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1. 00:02 when I pioneered the field of narcissistic abuse in the 1980s I also coined the phrase all I had at my disposal were studies by scholars with who preceded me And these studies pertained mostly to borderline personality disorder These scholars described a cycle a
2. 00:23 relational disorder intense relationships involving idealization and then devaluation And that's where it ended Nothing preceded the idealization Apparently it came out of nowhere and nothing followed the devaluation It was the end all and be all
3. 00:46 I took this basic idea of idealization devaluation and I developed it considerably And today I want to describe to you the full cycle from beginning to end only two elements of which involve idealization and devaluation My name is Saknin I'm the
4. 01:08 author of malignant self-love narcissism revisited the first book ever on narcissistic abuse I'm also a professor of psychology as I said idealization devaluation this kind of approach avoidance repetition compulsion this magical thinking followed by equally magical thinking one
5. 01:32 in one deifies and idolizes the partner and the other one demonizes the partner This cycle of idealization devaluation has been described in literature for decades and but it was limited mostly to borderline personality disorder No one has attributed it to nar
6. 01:57 narcissists When I came on the scene in the late 80s and early 90s I noticed similarities between the behaviors of narcissists and borderites Both these pathological patients both of them engaged in idealization and devaluation Both of them established a fantasy The
7. 02:19 contents of the fantasy were different The narcissist had a self- aggrandising self-inflating self-concept butressing fantasy The borderline had a fantasy of safety being accepted being understood by an ideal partner So the the fantasies were different but the tools that has
8. 02:45 have led to the fantasy the stages the phases were identical I noticed both border lines and narcissist idealize other people on initial encounter When a narcissist believes that he can obtain narcissistic supply from someone sex services safety
9. 03:06 uh the four S's the narcissist would tend to idealize this potential partner potential friend and go on to lovebomb
10. 03:18 this person not necessarily in intimate or romantic relationships It's in in all interpersonal interactions Similarly the borderline would do the same with a potential intimate partner with a special person or a special friend She would do the same She would first
11. 03:38 idealize and then inelectably inexurably both these types the narcissist and the borderline devalue Idealization devaluation therefore seem to me to be a core clinical feature of cluster B personality disorders with emphasis on narcissistic personality
12. 04:00 disorder and borderline personality disorder But I asked myself what brings on the idealization and what happens after the devaluation and this is where I added a few stages the famous discard my work I added this phase to the cycle but I've added many other phases uh
13. 04:21 hoovering for example is also my contribution and today I would like to provide you with an overview of how I redefine the relational cycle of narcissists and by extension border lines pathological narcissism is a nosiating repetition compulsion It's an inexurable
14. 04:46 machinery set in motion whenever the narcissist comes across another person who could be of use in some way emotional financial legal as long as the other person is willing or potentially willing to participate in the narcissist shared fantasy This sets in
15. 05:09 motion the machinery that I've mentioned And this machinery repeats its stages one after the other These stages are utterly predictable They follow one another in a sequence that is predetermined Actually it reflects early childhood dynamics and conflicts But it
16. 05:33 is what Freud called a repetition compulsion Sander described it as a shared fantasy And I've appropriated this concept from Sander and applied it to narcissism and narcissistic abuse And here are the stages of the cycle in my work Number one
17. 05:54 spotting Spotting is when the narcissist scans the room When the narcissist enters a pathological narcissistic space which is a physical space like a church or a pub or a classroom or a family he enters this space and he scans everyone in this space using his cold empathy And
18. 06:19 when I say he's half of all narcissists are women So he scans the room and he picks up potentials potential targets potential participants in the sh participants in the share fantasy potential intimate partner potential so-called friends insignificant others
19. 06:41 This is the spotting phase The spotting phase is followed by the auditioning phase In the auditioning phase the narcissist auditions his potential victims or potential targets He puts them through a series of basic tests Are they willing to participate participate Are they
20. 07:03 vulnerable Are they traculent and and opinionated Not good And so on so forth So he goes through the auditioning process and then decides whether the potential can become actual whether the person has passed the audition with flying colors and the narcissist is
21. 07:26 therefore able to transition to the next phase The next phase is by now well known It's the lovebombing phase The lovebombing phase involves idealization the creation in the narcissist's mind of an internal object that represents the external object the
22. 07:47 other person And this is a process I call snapshotting The narcissist takes a snapshot of the other person and photoshops it idealizes it And then the narcissist communicates this idealized version to the external object to the other person And this is the lovebombing
23. 08:09 phase In the love bombing phase the narcissist acquaints the potential participant in the shared fantasy Acquaints her with her idealized image in the narcissist's mind She sees herself through the narcissist's gaze as this perfect drop deadad gorgeous hyper
24. 08:31 intelligent unprecedented amazing and fascinating creature or being It is irresistible This whole of mirrors is addictive The idealization uh allows the narcissist to begin to regard the potential partner the potential friend the potential potent
25. 08:53 potential participant in the shared fantasy allows the narcissist to begin to regard these potentials as loving maternal figures Whereas analysis lovebomb and idealize and then convert the partner into a maternal figure psychopaths groom Grooming is a
26. 09:15 psychopathic activity The psychopath prepares converts the other person into a mark a target a victim Grooming is goal oriented The purpose of lovebombing and idealizing is to convert the partner into a kind of of perfect mother A mother who loves unconditionally never
27. 09:41 mind what A mother who who's always there affords object constancy A mother who is embracing and warm and accepting mother who caters to all the narcissist psychological needs Following this the lovebombing and idealization stage the narcissist has acquired the
28. 10:08 target Exactly Like like some kind of advanced weaponry the narcissist acquires the target And now the narcissist is convinced having auditioned the partner having loveborn her having idealized her having converted her in his mind into a perfect maternal figure
29. 10:34 who loves unconditionally the narcissist now needs to test this hypothesis Is the partner really a loving maternal figure And is this love conditioned on some kind of performance or the delivery of goods or is this love unconditional Enter narcissistic abuse
30. 10:58 At this stage the narcissist tests the partner by abusing her He pushes the envelope He exaggerates His misconduct is egregious He torments the partner tortures her causes her pain It's not sadism There's no joy in that It's a test Will she stick around despite
31. 11:23 everything How far can he go without losing her It is another kind of audition In effect the audition of pain and torture the infernal submission infernal subjugation of the partner to a series of shattering and devastating tests and examinations Having passed these exams
32. 11:51 when the partner sticks around does not abandon the narcissist does not reject the narcissist does not criticize or castigate the narcissist at that point the partner has proven her worth as a loving mother Mother who is capable of embracing the narcissist unconditionally
33. 12:16 This test over the narcissist is ready for the next phase And again remember the shared fantasy is an objective oblivious machinery It is set in motion triggered into motion at some point And once it is set in motion it cannot be stopped There's no way to stop it
34. 12:39 There's nothing you could have done to have to stop it So the next stage in this algorithm is devaluation The narcissist first devalues the internal object that represents you in his mind He devalues the snapshot He devalues the idealized image or the idealized avatar
35. 13:05 that stands in for you in his mind Remember the narcissist interacts only with internal objects not with external ones So the first stage of devaluation is a transformation or transmogriication of the internal object from an ideal unconditionally loving
36. 13:27 perfect being into a de demonic persary
37. 13:34 um hostile internal object This process is the internal devaluation Having converted you in his mind into an enemy an implacable foe The narcissist now needs to get rid of you He needs to devalue you This time is an external object In order to match the external
38. 13:59 object to the internal object the narcissist first idealizes you and then matches you to the ideal And when you fail fail to match the idealized image inevitably the narcissist then devalues you and again attempts to match you as an external object with the internal
39. 14:21 object that represents you in his mind And it does this by devaluing you externally So devaluation has two phases two stages Internal which is hidden you it's subtle It's invisible to you And once the internal devaluation is complete and the internal object the
40. 14:45 introject that represents you in the narcissist mind is all demonic and evil and wicked and malevolent and persec with enmity and hostility Only at that stage the narcissist would push you using a process known as projective identification would push you to match
41. 15:06 this devalued internal object would push you to become his enemy In effect whether you do become his enemy or not for example whether you cheat on him or not whether you abuse him or not at some point the narcissist discards you He needs to discard you because
42. 15:27 harboring a an internal object which is an enemy is very threatening creates enormous dissonance and anxiety To get rid of this anxiety to amilarate it the narcissist needs to get rid of you physically But remember that throughout the shared fantasy you are a maternal
43. 15:48 figure You're a mother The narcissist idealizes you as a mother The narcissist tests you as a mother The narcissist then devalues you as one devalues a mother And the narcissist discards you as a child discards his or her mother in early childhood A process known as separation
44. 16:11 individuation It is all a reenactment of the early childhood dynamics of a child and his mother Having discarded you the narcissist rushes to replace you And the narcissist does not necessarily replace you with some kind of superior version because the narcissist is
45. 16:33 unaware of the external object The narcissist would idealize anyone basically Anyone who passes the audition successfully anyone who is ready and available to be idealized and love bomb would do the job would do the trick So the narcissist does not apply any
46. 16:55 standards There are no selective criteria There's no mate selection Everything takes place within the narcissist's mind within the fantasy It's a fantastic space It's not real It's counterfactual So the narcissist just picks up a random someone in random test auditions
47. 17:17 her love bombs her idealizes her and the cycle starts all over again The narcissist needs to be embedded in a shared fantasy every minute of every hour of every day When the narcissist is not within a shared fantasy when the narcissist is outside the shared fantasy there's an
48. 17:37 enormous risk of narcissistic motification Narcissistic modification is when the narcissist gets in touch with his buried shame and other negative effects other negative emotions At that stage a narcissist might become suicidal It's a very dangerous phase and
49. 17:57 the only antidote to narcissistic motification is a shared fantasy So the narcissist compulsively is looking for the next partner and and to establish the next shared fantasy It's a process of creating a shared fantasy destroying the shared fantasy creating a new shared
50. 18:18 fantasy destroying the next shared fantasy What Freud called a repetition compulsion So the next phase after the discard is the replace or the replacement Narcissist sports auditions love bombs idealizes tests and then internally devalues externally devalues and
51. 18:43 discards And once he has discarded the next victim he moves on to the third and the fourth and the 40th and the 400th replacement In some cases not in all cases the narcissist would try to hoover you into a new shared fantasy He would redefine
52. 19:03 you He would see you in a new light He would uh love bomb you There's no need for spotting and for auditioning You've passed this stage earlier So now he goes directly into the lovebombing phase idealizing you luring you in baiting you There are numerous ways to bait you One
53. 19:25 of the most dominant of which is to again trigger your maternal instincts It's the dual mothership where you become the narcissist's mother The narcissist becomes your mother Provides you with what appears to be unconditional acceptance and love The love bombing phase So
54. 19:45 hovering is the outcome of dissonance It's when the narcissist having expelled you from his garden of Eden could not quell could not put down could not turn off or switch off the internal object in his mind that represents you Usually after the discard
55. 20:08 phase the narcissist disables deactivates buries the snapshot the introject the internal object that the avatar that used to represent you in his mind and it's there dormant But in some cases the narcissist is unable to do this I explain in other videos why I
56. 20:34 advise you to search the shared fantasy playlist on my on my channel But sometimes a narcissist fails to deactivate or disable or defang or switch off the internal object that used to be you in his mind And then this creates a dissonance The internal object
57. 20:52 that represents you in his mind is you remember persecuto hostile There's a lot of enmity aggression It's very threatening So this creates a huge dissonance The only way to get rid of the anxiety that this dissonance arouses is to re idealize the internal object
58. 21:14 and the only way to do this is to re idealize you within a new shared fantasy Hence hoovering So this is the complete cycle spotting auditioning love bombing ide love bombing idealizing uh as a perfect maternal figure testing with narcissistic abuse devaluing the
59. 21:39 internal object that represents you in the narcissist mind devaluing the external object which is you discarding you replacing you and on some occasions re idealizing you and hoovering you reintroducing you into a new shared fantasy in order to mitigate the adverse
60. 22:00 and peritious impacts of the persary object in the narcissist mind The persary object which is still dynamically active and cannot be put down Now you know what it's all about It's a very complex cycle And remember it's automatic It's inexurable It's out of the narcissist's
61. 22:27 control It's mostly unconscious And there's nothing you or the narcissist could do or could have done about it Forgive yourself