S22E9: How To Spot A Narcissist (And Not Give Them Your Time & Attention) w/ Dr. Alina Kastner

Dateable: Your insider's look into modern dating and relationships

Yue Xu and Julie Krafchick

Science, Social Sciences, Health & Fitness, Sexuality, Relationships, Society & Culture

4.7 • 910 Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Whether you’ve questioned if someone in your life might be a narcissist or just want to better understand toxic relationship patterns, we’re breaking down what narcissism really looks like and how to protect yourself. We’re joined by Dr. Alina Kastner, who shares why these relationships are so detrimental and how to recognize the warning signs to gtfo of these unhealthy dynamics. We're discussing what really defines define narcissistic abuse, why narcissists often target the people you'd least expect, and how to heal from this type of relationship if you were to find yourself in this situation. TW: This episode talks about psychological abuse and touches on sexual and physical abuse. To learn more about Dr. Alina Kastner follow her @dr.alinakastne and go to https://www.alinakastner.com/en. Get her new book 'Break Up With Narcissism: How to Break Free and Stay Free – the 4-step Plan For Surviving Narcissistic Abuse' wherever books are sold. ---- Take our Dating Archetypes quiz: https://howtobedateable.com/ Read our book: How To Be Dateable: The Essential Guide To Finding Your Person and Falling in Love: https://howtobedateable.com/ Try the Dateable AI Dating Coach: Get personalized advice trained on our years of podcast episodes, courses and frameworks: https://studio.com/dateable Follow us @dateablepodcast, @juliekrafchick and @nonplatonic. Check out our website for more content. Also listen to our other podcasts The Psychology of Relationships and Exit Interview available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. WE WROTE A BOOK! HOW TO BE DATEABLE (Simon & Schuster) is available now: https://howtobedateable.com/ Want to remove distractions from your dates? Download Brick and get 10% off at https://www.getbrick.app/DATEABLE Our Sponsors: * Avocado Green Mattress: Check out their mattress and furniture sale: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/DATEABLE * Get Rain of Shadows and Endings wherever books are sold or at Kensington Publishing https://www.kensingtonbooks.com * Quince: Get free shipping and 365 day returns at https://quince.com/dateable * Ruggable: Get 10% off your first order, sitewide, with promo code DATEABLE at https://ruggable.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Ui Shue.
0:01.7	And I'm Julie Craft-Chick.
0:03.3	We're active daters turned dating insiders.
0:05.8	Here to dive into everything, modern dating and relationships.
0:09.6	Welcome to Datable.
0:10.6	Hi, friends.
0:14.9	Welcome back to another episode of Datable. Have you ever dated a narcissist?
0:24.3	Let's start with the hard-handed questions. How many times have you called someone a narcissist in your life?
0:33.7	Everyone calls everyone a narcissist these days. It's like that thing that just gets thrown around.
0:39.4	Oh, you're dating a narcissist. That person's a narcissist. But we also know in recent years that it's
0:45.5	actually pretty hard to be a narcissist, to be diagnosed. It is. But then in our episode today,
0:52.1	we are actually joined by a lovely guest, Dr. Alina Kastner, who is a
0:57.0	psychotherapist, author, an expert in narcissistic abuse, trauma, in systemic therapy. And she talks
1:04.4	about why would a narcissist go and diagnose themselves? It's not like a disorder affecting you. So it was very fascinating to hear
1:12.3	that little tidbit. There's clearly so much more in this episode. But it might actually be
1:17.0	more prominent than we think, even with the stats. That's true. Yeah, if you're not self-diagnosing
1:22.6	because you're not incentivized to do, though. But this episode is not about helping them feel their pain.
1:29.2	It's really about helping individuals break free from toxic relationships through her clinical work, online content, and book.
1:38.3	She has a book called Break Up with Narcissism, How to Break Free and Stay Free, the Four Step Plan for Survstep plan for surviving narcissistic abuse. And we really
1:46.9	wanted to do this episode on this topic. So when we got kind of the inbound, a lot of times when people
1:53.1	publish books, we'll get emails about them. And that's why we have people come on this podcast.
1:57.6	And when we got this one, we were like, we've been looking for someone
	...

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