Date from Hell: Dating Narcissists and Psychopaths

Summary

In this video, Sam Vaknin discussed his personal experience with narcissistic personality disorder and his pioneering work in identifying and defining narcissism and related personality disorders. He explained the behaviors and psychological traits of narcissists and psychopaths, their impact on relationships, and the challenges victims face, emphasizing the prevalence of these disorders in various social settings. Vaknin also highlighted the importance of education to recognize narcissistic traits and recommended his book "Malignant Self-Love" as a valuable resource for understanding and coping with narcissistic abuse. Date from Hell: Dating Narcissists and Psychopaths

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  1. 00:00 I’ve been diagnosed twice with narcissistic personality disorder and once with borderline psychopathy and I
  2. 00:07 have paid the ultimate price for these all pervasive cancers of the soul I have
  3. 00:13 lost fortunes family and everything else one can lose reputation and so on several times I’ve I did time in jail uh for Securities fraud and so
  4. 00:27 [Music] are you a narcissist have you or are you currently dating a narcissist what about
  5. 00:38 Psychopaths ever meet a Charming well-spoken person but feel like there’s something not quite right about them the
  6. 00:45 narcissist acts out and ruins everything and everyone around him most specifically himself so this is the
  7. 00:51 danger in narcissism because narcissists are great actors they they con the system the ones who can deceive everyone
  8. 00:59 all the time this is the danger they are stealthy and I would beg to differ with you that they are human and technically as far as biology goes three they are human but not as far as their pychology goes as far as the psychology of the
  9. 01:09 narcissist go the narcissist is is an alien an extraterrestrial on Earth today
  10. 01:15 on the shy man’s dating School podcast series we delve into the deeply dark and disturbing world of narcissism stevenh
  11. 01:22 Davis speaks with Sam vaknin a twice diagnosed cerebral narcissist who authored the book malignant self-love
  12. 01:30 today they speak about the traits of narcissists and Psychopaths and about the women who date them so first of all
  13. 01:36 there is the issue of the narcissists tends to blame his mistakes failures on on others the world is is guilty
  14. 01:42 everyone is guilty everyone is responsible for what’s happening to the narcist except himself he he never takes
  15. 01:48 responsibility the narcissists are very eager if you date a narcissist he pushes you to get married on the second date planning on having children on the first date and he immediately tells you that you have the love of his life so stay tuned to the shy dating School podcast
  16. 02:00 Series where today we find out are you a [Music]
  17. 02:09 narcissist I’m fascinated by human behavior and I’m clear that there’s just
  18. 02:15 so many personality types points of view just ways people are that I’m not aware
  19. 02:22 of or I’m I’ve never experienced myself or or I experienced but I don’t know that’s what it is you’ve clearly um researched this investigated it
  20. 02:33 organized thoughts about it I’d love to find out about your journey to the place
  21. 02:39 where you are now as a resource now you’re a resource for it’s a pretty straightforward arrow in my case I’ve
  22. 02:46 been diagnosed twice with narcissistic personality disorder and once with borderline psychopathy and I have paid the ultimate price for these all pervasive cancers of the soul I have
  23. 02:59 lost fortunes family and everything else one can lose reputation and so on several times I’ve I did time in jail uh for Securities fraud and so on so having
  24. 03:10 hit rock bottom several times having hit rock bottom and bounce and then hit rock bottom and bounce I decided that I would
  25. 03:17 like to discover the laws of physics that regulate this bouncing motion and what I came across was the General topic
  26. 03:24 of personality disorders in 1995 when I embarked on my path of self- discu there
  27. 03:30 was no awareness of pathological narcissism it was an obscure Sub sub subfield which had been neglected for decade Freud Zigman Freud was the first to coin the term narcissism in 1916 and
  28. 03:43 then there were sporadic studies in the early to mid 70s and that’s more or less it no one has paid attention to
  29. 03:49 pathological narcissism defin definitely not on the scale that it is being studied today it’s a cottage industry
  30. 03:55 and and a major driver of psychological research in faculty and universities across across the globe especially in
  31. 04:02 the United States but at that time there was nothing absolutely nothing consequently I had to essentially invent
  32. 04:09 invent the whole field single-handed I have written a book in 1995 which was the first book to describe and coin the
  33. 04:15 phrase narcissistic abuse I also had to come up with a whole language most of the language used today to describe and
  34. 04:21 Tackle this extremely unow phenomenon U was invented by me in the in the mid90s
  35. 04:28 so narc IC suppli somatic narcy cerebral Nares they all terms I had to invent as
  36. 04:34 I was plowing along into this Terra Incognito but ultimately after a journey of several years I I thought that I have
  37. 04:42 reached a modicum of self-awareness and self self Revelation and then I branched out I established support groups online well over 100,000 people join within the first two years that’s amazing which was yeah it it it indicated it was it was an indicator of how serious and and how
  38. 05:00 ubiquitous the problem was were you shocked by the number yeah very much so I thought I was alone that that
  39. 05:06 characterizes many mentally ill people they they think they’re alone absolutely and and then there was the salting of
  40. 05:13 victims of narcissistic abuse and so by now I think narcissism is a wellestablished clinical phenomenon as
  41. 05:20 well as a well understood path towards abuse violence and aggression in in in
  42. 05:26 Myriad forms that’s how I got into this mess wow that must have been really pioneering work must have felt like you
  43. 05:33 were um doing it alone yeah for a while I have been alone completely alone and
  44. 05:39 but then you know there was an avalanche of of uh Scholars self- style Scholars experts victims ex victims would be victims want to be victims
  45. 05:50 narcissists and Psychopaths thrilled to discover that there’s a name and a label and a handle to what’s happening to them
  46. 05:56 and then there was the narcissism Pride movement and so today you can find narcissists and Psychopaths online saying we are the next evolutionary stage you know we are we are the epitome
  47. 06:08 and of of human achievement and we are superior to other human beings that’s why we feel Superior that hence hence
  48. 06:14 the source of our arrogance and Hess because we really are you have manifestations of the study of
  49. 06:20 narcissism which are both benign and cancerous as as as is the case for every other social movement or phenomena and it probably lets you know that it’s reached a certain uh degree of success
  50. 06:32 or oh yeah you can’t open you can’t open television today you can’t you can’t watch a movie you can’t watch a crime
  51. 06:38 seral you can’t watch a watch a police procedural where where the word narcissism doesn’t crop up people use
  52. 06:44 narcissism as a as a pejorative term they Hur narcissism it’s a it’s a curse word you know it’s it’s uh it’s all over
  53. 06:51 the place today narcissism is is really in a way the name of the game but more seriously it is beginning to be thought
  54. 06:58 of pathological ism is beginning to be thought of as the root cause of many other hither to ostensibly unrelated mental health disorders so we’re beginning to see a common route for all
  55. 07:09 these dis disorders especially what used to be called cluster D disorders which means antisocial borderline narcissistic
  56. 07:16 hisonic but also other other types of for instance there is a very close behavioral at least match between aspers
  57. 07:25 autistic Spectrum disorders and and narcissism uh there is there are bipolar disorder especially the manic phase
  58. 07:32 which resemble narcissism very very closely and generalized anxiety disorder also is so we’re beginning to see that
  59. 07:39 pathological narcissism rears its ugly head in in a multitude multifarious mental health disorders and because what is narcissism narcissism is our core that’s who we are it’s about selfesteem
  60. 07:52 selfworth selfconfidence and in short it’s a pathology of the self so if if
  61. 07:58 the self if the self is involved in everything and in every mental health disorder can you tell me what it’s like
  62. 08:04 to have this it sucks it sounds like it it’s a self-defeating self-destructive uh disorder in a variety of of ways it it impacts on one’s ability to to act in
  63. 08:17 the world and on the world it affects Gravely and ir irreversibly and ineluctably interpersonal disorder interpersonal relationships so all forms of intimacy the ability to collaborate
  64. 08:28 with other people teamwork the ability to function and so on so forth mind you there are functional narcissists and
  65. 08:35 functional Psychopaths and they for while you know make it to the Pinnacle they they are the pillars of the
  66. 08:41 community and they become everything from your local Parish priest to the president of the United States but then
  67. 08:47 but then they self- implode then they they self-destruct and depending on on the level they have attained depending
  68. 08:54 on their accomplishments they take with them numerous people so if you’re a small time guy you take your family with you but if you’re the president of the United States you take the whole nation with you one thing is inevitable and you
  69. 09:06 know unavoidable and that is the self-implosion so for a while a
  70. 09:12 narcissist for a while when I say a while it could be decades narcissist can be totally functional and give the
  71. 09:18 outward impression of having having made it but then as stresses accumulate uh he
  72. 09:24 The Narcissist acts out um lashes out implodes explodes and ruins everything and everyone around him most specifically himself so this is the danger in narcissism because narcissists
  73. 09:35 are great actors they have tpan skills they con they con the system and they they are the ones who can deceive everyone all the time this is the danger
  74. 09:46 they are stealthy they’re all around and they’re stealthy and I would beg to differ with you that they are human you said that narcissism is a human
  75. 09:52 manifestation and and technically as far as biology goes physiology perhaps biochemistry they are human but not as
  76. 09:59 as far as their psychology goes as far as the psychology of the narcissist goes the narcissist is is an alien an
  77. 10:05 extraterrestrial on earth a form of artificial intelligence and that is because the narcissist lacks the basic
  78. 10:12 Machinery the basic apparatus of which which is required in order to qualify as
  79. 10:18 a human being narcissists have no empathy narcissists have no emotions or no access to emotions narcissist are
  80. 10:24 robotic because they are like cruise missiles they home in on narcissist I istic Supply attention adulation
  81. 10:31 admiration being feared they home in they are they are more like drug addict they are junkies and but junkies which
  82. 10:38 are who are also devoid of major dimensions of what it means to be human so it’s a very frightening phenomenon
  83. 10:45 actually it’s a it’s a horror movie it’s a night marish proposition it’s not like you know other things like I don’t know
  84. 10:51 bipolar bipolar you’re up you’re down it’s a human experience to be bipolar to be depressed be manic it’s a human
  85. 10:58 experience even to be schizophrenic or schizophren paranoid paranoia it’s human to be paranoid from time to time all of
  86. 11:04 us are paranoid it’s human to be to be you know it’s human to be everything else except a psychopath it is not human
  87. 11:10 to be a psychopath it is outside the realm and the spectrum of human experience and and the same goes for
  88. 11:16 anos I’ve never looked at it that way but that really makes sense before I called you I thought about how I haven’t
  89. 11:22 I would say I haven’t come across many narcissists or Psychopaths probably um in business more than any where else M but I’m getting the sense that I’m just
  90. 11:33 not aware of it across them I’m just not aware of it yeah you’re definitely coming across them statistically speaking 1% of all the population are
  91. 11:40 narcissistic or Psychopathic so you must have come across several in your lifetime for sure but I think the
  92. 11:46 statistics are grossly underestimated because narcissists and Psychopaths do not subject themselves to rigorous testing let alone treatment so it’s safer to think that something like I don’t know what 5% 7% of the population
  93. 11:58 have pronounced narcissistic and Psychopathic Tendencies now you’re right though that narcissists tend to gravitate towards specific profession
  94. 12:05 where they can wield power when they can make money when they can Garner adulation and admiration so they would
  95. 12:13 you you you are more likely to find narcissist in Show Business in among the clergy in law enforcement um in in the
  96. 12:20 Judiciary in politics so you’re more likely to find narcissist where narcissistic Supply is is more plenty
  97. 12:26 plentiful so they gravitate to these professions and so so your your statement that you mostly have come
  98. 12:32 across them in a business environment strikes me as true and and correct how would I if I wanted to increase my
  99. 12:39 awareness so that I was more um able to identify that trait in people is there a
  100. 12:45 particular thing I would look for if you are sensitized and aware you can spot them on the first date if you are not it
  101. 12:52 would take you a decade so educ education education education is very very important and since since I ization
  102. 12:59 and exposure to other people’s experiences and to literature online and offline these are critical otherwise
  103. 13:05 it’s very easy not to spot a narcissist or a psychopath until it’s way way too late I can give you a few markers if you
  104. 13:12 if you wish so first of all there is the issue of what we call alloplastic defenses The Narcissist tends to blame
  105. 13:19 his mistakes failures and so on on others the world is is guilty his boss is guilty the the the company is guilty
  106. 13:26 his family is guilty everyone is guilty everyone is responsible for What’s happen happening to the naist except himself he he never takes responsibility
  107. 13:33 and we call this an external locus of control it’s like the ncis’s life is controlled from the outside the next
  108. 13:39 thing is narcissists are very hyp sensitive they pick a fight they feel constantly slighted injured insulted they’re hypervigilant so they are on the guard on on guard at all times you know
  109. 13:49 they are they’re a bit a bit paranoid they tend to treat weak people animals sick people and children impatiently and
  110. 13:56 cruy they’re very cruel and they express negative and AGG iive emotions towards their inferiors or people they perceive
  111. 14:02 to be inferior like people who are poorer or more stupid or needy or sentimental or disabled they usually
  112. 14:08 have a history of aggression and and and violence sometimes bordering on the criminal and sometimes criminal so violent offenses uh battering domestic
  113. 14:19 violence and so on is very common among narcissist and Psychopaths at the very least they would be ver verbally verbally violent verbally abusive so they they would use a vile language infused with exiv threats and and the
  114. 14:32 general impression would be hostility that of that of hostility the narcissists are very eager if you date a narcissist he pushes you to get married on the second date and he’s planning on having children on the first date and he
  115. 14:42 immediately tells you that you have the love of his life and he’s pressing you for exclusivity for instant intimacy and
  116. 14:48 almost rapes you and and acts jealous uh you know on and this is incommensurate
  117. 14:54 with the time laap like it happens on the first and second day so they’re very possessive and very eager and and then there’s the issue of boundaries and privacy narcissists and Psychopaths do not recognize other people’s boundaries
  118. 15:05 and privacy they ignore your wishes your rules your rules of conduct they they select from the menu they choose which
  119. 15:11 movie you’re going to see they never consult you they disrespect you they treat you as an object or an instrument of gratification you know they go
  120. 15:18 through your personal belonging while waiting for you they text you or phone you multiple times and so on so forth
  121. 15:24 it’s just it’s you have you have the increasingly distinct feeling that you don’t really exist that the narcissist sees through you that you’re transparent and then the narciss narcissist and psychopaths are control freaks so they
  122. 15:35 must control the situation and you compulsively so they insist to ride if you if you date narcissis she would insist to ride in her car she would hold on to the car keys she would hold on to
  123. 15:45 the money to the theater ticket to the air tickets to your bag she would disapprove if you are if you stay away for too long I don’t know you go to the to the L she would interrogate you when you return they’re very insecure
  124. 15:56 actually so they they compensate for that by being Control Freaks and they make it very clear that in future you
  125. 16:02 would need their permission to do things even innocuous things like meeting your friends or visiting with your family
  126. 16:09 they would tend to isolate you from the very very beginning so they would disparage your friends they would criticize your friends they would tell you that you know the your friends are beneath you they you deserve better and
  127. 16:19 they would try to isolate you from your family and finally they they usually act in a patronizing hay condescending
  128. 16:26 manner they criticize you often they emphasize your smallest minutest faults they devalue you they exaggerate on on
  129. 16:34 the one hand so it’s a pendulum it’s called idealization devaluation on the one hand they will they they exaggerate
  130. 16:41 your talents your traits and your skills they idealize you because by idealizing you they are idealizing and aggrandizing
  131. 16:48 themselves you know and on the other hand at with the same breath you know on a dime they they they turn on a dime and
  132. 16:54 they they hve at you the most abusive invectives and criticism and pendulum is is very very telling and they would tend to diminish you harass you ridicule you
  133. 17:05 and then switch immediately to suckering sugary sugary compliments and so this
  134. 17:11 this pendular movement this these fluctuations are very very telling this is a very partial list but you know even
  135. 17:17 if you implement this list you’re likely to spot narcissist not to oversimplify but it’s it sounds like the story of so
  136. 17:24 many of women who a relationship where they get abused and initially they liked
  137. 17:30 all the attention they liked how important they were to the other person they liked that the other person kind of
  138. 17:36 controlled you know or led the relationship and then it gets really volatile with that swing back and forth
  139. 17:43 between the verbal abuse and the making up narcissists and Psychopaths fulfill
  140. 17:49 the emotional needs in their Partners the bonding is not accidental I mean many women would fall for a narcissist or a psychopath on a first date because they’re very charming and they they they
  141. 18:01 they home in on you they are like lasers you know they they you are the center suddenly the center of the universe the most amazing and thrilling and and fascinating being and so it’s very flattering and it’s very difficult to
  142. 18:12 resist so many a woman would fall for a Nar but very few would remain with a narcissist after a certain you know and
  143. 18:19 those who remain have a very highly specific psychological profile those who tolerate the abuse and even welcome it
  144. 18:26 those who settle in and adopt themselves to The Narcissist specific needs and requirements those women have a a highly specific psychological profile before I
  145. 18:37 before we continue I want to make clear that 75% of all diagnosed narcissist are male but 25% of all diagnosed
  146. 18:45 narcissists are female so we do have women narcissists female narcissist it’s not an exclusive Preserve of men but
  147. 18:52 throughout this conversation I would tend to use the the the male pronoun because most narcissists are men and
  148. 18:58 definitely most abusers are men physical abusers and so you know there is a weeding out process there’s a flittering
  149. 19:05 process uh the I mean women all women would be delighted on a first or second date with a narcissist and and the vast majority of women would give up on a narcissist on a psychopath by the fifth
  150. 19:16 St because the aminations are there the feeling that something is not right that that you know something doesn’t click that there is something wrong that this this person is is wrongly put together
  151. 19:29 that the the feeling of f fakeness the feeling that it’s a forged proximity of a human being but not really a human
  152. 19:35 being and there was an experts a robotics expert in in Japan his field was robotics so he’s an expert on robots
  153. 19:41 and he invented the concept of uncanny valley he said that as robots become
  154. 19:47 more and more similar to humans they are likely to provoke feelings of unease and discomfort in their environment because
  155. 19:54 everyone knows they’re robots and yet they are so human and this discrepancy between humanik robots and the
  156. 20:01 underlying steel and and uh and aluminum this discrepancy is what he called The Uncanny Valley and so narcissists and
  157. 20:08 Psychopaths provoke the same ill at ease discomfiture in people whenever you meet
  158. 20:14 when you meet a psychopath or narcissist you keep you keep there’s a dialogue you keep having an internal dialogue which
  159. 20:20 says this guy looks so Charming so intelligent so amazing what’s wrong with him why do I feel that something’s wrong
  160. 20:27 with him and you can’t can’t p your finger on it but you know that something’s wrong with this guy you know so healthy psychologically and mentally healthy women would usually disengage
  161. 20:37 after a while but there is a minority and it’s not insubstantial minority of women who would actually leatch on to
  162. 20:44 the narcissist and these women are usually codependents some of them are narcissist themselves something called
  163. 20:50 covert narcissism or inverted narcissism and so the psychological profile of this type of intimate partner over a
  164. 20:56 narcissist is is also pathologic in effect long-term part can you describe anymore what their pathology is the
  165. 21:04 long-term partner yeah well to be a long-term to serve as and I’m using the word serve judiciously you know to serve
  166. 21:12 as the long-term partner of an narcissis um you must have a very deficient or distorted grasp of yourself and of
  167. 21:19 reality um you must have what we call in Psychology cognitive distortion which consist of belittling and demeaning
  168. 21:26 yourself while aggrandizing and adoring narcissist partner is placing herself the long-term partner mind you yes
  169. 21:33 placing herself essentially in the position of an eternal victim she’s undeserving she’s punishable she’s a scapegoat and it’s it’s this kind of person it’s very important for her to
  170. 21:43 appear moral sacrificial victimized she’s some many of many of these women are not even aware of these predicaments
  171. 21:50 they perceive The Narcissist um as someone deserving of their sacrifice because he is Superior in so many ways
  172. 21:56 intellectually emotionally morally Prof professionally financially but they are professional victims and then we have we
  173. 22:02 have another type of of long-term partner the kind of partner which maintains a symbiotic relationship with
  174. 22:08 the with the narcissist she’s totally dependent on the narcissist sometimes as a s as a source of Supply narcissistic
  175. 22:14 or masochistic Supply mere attention you know so this kind of of uh this kind of partner is a codependent she has she
  176. 22:22 suffers from from severe abandonment anxiety she has very dysfunctional attachment and bonding Styles she’s clinging she’s needy um and and in the
  177. 22:33 narcissist she finds uh this you know this partner that can can kick her on
  178. 22:40 her toes if you wish that that can because she’s this kind of partner is also a drama queen she she she’s
  179. 22:47 adrenaline junkie she’s addicted to the ups and downs she she loves these and whenever she is with a normal person a
  180. 22:54 non- narcissist she would find the part this kind of partner boring white you know the narcissist is the Technic color
  181. 23:01 eruption in her life it gives her life color and meaning it’s a dance maab you know it’s a it’s a Tango of of of two
  182. 23:08 one last thing that is uh that is important to understand that it is not true the common myth that no one
  183. 23:15 survives The Narcissist you know it’s not true there are very many narcissists have very stable relationships with
  184. 23:22 their intimate Partners only it’s a match of pathologies mhm it’s simply one
  185. 23:28 pathology meets another and then they bond and the bond is very strong and very meaningful to both parties and
  186. 23:35 survive for decades but it’s still a pathological Bond a dysfunctional so many narcs are stable in their marriage
  187. 23:42 and and it’s not true that all narcissist end up being divorced and abandoned it’s absolutely to me they they find a good fit yeah they find the lead exactly to me it seems that some of
  188. 23:54 the traits of the psychopath are similar to the traits of someone who’s really
  189. 24:00 good at picking up women who’s a player who’s has all that Charming no empathy
  190. 24:06 type of personality do you am am I off Bas and naive on that no I wouldn’t say
  191. 24:12 that you’re off base and naive I would make two I would make two pertinent observation one the dating scene the
  192. 24:19 adult dating scene let’s say 40s and 50s 40s 14 1550 year olds dating scene is a negative filter it is not representative of the whole popul this is a self- selecting group this is
  193. 24:30 a group of people who have failed in their relationship they divorced they are you know they’ve never been married
  194. 24:36 this the people on the dating scene are not representative are not a representative sample most of the people
  195. 24:42 on the dating scene from my experience and it’s we’re talking 17 years experience of of interviewing these people I have a database of close to 120,000 cases and so on most of uh most
  196. 24:53 of these people suffer from one form of dysfunction or another they are not necessarily mentally illed they’re not
  197. 24:59 necessarily personality disordered but they are dysfunctional one way or another and it is this dysfunction
  198. 25:05 exactly that brought them into the dating scene so yes it’s an easy hunting ground for the narcissist and the
  199. 25:11 psychopath the dating scene and you find an unusual concentration of narcissist and psychop among those who date um both
  200. 25:19 as pickup artists and as uh as the Willing victims or the Willing prey this
  201. 25:25 is not the case in the general population or for for example in W’s 20s or or early 30s when most of the stable long-term relationships are formed and
  202. 25:36 getting to to meet partners and and potentially intimate Partners in in settings like you know University
  203. 25:43 College and so I call it the general the non dating scene the general population in the general population narcissists and Psychopaths would have very little success and they very fast acquire very
  204. 25:53 bad reputation and so if you are a 20-year-old narcissist and you in a college and you’re beginning to date
  205. 26:00 girls you’re going to suck you it’s it’s not going to work the the first girl you date will spread the world that you are
  206. 26:06 a weirdo you know you’re not case you’re wo and and that’ll be the end of it and
  207. 26:12 and so on so there’s a lot of peer control and social control of fitness and compatibility in dating in these settings because they are reputation
  208. 26:23 based they are not essentially Anonymous they’re reputation based however when one gets into ‘s 40s and 50s and is
  209. 26:29 twice divorced and roams Singles bars and strip clubs and I know what or
  210. 26:35 computer online dating websites and what have you these are all negative filters the people I mean the population which frequents these joints and or is on
  211. 26:46 online dating sit is not a representative sample it’s a highly unique sub subculture and subgroup and
  212. 26:54 among these people as I said mental health dysfunctions are very common and they are all very easy prey and then
  213. 27:00 you’re right narcissists and Psychopaths would have an inordinate success among these group right and they’re the
  214. 27:06 reputation isn’t as easily shared it’s all listen on online dating sites you
  215. 27:12 can’t believe a word I mean it’s tot it’s anything like between 90 and 100% fake I mean there’s no reputation there
  216. 27:18 and when you go to a singles bar and you pick up a one night stand it’s also not reputation based it’s muscle based or
  217. 27:24 whatever so for instance there is a subtype of narcissist called the somatic narcissist it’s a narcissist who uses
  218. 27:30 leverages his body his musculature his sex appeal his charm and so on so forth
  219. 27:36 in order to perpetrate a Ser a series of sexual conquests this kind of narcissist santic narcissist deres his narcissistic Supply deres the attention and ulation Via his sexual conquests and his musculature and his you know body
  220. 27:52 building and so the somatic narcissist roams these exactly these places course you know for it’s scoring game there’s no emotional Dimension to that there’s no it’s uh it’s just notches on on his
  221. 28:04 belt and so this is not a healthy scene that’s what I’m trying to tell you and in this myasthma in this unhealthy scene
  222. 28:12 of course unhealthy characters like Nisan Psychopaths drive I can see also you know like you mentioned even bars where everyone’s going there for the very purpose of picking up or getting
  223. 28:23 picked up would be a fertile hunting ground definitely a Destin it is it is a hunting narcissists and Psychopaths don’t go there to get laid as most normal people would they go there to
  224. 28:34 score they go there to wield power this is why some of these encounters end in rape CU rape is not about sex rape is
  225. 28:41 about power it’s it’s a power play it’s a mind game so narcissist and Psychopaths inhabit these places because
  226. 28:49 they want to score not in the sexual sense but to score in the power placement to have power over others to
  227. 28:56 demonstrate to themselves and to others their their remit their their capacity their amazing ability to subjugate and subject and and dominate and and convert
  228. 29:08 people to their cause and make them do what they want it’s a cult-like setting in the narcissist mind and and the
  229. 29:14 narcissist needs people to tell him time and again you are the greatest you’re the best you the most sexual Beast you
  230. 29:22 know they are you are the most brilliant you are the perfect he needs this this is what we call narcissistic Supply precisely because his sense of self-worth is very volatile in the absence of narcissistic Supply The
  231. 29:33 Narcissist crumbles to dust exactly like in vampire movies he crumbles to dust and that’s why many people describe
  232. 29:40 narcissist as energy vampires because they suck your your lifeblood your mental lifeblood they they they demand they demand sometimes aggressively that you reflect to them their grandor their
  233. 29:53 grandiosity that you consistently affirm and confirm to them how outstanding and Superior they are how essentially Divine
  234. 30:00 inhuman they are and so if you go to a bar you know singles bar you want to get
  235. 30:06 played that’s a legitimate uh destination and a legitimate Quest and if you find an appropriate partner there’s nothing wrong with it I mean enjoy but the narcissist and the psychopaths are there not for this purpose it’s very dangerous it’s a very
  236. 30:18 dangerous environment are they looking for that constant uh affirmation
  237. 30:24 verbally or is it just the fact depend if you’re cerebral sorry I cut you off I mean just the fact that you’re interested in them is that enough or do they need it verbally well it depends
  238. 30:35 there as as I said there are two types of two major types of narcissist the cerebral and the sematic the cerebral narcissist is is a narcissist who places emphasis on his brain his intellectual
  239. 30:45 capacity and his intelligence so he needs you to tell him how brilliant amazing perfect stunning fascinating he
  240. 30:52 is intellectually and then yes it’s verbal he doesn’t want or require anything more is actually pretty
  241. 30:58 repelled by sex and the vast majority of cerebral narcissist one of which I am are asexual they don’t they don’t have sex so they won’t go beyond that they they would would stun you with
  242. 31:10 intellectual pyro techniques with their vocabulary with their ability to to think and to to rationalize and rosinate
  243. 31:18 and then they will say you know you’re you’re really brilliant you’re amazing and so on that’s there’ll be the the end all and be all and that’s it that’s a narcisstic Supply however if you’re somatic somatic narcissist is someone
  244. 31:28 who uses mainly his sexuality to to to obtain narcisstic Supply and that would
  245. 31:34 require sexual dominance and sexual consummation that would require sexual conquest and if when the narcissist is
  246. 31:41 denied these conquests this consumation or this acknowledgement of his irresistibility he becomes aggressive he
  247. 31:48 becomes aggressive not because he’s rejected but he becomes aggressive because he is a junkie without a drug
  248. 31:54 without his drug he becomes aggressive the same way junkies become aggressive when they are denied their fix and so this could become ugly and and usually does by the way and then it depends on the narcissist some narcissists are
  249. 32:05 aggressive but not violent but a small small minority of narcissists are also Psychopathic and an even smaller minority are also sexual sades so this
  250. 32:16 small minority if you get on the wrong side If you deny them what they think is
  251. 32:22 their right because they are irresistible and no one can withstand their charm and If you deny that to their face if you give them what I call negative narcissistic Supply then they may be May well become violent and it’s
  252. 32:34 happened before thousands of times and it’s easy to see how uh the woman a woman could wake up feeling very distant
  253. 32:41 used you know that it was a either a experience they wanted or there is no woman in this encounter but only an it’s an instrument of gratification The Narcissist needs her as an inflatable
  254. 32:52 doll to to prove to himself that he has the capacity to dominate and subjugate
  255. 32:58 other people especially females if he is straight but other people generally regardless of sexual orientation so he
  256. 33:05 needs to subjugate and dominate it’s a it’s a power play as I told you it’s a mind game it’s nothing to do with sex or let alone with emotion or relationship or anything so she her job is to be there wide eyed and to admire the
  257. 33:18 narcissist and to succumb to his Express and non-expressed wishes thereby proving
  258. 33:24 to him that he is worthy of adulation admiration and that he is irresistible
  259. 33:30 and that’s her job and once once she has once she had once she has done her job once it’s over he has no need for her
  260. 33:38 and she is dismissed she is an object he masturbates with her body it’s narcissists and psychopaths are homoerotic not homoerotic in the sense that they are attracted to their own
  261. 33:49 gender like homosexuals but in the sense that they are attracted to themselves they are as Freud said and others they
  262. 33:55 are this their own sexual object so with a narcissist you as a woman you may have
  263. 34:01 sex with a narcissist and it’s it’ll be great as far as technique goes you know he he’s he’s going to have the greatest
  264. 34:07 technique and it’s going to be pyot technices you know it’s going to be you know firework but at the end of the day you will feel emptied voided because you
  265. 34:14 have never been there you have been an excuse you have been a conduit you have been an instrument a vessel through
  266. 34:21 which via which The Narcissist obtain obtained an act of Love Making with
  267. 34:27 himself indeed this is narcissism malignant self-love and this is the title of my book malignant self-love and it’s the similar for psychopath yeah psychopath is even worse psychopath is even worse because psychopaths are almost invariably uh violent today the
  268. 34:44 distinction between psychopath and narcissist is very blurred with the publication of the diagnostic and statistical manual fifth edition last year it’s been recognized that the the lines the
  269. 34:55 demarcations the between personality disorders in the past were very blurry fuzzy and superflu so today
  270. 35:03 it’s all merged so there are nar Spectrum so some narcissists are Psychopathic narcissists and these
  271. 35:09 people are usually violent so with the psychopath is much worse because it’s likely to involve you know some violence ritualized violence like in sod Mao or real violence your description of the
  272. 35:20 narcissist uh having sex needing that constant verbal uh admiration sounds a
  273. 35:27 lot like porn sounds like yes of course narcissists are notorious porn addicts of course it sounds it definitely sounds
  274. 35:36 like the way porn is constructed these days I haven’t come across a single narcissist and I have come across
  275. 35:42 thousands by far I have the biggest database in the world on naris that just to give you just to give you a measure of comparison the most of the studies on narcissism in academ involve usually 20
  276. 35:55 or 30 people my database includes thousands of people diagnosed with narcissism and I have had very long
  277. 36:01 detailed interactions with them online admittedly and they have answered my questions because they regard me as one of them you know so I’m in the I’m in
  278. 36:08 the Brotherhood yes and so I I can tell you that I have yet to come across a narcissist who is not a porn addict
  279. 36:14 addict I mean addict is a strong word but like who doesn’t find porn very appealing and who doesn’t who who is not
  280. 36:21 exposed to porn at least once a day Sam your books malignant self-love is you
  281. 36:27 know looks like a really valuable tool for anyone who relates to other people just to know who you’re dealing with or to see in yourself some of the trades um
  282. 36:38 yes I think I think you’re touching on a very very important Point often often neglected in in other interviews and
  283. 36:44 write ups and so on narcissism is is a a tidal wave it’s on the rise our society
  284. 36:50 and culture are narcissistic we have constructed we have embedded narcissism
  285. 36:56 as a foundation Stone of the edifice in which we live so narcissism permeate every cell every social cell and every cultural aspect therefore malignance of Love is a guide book not only to you know a
  286. 37:12 husband a boss narcistic boss narcistic husband or whatever but it’s a guide book to Modern Life it’s regrettably regrettably even when you don’t come across narcissists you inevitably come
  287. 37:25 across narcissism somewhere and you can have narcissistic collectives like narcissistic bureaucracy the the VA Administration if you wish you you you
  288. 37:36 you can come across narcissistic um uh Church narcissistic
  289. 37:42 Parish you you can come across narcissistic clubs and narcissistic political parties and narcissistic narcissism and I was not the first to suggest it I mean the first one was Christopher lash in 1976 in his seminal
  290. 37:55 book the culture of narcissist Nar ism is no longer a phenomenon isolated to the cabinets of psychs with German names
  291. 38:03 narcissism is all around us the we are a wash in narcissism and gradually
  292. 38:09 psychopathy so it’s very frightening and you everyone needs a guide book to this Brave New World Brave ominous new world you have you list um other books like
  293. 38:21 the toxic relationships it’s abuse and its aftermath is that part of malignant
  294. 38:28 self-love um right now we are selling my publisher is selling a series of 16 books that I have written on on narcissism personality disorders but also specifically on relationships with
  295. 38:40 narcissist and with psychopath and I mean people can buy the whole series or or they can buy volumes individually
  296. 38:47 some volumes deal with specific relationship issues yes abuse in relationship how to cope with narcissist
  297. 38:53 in in you know in various settings when you take them into court when when when
  298. 38:59 they are when you have a CO a narcissistic coworker a narcissistic boss so in the workplace there is no
  299. 39:05 shortage of of uh context for narcissism and there is no shortage of books on on
  300. 39:11 on narcissism and mine are an early and um periodically updated contribution to
  301. 39:18 to this field these look terrific I’ve had clients who you know using your your books your knowledge your information
  302. 39:24 would have been very helpful to them there is no access to the narcissist
  303. 39:30 mind except if you’re a narcissist in this sense it really takes one to no one so I keep reading these scholarly studies and and uh books written by victims and observers and I chuckle I keep laughing you know because they don’t get it right it’s uh it is such a
  304. 39:48 Sol The Narcissist mind is such solipsistic monastic universe that it’s
  305. 39:54 a it’s a it’s a mob it’s a mafia you know you you need to be a wise guy to know what’s going on you so only one
  306. 40:02 narc only a narcissist knows what it means to be a narcissist it is it’s an
  307. 40:08 experience which is exclusive mutually exclusive with the human it’s really unique Sam I want to thank you so much for your time I really thank you for having me it’s been fascinating I’d love
  308. 40:20 to revisit with you after I digest some of this unique perspective you’ve given me and pleasure thank you I want to again just point out your book malignant
  309. 40:31 selflove narcissism Revisited and your website samac SV ak. tripod.com yes or
  310. 40:40 www narcissistic abuse.com cuz it’s just fantastic resource and I really
  311. 40:46 appreciate the work you’re doing I appreciate you having me have a nice day there take care bye-bye
  312. 40:52 [Music]
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https://vakninsummaries.com/ (Full summaries of Sam Vaknin’s videos)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/mediakit.html (My work in psychology: Media Kit and Press Room)

Bonus Consultations with Sam Vaknin or Lidija Rangelovska (or both) http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ctcounsel.html

http://www.youtube.com/samvaknin (Narcissists, Psychopaths, Abuse)

http://www.youtube.com/vakninmusings (World in Conflict and Transition)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com (Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/cv.html (Biography and Resume)

Summary

In this video, Sam Vaknin discussed his personal experience with narcissistic personality disorder and his pioneering work in identifying and defining narcissism and related personality disorders. He explained the behaviors and psychological traits of narcissists and psychopaths, their impact on relationships, and the challenges victims face, emphasizing the prevalence of these disorders in various social settings. Vaknin also highlighted the importance of education to recognize narcissistic traits and recommended his book "Malignant Self-Love" as a valuable resource for understanding and coping with narcissistic abuse. Date from Hell: Dating Narcissists and Psychopaths

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