Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video.

1. 00:00 No text uh all right good good evening good morning good afternoon wherever it is that you're tuning in from and we'll I think we'll both introduce ourselves but I've got Sam Bachmann here i'm Rebecca
2. 00:15 Zung uh I am an attorney i am I've been a a trial attorney for 25 years now and I'm a USA Today bestselling author of a
3. 00:27 couple of different books including Negotiate Like You Matter and uh Slay the Bully: How to Negotiate with a
4. 00:33 Narcissist and Win and I've got Sam Van here you want to go ahead and introduce yourself
5. 00:39 thank you for having me and um you survived the first interview i hope you
6. 00:45 I hope you survived this hey our interview did very very well i hope you did surprisingly well i agree yes um I'm
7. 00:53 uh I'm a professor of clinical psychology i'm u the author of malignance of love narcissism revisited i've been studying uh personality disorders especially claust personality
8. 01:06 disorders and especially narcissistic personality disord disorder over the last 28 years so that's all I've been
9. 01:13 doing and um I uh I'm here to talk to you about this condition and what it
10. 01:20 means to the narcissist and to others yeah I think and uh I think our
11. 01:26 conversation uh on both of our channels does very very well so I think it's important uh work to help people um I
12. 01:37 help people with communicating and negotiating with uh high conflict
13. 01:43 personalities so that they can break free from toxic personalities i give people tools uh so that they can navigate them uh in
14. 01:54 a um in a a way that uh helps them break
15. 02:00 free and um my question to you today
16. 02:07 um is are narcissists born or are they made
17. 02:14 is it the old nature or nurture conversation that's the old debate
18. 02:20 No text yeah first of all we should distinguish between uh evidence and well I don't
19. 02:26 need to tell you between evidence and what stands to reason many things stand
20. 02:32 to reason but there's no evidence so it stands to reason that
21. 02:38 narcissism has a a genetic component stands to reason that pathological narcissism is hereditary and I'll give you two reasons why number one we have twin
22. 02:52 studies studies of twins where one of them became a narcissist and the other didn't and we have multiple studies of siblings who were basically raised by
23. 03:04 the same parents in the same environment and more or less in the same time period like the difference in ages is not that
24. 03:11 big and yet only one of 10 and fewer than one one in 10 became became a
25. 03:18 narcissist so that's one very strong argument to believe that narcissism is
26. 03:24 genetic or hereditary and the second uh reason to believe that is that narcissism is a is
27. 03:31 pathological narcissism narcissistic personality disorder is a member of a cluster of a personality of personality
28. 03:38 disorders including borderline personality disorder antisocial personality disorder and so on
29. 03:45 isionrionic and in borderline personality disorder in any any psychopathy there is a very strong
30. 03:53 genetic component a very strong hereditary component so if narcissism belongs to
31. 03:59 the same family so to speak it would stand to reason that it too has a genetic component yet we have yet to prove this we have multiple studies and there are speculations about specific genes or
32. 04:16 gene arrays groups of genes but we don't have evidence nothing that will stand in
33. 04:22 court to use your your domain we do not have evidence that narcissism is genetic
34. 04:28 or hereditary though it's extremely likely
35. 04:34 similarly it stands to reason that pathological narcissism should be associated with brain abnormalities it
36. 04:42 stands to reason the narcissist usually in the background of the narcissist we find childhood
37. 04:50 adversity we find trauma we find abuse we know that trauma and abuse change the brain rewire the brain imprint themselves on the brain we know
38. 05:01 that that's a fact that has been established in scientific studies mhm and we know that these are usually
39. 05:10 lifelong impacts unless they are reversed uh in therapy and so on where
40. 05:17 neuroplasticity keeps kicks in and the brain rewires or reprograms itself but narcissists rarely attend therapy and they're very immune to outside influences generally speaking not only therapy they are immersed and in in
41. 05:33 their own island of fantasy they they're not in contact with reality they've impaired reality testing so the
42. 05:41 neuroplasticity of the narcissist's brain is unlikely to be of help because simply the narcissist is isolated from the external world so it stands to reason that the narcissist's brain is
43. 05:53 somehow different because the narcissist has experienced abuse and trauma in early childhood when the brain actually
44. 05:59 is molded and and is growing and so it also stands to reason that if narcissism
45. 06:06 is indeed partially genetic and hereditary this would have an
46. 06:12 implication or manifestation in the brain so again it stands to reason but we don't have any evidence of this we have a serious we have a few not many
47. 06:24 studies they're not serious there's no control group they usually involve 10 to 12 subjects they they don't isolate what we call confounding factors they don't
48. 06:36 isolate other factors which may have led to the same outcomes for example the
49. 06:42 abuse itself so these are not serious studies while it stands to reason that
50. 06:49 narcissism involves brain abnormalities either too we were unable to prove this there's another problem here how do
51. 06:57 we know if the brain abnormalities cause the narcissism or maybe a lifelong of
52. 07:03 narcissism changes the brain we do not test the brains of newborns and infants we don't do this this is considered to some extent
53. 07:14 unethical and we simply don't do this we test and we examine and we measure the
54. 07:20 brains of adults and yet adult narcissists are by definition narcissists how do we know whether their
55. 07:31 narcissism has not altered changed modified their brains or whether the brains were like that to start with we don't know that's the answer right so
56. 07:43 it's very unserious on the part of people with and without academic degrees
57. 07:49 to go around making sweeping claims about narcissism is genetic it has nothing to do with environment and
58. 07:56 narcissism is a brain abnormality exactly like psychopathy it's very not
59. 08:03 serious and this claim should be discounted immediately because there's no scientific substantiation of this we do not teach this in universities where I teach we do not we don't you can't find it in textbooks
60. 08:19 encyclopedias it's not serious well I'm not talking about Wikipedia yeah it's not serious now what will happen in 10
61. 08:28 20 years i am pretty convinced that we will succeed to find a genetic hereditary link or anticedent anticedent and we will succeed to prove that brain
62. 08:39 abnormalities and structural and functional are involved in narcissism i think in 20 years this will be you know
63. 08:46 true but not right now you've been studying this you said No text almost 30 years now i have seen studies that have said that there have been
64. 09:02 almost an increase in in more than 30% uh since the 70s in
65. 09:10 NPD have you seen that yes yes that that part is true not only has there been an increase in the general population of the incidence and prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder but
66. 09:25 there has been an explosion of narcissistic personality disorder among people under the age of 25 mhm starting
67. 09:33 with the studies of Tuen and Campbell in 2008 2012 four years starting with these
68. 09:40 studies we now know for sure that narcissism is exploding among certain
69. 09:47 demographics ironically under age 25 and above age 65 narcissism is exploding in these age groups and we know that NPD is um now
70. 10:00 diagnosed more frequently than in the 80s but this has to do again with extraneous factors factors for example
71. 10:07 the definition of narcissistic personality disorder has changed since
72. 10:13 2013 in 2013 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual introduced what we call an
73. 10:20 alternative model the alternative model is far more expansive than the list of diagnostic
74. 10:28 criteria in the fourth edition of the DSM so the fifth edition and the text revision in 2022 their their way of describing narcissism is such that it captures many
75. 10:42 more people it applies to many more people that's one thing second thing the
76. 10:48 most important diagnostic manual which is the international classification of diseases has published the 11th edition
77. 10:55 in 2022 and in the 11th edition of the ICD by the way for you to understand the ICD is used by 80% of humanity and the DSM is used by fewer than 20% of humanity so the ICD is by far much more important so
78. 11:11 in the ICD narcissistic personality disorder has been eliminated there's no such
79. 11:17 diagnosis instead what we have in the ICD we have a list of traits and if um
80. 11:23 an individual a patient a client mess a few of the has a few of
81. 11:29 these traits in conjunction in combination this would amount to the
82. 11:35 equivalent of what we call narcissistic personality disorder in North
83. 11:41 America so dissociity and anastia which is a form of obsessivecompulsive disorder and so on if you put this
84. 11:48 together antagonism if you put this together you get the kind of person that we call a narcissist in North America but make no mistake about it the vast majority of humanity do not
85. 12:00 recognize narcissistic personality disorder as a mental health issue at all it's been eliminated and instead what we have we recognize in the ICD that there is a
86. 12:13 personality disorder a problem with personality and then whenever the patient comes to a therapist the
87. 12:19 therapist creates a tailormade customized profile of the patient using
88. 12:25 like Lego using various traits put together so this is this categorical
89. 12:33 approach you have narcissistic personal this is very antiquated it's like 20 25 years old we we don't do this anymore the DSM was forced to do it they didn't
90. 12:44 want to do it as well but they were forced to do it because they're financed by the insurance and pharmaceutical
91. 12:50 company uh industries in the United States this is a totally commercial
92. 12:56 decision the insurance companies insist on classification and categorization in order to reimburse therapists and psychologists while in in Europe it's
93. 13:07 all free it's a public service so there's no need for this so that's the So are you saying that
94. 13:13 there are actually more people or is it because it's an expanded definition i
95. 13:21 think the I think two things people have become much more aware of narcissistic personality disorder so for example spouses are pushing their spouses to attend therapy in other words this
96. 13:33 increased awareness has pushed many has introduced many more people into clinical practice
97. 13:40 courts for example now evaluate for narcissistic personality disorder didn't
98. 13:46 used to be the case until 15 20 years ago in the United Kingdom at least I know that courts routinely Well I mean I would say in courts it was it really No text only became a a a term I mean less than 10
99. 14:04 years ago yes in the states in the United Kingdom it iron strangely started
100. 14:11 earlier there was a famous case of a guy who killed his parents and then the defense used narcissistic personality disorder as a mitigating factor
101. 14:22 initially they tried to claim insanity defense it was thrown out then they use it as a mitigating and his sentence was
102. 14:28 reduced so it became all the rage but I I go back to my question are there more
103. 14:34 narcissists or is there just more awareness of it i don't think there are more narcissists i think what's happening is
104. 14:40 more awareness and more expansive definition but I do think that in the
105. 14:46 among young people there is more narcissistic style not necessarily narcissistic
106. 14:53 personality disorder but there's a growing narcissistic style it's becoming drier it's becoming fashionable to be
107. 15:00 narcissistic in many ways and do you equate do you do you um say that that is
108. 15:07 because of social media because of I think social media reflected I think social media caters to these needs
109. 15:14 because twi and started to discern this trend uh in in 2008 when there was no
110. 15:22 social media mhm so their first studies where they found an explosion literally explosion of nar cell phone preceded
111. 15:31 social media so I I think social media cater to this need like narcissists wanted social media so it came Yeah
112. 15:40 but yeah I think of course the environment is very encouraging not only social media listen narcissists are in
113. 15:47 politics they make they're doing very well we could say that narcissism is a positive
114. 15:53 adaptation in in the sense that if you're a narcissist your chances to succeed to make it work to a higher no
115. 16:02 the our civilization rewards narcissistic traits and behaviors and if you're not a Nazis you're a loser if you're a winner you at the same time must be obnoxious and disempathic because winners are like that you know it's there is this confluence There is
116. 16:20 this combination of winning traits and narcissistic traits it's as if the
117. 16:27 current ethos is to be a winner you need to be a narcissist it goes without
118. 16:33 saying like if you're not a narcissist you'll never make it forget about it you'll be a loser and so people adapt
119. 16:40 it's now we call it positive adaptation in 2016 in July the famous scientific
120. 16:46 magazine Scientific mind you New Scientist they had a cover story the cover story was "Parents teach your children to be narcissists." There was a cover story
121. 16:58 July 2016 and what they were claiming at the time is that narcissism is fast
122. 17:04 becoming a positive thing and there are even academics like Ken Datton and many
123. 17:10 others who claim Makobi and many others they claim that narcissism is a positive
124. 17:16 thing is a great step in in evolution and that n we should be led by
125. 17:22 narcissists and psychopaths because they are much better adapted much better suited for leadership roles
126. 17:29 and there are many studies that demonstrate that the
127. 17:35 uh prevalence of the how many narcissists so the prevalence of narcissism and psychopathy among for
128. 17:42 example surgeons is much higher than the general population many more surgeons are
129. 17:49 psychopaths surgeons I mean doctors it's almost like Darwinism like survival of a fittest it's well if a surgeon has like
130. 17:58 if you're gonna if you're going to survive yeah be a Dar like Darwinism right that's it's adaptation adaptation is a Darwinian concept adaptation means that the environment has changed in a
131. 18:09 way that narcissists and psychopaths are much better suited much better adapted to modern civilization but there are studies that show this for example hair and babyak the world's leading experts on psychopathy They discovered that 5% of uh chief
132. 18:29 executive officers of Fortune 500 companies are can be diagnosed as
133. 18:35 psychopaths compared to 1% in the general population studies by Bond
134. 18:41 recent studies by Bond found that 20% of chief executive officers in all
135. 18:48 corporations small and big are have pronounced psychopathic tendencies and are possibly potentially psychopaths mhm we discovered that among medical
136. 18:59 surgeons surgeons people who operate in operating rooms yeah in hospitals um there are there is between five and
137. 19:07 10 times more psychopaths than in the general population we know that I used to represent them in
138. 19:13 their divorces or their wives yeah and you you concur you you would agree oh for sure for sure so So what's people to do yeah uh so people
139. 19:28 adapt they become narcissists and psychopaths they they adopt narcissistic style and psychopath people who aren't
140. 19:34 who aren't what how how do they deal with them you know so can a narcissist
141. 19:40 No text change do they know what they're doing these are two separate questions start
142. 19:48 with the second one because it's easier yes narcissists absolutely know what they're doing any claim to the contrary
143. 19:54 is counterfactual they know they know what they're doing however they don't know why they're
144. 20:01 doing what they're doing they are blind to their own motivations and attitudes so we have a a
145. 20:08 back a backroom blindness they they do something they know exactly what they're doing they also know the impact the impacts their actions would have on
146. 20:19 other people when they harm other people they know it they don't care but they know it but when you ask them why did
147. 20:26 you do what you what you what you've just done then they would spin a narrative which would be
148. 20:33 self-justifying self agrandizing fantastic inflated grandio or inane out
149. 20:40 of this world and these narratives are counterfactual they have nothing to do with reality and they really believe in
150. 20:47 these fantasies like they are emotionally invested in these idiotic narratives and they would fight you
151. 20:54 tooth and nail if you try to contradict them to intro to to introduce countervening evidence they would defend
152. 21:02 it to the death they would confabulate they would in invent some fictitious story then they would adopt it they
153. 21:09 would come to believe it they would claim it's reality it's factual it's this is real history and they would
154. 21:16 fight you they would they would ignore all evidence they would So they double down they double down on their story yes
155. 21:23 and so narcissism is a bizarre combination of extreme self-awareness
156. 21:29 actually because narcissists have called empathy they're not only aware of themselves they're fully aware of other
157. 21:35 people they immediately scan other people they find the vulnerabilities and they invade or penetrate through these vulnerabilities so narcissists and psychopaths are actually more aware than
158. 21:48 normal people than healthy people because they're predators they're scanning for prey all the time so we
159. 21:55 have this on the one hand and on the other hand a total lack of self-awareness regarding motivations regarding your psychology regarding your total lack and where a a self-awareness
160. 22:09 introspection should have been instead you have fantastic stories and crazy
161. 22:15 narratives that they believe in so we have this bizarre combination where of total self-awareness and total lack of self-awareness and this is this this
162. 22:26 creates a lot of confusion in in in people because they say he's aware no he's not aware he's doesn't know what
163. 22:32 he's doing yeah he does know what he's doing he's evil he's not evil it creates a big mess but if you understand that
164. 22:41 the narcissist is imured and immersed in a fantasy believes that the fantasy is
165. 22:48 reality and acts out of the fantasy in order to justify and butress the
166. 22:55 fantasy then you would understand the narcissist he knows what he's doing but he thinks the reasons for his actions have to do with a fantasy not
167. 23:06 with any reality so it's we have this in many other mental health conditions we have people who claim that some celebrity is in love with them
168. 23:18 this is called an erottomaniac delusion so you have delusional people who claim that some celebrity is in love with them
169. 23:26 so can I can I expand on that a little bit so like for example in a
170. 23:33 relationship when a narcissist is um you know how they do
171. 23:39 this pushpull thing so they get you all the way to the brink where a person just
172. 23:45 cannot take anymore and they want to leave right and then they make
173. 23:54 promises of whatever it is i'll I'll go to marriage counseling i will uh do all the things that I they know that they've wanted
174. 24:05 them to do anyway so they make the promises in that
175. 24:11 moment do they believe that they're going to do those things excellent
176. 24:18 question narcissists do not gaslight and narcissists do not future fake it's a
177. 24:25 common mistake online to gaslight you need to be able to tell the difference between fantasy
178. 24:31 and reality what you're doing is you are playing with someone else's mind you're distorting their perception of reality
179. 24:37 in order to manipulate them and obtain some goal but to do this you the
180. 24:44 gaslighter need to realize the difference between the lies you are telling and what is
181. 24:50 real narcissists are incapable of this when they tell you a tall story a tall
182. 24:57 tale when they lie to you when they they believe it they really believe it when
183. 25:03 they make you a promise they are convinced beyond doubt that they will change and they will they take it
184. 25:10 seriously they are invested in it they they never keep their promises and nothing does change and they do and you
185. 25:18 end up being gaslit you you do experience gaslighting but the narcissist is not gaslighting you he just They keep you alive on that hope they string you along on that hope yes
186. 25:29 yes but they believe it they believe what they tell you they believe yes I'm going to change yes it's going to be
187. 25:36 better yes let's try again let's So what is what's going on in their mind in that moment they're delusional they're sick they're mentally ill the psychopath is a
188. 25:47 lot less mentally ill than the narcissist because the psychopath is grounded in reality knows exactly what he's doing he's goal oriented psychopath want just wants what you want you want
189. 25:58 money he wants money you want sex he wants sex the only difference between you is that the psychopath has no
190. 26:04 scruples there's no conscience there's no remorse no regret and no inhibitions
191. 26:10 so you want money you will go about obtaining money legally the psychopath wants money he will do anything he will
192. 26:17 steal he will kill to get to obtain but the goal is the same psychopaths are
193. 26:23 recognizable they are like caricatures of human beings but they are recognizable you can you can understand
194. 26:31 what they're what they're interested in what they're looking for what you know narcissists are not narcissists are so
195. 26:39 delusional so detached so divorced from reality that Otto Kernburg the father of the film suggested in the 70s that narcissism is a form of psychosis that they are kind of schizophrenics you know because they're no longer with us
196. 26:55 they're somewhere in outer space you know the only difference is that the psychopath tries to impose his fantasy on you and coers you to confirm that it
197. 27:06 is real so he tells you this is it i'm a genius for example and then you must say
198. 27:13 "Yes you're a genius." Even if you think he's an idiot you must say it you must confirm the fantasy and if you don't
199. 27:20 you're penalized he's very punitive and vindictive the narcissist very vengeful so but he he's looking for a partner he's looking for someone to tell him
200. 27:31 you're normal your fantasy is reality your false self is not false you say you're a genius you are you say you're drop dead gorgeous you are you everything you say about yourself is true don't worry about it don't fret
201. 27:44 you're okay you're mentally healthy he needs this he needs the normaly affirmation from the from the partner
202. 27:52 while the psychopath couldn't care less doesn't care what you think about him so if the person doesn't say that and doesn't go along with that then what happens the No text
203. 28:06 narcissist becomes very aggressive the aggression has two forms basically internal intern what we call
204. 28:12 internalized aggression where the narcissist devalues you in his mind first in his mind by the way he changes
205. 28:19 the introject he changes his his your representation in his mind he begins to see you as an enemy he converts you into something called persary object so it's
206. 28:30 a form of aggression converts you an enemy means he has to fight you he has to punish you he has to and then he does
207. 28:37 this becomes externalized aggression that's a psychopathic element in in narcissism becomes externalized and he
208. 28:43 begins to punish you verbally sometimes physically financially legally it could
209. 28:49 litigate you to death you know there are many ways to to punish you so if you
210. 28:55 refuse to comply and obey and affirm and and confirm the narcissist's impaired
211. 29:02 reality testing and we have this this today in politics for example we have very well-known figures who became
212. 29:09 presidents and prime ministers all over the world they're narcissists they live in fantasy and they insist that everyone
213. 29:16 around them tells them it's not a fantasy and if someone dares to confront this kind of person and say "Wait a
214. 29:22 minute maybe you're wrong this doesn't it's not real it's not backed by evidence science says otherwise." The
215. 29:28 the narcissist goes becomes rageful and fires that person or imprisons that
216. 29:34 person so this is there is a penalty to pay if you refuse to become an integral
217. 29:41 part of the shared fantasy and conform to the narcissist totally distorted perception of reality and and crazy
218. 29:48 No text cognitions you know and the same thing happens from like let's say it's a a mother and it's from a son of course yes
219. 29:55 right if the son confronts the mother of course and says hey that what you're saying is not true then the mother will
220. 30:02 cut the son off of course we have a concept called pseudo pseudo hostile and pseudo mutual families pseudo pseudo
221. 30:11 families it's a family usually the head of the household is usually a narcissist but not not only but usually a
222. 30:18 narcissist um and it is a family where the head of the household who is a narcissist in many cases says our family is wonderful our family is perfect the
223. 30:30 dynamics inside our family are beneficial to everyone it's it's great to be a member of our family when the family sucks and if you dare to confront this person and say no you know
224. 30:42 I don't feel good in this family i I you're not a good parent uh things are
225. 30:48 not good here the dynamics are then of course you are penalized horribly in in every possible way you're disinherited
226. 30:54 you're verbally abused confined to your room for the next 60 years or something it's the punishment
227. 31:00 is huge so the fantasy in the case of a mother would be usually either a fantasy
228. 31:08 of a perfect family a narcissistic mother perfect family or what we call
229. 31:14 the symbiotic bond like me and my son we are one we are single
230. 31:20 organism i can feel him i can read him i can guess ahead i can anticipate
231. 31:26 everything he needs every I take care of all he his needs he cannot survive without me i cannot survive without him
232. 31:32 that's a symbiotic bond and it's it's very infantile this is the case when you
233. 31:38 are with a newborn yeah but these are the ways that a narcissistic mother in the example that
234. 31:45 you've given would superimpose a shared fantasy on the family structure and any
235. 31:51 deviation from the shared fantasy any any hint of agency independence personal autonomy criticism disagreement having a
236. 31:59 life even if as a son for example of such a mother you have a life you have your own friends you found a girlfriend
237. 32:06 you're about to get married you have a new job she would resent this because it threatens the stability of the fantasy
238. 32:14 you're changing any change in you challenges the internal object that
239. 32:20 represents you in her mind this kind of mother is demented she's interacting not
240. 32:27 with you but with your avatar in your m in her mind she's inside her mind she's
241. 32:33 so lipsistic in her mind there is this perfect son or perfect daughter and this
242. 32:40 perfect son or perfect daughter they're immobile they're immutable they're like ancient Egyptian mummies and she continues to interact with these images not with the real children and suddenly there is this image of the daughter okay
243. 32:56 and she's stable and she's fixed it's it's a fixation and suddenly this daughter comes and says "Mom I just met
244. 33:03 the man of my life the love of my life i'm going to get married." It's shocking because it destabilizes the the ancient
245. 33:10 Egyptian money destabilizes the avatar and the mother has to punish her for the distress and discomfort and egoiston that this creates in the mother the
246. 33:21 mother wants this her daughters and sons to be there forever cowebbed until she
247. 33:28 dies because otherwise she feels challenged and and it's very terrifying it's like her whole internal world is
248. 33:35 falling apart it's it's a pitiable condition you know I'm going to say something that's
249. 33:41 not popular people say narcissist evil demonic this that yeah they are they
250. 33:47 have horrible impacts on on people i'm the guy who coined the phrase narcissistic abuse i should know yeah so
251. 33:53 I take credit and I don't feel inferior to anyone in this field No text but bear in mind the narcissist is a victim of narcissistic abuse in most
252. 34:06 cases it's a victim it's a victim who is chosen to adopt the abuser as a role model it's a victim who said "I'm never going to be abused again from now on I'm going to abuse others i'm going to be the abuser
253. 34:21 from now on okay it's an immoral choice and it's a horrible things to horrible
254. 34:27 thing to do to people but never forget it's it's a victim and it's a seriously
255. 34:33 damaged victim the narcissist mind above all is pitable i mean it's a pitable human being it's a human being who cannot experience love is never in touch with
256. 34:45 reality lives inside a fantasy that can never come true so he's constantly fighting to sustain it somehow is terrified i wrote this morning that
257. 34:57 narcissism is a defense against shame and against the terror of experiencing
258. 35:04 this shame yes and that's all there is to it it's a terror it's a state of
259. 35:10 terror it's oh my god it's falling apart i projected this image i convinced
260. 35:16 everyone that I'm this or that and it's all falling apart and when it falls
261. 35:22 apart I will feel so ashamed that I will die i'm in terror because it's life-threatening this is called narcissistic motification so you know I understand the rage and
262. 35:34 the anger and the hatred and the but they I mean they should be pitted they
263. 35:42 they are so damaged they're so damaged it's that's why when I ask victims of
264. 35:49 narcissistic abuse especially women but not only what in him attracted you not only
265. 35:56 women to be clear also men what in him as a a romantic partner as a friend
266. 36:02 whatever attracted you to him many of them say he looked to me like a child I
267. 36:08 felt like he's a child so because the narcissist is a
268. 36:14 child and the narcissist leverages this that he's a broken damaged crying hurt child and he is he
269. 36:22 is that's not a pretense but he leverages this as a bait to lure you in
270. 36:29 to trigger your maternal instincts to render you protective and then you can't let go
271. 36:36 because what mother abandons her child it's heartbreaking you know mhm but it
272. 36:43 is a child ultimately it's they are they are two three years old mentally they have great
273. 36:50 semantic memory in other words they can memorize all kinds of tasks and they have skills they could be super educated
274. 36:57 they could be you know amazing in in many other ways but when it comes to their psychology these are two year old
275. 37:04 two years old and two years old who have just undergone a horrible upbringing one way or another so can they change sorry no and no they No text can't change i know again that you can find online psychologists and therapists and psychiatrists would tell you of
276. 37:22 course they can change just pay me just pay me and I will show you um and so on so forth it is all selfserving no one in academ starting with Ottokberg
277. 37:33 down to Daniel and you name it all the big names and so on and the small names even some Vaknin no one believes no one
278. 37:42 believes there's no evidence whatsoever that any treatment modality we know any
279. 37:49 therapy we know has any impact on narcissist except
280. 37:55 sometimes I would even say often you can modify the narcissist his behaviors in
281. 38:02 the short term i will tell you something when a narcissist goes to
282. 38:08 prison all his narcissistic behaviors seize and deceased they all
283. 38:15 disappear the contempt the arrogance the exploitation the envy the abuse the all
284. 38:23 vanishes as if it has never been he becomes the nicest kindest most empathic amazingly helpful person you've ever seen in your life in prison because he's
285. 38:34 afraid now wouldn't it be though that they learn how No text
286. 38:41 to behave like a person who has empathy but they don't actually have empathy i
287. 38:49 fully agree it's a simulation but we can leverage this simulation in therapy in clinical
288. 38:56 settings we can teach the narcissist or convince the narcissist or bargain with the narcissist to change his behaviors the abrasive antisocial harmful abusive
289. 39:08 hurtful behaviors we can change some of them because we give the narcissist some reason to incentive or because he's afraid he's afraid to lose you for example so he would change his behavior
290. 39:19 he's afraid in prison to shorten his life expectancy dramatically so he
291. 39:25 becomes a non-narcissist fear is a great motivator with narcissist grandiosity is
292. 39:31 a motivator narcissists are children remember they're two years old so you can come to a narcissist as a therapist
293. 39:38 and you can say "Uh I don't believe you can do that i would have liked you to change your behavior but I don't think you can do that not even you can do that." and he will do it to prove to you
294. 39:49 that he can do it just to prove to you that he is omnipotent all powerful he
295. 39:55 will change his behavior so many therapists leverage grandiosity they challenge the narcissist to prove how
296. 40:02 perfect he is and then he changes his behavior uh another reason the narcissist changes his behavior he hits
297. 40:09 rock bottom he experiences narcissistic motification all his defenses crumble this is called decompensation he decompensates he's defenseless it becomes essentially a borderline and
298. 40:21 then there's a window of opportunity and we can modify behaviors but behavior modification in a narcissist is
299. 40:28 shorten it you need maintenance sessions like you change the narcissist behavior he promises for example he's married to
300. 40:35 you and he makes promises in therapy uh not to be verbally abusive anymore
301. 40:42 imagine so he will go at it he will he will persevere for two months three
302. 40:48 months on the fourth month he will abuse you again you want to make sure he never
303. 40:54 abuses you verbally again he has to attend therapy maintenance sessions every 2 3 months it doesn't hold it's
304. 41:01 it's not permanent it's never permanent because the narcissistic dynamics are much stronger than any behavior
305. 41:07 modification with the exception of behavior modification in the short term all treatment modalities have zero see
306. 41:16 this is zero zero impact on narcissists end of story period anyone who claims
307. 41:22 otherwise is self-interested and a money grabber so now it is a spectrum right so
308. 41:30 there are people that have narcissistic traits or tendencies so the what about
309. 41:36 people who are kind of kind of narcissistic but not full-blown
310. 41:44 narcissism yes are they very
311. 41:50 I'm sorry what about those are they able to change more yes than others okay so
312. 41:56 we make a distinction between three types of narcissist if you wish
313. 42:03 first of all the word narcissist should be reserved to someone who's been diagnosed with narcissistic personality
314. 42:09 disorder and these this is one to 1.7% of the general population separately from narcissists
315. 42:20 now narcissists are mentally ill severely mentally ill they don't have a functioning self they're unable to tell
316. 42:27 the difference between external and internal they have a working fantasy that consumes them so they lose touch with reality this is a serious disease
317. 42:38 this is almost psychosis as Kanber said it's almost schizophrenic no so this
318. 42:44 luckily for humanity there's only one to one 1.7% according to the DSM
319. 42:50 1.7% okay separate from this and not connected to this it's very misleading
320. 42:57 there are people with narcissistic traits people with narcissistic traits are not
321. 43:04 narcissists so there's the confusion you could have narcissistic traits you can even display narcissistic exhibit
322. 43:10 narcissistic behaviors but that doesn't make you a narcissist what you have is what is known as narcissistic style
323. 43:18 lens Perry coined the phrase narciss psychologist coined the phrase narcissistic style to describe people
324. 43:26 whose behavior and sometimes traits are such that they are
325. 43:33 socially problematic so they're obnoxious they're abrasive they're
326. 43:39 envious they're hyperritical they're sometimes a bit abusive their empathy level is reduced
327. 43:45 and so on but internally they're perfectly okay they can tell the difference between reality and fantasy
328. 43:52 they know definitely that you exist externally not internally they interact with you really out externally not
329. 43:59 inside the everything is different they're not the same it's not the same animal mhm now people with narcissistic
330. 44:06 traits we don't have a number we don't know how many people but there are
331. 44:12 guesses that 6 to 7% of the general population and definitely the number is growing no doubt about this multiple studies show big studies show that the number of people with narcissistic style is growing year by year
332. 44:28 inexurably there is a third category much neglected and it is known as subclinical narcissist
333. 44:35 the subclinical narcissist is someone who does not possess the full-fledged
334. 44:42 disorder so again as a functioning self etc and yet the level or the intensity of the his
335. 44:53 narcissistic style is such that untrained layman and even some
336. 45:00 trained clinicians can mistake this kind of person to be a narcissist can think
337. 45:06 that he's a narcissist or misdiagnosing as a narcissist so dark uh sorry uh subclinical
338. 45:15 narcissist are also known as dark triad personalities when you heard the phrase
339. 45:21 dark triad personality it is someone who is a subclinical narcissist not a
340. 45:27 narcissist also subclinical psychopath not a psychopath and also um a
341. 45:34 machavelian a manipulator that's dark triad dark tetrd is someone who is all
342. 45:41 these things but also is a sadist sadistic however contrary to what you
343. 45:49 may hear online from self-styled experts people with dark personalities
344. 45:55 are not narcissists these are people who could not be diagnosed as narcissists and instead were given the diagnosis of dark triad or dark personality
345. 46:07 they don't amount they don't reach this level of internal disruption and destruction that a narcissist has mhm
346. 46:16 the problem with narcissism if I may one more comment the problem with narcissism is that it's very misleading like when you come across a true blue narcissist you know
347. 46:27 full-fledged ribbons and all he can he the simulation of
348. 46:36 normaly can be so convincing that you can be thrown off track you can be thrown off of the scent h Harvey Kleley who was a American
349. 46:47 psychologist in the 1940s he wrote a brilliant masterpiece and it's called the mask of
350. 46:55 sanity he said that psychopaths he called them psychopaths he actually meant narcissist there was no narcissist at that time he called them psychopaths he said that these people have a mask of
351. 47:07 sanity they wear a mask that convinces you that they are totally normal and sane maybe a bit quirky maybe a bit
352. 47:14 eccentric But otherwise like you and me I mean like you not me normal same but
353. 47:20 they're not they're not this is the false self they have an externalized
354. 47:26 self an exoskeleton something they have nothing inside inside they're empty this is called this empty schizoid core inside there is emptiness emptiness by the way is not a metaphor it's a diagnostic criterion in borderline personality disorder there's nothing
355. 47:43 there the narcissist is an absence masquerading as a presence and he wears
356. 47:51 a disguise called the false self which is essentially fantastic grandiose inflated
357. 47:57 self-concept and he he forces it on you and he does it in a subtle way and he's so great at simulating normal healthy people right so it's very very
358. 48:09 misleading but and I will I promise to finish with this but luckily you're equipped with a nadar
359. 48:17 narcissist radar the narcissist radar is your gut instinct your intuition
360. 48:24 studies have shown that while your intuition is wrong 50% of the time 50%
361. 48:31 of the time when it comes to reality like a flip of a coin your intuition is wrong only 10% of the time when it comes to other people when you feel something's wrong
362. 48:43 something off key something right something not put not well put together
363. 48:49 something doesn't fit when you feel uncomfortable when you feel when you have doubts walk away it's your
364. 48:55 intuition picking up on a narcissist and don't involve your brain
365. 49:01 do not involve your brain or reasoning don't say "Wait a minute what's wrong with me what's wrong with me why am I
366. 49:07 feeling like this he's a great guy you know he's handsome he's educated he's irrudite he's rich is this is that why am I feeling uncomfortable something must be wrong with me nothing's wrong with you they always can tell you No text
367. 49:22 there's always that feeling there's always that gut there's always the the the the hair on the back of your neck
368. 49:29 and there were always white flags do you know it has a name in clinical psychology it's called the uncanny valley reaction the uncanny valley reaction there was a Japanese roboticist in 1970 his name was Masahiro Mori and Masahiro Mori said that when
369. 49:46 robots would become android humanoid when robots would become indistinguishable from people the only
370. 49:53 way we would be able to tell that they are robots is because we would feel uncomfortable he said "There will come a
371. 49:59 time when robots will be completely indistinguishable from human beings are we in trouble?" He said "No we are not
372. 50:05 in trouble because a voice inside us would tell us something's wrong with
373. 50:11 this guy or girl." You know they're not and you would know he said "You would know trust this voice." And he called it the uncanny valley voice so we call it the uncanny valley reaction when you're
374. 50:23 in the presence of a narcissist or a psychopath you're in the presence of a perfectly assembled robot that resembles
375. 50:30 a human being but is not and you have an uncanny valley reaction so trust it so listen listen to that voice next time no for sure because
376. 50:43 they cannot change and you can't change them nope you're likely they're likely to change you not the other way yeah and they will try to change you they will try and very often succeed they will
377. 50:55 they will make you less empathic suddenly you will you will not recognize yourself you'll become a lot more
378. 51:01 aggressive a lot more abrasive you may become even narcissistic or psychopathic in some ways you will not you will you
379. 51:07 will divorce yourself you will lose your identity of yourself yes and unrecognizable we call this process in
380. 51:14 clinical psychology estrangement narcissist entrains you it brainwashes you and this causes estrangement and you become a stranger to yourself
381. 51:25 you become you you why I teach you how to get out of No text these relationships i teach you how to um you know turn that around and create leverage and get out of that relationship so um and it's way harder to get out of than it is to get into
382. 51:44 yeah yeah and not picking picking your brain because you know um why isn't why
383. 51:50 do you think narcissistic abuse is a complex of behaviors which is but by by today well definfined and easily
384. 51:57 recognized as why is it not criminalized in any jurisdiction there is coercive
385. 52:03 control in the United Kingdom and this kind of but there's no criminalization of narcissistic abuse as
386. 52:10 a complex set of behaviors why do you think that is
387. 52:16 well I think because judges don't recognize it at this point yet i mean I think that um they look for evidence right and because they haven't seen okay
388. 52:29 what are the factors you know what they what they need to see is here are the set of factors that define narcissistic abuse and so what they need to see is uh
389. 52:43 somebody has to come forward and say here is what defines narcissistic abuse
390. 52:49 somebody has to introduce that as a bill and bring it to the legislature and say
391. 52:55 this is a a defined set of factors that can be um over and over
392. 53:05 uh uh something that a court can go I can look at this and every single time
393. 53:13 uh know that I can um uh uh look at the elements evidence and um every single court can
394. 53:25 [Music] um look at evidence for each set of elements does that make sense yeah i
395. 53:31 I've I've spoken to many lawyers in the last 20 years and I know that many elements of narcissistic abuse are
396. 53:38 criminalized so for example coercive control in the United Kingdom I think also in Canada yeah yeah i have seen
397. 53:44 that they many courts are starting to do that but I know that that's what they're going to want they're going to want not the whole package what I'm trying to say is that elements are criminalized but
398. 53:54 not the cumulative package like Right so but they're going to want to see be able to see uniformity across the board so
399. 54:02 that um each element uh can be proven up right i must say there is huge
400. 54:09 homogeneity go to any forum of victims the experiences replicate they're I
401. 54:15 agree with you i mean I think that that it should be but that's I know what um
402. 54:22 they're going to want to see so somebody's gonna have to come forward and introduce it as a bill and say "Here's how it can be." Um uh why
403. 54:29 someone like you doesn't initiate a campaign i mean you're uniquely positioned to do this oh well maybe I
404. 54:35 should i think you should i mean you're the most prominent uh legal voice in the
405. 54:41 sphere yeah I am i can attest to this so you have kind of moral responsibility if you wish i mean why not why not I'm serious why not start a campaign to criminalize narcissistic abuse i think
406. 54:52 you will have enormous amounts of support i mean from I mean in all all even in academ even in academia now we're beginning to have academic articles about narcissistic abuse with
407. 55:03 the word with a phrase narcissistic abuse i'm very gratified to see this but uh even in academia we we admit we we
408. 55:11 accept we acknowledge that narcissistic abuse is detrimental to the victim for example 10 years ago no 12 years ago
409. 55:17 there was a new discovery in neuroscience in neuroscience not related to and they discovered something called
410. 55:23 entrainment uh entrainment is when the wave the brain waves of two or more people are
411. 55:31 synchronized in a way that an EEG an electro andphalograph cannot tell the
412. 55:37 difference so if you're connected to a machine and I'm connected to a machine and the machine registers our brain waves they will be indistinguishable from one another this is called entrainment now how did they discover it
413. 55:50 they measured they they registered the brain waves of participants in a rock band and they discovered that they will
414. 55:57 start when they start to play the music all their brain waves synchronize that was 12 years ago now we
415. 56:04 know that all sounds do this sounds do this they s if you and I were to start
416. 56:10 to listen to a specific song right now within less than five minutes fewer than
417. 56:16 five minutes our brain waves would be largely synchronized and there would be no way to tell which is which wow so
418. 56:24 sound has this impact and I suggested a few years ago seven years ago and something that verbal abuse is a sound
419. 56:32 system the narcissist tends to repeat the same slice it's like a mantra like a mantra
420. 56:39 yeah yeah yeah and I think the narcissist Oh for sure i mean there is entrainment here for sure this is this is an example of how academ is beginning
421. 56:50 to accept that in narcissistic abuse situations there are components which
422. 56:57 are objectively measurable for example brain waves no one has can you believe it no one has taken a a narcissist and
423. 57:03 his and his victim or spouse or whatever and measured their brain waves no one it
424. 57:09 would have to be on a statewide level so it would have to be per state
425. 57:15 i then I'm not a lawyer i don't know yeah yeah it would have to be per state it wouldn't be federal
426. 57:21 no no no it would in in in the United States it's per state so we'd have to
427. 57:27 start in California I guess yeah yeah easiest easiest target for sure for sure
428. 57:33 for sure but I really the way the way the United States is going right now I
429. 57:40 mean um there there's already like rumblings of um of issues in divorce law because of the current uh I read I read about it
430. 57:52 yeah perfect yeah yeah well you have to go blue but I I really encourage you to
431. 58:00 do this i think no one is more uniquely positioned than you to do this and le leverage nobody's ever actually approached me about that before other than you know this is the first
432. 58:10 conversation I've ever had with somebody about that i think if you embark on a campaign and forget the visibility and
433. 58:16 all the attended benefits I mean that's besides the point but if you embark on a campaign I think you're uniquely positioned i mean there many I like having conversations with people like you you know get out of my little bubble
434. 58:27 over here yeah here's something you can do which would definitely make a difference i mean a big difference victims are suffering and when they're trying to break down their abuse into
435. 58:38 components you know he coerced me he verbally abused me he Yeah you know the you know in some countries I don't know
436. 58:44 United States but the conviction rate for rape is like zero 3% or I don't know what that's rape that's an ostensibly objective when victims of narcissistic
437. 58:55 abuse try to discuss narcissistic abuse with legal authorities the police law enforcement they are laughed out of the
438. 59:01 room because even rape is difficult to prosecute i mean let alone ethereal
439. 59:09 ephemereral notions of he verbally abused me you know but we're not talking about he verbally abused me we are
440. 59:16 talking about a campaign orchestrated campaign to use words in order to affect
441. 59:24 your mind alter it take over it it's it's very different qualitatively and this is only one component in dozens of components which
442. 59:35 comprise together the picture of narcissistic abuse some of these components can be objectively proven
443. 59:41 some of them cannot some of them is he he said she said but many of them can be
444. 59:47 objectively proven and someone has to put the package together and say if there's anyone who engages in this
445. 59:53 behavior in a systematic way uh then you know it should not be legal criminal
446. 60:01 well my daughter interned for Governor Nuome for two uh semesters last year so
447. 60:07 um you you interned for Governor Newsome my daughter my daughter your daughter yeah
448. 60:13 yeah yeah all right yeah um so that
449. 60:19 would be an interesting conversation bear that in mind i think it's it's it's I think your whole career may be may
450. 60:25 have led exactly to this in in my view i mean you combined law and and the topic
451. 60:31 so I think your whole career may may have led to this in my view someone has to do that
452. 60:38 interesting someone has to do that i was involved with the coercive control campaign in Scotland and and and England
453. 60:44 you were i I was involved yes there's an interview online with the initiators of the campaign and so on i was involved
454. 60:50 with this i gave them the kind of academic background if you wish and so on and they were far less qualified
455. 60:58 than me they were kids basically and and they they made it it's it's a an offense in in the United Kingdom corive control is a serious offense i mean like five years 10 years in prison
456. 61:09 it's a super sorry that is amazing that's fantastic i
457. 61:15 love that not only there I think Canada adopted the same law i think if I'm not mistaken Australia I think so it's
458. 61:21 spreading it's coercive control is a bad thing corive control is when you essentially kidnap someone you take away
459. 61:29 their identification uh cards and whatever passports or whatever you leave them
460. 61:35 without money no access to any communication means of communication and so so it's essentially kidnapping so it's more objective it's like easier to prove but narcissistic abuse is much wider so I don't know i know I'm not a lawyer but I think if you prove you don't have
461. 61:52 to prove like all the elements of narcissistic abuse it's enough if you prove a prepundonderance like a prepoundonderance of elements you know
462. 61:58 okay and then it sticks i think something like that maybe civil maybe not only criminal but something civil as
463. 62:06 well but it can't go it can't go unpunished it's it's a very common form of abuse nowadays and I go online I don't need to tell you hundreds of thousands millions of people it's not a joke it's No I am aware yeah I know it's
464. 62:19 huge okay well I It's interesting i'm I'm
465. 62:25 glad we had this conversation um especially um knowing that they uh know
466. 62:33 what they're doing but and they can't change they cannot change it's not that they
467. 62:40 cannot change they don't have incentive to change they don't want to change right i I told you that in prison they
468. 62:46 do change they have a great incentive a knife in the back yeah but again
469. 62:52 it's they can change their behavior yes but they cannot change internally
470. 62:58 yes true right right it's not the same it's a compulsion you're right in this it's a compulsion in the sense that
471. 63:04 something happening inside that forces them to behave to misbehave it's not a it's not a clean clearcut case the men if you wish is not a it's like a psychopath psychopath premeditates plans has a goal it's not the same here we
472. 63:20 have a delusion combined with a compulsion it's a sick person there is a drive an urge from inside an
473. 63:28 impulse that pushes the narcissist to behave the way he does however given the right incentives like fear the narcissist can change definitely yeah it's not an internal change not internal
474. 63:41 but behaviorally the narcissist can change yes yeah limited of course when the narcissist leaves prison he reverts
475. 63:48 he goes back to being a Yeah right so this has been a fascinating
476. 63:55 conversation it always is thank you for having me um and you know and and I I I
477. 64:03 love that we went into sort of the political end of things too because I think that that's uh there's always so
478. 64:09 much more we always leave more that um I think that um you know we could get into
479. 64:17 um a whole other level of conversation uh at some point you know like uh the
480. 64:24 organizational uh end of things right um where where could we go next as far
481. 64:32 as uh is it is there an incentive to be a narcissist
482. 64:39 in current civilization of course no right huge incentives to be a narcissist and very few in incentives I would say disincentives to not be a narcissist if you're not pushy if you're not ambitious if you're not competitive if you're not disempathic lacking in empathy if you're
483. 64:55 not a braz aggressive if you're not doomed in today's what's the impact what's the impact of that uh long term
484. 65:03 well you see what's happening around you that for another conversation yeah it's a jungle law of the jungle it's a doggy
485. 65:09 dog it's might is right i mean see it around you i don't need to tell you it's a Darwinism conversation I think in some
486. 65:15 ways and then you know and then uh how do we uh navigate that from a a
487. 65:22 negotiation communication point of view and that's what I you know what I'm training on right now i would I would generalize what you've just said how to not become prey
488. 65:34 as more and more people become predators right as being predator is the bon and everyone wants to be that's what I'm training on right become that that kind
489. 65:45 of leave that for part three okay my pleasure okay take care as always so fascinating thank
490. 65:53 you it's been a great conversation i agree thank you thank you thank you i appreciate you so much and I know all of
491. 66:02 you uh out there in our podcast land will absolutely love this and um we
492. 66:10 leave this for our our next conversation so thank you Sam
493. 66:16 Banosis free weekend yes all right take care and uh thank you all all right take
494. 66:25 care bye bye