Covert and Overt Narcissist Conflict Analysis: Case Study

Have you ever wondered what a conflict between two different narcissistic subtypes would look like?

In one workplace case, a covert/vulnerable narcissist came into conflict with an overt/grandiose narcissist positioned lower in the organizational hierarchy. In this article, we will deconstruct it through their conflict dialogue, examining their behavior, the manipulation techniques and forms of pressure they used, and what happened after the confrontation.

DPL Anonymized Case Study: Covert vs. Overt Narcissists

This material belongs to the Dark Psychology Lab case study series. Because of the sensitive information discussed here, all identifying details have been anonymized.

The value of this material lies in showing how a seemingly simple conflict can look completely different once the narrative and narcissistic mechanisms become visible. It also provides a clear example of playing the victim as a manipulative tactic, helping the reader understand how this technique appears when used by an emotional manipulator.

When we use terms such as covert or overt narcissists, we do so strictly as analytical frameworks based on observed behavioral patterns, repeated actions, and independent case analysis, not a diagnosis. NPD can only be diagnosed by qualified mental health professionals.

TL;DR

• The overt narcissist uses open aggression, while the covert narcissist keeps her distance and manipulates indirectly.
• The “aggressor” remained pleased with himself, while the surrounding environment reacted in very different ways, and the “victim” quietly continued applying pressure.
• They have very different facades and are driven by different emotions, yet they rely on the same narcissistic supply mechanism, and they both are toxic.
• Without an understanding of power dynamics, a conflict like this can be very difficult to recognize for what it truly is.

The Cause of the Conflict

For reasons that were not entirely clear, the covert narcissist began using manipulative pressure tactics against the overt narcissist. She misled him in small but repeated ways, disrupted his work processes, and caused subtle harm. These were covert control techniques. They operated through ambiguity, making them difficult to identify precisely even though their effects could still be logically understood or felt (Parkinson et al., 2024).

She was punishing him, probing his resistance, and trying to reshape him into someone easier to control. Such subtle and manipulative behavior is commonly associated with covert narcissistic abuse (Lindsay, 2022). We explained this mechanism and broke down how covert control works in our article:
Definition and Mechanism of Covert Control

After some time, the overt narcissist had sensed or understood what she was doing and openly confronted her behavior.

Conflict Dialogue

Their conversation went roughly like this.

He starts: “You constantly create problems. Why do I have to do this? I am wasting my time for no reason.”

She: “We are saving money this way. It is more economical.”

He: “You treat everyone else differently, and I am the one who has to save money here? Is something wrong with your head?”

She: “Come on, let’s be friends.”

He: “I do not need your friendship.”

She: “Why are you treating me like this…?” She then started crying and ended the conversation.

Overview and Analysis of the Conflict Dialogue

1. Direct Confrontation

He began by directly addressing her behavior:

“You constantly create problems. Why do I have to do this? I am wasting my time for no reason.”

This was an attempt to set boundaries. At this point, the communication was still relatively normal. He confronted her behavior after noticing inconsistencies in the work process and may also have sensed the covert pressure.

2. Avoidance

She defended herself through plausible deniability, which allowed her to present the ambiguous situation in different ways when challenged:

“We are saving money this way. It is more economical.”

This was a lie. In reality, her behavior functioned as a hidden punishment. The beauty of plausible deniability is that it is almost impossible to clearly identify it as such. She was misleading him and creating pointless work.

3. Escalation and Pressure

He applied direct pressure and raised his voice, moving toward a more coercive form of communication:

“You treat everyone else differently, and I am the one who has to save money here? Is something wrong with your head?”

He verbally attacked her, defended his boundaries aggressively, and began making accusations. However, those accusations were not empty. Our subject genuinely treated people differently and appeared to assign each person a specific role. This reflects splitting, a psychological internal defense mechanism commonly associated with narcissistic pathology, in which others are placed into polarized categories and then idealized or devalued accordingly (Kernberg, 1975).

4. Attempt to Regain Control

After feeling overt pressure, she defended herself with another manipulative tactic:

“Come on, let’s be friends.”

At this point, she may have attempted to regain control through the “girl” role while still preserving the ambiguity of the situation. If the overt narcissist had accepted her frame, she might have interpreted him as easy to influence and gradually increased the covert pressure over time.

5. Resistance to the Manipulative Frame

He continued responding defensively and aggressively:

“I do not need your friendship.”

He appeared to sense that he was being manipulated, even though he may not have been able to clearly identify the covert techniques themselves. Her behavior appeared irrational and was difficult to interpret through the fog of manipulation, but he maintained his position.

6. Playing the Victim and Social Reframing

She then used a stronger defensive technique:

“Why are you treating me like this…?”

She began crying in public and ended the conversation. Her tears activated the victim role and changed the way the people around them interpreted the conflict. This indirectly pulled the social group into the situation and gave her an effective way to end the confrontation while avoiding responsibility.

Dialogue Conclusion

No real conversation took place that could be described as an attempt to resolve the situation. It looked more like a power struggle, with both sides exchanging different forms of pressure while trying to gain the upper hand.

• The overt narcissist increased the pressure and responded with more overt aggression while defending his boundaries.
• The covert narcissist still had explanations available for her actions because the manipulation preserved plausible deniability. She also had a convincing and charming facade that allowed her to maneuver through similar conflicts with ease.
• From an outside perspective, it appeared that he was attacking her while she was reacting sensitively.

The conflict itself remained unresolved and ambiguous.

What Happened After the Conflict

They continued working together and communicating.

The covert narcissist temporarily withdrew and kept her distance.

At the same time, the overt narcissist was convinced that he had won. He bragged to acquaintances about how he had “put her in her place.” He was pleased that she cried after he told her, “I do not need your friendship,” and said:

“It felt to her like being slapped across the face with a wet rag.”

Possibly, he did not understand covert narcissistic techniques or that the “girl’s” behavior and image had been based on deception from the beginning. Almost no one understood this. Or perhaps he simply wanted to brag and display his grandiosity to everyone around him.

In reality, the only thing he won was the ego boost he received from telling the story to his male colleagues.

Our subject, the covert/vulnerable narcissist, later returned to her subtle “punishment” through passive aggression. She continued to manipulate, although her behavior became more cautious and subtle. She created minor misunderstandings and kept her distance, avoiding open escalation. This allowed her to maintain a degree of control and continue influencing the situation without provoking another direct confrontation. This may have functioned as an interpersonal self-regulation strategy, helping her restore a sense of superiority and reinforce her position among those who supported her (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001).

She did not return to the same misleading behavior that had caused the conflict. One possible reason is that she had assessed her opponent and expected direct resistance or aggression from him, which acted as a natural counterforce to her covert approach.

Over time, the overt narcissist did not appear to reveal any vulnerable points that she could exploit. As a result, they were able to continue working together for a long time.

Why the Overt and Covert Narcissists Responded Differently

Research suggests that grandiose and vulnerable narcissism may be regulated by different self-conscious emotions. Grandiose narcissism has been associated with dishonest behavior through reduced guilt, while vulnerable narcissism appears more closely connected to shame, particularly when personal competence or self-image is exposed (Schröder-Abé & Fatfouta, 2019).

This difference helps explain their contrasting strategies. The overt narcissist openly celebrated the confrontation, while the covert narcissist avoided another direct clash and returned to forms of pressure that allowed her to protect her image and reduce the risk of public exposure.

How Others Understood the Situation

When the overt narcissist told this story to others, people’s reactions varied significantly.

Some supported and defended her, while others remained neutral. A third group had been negatively affected by her manipulative tendencies and repeated devaluation. They disliked her and sided with the person they perceived as her “aggressor.”

This reflects what we describe here as the social facade effect and selective targeting: narcissistic individuals may adjust both their self-presentation and their treatment of others according to status, social context, and how each person affects their self-image (Grapsas et al., 2020). Because different people receive different versions of the same person, the wider group develops sharply divided opinions, almost as if that person’s unstable and chaotic inner world were being reproduced in the surrounding environment.

Narcissistic Facades and Their Effect on Others

After hearing the overt narcissist’s version of the story, one person asked him, “Are you hurting her?” He reacted with displeasure: “And you are defending her too?”

This was not the only person who interpreted the situation that way.

Her social image was far more convincing than the overt narcissist’s aggressive macho facade, and he may have recognized this advantage even if he could not admit it. It was her strongest asset, and in this workplace she had found a social niche where it worked.

For a deeper explanation of the narcissist’s constructed version of self, designed to maintain a favorable social image, read our article:
The Narcissist Facade Explained

The Covert Narcissist’s Facade and Reality

Her facade was that of a vulnerable, youthful, sexually attractive, cheerful, successful, and emotionally wronged woman.

Research suggests that vulnerable narcissism in women may be overlooked because its presentation can resemble shyness, hypersensitivity, shame, low self-esteem, and inhibition rather than stereotypical overt grandiosity (Green et al., 2023).

In reality, she manipulated and devalued men who did not support her, rejected her, resisted her covert control, or fell in love with her and tried to get closer. She used charm and sexuality even in the workplace. She also damaged other people’s reputations through smear tactics and indirect influence.

Her vulnerable yet simultaneously grandiose facade affected both men and women:

• Women supported and defended her, possibly through female solidarity (Pillay-Naidoo & Vermeulen, 2023).
• Some men defended her and became her rescuers. Others felt attracted to her. Her image softened most of them.

We explored similar patterns of covert control through a gender-specific lens in our article:
The Narcissistic Woman

The Overt Narcissist’s Facade and Reality

His facade was that of a strong, dominant, and aggressive “alpha male.”

In reality, he devalued vulnerable people to strengthen his own position and created narratives through gossip, dividing colleagues into those he considered “suitable” and “unsuitable.”

His dominant and aggressive social image could influence some men, but its overall effect was fairly limited, and many people disliked him. This facade mainly served his ego.

Changes in the Social Environment After the Conflict

Both of them were toxic. One of them was simply more socially acceptable.

The overt narcissist’s reputation remained largely unchanged after the conflict because people already viewed him as aggressive and dominant.

However, an additional protective layer began forming around the covert narcissist. More people started seeing her as someone who needed to be defended.

Narcissistic Supply and the Role of the Audience

Both participants appeared to gain narcissistic supply by devaluing other people and receiving validation from the audience. This is consistent with research describing self-promotion and other-derogation as strategies used in narcissistic status pursuit (Grapsas et al., 2020).

• The overt narcissist received narcissistic supply from her tears and his perceived victory.
• The covert narcissist received supply from punishing him and possibly from seeing the surrounding environment accept her lies as truth.

These were two different strategies driven by the same mechanism: extracting emotional reactions, attention, or recognition from the surrounding environment. These external responses can function as psychological stabilizers, helping narcissistic individuals regulate fragile self-esteem and maintain an inflated sense of superiority. We examine this mechanism in greater detail in our article:
Narcissistic Supply: What Narcissists Feed On

Who Won?

The covert narcissist won this confrontation.

Her advantage came from controlling how the situation was interpreted rather than from being stronger in the direct conflict.

She preserved her image, activated the support of others, shaped the narrative in her favor, and avoided all possible accountability.

The overt narcissist won the direct confrontation. The fact that she backed away and began treating him more cautiously was also a victory. He had always been this way, so his reputation barely changed. In narcissistic dynamics, vulnerability would have been punished far more severely.

On a broader level, however, she remained in a dominant position.

The covert narcissist was able to continue manipulating subtly, keep her distance, and avoid open escalation. In this way, she kept the power in her hands.

Why the Conflict Did Not Escalate Further

Quite a few people in the same environment had been affected by our subject, the covert narcissist. Some tried to repair their relationships with her, but she only escalated the pressure, devalued them, and publicly discarded people who were more vulnerable or had less status and influence. New targets kept appearing, and the same cycle repeated:

She manipulated → smeared → provoked → kept her actions ambiguous through plausible deniability → played the victim → discarded them.

Both management and the people around her supported her. This organizational backing may also have reinforced her position. Research suggests that workplace support does not uniformly suppress power harassment and, under strong ego-threatening conditions, may even amplify it among certain narcissistic types (Semba, 2026).

However, she did not escalate the conflict with the overt narcissist, and he did not continue attacking her either.

One possible explanation is that each saw the other as a difficult target and understood that further escalation could become costly.

A Deeper Observation

When observing situations like this, it may seem that narcissists pick up on something familiar in one another. Possibly, they see the same mechanism operating in each other.

In this situation, they did not seek a full-scale conflict. They kept their distance and interacted only as much as was necessary.

It seemed like an unwritten rule:
Cooperate while it is useful. Enter into conflict only when status is threatened.

Both participants likely understood that the other person was also playing the same game of self-image validation through controlling behavior. Because of this, they were able to tolerate each other until one person’s actions began directly interfering with the other.

Defensive Insight: The “Monster” Theory

One idea expressed by Jordan Peterson is especially relevant to this situation: to recognize and defend yourself against “monsters,” you need to develop that part within yourself and learn to keep it under voluntary control (Peterson, 2013).

Recognizing these dynamics requires a basic understanding of human darkness. Without it, a person sees only the facade. When someone takes a situation at face value, reacting instinctively to tears or loud voices without looking at the underlying mechanism, they become an easily influenced pawn in a power struggle they do not even realize is happening.

This does not mean becoming the same kind of person. It means understanding the mechanisms of aggression, power, and manipulation. Otherwise, the situation may appear to be nothing more than someone crying, an aggressor speaking loudly, or a convincing one-sided story, and the next person harmed by that story could be you.

Understanding the mechanism is the first step. For a practical breakdown of how to protect your position when a narcissist begins devaluing, testing, or pressuring you, read our guide:
How to Work With a Narcissist During the Devaluation Phase

Conclusion: Narcissistic Power Struggle

From the outside, this may look like a simple conflict. Once the wider context and the power struggle become visible, the same situation looks very different. It becomes a struggle over perceived status in the social hierarchy.

In this case study, neither participant was the “good” or “bad” one. They were two individuals with narcissistic traits operating through different forms of power.

Case Study Disclaimer

The terms covert narcissist, vulnerable narcissist, overt narcissist, and grandiose narcissist are used in this case study strictly as behavioral frameworks. They describe recurring patterns of behavior, communication, and interpersonal pressure observed in the situation.

This article does not diagnose any person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder or any other mental health condition. NPD can only be diagnosed by a qualified mental health professional. The analysis reflects an independent interpretation of observed behavior and should not be treated as a clinical assessment, official investigation, or verified conclusion about another person’s motives or internal state.

All identifying details have been removed, changed, or generalized to protect the people involved.

For more details, see our Disclaimer page.

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