistic Supply is low, she "releases" the accumulated supply (by reminding the narcissist of these moments of glory) and, thus, helps the narcissist to regulate his sense of self-worth.

This function �?of Narcissistic Supply accumulation and release �?is performed by all SNSS, male or female, inanimate or institutional. The narcissist's co-workers, bosses, colleagues, neighbours, and friends are all potential SNSS. They all witness the narcissist's past accomplishments and can remind him of them when new supply runs dry.

[In depth analyses of the mechanisms of Narcissistic Supply, its accumulation and regulation can be found here and here.]

Narcissists are forever in pursuit of Narcissistic Supply. They are not aware of time, are not constrained by any behavioural consistency, "rules" of conduct or moral considerations. Signal to a narcissist that you are a willing source �?and he is bound to extract his supply from you. This is a reflex. He would have reacted absolutely the same way to any other source. If what is needed to obtain supply from you is intimations of intimacy �?he will employ them liberally.

Some Sources of Supply are ideal (from the narcissist's point of view): sufficiently intelligent, sufficiently gullible, submissive, reasonably (but not overly) inferior to the narcissist, in possession of a good memory (with which to regulate the flow of Narcissistic Supply), available but not imposing, not explicitly or overtly manipulative, interchangeable (not indispensable), not demanding (a fatalist to a degree), attractive (if the narcissist is somatic). In short: a Galathea-Pygmallion type.

But then, often suddenly and inexplicably, it is all over. The narcissist is cold, uninterested and remote.

ONE of the reasons is, as Groucho Marx put it, that the narcissist doesn't like to belong to a club which accepts him as a member. The narcissist devalues his Sources of Supply for the very qualities that made them such sources in the first place: their gullibility, their submissiveness, their (intellectual or physical) inferiority.

But there are many other reasons. For instance, the narcissist resents his dependence and by devaluing the object of dependence (his spouse, his employer, his colleague, his friend) he gets rid of the dissonance.

Yet another issue:

The narcissist perceives intimacy and sex as a threat to his uniqueness. Everyone needs sex and intimacy �?it is the great equaliser. The narcissist resents this equality. He rebels.

Sex and intimacy are usually also connected to past unresolved conflicts with important Primary Objects (parents or caregivers). They invoke these conflicts, encourage transference and provoke the onset of an approach-avoidance cycle.

Additionally, narcissists get tired of their sources. There is no mathematical formula, which governs this. It depends on numerous variables. Usually, the relationship lasts until the narcissist "gets used" to the source and its stimulating effects wear off OR until a better Source of Supply presents itself.