My name is Sam Vaknin and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited.
Perhaps the most pertinent feature of incest has been hitherto downplayed.
Insist is essentially an auto-erotic act akin to masturbation. Having sex with the first degree blood relatives such as a child is like having sex with oneself. It is a narcissistic act, and like all acts narcissistic it involves the objectification of the partner, transforming the partner into an object.
The incestuous narcissist overvalues and then devalues his sexual partner. The narcissist is devoid of empathy, he cannot see the other’s point of view or plight, and he cannot put himself in his or her shoes.
So as siblings and progeny grow older, the narcissist begins to see their potential to be edifying, satisfactory and reliable sources of narcissistic supply.
His attitude is completely transformed, the former threats have now become promising potentials, and he cultivates those whom he trusts to be the most rewarding.
The narcissist encourages his children, his siblings, to idolize him, to adore him, to be awed by him, to admire his deeds and capabilities, to learn to blindly trust and obey him, in short to surrender to his charisma and to become submerged in his fully de gander grandiose fantasies.
It is at this stage that the risk of child abuse from emotional incest and up to and including outright sexual racism. This risk is heightened.
The narcissist to start with is autoerotic. He is the preferred object of his own sexual attraction. He is actually sexually attracted to himself. His siblings and his children share his genetic material.
Molesti, or having intercourse with them, is as close as a narcissist gets to having sex with himself.
Moreover, the narcissist perceives sex in terms of annexation. Partner is assimilated and becomes an extension of the narcissist, a fully controlled and manipulated object.
Sex to the narcissist is the ultimate act of depersonalization and objectification of the other.
The narcissist actually must abates with other people’s bodies.
Mines are little danger of criticizing the narcissist or confronting him. They are perfect. They are malleable. They are abandoned sources of narcissistic supply.
The narcissist derives gratification from having coital relations with adulating, physically and mentally inferior, inexperienced and dependent bodies. These roles are located to his children, his siblings, explicitly and demandingly, or implicitly and perniciously, by the narcissist. These roles are best fulfilled by ones whose mind is not yet fully formed and independent.
The older the siblings or offspring get, the more they become critical of the narcissist, even judgmental.
This, the narcissistdislikes intensely, of course. When they grow older, siblings and children are better able to put into context and perspective the narcissist’s actions, to question his motives, to anticipate his moves.
They are, in other words, rendered useless by the passage of time.
A parent diagnosed with full-fledged narcissistic personality disorder should be denied custody and be granted only restricted rights of visitation under supervision.
Narcissists accord the same treatment to children as they do to adults. They regard both as sources of narcissistic supply, mere instruments of gratification.
They idealize them at first and then devalue them, in favor of alternative, safer and more subservient sources.
Such treatment is traumatic and can have long-lasting emotional effects.
The narcissist’s inability to acknowledge and abide by the personal boundaries set by others puts his children at a heightened risk of abuse, verbal, emotional, physical and often sexual.
The narcissist’s possessiveness and monopoly over indiscriminate negative emotions, transformations of aggression, such as rage and envy, these hinder the narcissist’s ability to act as a good enough parent.
His propensities for reckless behavior, substance abuse and sexual deviance endanger the child’s welfare or even, in extreme cases, the child’s life.
