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1. 00:00 to talk to me today. My pleasure. Thank you for having us. And I’m very nervous, just so you know.
2. 00:06 No, don’t don’t be nervous. Like it’s like talking talking to a couple you’ve met in a pub. If you go to
3. 00:13 pubs, I don’t know. I do go to pubs. All right. So, here here we are. You met you met this couple in a pub. Yeah. Uh Sam and Lydia, thank you so
4. 00:26 much for agreeing. Thank you. Talk to me for Wolf Sound podcast.
5. 00:34 Thank you so much. I have been binging on your videos for since the
6. 00:40 very beginning since you started. Uh when I found you, I it was like you gave me my sanity back
7. 00:48 and uh I I’m still binging on it and no matter how much I watch, there’s more to
8. 00:55 know. It’s uh it’s unbelievable. So, naturally, I prepared like over 60 questions and uh I’m going to I’m sure we’re going to manage not to overwhelm
9. 01:07 the podcast for you and Lydia. Okay. So, I’m going to start by introducing both of you.
10. 01:15 Okay. Hi everyone. Thank you for tuning in to Wolf Sound podcast. I have uh the Sam
11. 01:25 Vaknan and his wonderful partner Lydia Rangalowska
12. 01:31 and uh Sam Vaknan is the author of Mle Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, as well
13. 01:37 as numerous other books on psychology, relationships, philosophy, economics, international affairs, and he’s been
14. 01:43 featured in award-winning documentaries. Vaknan serves as a visitor professor of psychology at
15. 01:51 southern federal university rostav and don Russia.
16. 01:57 Correct. That’s that’s and as a professor that’s in history and psychology at se
17. 02:04 yes I’m teaching I’m a professor in seps which is a commonwealth institute in Cambridge Cambridge United Kingdom. I
18. 02:10 used to teach in southern f federal university until the invasion of Ukraine at which point I was basically expelled.
19. 02:21 Right. Okay. And is there a delay for his pioneering work
20. 02:27 on Juda? Is there a delay in the sound like you hear you hear me a bit later?
21. 02:34 Oh, is there I’m asking is I I think I hear you immediately as soon as I Yeah. No. Okay. Is there on my end? There are indications. There is some delay. Yeah, there are indications of a delay. Yeah. Okay. So, we need to be we need to be very
22. 02:50 patient when we finish our sentences. We need to we need to give space to the other to to respond by waiting a few seconds like one or two seconds. Okay.
23. 03:02 Okay. So, let’s go. Sure.
24. 03:10 Renowned for his pioneering work on narcissistic personality disorder, Vaknan is the one who coined the term narcissistic abuse among others that are
25. 03:18 now globally used in clinical settings and started his channel long before narcissism came into public awareness.
26. 03:26 Lydia Rangloka was the first to create a website on narcissism in the 90s. Uh
27. 03:32 she’s the CEO of Narcissist Publications and editor of Sam Bachn’s book. She was also featured in other documentaries together with Sam including I psychopath ego mania and
28. 03:48 thank you both for being here. Thank you for having us. Now we can
29. 03:54 transition from Sam Vakn and did regard to question number to narcissism
30. 04:00 and question number one. Yeah. Out of 60.
31. 04:07 So first about your book title. I love it so much. Malignant self- loveve. Sometimes I wonder though have you considered the title malignant self-loathing since narcissism is based
32. 04:18 on self-loathing. Why did you go with malignant self-
33. 04:24 loveve? Because self-love is uh self-loathing is
34. 04:30 the outcome of self- loveve. A kind of self- loveve that is disappointed. It’s exactly as you as if you were to fall in
35. 04:37 love with someone and that someone would disappoint you. Then you may well transition into loathing from love to loathing. It’s a very short way. And what happens with the
36. 04:49 narcissist? The narcissist disappoints himself or herself. Half of all narcissists are women, but I’m going to
37. 04:57 use the male gender pronoun. The narcissist disappoints himself um early
38. 05:03 on even as a child and the self-love becomes embittered and resentful
39. 05:09 and there is a lot of grief, a lot of rage and ultimately the self-love becomes
40. 05:16 self-loathing. It metastasizes. It becomes malignant and cancerous. And as I said, even in human relationships which have nothing to do with narcissism, we very often transition
41. 05:27 from love to loathing and back because these are very close emotions. And
42. 05:34 actually there is a clinical term for this. It’s known as ambivalence where love and hate are considered to be
43. 05:41 essentially the same emotion with a different effective coloring.
44. 05:47 If you want Lydia to answer any of these questions, you should indicate. Wow. So now he is better.
45. 05:54 Oh abs. No, absolutely. I want to hear from both of you and Lydia, I have questions for you as well. Um, so the next question is you found strength to finish this book under grave circumstances and
46. 06:08 um I know that the average person the issue with the average person is that their emotions get the best of them.
47. 06:16 So what is it about narcissists that are able to set the emotions aside and achieve their goals so beautifully? Actually they are not able to do that.
48. 06:27 What? But you’re partly right. Narcissists have no access to positive emotions.
49. 06:33 So they do not experience for example love or joy.
50. 06:39 All positive effects are excluded in narcissism. However, narcissists have a direct experience uh with negative a
51. 06:46 effects, negative affectivity, for example, hatred, envy. Envy is a major component in narcissism. It’s actually one of the diagnostic criteria in the diagnostic and statistical manual. Um
52. 06:59 anger, fear and so on. So, narcissists do have very intense emotional
53. 07:05 experiences only all the emotions are black and negative and dark.
54. 07:17 So they they never experience joy like you’re never happy. No, they do experience
55. 07:23 they do. Mhm. Yeah. So they do experience something
56. 07:30 which is called elation, narcissistic elation, but it has nothing to do with joy as we
57. 07:38 know it, as as healthy people know it. Narcissistic elation is simply the affirmation of a grandio fantastic unrealistic counterfactual self-concept.
58. 07:51 It is when their grandio fantasies and delusions are somehow supported or
59. 07:57 butressed by the environment or by other people then they experience elation but
60. 08:04 it’s not joy. Um, and yes, the answer to your question is narcissists are incapable of experiencing any positive emotion, not only joy, but as I mentioned, love and
61. 08:15 and so on.
62. 08:21 So, from my understanding is that our emotional health is is very critical to
63. 08:27 achieving success. So, also for you, Lydia, like if we’re around that much negativity coming from the narcissist
64. 08:34 and the narcissist living in that negativeity, how how do you how do you manage to still achieve great goals? A lot of
65. 08:45 narcissists are very successful. I you asking me asking I think me, right?
66. 08:51 Right. Okay. Yeah. I mean, for you, how do you how do
67. 08:58 you manage to to keep your your emotional alignment? Um, if you’re around negativity, what do like a lot of
68. 09:05 people in narcissistic relationships have goals and dreams and then they end up missing out on so much because
69. 09:11 they’re depressed and angry and they become someone completely different.
70. 09:17 They don’t become, they already were shaped. They had their own personality
71. 09:24 as it as as distorted as he described. They learned narcissist learn to live
72. 09:30 with only with negative emotions. And she’s asking about the partners. Uh and and while but that is narcissist and I was looking when I I was growing up I learned to look for happy moments
73. 09:48 for joy and so on. So I preferred it was like choice to to have positive emotions
74. 09:57 because I was maybe fed up because of my setting, the family dynamics and so on.
75. 10:05 I was uh I learned how to get out of the
76. 10:11 narcissistic space and to feel to allow myself to feel happy.
77. 10:18 So I don’t mind in which state the narcissist is. It’s his job. It’s his
78. 10:24 thing, not mine. I can be concerned. I can be helpful. I can be there for
79. 10:32 making for example Sam happy, but he won’t recognize that, you know. But
80. 10:39 there are some joyful moments and for me there are good enough to live with. I
81. 10:45 can cope. Uh I can cook with a narcissist
82. 10:51 uh to uh by just by staying away of his uh narcissistic space. I created my
83. 10:59 space and it’s different and it’s a more emotional more sensitive with more positive emotions and yes I can function. Now the thing is that I always have to
84. 11:11 make agreements. Okay. In order to achieve things together to live with the narcissist all
85. 11:18 the time I have I mean there is must to have to uh make agreements. I need to
86. 11:24 keep on because narcissist have goals while I will talk about myself. I have
87. 11:32 dreams. I have wishes to fulfill. So there is a big uh difference between
88. 11:39 goal and achieving daily wishes you know I want to laugh I want
89. 11:45 to to be with people he doesn’t want to be with people you understand what I mean so okay let him stay at home I will
90. 11:53 do my do my positive emotional needs I will fulfill them and that’s it uh
91. 12:02 actually it’s uh also like uh safe preservation because I can’t I I won’t allow anyone to feed me with only
92. 12:14 negative emotions since I’m sensitive. I am not allowing I have to put some
93. 12:20 healthy boundaries you know I not to become depressed not to become like the
94. 12:27 narcissist expects starting from his point of view and what he is. So in this
95. 12:34 space, if I if there are no healthy boundaries, you actually allow a narcissist to take advantage of you and turn you into a narcissist as well. I
96. 12:46 can’t afford it. I am more addicted to happy moments. Thanks. That’s why she’s with me. Exactly.
97. 12:54 That’s a lot of resilience because um it’s very hard to to be this grounded and aligned or if somebody’s calling you names like all day long when you’re
98. 13:05 about to like give a I mean I mean if somebody keeps I’m stupid I’m stupid just before I come and talk to you then it it takes a lot of shifting around to be able to actually
99. 13:18 it is and it takes and it takes time to learn all the actually for me it’s the
100. 13:26 most important one thing to differentiate when there is uh projection. Yeah. So if you can resist the projection and not to feel guilty about any criticism you don’t feel the need to justify yourself then you you can preserve you can preserve your resilience. Okay. So
101. 13:49 it’s it’s tough but I must tell you to some extent it’s also funny because they
102. 13:55 are pets forever more childish than uh than uh grown up mature people
103. 14:02 because since they are stuck in the past right yes yes it’s it’s very funny and then
104. 14:10 there are also like I come to this later but like it’s it’s a great lesson it’s for for the partners to to know about
105. 14:18 their own um how to align themselves, how to heal old wounds to the triggers,
106. 14:24 you know, so they don’t take on the projection. And I think sometimes it’s a blessing when a narcissist has become really abusive. At least they they tell us what’s wrong with us as well. So
107. 14:36 wow, that’s okay. Thank you so much for this answer. It’s fantastic. Welcome.
108. 14:42 So Sam, you have been diagnosed twice as someone with NPD, a narcissistic person
109. 14:48 disorder. Were you I I’m not sure. Were you also diagnosed as a psychopath or did you
110. 14:54 We did agree. We did agree before with the interview that you are not going to ask me about me privately.
111. 15:00 Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it because it’s that’s happens to be my private life.
112. 15:09 No personal questions. that edit out from the video. Okay.
113. 15:16 Yes. Oh, okay. I I sorry, I didn’t realize it was personal. Okay. So,
114. 15:22 Okay. Okay. So, Lydia, you answered
115. 15:30 my next two questions about how to be grounded in the face of um in
116. 15:38 the face of abuse. So basically the best the best advice for partners of narcissists is to go and
117. 15:49 the sound the sound is is very problematic and right Jita the sound is very problematic you will have to repeat the last question
118. 16:02 there’s a problem with the sound I think maybe you are in connection she’s she’s static. I hope it’s um Let me let me shift to
119. 16:14 what to Don’t worry. Take it back. Don’t worry.
120. 16:21 Okay. Is this better now? Well, we’ll see. Okay. Sorry. The last I mean Egypt and everything here is very
121. 16:32 minimal, you know. Uh okay. I wanted to ask uh that most
122. 16:41 narcissists don’t if they don’t give credit to their partners who support
123. 16:47 them the most. They don’t say thank you. They don’t acknowledge their efforts.
124. 16:53 Is there a way to um is there a way for the partner to to
125. 16:59 create their own legacy even though the narcissist takes away their credit or kind of like mutes them, puts them in
126. 17:05 the shadow? And would you advise narcissists in general that it’s for their best interest to actually acknowledge people and um offer gratitude because then it would be much
127. 17:16 more beneficial to them and the supply will not be cut from them. Is there is it is it for me?
128. 17:22 Never mind. Never mind. You I think you’re better. Uh if you if you are firm, if you are
129. 17:32 um if you are determined to make your wish come true, right? You will
130. 17:39 collaborate with many different people. There will be also narcissist, there will be psychopaths and so on so forth.
131. 17:46 If you uh and yes, you can have your own life and not necessarily to become uh uh
132. 17:56 just a supply and uh taken advantage by the narcissist, right? For example, I
133. 18:05 made the book uh not to uh not only for Sam because I recognized something in
134. 18:13 value in the book about narcissism that was that would
135. 18:19 have been helpful to many others as it was helpful to me. So it when you don’t
136. 18:25 pay attention to only to narcissist you can achieve things and they will be
137. 18:32 recognized not narcissist must recognize them because you know your name appear there uh any idea or something yes it uh
138. 18:43 should be uh should be published should be known to others. So it’s not that uh
139. 18:49 there is no uh gratitude no thank you by the from the narcissist as far as I
140. 18:56 understood that as well there is recognition. Narcissists do recognize uh other people’s uh gifts, talents and they yes take advantage of uh of them
141. 19:09 but is still up to uh the other who the who is providing them to demand to be uh
142. 19:18 recognized not uh to other people as well. Okay. So when it becomes uh
143. 19:25 public, you know, it’s uh different story. I want to put I want to put um the last
144. 19:32 two questions in in context. The narcissist does not recognize the externality and separateness
145. 19:43 of any other human being. Narcissists do not recognize other people as separate from them. They do not recognize other people as external to them. What
146. 19:54 narcissists do, they convert people into internal objects and they continue to
147. 20:01 interact with the internal objects, never with the external objects. So a narcissist wouldn’t say thank you because it’s ridiculous to thank oneself. The object is internal. It’s
148. 20:14 not external. Why would I thank an internal object? It’s me. The internal object is me. Also, the internal object
149. 20:23 is under my command and and under the narcissist’s command under the because
150. 20:29 it’s internal. The narcissist owns this object, controls this object. He’s able to manipulate this object. The object will never abandon the narcissist because it is inside his mind. So,
151. 20:42 what’s the reason to say thank you? It’s uh it goes without saying. It’s like in
152. 20:48 the army the the colonal will not say thank you to the private.
153. 20:54 It’s the army. That’s the way it works. Additionally,
154. 21:00 um because the narcissist doesn’t perceive other people as external and as separate, the narcissist is unable to
155. 21:07 truly relate to other people. He is able to relate only to what he
156. 21:13 gets from other people, what he obtains, what he takes from other people. He cannot relate to the source. He relates
157. 21:20 to the outcomes. And that is why Lydia said that narcissists are goal oriented.
158. 21:26 Actually, they are less goal oriented than psychopaths. Psychopaths are much more goal oriented. But I would say that
159. 21:32 narcissists are outcome oriented. Like what’s in it for me? What am I
160. 21:38 getting? And when the narcissist gets something they do they do say thank you
161. 21:44 but they don’t say thank you to the person who gave them. They say thank you to what they have received. This distinction is very important. Now the victims of narcissistic abuse are between a rock and a hard place. On the
162. 21:59 one hand they can say I’m not external. I’m not out there. The narcissist
163. 22:05 doesn’t recognize my personal autonomy, my independence, my separate existence, and so on so forth. So why do why do I
164. 22:12 care if he abuses me? He’s not abusing me. He’s abusing an internal object. I
165. 22:18 don’t exist in the narcissist world. So the abuse is meaningless. One option.
166. 22:24 But victims find this very difficult to accept. And so they say, “No, I do exist. I am
167. 22:32 in the narcissist life.” And when he abuses me, he’s doing it to me. It’s directed at me. What victims refuse to accept because they cannot because it’s
168. 22:43 mindboggling and it’s terrifying. What they refuse to accept is that they do not exist in the narcissist world.
169. 22:51 They do not exist. They are totally interchangeable. They’re funible. They’re dispensable.
170. 22:59 They’re disposable. They are devices like a smartphone or a
171. 23:05 refrigerator. They provide what do they provide? I call it the four S’s. The four S’s is sex, services, supply, and
172. 23:14 stability. Two of the four S’s are enough. But the narcissist is not focused on the service
173. 23:21 provider. The same way you are not focused on the service provider of your
174. 23:27 internet, you are focused on the internet. You’re focused on the on the bandwidth and the broadband and the what
175. 23:34 you’re getting. You’re not useful. You are not getting emotionally attached to the supplier of the internet. But you
176. 23:41 are going to react emotionally when the internet is bad when you’re not getting the service.
177. 23:48 And that’s exactly the relationship. And victims absolutely refuse to listen to this because they say it’s not true. I
178. 23:54 have been chosen because I’m special, because I’m empathic, because I’m
179. 24:00 intelligent, because I’m drop deadad gorgeous, because I have been chosen. And what they don’t understand, they
180. 24:06 have not been chosen. They’re what they can give has been chosen. What the services, the supply, the sex, this has
181. 24:14 been chosen. But anyone can give sex, supply, services, and stability. Anyone.
182. 24:20 That’s why when the narcissist discards you the next day if he is very slow the
183. 24:26 next day he has another partner or two or two because you’re all all the
184. 24:33 partners are like grains of sand or or rice grains of rice you know they’re
185. 24:39 totally identical in the eyes of the narcissist so I think what I’m trying to say is don’t take it personally it’s not personal Not the abuse, not the thank
186. 24:51 you, not the I love you, not none of it is personal because you do not exist in
187. 24:57 the most profound sense of the word. You do not exist. There is in this mind a
188. 25:03 series of snapshots, photographs, an album of photographs. And he interacts with this with these
189. 25:10 photographs with these snapshots. The clinical term is introjects. He interacts with the introjects not with
190. 25:17 anyone outside. And that’s why Otto Karnburg the father of the field suggested that narcissists are psychotic. That is it’s pseudo psychosis because psychotic people cannot tell the
191. 25:30 difference between internal and external. The psychotic person hears a
192. 25:37 voice. There’s a voice in his mind. He says it’s not in my mind. It’s coming from the outside. He has an image. He
193. 25:43 says it’s not an image. It’s really there. You know that’s a psychotic. The narcissist is the same. He says, “You
194. 25:50 don’t exist. You’re just a figment of my imagination. You’re inside my mind.” And so, you really don’t shouldn’t take it personally. And it’s never ever about
195. 26:01 you. Not not in a good way and not in a bad way, but also not in a good way. You
196. 26:07 have not been chosen. You’re nothing. You’re nobody. Period. And that’s something victims are very angry at me for saying they cannot accept. And until they accept it, they will
197. 26:19 never heal. Yeah. Does does the narcissist ever introject
198. 26:26 when when the victim retaliates with cutting words or abandonment or
199. 26:32 rejection? Like sometimes the victims become very hurtful back to the narcissist.
200. 26:38 Does he interject if she insults him or or exposes his weaknesses and stuff?
201. 26:45 Would he whenever there is a a discrepancy between the external object and the
202. 26:52 internal object? Whenever there is a gap between you as a real person,
203. 26:59 independent, agentic, autonomous person out there with your own friends and family and decisions and choices and
204. 27:06 life and traveling and whatever it is you do and the internal object which is static, which is inert. Whenever there’s a discrepancy, something opens between
205. 27:17 them, daylight, this creates in the narcissist dissonance.
206. 27:23 Mhm. This creates in the narcissist dissonance and this dissonance gives rise to anxiety
207. 27:34 and then the narcissist tries to reduce the anxiety by devaluing you. He says I don’t need to be anxious
208. 27:41 because the source of the anxiety is worthless or stupid or ugly or my enemy.
209. 27:49 So he converts you into a per secondary object. There is a short period of time
210. 27:55 like two minutes that the narcissist says, “Oh my god, this is coming from the outside. This attack is coming from the outside.” But then he immediately shapeshifts the internal object. Immediately redesigns
211. 28:06 the internal object. And now the internal object, for example, is an enemy. And that would explain the
212. 28:13 attack. and he doesn’t need to continue to interact with you anymore because now he’s interacting with an internalized
213. 28:19 enemy, introjected enemy. So yes, if you challenge a narcissist, but you don’t have to challenge a narcissist by shouting at the narcissist. You challenge a narcissist when you make a
214. 28:29 decision. You challenge a narcissist when you have a good friend. You challenge a narcissist when you love
215. 28:35 your family. You challenge a narcissist when you go on a trip. Exactly. When you’re alive, you
216. 28:42 challenge the narcissist because life means change. So any change, any proof of life
217. 28:50 undermines the internal object. The cohesion and validity of the internal object and the narcissist then goes
218. 28:58 through dissonance, anxiety, devaluation and sometimes a secretary object converts you into an enemy. This is the way the narcissist restores the internal object so that he can continue to interact without any discrepancy because if you’re enemy of
219. 29:14 course you’re shouting at me. Now I now it’s okay that you’re shouting at me because now it’s coming from the inside
220. 29:21 not from the outside. The pcary object is shouting at me not you.
221. 29:27 You understand? It’s a rewriting constant rewriting. Narcissism is very exhausting. It’s energy depleting. You constantly have to rewrite the
222. 29:38 environment, reframe reality, reinvent scripts, perceive people as as puppets,
223. 29:46 internal objects, then arrange them, rearrange the furniture, the mental furniture. It’s narcissist is busy 90%
224. 29:53 of the time just maintaining equilibrium. Yeah. Yeah. And homeostasis 90% whereas healthy
225. 30:01 people 10%, 5%. Narcissist narcissism is 90%
226. 30:07 maintaining balance. That’s why the narcissist needs narcissistic supply all the time.
227. 30:13 The narcissistic supply is the fuel the the that allows the narcissist to kind
228. 30:19 of the food that allows the narcissist to somehow maintain the balance. Although fuel and food are bad metaphors, but okay, never mind. bimism. But but this is about maintaining balance in
229. 30:32 the face of a reality that constantly pushes back,
230. 30:38 constantly challenges, constantly reality is not, you know, constantly that Nazar is constantly faced with proof that his beliefs about the world and about himself and about other people
231. 30:51 as internal objects, these beliefs are nonsense, fantastical, counterfactual, idiotic,
232. 30:57 childish. Constantly reality is informing this, telling the narcissist this and the
233. 31:03 narcissist has to shut off these voices. Shut off this information otherwise he will fall apart. In addition to that,
234. 31:10 and I will finish with that and give Lydia some time also. In addition to that, the narcissist has something known
235. 31:17 as internalized bed object. Internalized bed object used to used to be known in
236. 31:23 the 30s as a primitive super ego. Internalized bad object is a constellation, a coalition of voices,
237. 31:29 internal voices, introjects, that inform the narcissist that he is inferior,
238. 31:36 unworthy, bad, stupid, ugly, etc. Narcissism, pathological narcissism is compensatory. It’s an attempt to silence
239. 31:47 these internal voices to prove that they are wrong. So if you put the two together, the internal voices that keep
240. 31:54 attacking the narcissist from the inside and the external voices reality that keeps attacking the narcissist from the outside, you realize that narcissism is
241. 32:05 a defensive posture. It’s constantly on the defense, defending against reality, defending
242. 32:12 against other people, defending against voices inside that are trying to take you down and cause depression, for
243. 32:18 example. So this constant war, it’s a battle zone, you know.
244. 32:25 So, so the rage, the rage that they have against
245. 32:31 someone else is essentially a rage against themselves. And if they feel
246. 32:37 envy, if they if they feel envy towards others, isn’t that an admission that they are external?
247. 32:43 No. Because he can’t be envious of himself. No, it’s not. It’s both the rage and the
248. 32:49 envy has have nothing to do with other people. That’s a common common mistake unfortunately also in some of the
249. 32:55 literature. The rage is not about other people because other people don’t exist. The
250. 33:01 rage is about proving to yourself that you’re godlike, that you’re I mean, the narcissist wants to prove to himself,
251. 33:08 that he’s omnipotent, that he can, for example, terrorize other people, that he can establish discipline and obedience
252. 33:15 by intimidating other people, that he can frighten other people, that he is all powerful, that he’s super strong,
253. 33:22 that he is, you know, invincible and indomitable and so on so forth. So the rage is a form of communication
254. 33:29 between the narcissist and the narcissist. The insecure part of the narcissist is
255. 33:37 triggering the narcissist to rage so that the narcissist can compensate for the insecurity because when the narcissist rages is god. Everyone is frightened. Everyone
256. 33:50 obeys. Everyone is terrified. And the narcissist feels, “Oh my god, I am really God.” I mean, that’s not a fantasy. I’m really superior to other people. Envy is the same. Envy has nothing to do with other people. There
257. 34:05 are no other people in the narcissist world. They’re only extensions,
258. 34:11 figments, and so on. Envy has to do with the fact that the narcissist
259. 34:17 idealizes himself. There is a process called co idealization. The the reason the narcissist idealizes you is because he owns you. So if he idealizes you, he
260. 34:28 owns he’s in possession of an idealized object. And because you’re ideal and he owns you, you’re his property. It makes him
261. 34:39 ideal. It’s like owning a luxury car, a flashy car, you know. So it makes you
262. 34:46 more of a man or more of a So um the narcissist when he idealizes himself by idealizing you and in other ways when
263. 34:58 he creates the grandio distortion of reality automatically creates a good object.
264. 35:07 Yes. If you’re ideal, if you’re perfect, if you’re brilliant, if you are handsome, if you are genius, if you then
265. 35:14 that’s a good object. But don’t forget, narcissism starts from a bad object.
266. 35:22 The minute the narcissist idealizes himself, there is a dissonance between the good
267. 35:28 object that he has created by idealizing himself and the bad object that is very
268. 35:35 active all the time. And they clash. And one of the ways they clash is that
269. 35:42 the bad object envies the good object. This is the source of envy.
270. 35:48 Wow. But it’s internal. The envy is intern. Everything is internal. Everything in narcissism is
271. 35:54 internal. Period. But the narcissist experiences envy.
272. 36:00 And he doesn’t I mean the narcissist doesn’t know about bad objects, good object. He doesn’t. He just experiences
273. 36:06 envy. So he experiences envy and he says, “Why do I experience envy?” That’s so bizarre. Ah, I envy him. In other words, he invents a narrative
274. 36:19 that has nothing to do with reality to explain to himself why he is experiencing this emotion of envy. Now we have we have experiments and studies
275. 36:32 where we demonstrated conclusively that people have an internal experience and
276. 36:39 then in order to explain to themselves why they are having this experience they invent an external narrative. One of the
277. 36:46 most famous experiences experiments we made in psychology is that we gave students of course students
278. 36:53 are the guinea pigs. We gave them um drink that that created takodia
279. 37:00 created uh heartbeat a fast heartbeat. So suddenly their hearts were speeding
280. 37:08 up and they didn’t know that there was something in the drink. They just they
281. 37:14 felt palpitations and the heart was fast and the pulse was very and they said why why and they asked themselves why am I feeling this? And the answer of most of them was, I am falling in love with a
282. 37:26 woman that just passed. They convinced themselves that they were falling in love. Similarly with the narcissist, the emotions, the negative emotions, only negative emotions are internal.
283. 37:42 The anger is internal, the grief is internal, the fear is internal, the envy is internal. It’s all internal. And it’s all kind of directional. The the various
284. 37:54 internal objects and the various constructs envy each other, are angry at
285. 38:00 each other. And so it’s all internal. But the narcissist is experiencing this. He’s experiencing envy. He’s experiencing anger sometimes out of
286. 38:11 nowhere. Some days the anger is he’s alone. But suddenly he’s very angry or
287. 38:17 very envious. He’s alone. And he says, “Why am I angry?” And then he goes back and he finds something that
288. 38:24 happened 6 hours ago. I That’s why I’m angry. Why am I envious? Why am I envious? Why am I envious? Oh, I saw
289. 38:30 something on the news 2 hours ago. I envy that person. This is these are
290. 38:36 complete nonsensical false narratives intended to justify the internal dynamics which are highly uncomfortable, highly dissolent, anxiety producing and there is constant war and clash between
291. 38:49 the various voices, the various introjects, the various constructs.
292. 38:57 Wow. The way we should we should not want to become narcissist. No, totally not.
293. 39:04 No, because there were many like look they are like I would like to to become a nurse. I
294. 39:10 said don’t don’t say it again. I mean but they are achieving things. I said no
295. 39:16 they are just using other people to achieve and to be known for achieving
296. 39:22 something that is not theirs. It’s not their accomplishment. So it’s uh and they usually end up
297. 39:29 badly. I mean not in a long term in life they all end up in a very bad
298. 39:37 look. Yeah. Because when you hate yourself when you when you loathe yourself when you are
299. 39:43 envious of yourself when you’re angry at yourself and when you grieve the fact that you could never become a normal human being. You know, grief, grief that starts in early childhood when you have
300. 39:54 all these tsunami avalanche of negative effects constantly consuming you from
301. 40:00 the inside, triggered by internal processes that you don’t even know are happening. At the at the at the end, you say the hell with it. I just want to destroy everything
302. 40:11 myself. I want to destroy myself. But because the narcissist doesn’t have the concept of external,
303. 40:17 when he becomes self-destructive, he also destroys the environment.
304. 40:23 Everyone around him, everything around him because they don’t exist. They’re internal. When he when the narcissist
305. 40:30 becomes selfdestructive, he destroys everyone around because they are inside his mind. He doesn’t realize that he’s destroying them. He’s destroying himself. So when he destroys his wife or his children or the the
306. 40:46 nation, if he’s a political leader, as far as he’s concerned, he’s just getting rid of
307. 40:53 his own mind. He’s getting rid of the vestigages in his mind. Is is nothing happening outside. It’s all inside. They are actually not aware before they
308. 41:04 they decide anything. They don’t even think about the consequences how it will
309. 41:10 influence other people what will be the outcome of it not long long-term
310. 41:16 planning to be you know for for better no it’s a just a struggle in their mind
311. 41:23 if I can do it if I cannot do it I will prove to myself no one really no one else is uh taken into into a picture
312. 41:34 into a plan of the narcissist Because there is no that’s why they they we say that they
313. 41:40 don’t have empathy but if they need some some service from you something they
314. 41:47 will be kind charming blah blah blah we know that but you can also spot that
315. 41:53 they are false it’s uh I don’t understand why so many
316. 41:59 people victims of abuse uh they they can’t spot the narcissist
317. 42:05 is the they they have a feeling. They know that there is discrepancy. They want to show something positive. They are emotional. But the other the response, the feedback from the narcissist is
318. 42:21 completely different, not um not uh fitting uh normal emotional response. So
319. 42:30 you can say uh they could have said actually to the narcissist that there was not they felt bad. They they did not uh
320. 42:41 they are communicating with someone who is emotionless. Yeah. And they are called pretending. You can
321. 42:48 see that they have mask on their you know when you talk to someone. Yes, we
322. 42:54 all pretend to some extent but then when we relax we find you know ourselves in a discussion you losing it and so you don’t have to put so much effort
323. 43:05 narcissist when you are communicating with a narcissist they put so much energy in it they calculate every word they you understand you can see that
324. 43:16 they are struggling inside even to express themselves even to they don’t want to beg you for the service you No. So they must put a mask to for you to fall in love or whatever for them to pretend that they are kind and caring so
325. 43:32 you can help them, you know. So this is where the gap for being abused is opened
326. 43:40 because you trust that they are like you and that they are emotional and their
327. 43:46 intentions are good. So it’s not like that. Yeah. because like we we project our own
328. 43:53 good qualities or ideals onto the narcissist and also if we’re lonely and if if they’re really good-looking or
329. 44:00 whatever whatever we’re willing to bypass anything and sometimes uh we choose to to be with
330. 44:07 with a with a narcissistic sometimes it’s it’s a conscious choice I want to stay with this man because
331. 44:14 non-narcissistic people or healthy whatever people they also sometimes lie and cheat and at least with a narcissistic kind of know what to p like predict in his unpredictability versus
332. 44:25 but but depends if you have it depends if if you had narcissistic parents.
333. 44:33 So, so don’t forget that not everyone can stand a normal person I mean uh
334. 44:40 child who grew up in a caring uh home
335. 44:46 it’s uh they they don’t stand such people at all that I know for sure they
336. 44:52 don’t stand them they immediately say come come on he’s a bully this is the word they’re using he’s a bully his
337. 44:59 pretentions you know They recognize it immediately. But I was I was in I grew up in such. So
338. 45:09 I’m molded to live only with the narcissist. I know them best. Okay. Their manipulation, lies, the inner
339. 45:16 fight. And what fits me personally is that I’m useful.
340. 45:22 Yeah. So I I’m helpful. Me to be. Yes. what what he is reminding me I had
341. 45:29 some uh uh how how can I say like a phrase phrase need to be needed that is what
342. 45:36 makes us human being to help the other and you know another day he will you will need someone’s help they will help you you know there is always this is the
343. 45:47 out from uh a very human construct not from now from uh since we started to
344. 45:54 live on the earth like human beings you So this is the very basic need to need
345. 46:01 someone else and to be needed by someone else. But uh now that they are
346. 46:07 narcissist, you know, uh some uh children that were only
347. 46:14 neglected and that they are that they uh live like in spite
348. 46:21 in spite of themselves of their parents. in effect
349. 46:27 it’s uh tough I I don’t envy them I don’t want to be with them you know but
350. 46:33 who will come who will approach maybe I will help not always but also boundaries are very important
351. 46:40 I want again to healthy boundaries I want again to place this in uh in clinical uh context
352. 46:47 Lydia speaks uh about myself of life she speaks of life she speaks of
353. 46:53 life experiences and so And of course it’s extremely valuable but um it’s good to put it also in
354. 47:00 clinical context when the narcissist is have the narcissist first auditions you
355. 47:07 when the when you pass the audition the narcissist tests you in a variety of ways I’m not going to it right now but
356. 47:13 when you pass the audition the next step is acquisition. It needs to acquire you.
357. 47:19 So acquisition there are various techniques like love bombing and the
358. 47:25 various ways the narcissist acquires you. But to acquire you, the narcissist needs to bait you. The narcissist needs to convince you that you are much better
359. 47:38 off with him than without him and that he has something to offer that no one else can offer. This is these are very tall orders. This is these are very very
360. 47:49 high barriers to entry, very high thresholds. How does a narcissist succeed time and again almost all the
361. 47:56 time? How does a narcissist succeed to pull this off? Because a narcissist offers you four baits. It baits you in
362. 48:04 four ways. And I’ll describe the four ways. But before I go there, it’s important to support something that
363. 48:11 Lydia said. Studies in Harvard demonstrated that we are able to
364. 48:18 accurately judge the personality of another human being within 3 seconds.
365. 48:26 That’s Harvard, not conspiracy theory on the internet. Other studies, and there are many of them, other studies have shown that people are able to diagnose
366. 48:38 another person with narcissistic personality disorder between 75 and 85%
367. 48:45 of the time accurately after being exposed to that person for fewer than 30 seconds. In other words, once you are exposed to
368. 48:56 someone for 30 seconds, you have an 75 to 85% chance to diagnose them
369. 49:02 accurately with narcissistic personality disorder, even if the exposure is via
370. 49:08 video or email. Email.
371. 49:15 The choice of words. Yes. the choice of words and so
372. 49:21 people online who say people online who say I was deceived he’s a good actor that is self-justifying nonsense that means narcissistic that’s more not always not always but
373. 49:35 they lie to themselves they deceive themselves as you said they were lonely they were starved for sex they were they
374. 49:42 wanted the drama they I mean something in them or they maybe they were good people and they said I
375. 49:49 shouldn’t judge people too fast or I should give a second chance you know good people so but
376. 49:57 the fact the absolute uncontested fact is that you can diagnose someone with narcissistic personality disorder within the first 30 seconds period that’s
377. 50:08 universal 85% accurate okay incred what are the baits yes sorry
378. 50:15 but do you believe yourself your instinct when you will meet such a person. So this is something that I
379. 50:24 always remind and it’s very loud. Yeah. To trust your own in
380. 50:31 we also doubt. So we also doubt ourselves right and we also have uh the
381. 50:40 our narcissistic defenses pop up when we are insecure about something. But the
382. 50:46 mind says okay he is a good uh good guy he’s smiling he brings me flowers
383. 50:52 whatever and uh but uh and we ignore we tend to
384. 50:58 ignore or to suppress the the originals that we have the senses that are telling
385. 51:06 us warning you know he is not what you know may so we are also so this I I say that
386. 51:15 We are also uh it’s healthy narcissism in us but still it’s a decision who you
387. 51:23 will trust your your um instincts or
388. 51:30 want to be for example wanted woman or woman with the flowers in this case that I said do you understand what I said? Yes. Yes. A narcissist caters to some of your
389. 51:42 psychological needs and sometimes you compromise. You say I mean unconsciously it’s all unconscious. You you say
390. 51:48 unconsciously to yourself, yes, there are there is an alarm. There is red alert. There are warning signs.
391. 51:54 Something is wrong. Something is off key. This person is not put well together. He’s not he’s halfbaked.
392. 52:00 Something is wrong. It’s not a finished human being in a way. But you know, he I feel safe with
393. 52:08 him or he buys me flowers or I need sex or I’m I will no longer be lonely or so. This is all an internal process. is nothing to do with the Nazis alleged acting. Narcissists are actually
394. 52:18 horrible actors by the way. Yes, they are. Okay. Because they overdo it. They exaggerate. But I want to I want to go
395. 52:25 back and discuss the baits. I want to go back and discuss the baits that I mentioned. I I said that the
396. 52:31 narcissist baits you. And there are four ways narcissist do that. There are four types of baits. The first bait is what I
397. 52:39 call the dual mothership. When the narcissist converts you into a maternal figure, what the narcissist does, he
398. 52:47 exposes you to his childlike sight. Narcissists are children. They’re really
399. 52:55 children. Their mental age, the psychological age, 2, three years old. So what the narcissist does, he gives you access to the parts of him that are
400. 53:08 still stuck in childhood. And all of us men and women we feel
401. 53:14 protective when we come across a kid 2 year old toddler threeyear-old infant we
402. 53:21 feel protective we feel that we want to preserve the well-being and the and the
403. 53:28 welfare of that. So the narcissist when he’s with you he shows you his child
404. 53:34 side and you become a mother instantly you become a mother. You develop maternal instinct even if you’re male.
405. 53:41 It’s not nothing to do with gender. At the same time, the narcissist also acts as your mother. He also becomes your mother. He claims to love you
406. 53:52 unconditionally. He idealizes you. He’s very supportive.
407. 53:58 He’s very helpful. He’s very protective. Protective is he’s defensive. So you at
408. 54:06 the same time ex have a double experience. You become a mother to a child and it’s not just any child. It’s
409. 54:13 a traumatized child. It’s a child in need. It’s a crying child. It’s a child in distress. So you become a mother to this kind of child and at the same time you get a new
410. 54:25 mother and a second chance at at a childhood. Second childhood. This is
411. 54:31 irresistible. It’s very addictive especially if they had traumatized child. Yes. So no I’ll come to that’s the
412. 54:38 another bait. So this is the first bait whether you have had a traumatized background on a trauma background whether you’ve had a dysfunctional family in your life is not relevant in this case because even totally healthy
413. 54:49 people totally healthy totally put together fully functional people react
414. 54:55 very powerfully to a infantile signal to a signal that comes from a child. Mhm.
415. 55:02 So this is one. Second bait is shared victimhood.
416. 55:08 The narcissist comes from a dysfunctional family where the narcissist experience abuse and trauma
417. 55:16 and the victim comes from a dysfunctional family where she experienced abuse and trauma. So they are siblings. They share the same background. They know the same language. They resonate. There is resonance. The resonance of pain or the resonance
418. 55:33 of hurt or the resonance of sometimes victimhood. They resonate and the victim
419. 55:40 feels understood like never before. Accepted like never before. And this is
420. 55:46 a totally intoxicating feeling. Totally. She belongs. She finally she is at home.
421. 55:53 She found a home. Finally, she belongs. That’s a bait. Second bait. The third
422. 55:59 type of bait is fantasy. If you hate reality, if reality is
423. 56:05 intolerable and burdensome and sucks, or if you are not very efficacious, you
424. 56:11 you’re not very efficient in reality, you don’t know, you know, how to function in reality. Here comes the
425. 56:17 narcissist and says, “You don’t need reality anymore. I’m going to create a fantasy for both of us, and I’m inviting
426. 56:24 you in. Come into my fantasy. Give up on reality. You give up on reality, of course. You give up on your personal autonomy, agency, ability to make decisions and choices. You give up on
427. 56:36 your family. You give up on your friends. You give up on your job in many cases. You give up on independent
428. 56:42 traveling. You give up on reality. And in return, you’re introduced, inducted
429. 56:48 into a fantasy. And the fantasy is um very soothing, very comfort,
430. 56:55 comforting, all pervading. this fantasy that explains everything, accounts for everything, arranges, organizes
431. 57:02 everything and so on and it feels safe. So it’s about safety, sense of safety. We have a name for this. It’s called secure base. Narcissist creates the fantasy of a
432. 57:13 secure base which again is something from childhood when you as an infant you
433. 57:19 felt that mother is the secure base. And the last um the last bait, these are
434. 57:26 all baits. These are all lures. They’re intended to suck you in, to attract you, and then to make you addicted
435. 57:34 so that you cannot disconnect. You cannot detach. You’re already addicted. It’s an addiction. And the last bait is
436. 57:41 drama. With healthy normal people, sooner or later, life is routine,
437. 57:50 mundane, boring, pedestrian, gray. It’s normal. This is life. It’s a good thing that life is like that. It’s a good thing that life is like that. But there are
438. 58:01 some types of personalities, not everyone. There are some types of personalities that when they find themselves trapped in routine,
439. 58:09 in the predictable, they feel that they’re dying. They feel that they’re suffocating. There is no life. There’s no life there. There’s no color. There is no life. There’s no color. It’s black and white. It’s not technical.
440. 58:21 Here comes the narcissist or the borderline, by the way. It’s the same with the borderline. And they offer you drama. They offer you the
441. 58:28 unpredictable, unexpected, the amazing, the fascinating, the fireworks, the And
442. 58:35 the borderline does it in sex as well. The narcissist does it in life. The borderline does it also in sex. So she
443. 58:42 she’s sexually arousing in this sense. So the drama is a lure is a major bait
444. 58:48 for some types of people. If you put all the baits together, the child, the drama, the fantasy, the victimhood, that
445. 58:55 covers, I think, 80% of the population, maybe more. And that’s how the narcissist hunts for you. He’s a predator. You’re the prey. He hunts for you and uses these four weapons to
446. 59:08 actually kill you. Because narcissistic abuse is about taking away your
447. 59:15 existence. It’s not about taking your money or taking your sex or taking your other types of abuse are like that. You have financial abuse, you have legal abuse, you have verbal abuse, you have
448. 59:26 psychological abuse, sexual abuse, they’re all limited. Sexual abuse is
449. 59:32 limited. Narcissistic abuse is about making you
450. 59:38 unal alive, not alive, deanimating you, rendering you an Egyptian mommy.
451. 59:45 Corpse. A corpse. And I I will finish by reminding people of the movie Psycho. Hitchcock’s movie Psycho. Yes.
452. 59:56 Where there is Norman Bates, who is a narcissist definitely. And he killed his mother. And he embound her. He converted her into a mommy. Egyptian mommy. Yes. And he puts her every morning he goes up. He washes her her body, her corpse.
453. 60:12 Cares for him. He washes her. He puts her on a on a chair facing the window. In the evening,
454. 60:18 he comes up. He takes her from the chair. He washes her again. Puts her in bed. Talks her to her a bit. Kisses her
455. 60:24 and goes down. She’s dead. She’s a mommy. And that is the ideal partner for
456. 60:31 a narcissist. Ideal. I Wow. I’m I’m mind boggled because you
457. 60:38 literally answered like so many of my questions in one. We’re official. Um, okay. So,
458. 60:47 that that I because I was coming into the sons with inshed mothers and and how
459. 60:53 they create narcissists and I I did think of like this movie psycho. Was he killing that woman because he couldn’t
460. 61:00 kill his mother because like immortalized his mother and like but she’s still she’s dead but she’s still sitting by the window and he’s arguing with her. U and she’s still
461. 61:13 criticizing him and then he went and stabbed that random lady in the shower. So is he trying to
462. 61:19 The reason the reason the narcissist converts his partners into mothers is because the mother in the narcissist the mother intro is jealous.
463. 61:30 She’s jealous of uh of it’s a competition. So
464. 61:36 is that when mother is jealous? The the there’s no actual mother. There are no people out there. The voice in
465. 61:43 his mind, the intro that represents his mother, okay, is jealous. This mother wants monopoly. She wants exclusivity on the because
466. 61:54 um the introject inside the narcissist’s mind is perceived by the narcissist as a part of himself. It’s not mother out
467. 62:01 there. It’s a mother voice. It’s a mother introject which is a part of the narcissist. And the narcissist is
468. 62:08 sexually attracted to himself. It’s a well documented documented clinical
469. 62:14 phenomenon known as autoerotism. So put the two together. The narcissist
470. 62:20 is never sexually attracted to another person. It’s a myth. He is never sexually attracted to another person. He is sexually attracted to himself only. And the mother is a part of him.
471. 62:34 So of course he’s attracted to her. He she is the narcissist. She is a part of the narcissist and he’s sexually attracted to himself including his mother. So he’s having a sexual
472. 62:45 relationship with himself which includes the mother. So when you have a sexual
473. 62:52 relationship with someone in majority of cases you demand exclusivity. You would be ve very jealous if that person would
474. 62:59 would sleep with someone else or fall in love with someone else. And this is the core issue in psycho. His mother is
475. 63:07 drives him to kill that woman because he’s falling in love with that woman. Then his mother is jealous. But of course his mother is dead. It’s the mother voice. The mother in his mind.
476. 63:18 But what if the the the the mother like the his biological mother is inshed and
477. 63:25 is really jealous and doesn’t and doesn’t want him to branch out and individuate. How do we even individ
478. 63:36 for for such a man to individuate later in life? No individuation. You have two windows
479. 63:43 of individuation. one when you are a very small child between 18 months and 36 months and one as an adolescent. If you fail to separate individually in
480. 63:54 these two cycles then it’s lost. You can never separate individually after that. Then your mother is inside your head.
481. 64:01 She’s an introject. Then she never lets go. What does the partner does in a within
482. 64:08 in meshan? Like if if he has a partner, if he manages to get a partner,
483. 64:14 u if the unmeshed son is not a narcissist, then the enshment is real. It’s a kind of emotional incest. If he’s both, if he’s if he’s a narcissist, then he is not in mesh with his mother. He’s in mesh. He’s
484. 64:26 not a mesh at all. He is simply reactive to introject in his introjects in his
485. 64:32 mind. One of them is a mother. So there there’s no relationship with the mother whatsoever. It’s a relationship with
486. 64:38 introj. However, many many men are in meshed with their mothers and they are not narcissists. And these men severe dysfunctions including sexual
487. 64:49 dysfunction. Yeah. Oh yeah. Because of the jealousy thing. There’s a jealousy thing and they
488. 64:55 usually um regard all women as mother representations and so it’s difficult to
489. 65:02 have sex with mother. Yeah. Yeah. So they stop having sex because they it’s immediately becomes incestuous.
490. 65:09 There’s ambient incest. It doesn’t have to be real physical. It’s emotional. There is parentification.
491. 65:16 For example, parentifying the child where the mother treats the child as her husband rather than the real husband and creates a coalition with the child against the husband. Yeah. But we keep talking about opposites. Opposite sex
492. 65:33 doesn’t have to be opposite sex. A daughter can be enshed with the mother. Right. Definitely. And the mother, for example,
493. 65:39 can create a coalition with the daughter against the father, against the husband. And meshment is is not gender specific.
494. 65:46 Not there’s no gender requirement. And meshment simply means that the child was
495. 65:53 not allowed to separate from the mother, create boundaries within which a self emerges and become an individual in individual divided. Child was not
496. 66:05 allowed to divide. So the child remains forever um in a symbiotic state remains forever
497. 66:12 a single organism with the mother in the mental way in a phys in a psychological way. And that could be a a daughter,
498. 66:19 could be a son, doesn’t it’s not nothing to do with gender, right? It’s about connection.
499. 66:25 Um,
500. 66:31 it’s it’s very important uh the the the
501. 66:37 first emotions of getting connected, feeling connected with someone.
502. 66:44 uh and that that is until the in in the
503. 66:51 developing years in the childhood. It’s early childhood you know it’s uh so
504. 66:58 there is a lot of study behind and how we are really uh appreciating and how we
505. 67:05 really keep the those introjects the actually that are symbols of not symbols
506. 67:12 but it was like you belonged you existed that proves that you were connected to
507. 67:18 another human being but always the first is the mother and there are dynamics
508. 67:24 You know that shape us much later. The messaging from the m from this kind
509. 67:31 of mother. The messaging is if you separate from me, you’re betraying me.
510. 67:37 Yeah. And not only are you betraying me, but you are risking my life. I will not survive without you. And that makes you
511. 67:43 a bad person. So if you separate from me, that’s proof positive that you’re bad, that you’re evil,
512. 67:50 that you’re useless, unworthy, whatever. So she creates a bad object. And so the
513. 67:57 child learns that separating from the mother equals betrayal and equals uh you know, matricy is killing the mother and the mother
514. 68:08 controls from the bottom. That’s it’s a clinical term. Control from the bottom means you control people by being
515. 68:15 helpless, by being needy, by being clinging. It’s a form of emotional
516. 68:21 blackmail and that leads to enshment because the child is taught child comes
517. 68:28 to believe that he has a responsibility for his mother’s happiness, his mother’s
518. 68:34 existence, life, his mother’s welfare and well-being. He he assumes the
519. 68:40 responsibility. When these people become adults and go go out into life, they
520. 68:46 continue with this. They continue to believe that they are responsible for the happiness of other people. They become people pleasers or codependents. They say if my partner is not happy,
521. 68:57 it’s because of me. I have the responsibility to make him happy. Or they say I’m in charge of my partner’s
522. 69:05 health. Health health. So they become pseudo doctor like medical doctor at home you know or they say I’m responsible for the welfare and wellbeing of my partner so I need to
523. 69:16 engineer the environment all the time I need all the time to make sure the environment is 100% responsive to the
524. 69:22 needs of my partner and I need to mind read my partner I need to read his mind
525. 69:28 telepathy I need to guess what he wants and I need to guess accurately 100% of the time and if I fail to this it’s my fault that means I’m malfunctioning or
526. 69:40 I’m evil or I’m so they have something called autoplastic defenses they blame themselves when something goes wrong and so and that’s exact opposite of
527. 69:51 narcissism of course that’s why I kept telling you you could have ensh people people who are who are not narcissists
528. 69:57 they are exact opposite of nar they’re people pleasers they’re codependents they so the the critical element is is
529. 70:05 the introjection. Not necessarily if it’s a narcissist or not a narcissist,
530. 70:11 but the fact that this kind of person was never able to walk away, develop a
531. 70:17 self and become. There was no process of becoming. And that’s why there’s a lot
532. 70:23 of grief. There’s a lot of grief about who you could have been and were never allowed to be. There’s a lot of grief about the fact
533. 70:34 that you were not allowed to use your gifts, your your talents, your capacity that you were not allowed to realize your potential to self-actualize.
534. 70:45 There’s a lot of grief about this. So these are all in many ways narcissism also I regard them as post-traumatic
535. 70:52 conditions with prolonged grief. I I think grief plays a major role in this
536. 70:59 and the grief has two two facets. There is grieving,
537. 71:05 you know, depression, constant depression. I’m sad and there is also
538. 71:11 shame. Shame that you could not have extricated yourself from this condition. The shame of helplessness. That’s why narcissists lie to themselves
539. 71:22 and to others. I’m all powerful. Yeah. I’m omnipotent. I In other words, I’m
540. 71:28 the exact opposite of helpless. I’m not helpless. They’re like children, you know. They say, “I’m not helpless.”
541. 71:34 Yeah. I’m God. I’m not helpless, you know. And they they think they’re convincing
542. 71:40 people, but people see through them. They’re ridiculous most of the time. They’re comic.
543. 71:46 Well, would you Okay. So, I I’m sorry. There’s something I just don’t understand quite fully. You said the
544. 71:53 Norman Bates from Psycho is definitely a narcissist, but he was also in meshed with his mother or or would would
545. 72:00 have Okay. All narcissists all narcissists are in mesh with their mothers. Not all people
546. 72:06 who are in mesh with their mothers are narcissist. Oh, okay. But it’s possible for a narcissist to be in meshed with the mother. All narcissists are in mesh with their mothers. Oh, okay. Not all people who are in meshed with
547. 72:17 their mothers are narcissist. And psychopaths are also tend tend to be always in mesh with their mothers.
548. 72:24 There’s psychopathy is a completely different dynamic, different ideology, different causation, different personal history.
549. 72:30 The only thing common between naris and psychopaths is that we found that in the lives of
550. 72:37 psychopaths in early childhood there was some adversity. It was adverse childhood experiences. So also psychopaths come
551. 72:44 from potentially dysfunctional families. born like psychopaths are born and
552. 72:50 narcissists are made. Um it’s true that in psychopathy there is a strong hereditary genetic component
553. 72:58 and there are brain abnormalities. It also true that we are not we haven’t
554. 73:05 we have no evidence yet that narcissists are the same. In other words, we do not have any convincing evidence that the brains of narcissists are different and
555. 73:16 we do not have convincing evidence that there is a genetic component. But I would be very shocked if this were
556. 73:25 not true. I think narcissists do have brain abnormalities. And I think narcissism is partly genetically determined, hereditary. Why do I think
557. 73:36 that? For two reasons. One, we have a family of disorders. They’re known as cluster
558. 73:42 B. And in this cluster B, there is borderline, antisocial, including psychopathy and histrionic. And we know that in the other three, there are brain
559. 73:53 abnormalities. We know that the other three are genetically determined. So why should narcissism be the only exception? And
560. 74:00 the second reason is uh sometimes twins or siblings very close in age siblings are exposed to the same parents, the same environment, same dysfunction, same family, same everything. But only 1.7% of children
561. 74:16 become narcissists. Yeah. Why is that? So clearly there is a genetic predisposition in my view. I think this is proof that there is yeah I think some genetic background to this because
562. 74:27 otherwise all the children would become narcissists you know it sounds it sounds so plausible what
563. 74:33 you’re saying because um I was going to ask if narcissists are made then it would stand to reason that they would be able to change but if somebody is is incapable
564. 74:44 it’s a predisposition don’t don’t confuse the two a predisposition means that if you’re exposed to trauma and
565. 74:52 abuse in early childhood and you have this predisposition, you would become a
566. 74:58 narcissist. But if you have the predisposition and you are not exposed to trauma and abuse,
567. 75:04 you will not become a narcissist. The predisposition is like an empty empty word document,
568. 75:12 right? It’s an empty word document. What is typed in into the document depends on you,
569. 75:18 right? But if you don’t have word, Microsoft Word, of course, you will never become a narcissist. So if you don’t have the disposition, predisposition, the template,
570. 75:29 then your chances to become narcissist are zero. But if you have the template, you have a high chance of becoming a
571. 75:35 narcissist if and only if you’re exposed to bad parenting in a dysfunctional
572. 75:42 family. So that’s a condition. Treat two siblings very differently. One would become a narcissist and the other one maybe golden child versus scapegoat or one that is actually defined like
573. 75:54 didn’t really they just chose one person that became inshed and and therefore
574. 76:01 became a narcissist also. No, I don’t think so. I think both scapegoats and and golden children
575. 76:08 have the same likelihood of becoming narcissist but of different kinds. So the scapegoat is likely to to be more
576. 76:16 covert, a covert narcissist, whereas the golden child is much more likely to become overt, grandio, and
577. 76:24 entitled. And what’s child that doesn’t develop narcissism at all, like the sibling that is not narcissistic?
578. 76:30 So I said that only 1.7% of children develop narcissism.
579. 76:36 Do you mind if I ask you about um maybe you would like to ask Lydia some things? No, just a second. Go on. Go on,
580. 76:44 please. I’m asking both of you all the time because I want to listen for like I need a week to talk to you honestly, not two
581. 76:51 hours. Um, do you mind if I go a bit into shamanic medicine and Iaska?
582. 76:58 I’m not qualified. I don’t know. I don’t know the topic. Uh, okay.
583. 77:05 I’m not an expert on this. What I’m not an expert on, I don’t I’m not like the people on YouTube. what I’m not an
584. 77:11 expert on. I don’t I don’t talk. Yes. It It always makes me laugh when you call them self-styled experts.
585. 77:17 Yeah. Okay. So,
586. 77:24 give me one moment. Next questions.
587. 77:38 You answered about 20 questions in in one go. That’s great. Is systematic structured order structured. Remember I have one more uh question in inshment
588. 77:54 and then we go into more personality disorders. Is there a way for an inshed son uh in an older age maybe like 30s in his 30s
589. 78:07 and 40s and 50s to I know you said individuation you have to win those only
590. 78:14 um and I heard about people that coach these men to individuate from from their mothers. Does is that actually
591. 78:21 successful or like is there a way for a man to suddenly become aware that he’s actually inshed because sometimes they’re not aware that they’re in Seems like you’re talking about someone specific. Is that your boyfriend or your
592. 78:32 husband or something? Because this is not therapy. This is an interview. No, no, it’s not. It’s not therapy. No,
593. 78:40 it’s not therapy. I’m just asking is there a way for these men to I don’t know why you keep limiting yourself to men. In meshment happens to both genders to men and women alike easier to their connection with mothers. What he said that there are two
594. 78:56 opportunities to individuate from the mother. Okay. It’s uh in in the early childhood or
595. 79:03 later in adolescent everyone who is after 30 40 he is not individual yet he
596. 79:11 is still connected to the mother. Okay. the third time the third option to individually from the mother and when she will pass away. No, that he was not but he would still be in mesh though
597. 79:22 like he was no that’s wrong. No that’s uh that’s most of the cases you said what is the percentage and so on like you is confusing separation from
598. 79:34 individualism from to be independent. It is possible to teach the mother to cut the tie with the mother. It is possible to teach people for example to not be in touch with the
599. 79:44 mother or to to say no to the mother when the mother asks something like it’s possible to teach people this this is
600. 79:51 behavior project is an almost yes it’s possible to change modify behaviors and it’s possible to modify
601. 79:58 behaviors in the long term right but it is not possible to reverse uh a
602. 80:05 failure of separation individuation after adolescence it’s not possible In other words, the introject remains. The
603. 80:12 complicated internal relationship with the mother introject remains. The mother’s voice is very active and has a dynamic influence has an influence on
604. 80:23 the internal world of the person. And this after maybe 21 there’s a debate
605. 80:30 after early 20s this is a lost cause that there’s nothing to be done about this.
606. 80:36 Okay. I I have a just can you please tell me very very simply one distinct
607. 80:42 difference between a narcissist and a sociopath because in my mind sometimes I
608. 80:48 feel like it shouldn’t nar narcissist and and sociopath be one title like
609. 80:54 antisocial personality disorder and and also you just mentioned that psychopathy is included in that. I always thought
610. 81:00 that psych psychop psychopathy is not a personality disorder. It’s it’s a mental
611. 81:06 deficiency of some kind. Wow, that’s quite a confusion. I thought Yeah, I thought very
612. 81:12 different. I I don’t know where I heard it and it was I in my mind I thought either in one of your videos or from Dr.
613. 81:19 Robert Deair that psychopathy was separate from the personality disorders. I just saying exactly the opposite. He
614. 81:26 wants psychopathy to be okay. Sociopath is just the old word uh for for
615. 81:33 psychopath. We have been using the word sociopath until
616. 81:39 more or less the 1960s um together with the word psychopath and
617. 81:45 then we stopped using socopath. So today we we are not using this word in clinical psychology or in universities
618. 81:52 or the word sociopath is not used. It’s simply the old word for psychopath. So, as opposed to what self-styled experts are saying online, there is no
619. 82:02 difference between sociopath and psychopath. And they’re making all kinds of differences. They’re saying psychopath is born, sociopath is made,
620. 82:10 and all kinds of other nonsense. Society and stuff. Yes. And that is complete nonsense. Sociopath is just the old word for I was one of these people. So, psych. Yes.
621. 82:21 And now regarding psychopath, as you perhaps know psychopath, the word
622. 82:28 psychopath is not included in the diagnostic and statistical manual.
623. 82:34 In the diagnostic and statistical manual, we have only antisocial personality disorder.
624. 82:40 However, it is increasingly accepted, including
625. 82:46 in the text revision of the DSM, it’s increasingly accepted that there is a very extreme form of antisocial
626. 82:54 personality disorder that we might as well call psychopath. So today the mainstream what we teach at universities and so on is that a
627. 83:05 psychopath is just an someone with an extreme form of antisocial personality disorder. The same way that a malignant narcissist is someone with an extreme form of narcissistic personality disorder coupled with psychopathy and sadism. So we have we have extreme forms.
628. 83:27 Mhm. Now, antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy, which is a form of antisocial personality disorder, are by definition personality disorders because that’s what it says. However,
629. 83:44 you are right to point out that there is a debate. There are scholars, myself
630. 83:50 included, who believe that antisocial personality disorder is not a mental
631. 83:56 illness and that psychopathy and so on should not be described as a personality disorder at all. These are people with a highly specific attitude to other people, values, highly specific values, a lifestyle.
632. 84:13 They reject authority. They’re consummatious. They’re defined. They’re reckless. They’re Yes, absolutely. It’s
633. 84:20 a personality style or a character style. It’s not a mental illness. And we
634. 84:28 believe these kind of scholars believe that it should be removed from the DSM, no longer considered as a mental
635. 84:35 illness. And there are other scholars and they include Robert who think exactly the opposite. They
636. 84:41 think that psychopathy perhaps is the only mental illness uh and or the only personality disorder that psychopathy
637. 84:48 should be included in the DSM and that antisocial personality disorder should
638. 84:54 be removed from the DSM and psychopathy should replace it. So Sam would you give me one second because
639. 85:00 the recording stopped and I have to pick it up again. Okay. Although I’m recording.
640. 85:06 Okay. Will you send it to me after? Yes, if you Okay, I’m just going to
641. 85:14 But you can start. You can attempt to record if you wish. Yes, I will uh restart the
642. 85:21 recording. Okay.
643. 85:27 Yeah. Okay, we’re both record. Okay. So, there are these two schools. One school says antisocial personality
644. 85:33 disorder and psychopathy are not mental illnesses. They should be removed from the DDSM. And there’s others who babyak
645. 85:40 others who say that actually psychopathy should replace antisocial personality disorder and that it is definitely a personality disorder. So there’s a big debate between scholars.
646. 85:51 Um psychopathy and narcissism have a few clinical features in common.
647. 85:58 For example, psychopaths are grandiose exactly like narcissists. Grandiosity is not narcissism. Although self-styled experts often confuse the two, grandiosity is a kind of distortion
648. 86:12 of reality and it’s common in borderline personality disorder, antisocial, narcissistic personality disorder,
649. 86:18 bipolar disorder in the manic phase, paranoid personality disord. So grandiosity is something that applies to
650. 86:25 many mental mental health issues. When you drink alcohol, you become grandiose. That is known as alcohol
651. 86:33 myopia. So grandiosity is not narcissism. It’s a common mistake online.
652. 86:40 However, both psychopaths and narcissists are grandios and and narcissists become psychopaths
653. 86:48 in some situations. Border lines become psychopaths in some situations. I’m getting to this question because
654. 86:54 it’s psychopaths confusing. Yes. Psychopaths become uh narcissists
655. 87:00 in some situations. So there’s a lot of fluidity, a lot of flux. As circumstances change,
656. 87:06 yeah, they morph into each other. Any clinician would tell you, anyone, any therapist would tell you that you could have a client who on Monday is a narcissist and then something bad happened and on Wednesday is a borderline. Anyone would tell you that.
657. 87:22 So these categories, this categorical, this categorical approach is very wrong.
658. 87:29 Completely wrong. And so I reject the way the DSM diagnoses people. I think
659. 87:35 it’s antiquated. It’s 20 plus years old and it’s counterfactual. It’s not how it
660. 87:42 is in reality. I adopt the ICD way of diagnosing. ICD is the other
661. 87:48 diagnostic manual. It’s international classification of diseases. The ICD is
662. 87:54 used by 80% of humanity. 80. The DSM is used by 20% of humanity. But
663. 88:00 unfortunately, these are the 20% who own the media. Yeah. The Americans. So that’s why we think the ICD, the DSM is the big thing. The ICD is the big thing. 80% of humanity use the ICD.
664. 88:12 And in the ICD, for example, there is no narcissistic personality disorder at
665. 88:18 all. I see. So there is what they call personality disorder which sometimes is
666. 88:25 narcissistic, sometimes is borderline, sometimes psychopathic, sometimes paranoid. Anyone who has lived with a
667. 88:31 narcissist would tell you that narcissists easily become paranoid. They have paranoid personality disorder.
668. 88:38 And anyone would tell you that they have obsession compulsion, the obsessive compulsive. And anyone would tell you that they have mood disorders, they have
669. 88:44 depression. And it’s nonsense to separate people into groups, pure types.
670. 88:50 It’s complete nonsense. It’s completely wrong. Not true. However, Oh, sorry. Okay.
671. 88:56 However, as people transition between types, as they transition between disorders, as they change, yes, the emphasis change. Some things are emphasized, others are not emphasized or
672. 89:12 deemphasized. So as the narcissist because of some crisis, mortification,
673. 89:18 injury, lack of narcissistic supply, collapse, as a narcissist becomes temporarily a
674. 89:26 borderline in that temporary state stage as a borderline, he would become emotionally disregulated. Yeah. So certain traits, certain
675. 89:39 clinical features appear when you as an individual transition
676. 89:46 between different um mental problems, different mental issues. So what are the differences
677. 89:54 between a psychopathic phase, not psychopathic disorder, psychopathic phase and a narcissistic phase? What
678. 90:03 would be the difference when a narcissist becomes a psychopath for a few days or a few weeks? How could we
679. 90:10 tell that this narcissist is no longer a narcissist? He’s a psychopath. Now, there are a few major differences. First of all, the psychopath does not need
680. 90:21 other people, is not dependent on other people. Whereas the narcissist is dependent on other people. Narcissist
681. 90:28 needs narcissistic supply. The psychopath couldn’t care less. The psychopath is a lone wolf. He could care
682. 90:35 less about you. Consequently, of course, exactly like the narcissist, psychopaths don’t have empathy.
683. 90:41 Right? Second difference, in the narcissistic phase, there would be a confusion between reality and fantasy. In the psychopathic phase, there would not be such a confusion. The psychopath
684. 90:53 is totally grounded in reality. Mhm. Another distinction, the narcissist
685. 91:00 is unable to tell the difference between internal and external. The psychopath is able to tell the
686. 91:06 difference. So, but all narcissists have psychopathic phases. And I will finish
687. 91:12 by mentioning another distinction which is made of course by online experts, self-styled
688. 91:19 experts. And there’s a distinction between overt and covert narcissists. Overt and covert narcissist
689. 91:27 are phases. Every overt narcissist becomes sometimes
690. 91:33 covert. Yeah. Every covert narcissist given the right circumstances and the right people
691. 91:40 becomes overt. Every narcissist is sometimes overt and sometimes covert. Yeah. It is true, however, that some
692. 91:51 narcissists, statistically speaking, are more overt than covert. They spend
693. 91:58 more time being overt than being covert. And some narcissists are statistically
694. 92:04 more covert than overt. A bigger part of their life, bigger chunk of their lives is spent as covert rather than overt. But all narcissists are both overt and
695. 92:16 covert. Whereas if you go online, self-styled experts say that there is pure covert and pure overt. And the overt is never covert and the covert is never overt. And that’s
696. 92:28 very unfortunate. This profusion of nonsense online is really really very
697. 92:34 threatening and very unfortunate. Yeah. But may I ask you just to emphasize on how a borderline personality can morph into a psychopath because there it seems how can a personality have that many emotions like
698. 92:50 it’s built on disregulated emotions and the psychopath is so aligned and
699. 92:56 grounded and and their emotional range is a bit less than than the border. I think Lydia has experience with this but yeah yeah but he will explain. I shared my experience but he is good in
700. 93:07 explaining it. First of all lines do not become um so there are two types of psychopaths. There is a primary facto one psychopath
701. 93:18 and a secondary facto 2 psychopath. Yeah. Uh secondary facto 2 psychopath is a psychopath that has intense emotions.
702. 93:31 It’s a psychopath who is impulsive, has no impulse control. Consequently, this kind of psychopath is very reckless, uh, takes risk, very dangerous to
703. 93:42 himself and to others. And it’s a psychopath who has empathy. So, the secondary psychopath is not a primary psychopath. And the confusion again online of course
704. 93:54 u is this the borderline transitions to a secondary psychopathic state. Mhm.
705. 94:02 No, this why do we call it a psychopath? If this kind of person has empathy, has
706. 94:08 emotions, sometimes has shame and regret and remorse. Yeah, very common in secondary. Why do we call it a psychopath? Maybe we should find another word. We call it a psychopath
707. 94:19 because the core features of psychopathy are there. For example, aggression,
708. 94:25 which sometimes becomes violence. For example, recklessness. uh doing things make committing acts without considering the long-term consequences.
709. 94:37 That’s called recklessness. Defiance in your face. My way or the highway. I’m right always. I’m always right. You’re always you know this is typical psychopathic feature. Yeah. Consumaciousness. The hatred and rejection of authority.
710. 94:53 behavior that is very often self-defeating and self-destructive. These are core
711. 95:00 features of psychopathy both secondary and primary and because
712. 95:06 all of them exist in the secondary we say that this is a a type of psychopath
713. 95:13 rather than and in borderline for example someone suggested the distinction between shy or quiet
714. 95:19 borderline and the classical type whereas the shy and quiet borderline
715. 95:26 uh is aggressive and so on but internalizes the aggression. She aggresses against herself. She becomes depressed and so on. I completely reject this distinction but
716. 95:38 I’m mentioning it because it’s very reminiscent of secondary and primary psychopath. Right? The borderline becomes secondary. Never ever primary. Ah okay. That that’s
717. 95:49 the narcissist becomes primary. Ah that’s common. the the psychopath when
718. 95:57 for example the psychopath goals are frustrated when the psychopath is unable to obtain goals he compensates by
719. 96:05 becoming a narcissist he temporarily becomes a narcissist he’s grandio he’s
720. 96:11 entitled he’s self self- enenhances and self aggraizes and so that’s his way to
721. 96:18 reduce the dissonance and the anxiety of having failed to obtain a goal
722. 96:25 So all of them we could consider all these conditions as compensations for
723. 96:31 other conditions. When the psychopath fails, he compensates by becoming narcissist. When
724. 96:37 the narcissist fails, he compensates by becoming borderline. These are all compensatory states within one giant
725. 96:45 kaleidoscope. But the kaleidoscope is one. There are not 10 kaleidoscopes. It’s one. It’s
726. 96:51 just every time we look every time we look into the kaleidoscphope which is a different picture
727. 96:58 but it’s the same kaleidoscope that is that why they’re attracted to each other is like I noticed border lines do great with narcissist and psychopaths as couples or what is it and
728. 97:09 and why also why would a someone with borderline be with a cerebral narcissist
729. 97:17 for example? Do you think I’m borderline? How would you? No. No. Do you think if I’m borderline? No. I just asking because she gave an example.
730. 97:29 Why do they My impression of you is someone who’s quite grounded.
731. 97:36 So no, borderline did not cross my mind. Okay. Thinking of you as a question. I I I
732. 97:43 because many people No, I pretend because Oh, they assume that they assume that
733. 97:49 you are. No. No. But when they when they know me better, they change their minds. But uh
734. 97:56 usually it’s the most common. It’s most borderline to fall in love and to have relationship with narcissist because they they they want to live in
735. 98:07 fantasy land of the of the narcissist. So they like agreed let’s let’s do our
736. 98:14 fantasy work but it collapses very fast. Sorry you wanted to say no I’m just clear my throat.
737. 98:20 Ah please continue. Sorry, she asked I wanted to Why would
738. 98:26 when like why would anyone I’m sorry sorry there’s a delay
739. 98:33 I guess because the delay I I just wanted to know why any woman would want to be with a cerebral narcissist like
740. 98:39 she has libido and especially if she’s borderline and relies on her sexuality and then she needs somebody who denies her completely as if she doesn’t exist like how Why are they still addicted to each other?
741. 98:56 So, uh the borderline the borderline’s main
742. 99:03 uh concern main focus is to avoid two types of anxiety.
743. 99:10 One is colloquially known as abandonment anxiety. That’s not the clinical term. The clinical term is uh separation
744. 99:16 insecurity. Okay. So abandonment or separation anxiety on the one hand and engulfment
745. 99:22 anxiety the borderline um falls apart if she’s rejected or
746. 99:30 abandoned but she also falls apart if she’s exposed to too much intimacy
747. 99:36 and true love. She also falls apart. She come there’s a goldilocks area. There’s
748. 99:42 a zone where the borderline is happy and it is extremely narrow.
749. 99:48 If you don’t reciprocate reciprocate her demands for attention and intimacy and love, you’re abandoning her. You’re
750. 99:55 rejecting her. She becomes aggressive and worse. If on the other hand, if on the other hand, you do reciprocate her requests for intimacy and love and
751. 100:06 then you are suffocating her, you are controlling her, you are and she becomes aggressive and so on. It’s a very it’s a tight tight rope act. It’s it’s very difficult to find the middle ground in
752. 100:18 the case of borderline and narcissists are good at that at finding the middle ground. Why?
753. 100:25 Narcissists are incapable of providing real love and real intimacy. So they’re not threatening in terms of
754. 100:31 engulfment. The borderline never feels suffocated with the narcissist because there’s
755. 100:37 nothing there, you know, in terms of intimacy and love and so on. In the lovebombing phase,
756. 100:43 there’s mutual idealization or idealization. So the borderline does not
757. 100:49 perceive the love bombing as a form of intimacy and love. She is doing the same
758. 100:56 to the narcissist. She’s idealizing the narcissist. He’s idealizing her. These are this is the inception of the of the
759. 101:03 fantasy. So that’s not what threatens her. As the relationship progresses,
760. 101:10 there’s no intimacy and no love offered by the narcissist. And thus, this takes care of one of the anxieties, one of the
761. 101:17 twin anxieties. The other anxiety is rejection and abandonment.
762. 101:23 And the risk with the narcissist is there. Narcissist devalue ultimately and discard. But narcissists also provide external
763. 101:34 regulation. Narcissists exude confidence. They give the impression that they have all the answers that they can you can they can take away from you
764. 101:46 the burden of responsibility. You don’t need to be responsible anymore. You don’t need to make decisions. You don’t need to worry. Leave it to them. They will solve everything. So, and this is
765. 101:57 external regulation. The borderline is looking for a rock. She’s looking for someone she could she could rely on. And in other words, she’s looking for safety. Safety, a sense of secure base.
766. 102:11 And narcissists are great at providing this because because they expect you to acknowledge
767. 102:18 this. So both parties benefit. When the narcissist pretends to be a rock, it’s
768. 102:24 not a rock. Narcissists are very fragile and vulnerable and brittle, but they pretend to be rocks. So when the
769. 102:30 narcissist pretends to be this rock, he expects the borderline to confirm it, to
770. 102:36 observe it, to verbalize it, to say, “Wow, you’re amazing. You know everything. You solve everything. You’re
771. 102:43 incredible. You’re” And so he’s getting narcissistic supply and she’s getting a secure base, a sense of safety
772. 102:50 by transaction. And it’s a perfect transaction. It perfectly fits. So the rejection and humiliation and abandonment and all these are
773. 103:01 mitigated they’re reduced by the fact by the presence of the narcissist the constant rocklike presence the the fact that the Nazar is a secure base affords a sense of safety
774. 103:14 that amilarates to some extent the separation and security and the other side the engulfment doesn’t exist at all because there’s no love and intimacy. So narcissist is a perfect fit for the borderline because with a normal person with a healthy partner
775. 103:31 the borderline would have two anxieties. With a narcissist she has half half anxiety. One and a half anxieties disappear. So it’s much better fit. Consequently
776. 103:43 border lines became become addicted to the narcissist. There’s a strong element of addiction.
777. 103:49 She gets intoxicated first but then addicted. She’s addicted to two things, not only to the sense of safety, but she
778. 103:57 is addicted to the way he sees her. She’s addicted to the narcissist’s gaze.
779. 104:04 She’s able to self idealize via the narcissist’s gaze,
780. 104:10 therefore, and thereby experiencing for the first time in her life self-love.
781. 104:17 Narcissism allows the borderline to experience self love because in his eyes
782. 104:24 he she’s perfect. What is there not to love? She’s perfect.
783. 104:30 And then she looks at the narcissist. She sees her own reflection in the narcissist’s eyes gaze and it’s
784. 104:38 perfection raified. And now she can love herself. And for most border lines, for all border lines, it’s the first experience of self- loveve and it’s irresistible.
785. 104:51 It’s addictive. The narcissist gaze is monopolistic.
786. 104:57 Only the narcissist can gaze at her this way. No one else can. So, she becomes addicted to a pusher. It’s a drug and he becomes the the exclusive pusher. In the in the whole in
787. 105:10 the whole city, there’s only one pusher. So of course she becomes addict and she would never let go of the narcissist.
788. 105:16 Whereas a typical borderline if she’s truly abandoned and humiliated and rejected because let it be clear
789. 105:24 border lines react not only to real abandonment and real rejection but to anticipated imagined abandonment and rejection. It’s an all in the mind. But whereas a
790. 105:37 typical borderline would react to abandonment and rejection, real ones like if she’s abandoned and rejected
791. 105:44 would react by walking away because the person is no longer perceived as a rock.
792. 105:51 She would keep coming back to the narcissist. She would not come back to a healthy person who had abandoned her, rejected her, humiliated her and shamed her. She would not go back to such a person. He
793. 106:02 is unsafe. But she would go back to a narcissist. Even when the narcissist abandoned her,
794. 106:09 rejected her, humiliated her, and shamed her, she would keep going back because
795. 106:15 of these other things that he provides, external regulation, the ability to
796. 106:21 self-love, and so on. These are extras. These are the bonuses in a relationship with a narcissist that non-narcissists
797. 106:28 cannot provide.
798. 106:34 It’s okay. Speechless. Are you speechless or speechful? Say something. I know you can say a lot about this topic, but about borderline and so on.
799. 106:45 Okay. I’m not going to okay academic speeches.
800. 106:51 Not academic. But you have a lot of experience with borderline with border. She wants experience. Okay. But Judith wants experience. do it at some other time we will agree only Google I’m
801. 107:02 also translating you know how people how uh
802. 107:09 what would border a borderliner uh say about the narcissist they have different language so there is uh when they are
803. 107:22 going back hoovering you know there are some other topics But it’s uh to
804. 107:30 translate the narcissistic uh expectations and what is the response for example from the others if they are borderline if they are psychopaths the reactions the dynamic between that is
805. 107:43 interesting topic that’s for some other time now it’s first that is for another
806. 107:49 for another interview I would love I would love to repeat that experience that’s for sure because there’s a million questions in my mind. I want to listen to like so much. Um,
807. 108:01 so, okay. Would you would you at least advise like how to deal with people that
808. 108:07 shame people that want to stay in in these relationships or or how to hold space?
809. 108:13 it like you said Sam like all the personality disorders they they ch like
810. 108:19 they’re all malleable and they um they’re interchangeable but it feels that
811. 108:26 most people can fall under any of these disorders and the behavior of people
812. 108:33 that are seem to be normal or healthy according to society that adhere by society’s
813. 108:40 rules they do a lot of awful Yes, people human beings things doesn’t
814. 108:47 make them mentally ill. Well, they don’t support victim. Evil, evil is not mental illness. Uh
815. 108:53 there was a guy called Scott Peek and he said evil is is narcissism. Narcissism is another word for evil.
816. 109:00 Evil is doesn’t have to be mentally ill. The vast majority of stalkers are not mentally ill. The vast majority of abusers don’t have a single mental illness. I see. evil, hurting other people,
817. 109:12 diminished empathy, and and they are not intricately and intimately
818. 109:18 linked to any specific mental health condition. And so it’s true that most psychopaths are ultimately evil.
819. 109:26 And many narcissists are ultimately evil. Although psychopaths are aware and narcissists are not, but doesn’t matter.
820. 109:32 They’re ultimately evil. But vast majority of evil people are not. There was a guy called There is a guy
821. 109:40 I killed him. There is a guy called Goldhagen. Goldhagen wrote a book about uh about
822. 109:47 the SS, Adolf Hitler’s SS. Uhhuh. And he analyzed the 3 million members of
823. 109:54 the SS including the people in especially the people who served in the
824. 110:00 concentration camps, in the extermination camps, in the Anz group. The the ances were military units who were moving from one village to the to
825. 110:11 another from one city to another and they were killing the civilian population including and especially
826. 110:17 women and children and they were killing them by shooting them in the head. So there was a direct direct contact
827. 110:25 between the bodies, the smells, the the sounds, everything. And so we analyzed
828. 110:31 these people. We analyzed three million of them. It’s a giant study in the field. And he found that the major overwhelming
829. 110:38 majority of them were totally normal people, totally healthy people. They had they had families. They had dogs. They like bit of they played the piano. They
830. 110:50 were compassionate with their neighbors. They participated in charity. today. So
831. 110:56 even the most extreme forms of evil, killing probably one and a half million people directly with a gun, splattered with blood and brains and so on so
832. 111:07 forth. The people who did this were actually completely healthy and normal.
833. 111:13 I’m sorry, Sam. Uh you are frozen. Yes, I’ve been frozen all my most of my
834. 111:20 life. You okay on your end? I’ve been frozen most of my life. Yeah. defrosted
835. 111:28 and now you’re frozen. Judith, we’re both frozen. I succeeded finally to freeze this exchange.
836. 111:34 I didn’t know you were so cool. She disconnected. No, she wasn’t the line window.
837. 111:43 This is Egypt. The lines are horrible. Look, I just threw over here. I think we should call it a day in any
838. 111:49 case because it’s all fine. Juda, I think in any case, we have reached the end of of today’s uh talk because it’s almost two hours. Yes, I know. Um can can we talk again?
839. 112:03 Well, let’s take a bit of a break. Yeah, we can. But usually I put a few months different
840. 112:10 weeks because of saturation. I don’t want to saturate the channel with the same person. No, you you gave me a lot to to think about. So, let’s let’s go into the just last question.
841. 112:21 Okay. I think empaths are essentially narcissists because there’s a trend everybody’s calling themselves empaths. Is this a way of grandstanding and separating themselves from narcissists?
842. 112:32 Can I answer? Yes, please. An empath will never say that he he is
843. 112:39 an empath, right? Okay. So, you diagnose them or whatever,
844. 112:45 but real empath will never say it. Well, start with the fact that there’s no such thing as empath. Um we have no
845. 112:53 studies that um have demonstrated that there are
846. 113:00 people with more intense empathy or heightened empathy. There are no studies that support this. There are studies that support the notion that some people
847. 113:11 have heightened sensitivity. So we call them highly sensitive people, HSPs. But this sensitivity has to do with the body not the mind. Highly sensitive
848. 113:23 people are people who is sensor sensor sensory inputs are very intense. So they hear their auditory inputs are much heightened. They’re they’re much more sensitive to
849. 113:35 light or to so these are highly sensitive people. It’s nothing to do with empathy. M
850. 113:42 and of course empaths so self so-called empaths claim that they are highly sensitive people not realizing that
851. 113:49 highly sensitive people these are people with a brain abnormality this this is a brain abnormality where were inputs via the senses are amplified and they overwhelm the individual so there are no there’s no such thing as
852. 114:05 people with too much empathy intense empathy heightened empathy empathy is distributed in a gauian way. Some people
853. 114:12 are more empathic, some people less empathic. All people have empathy. That includes narcissists and psychopaths.
854. 114:18 Narcissists and psychopaths have a form of empathy known as cold empathy which is combination of cognitive empathy and
855. 114:25 reflexive empathy. They do not possess effective empathy. They do not possess emotional empathy. They don’t react emotionally to the information that they’re getting from
856. 114:36 other people, but they’re getting this information. They have empathy. So everyone is empathy and therefore
857. 114:42 everyone is an empath, right? Um the people who go online and declare
858. 114:48 themselves empaths, supernova empaths, I’m kidding you not.
859. 114:54 And so on so they’re supernova empaths. And the people who go online and say that empaths defeat narcissists.
860. 115:02 Uh the people who go online and and say that they are dark empaths. And this is
861. 115:08 first of all unmitigated totally unsupported nonsense and second a very
862. 115:15 powerful indication of underlying narcissism. Mhm. There it involves a lot of self-enhancing, self aggrandising, putting down other people, splitting. I’m all good. The narcissist
863. 115:28 is all bad. This is a splitting defense. Ironically, it is typical of narcissists. Narcissists do that and border lines. So yes, I’m convinced beyond any doubt that anyone who calls himself or herself an empath is a
864. 115:43 narcissist. Thank you. The majority of them might be covert narcissists or even not self-aware
865. 115:51 narcissist, right? But I believe there’s not a single exception. If you go online claiming to
866. 115:58 have been victimized and then making a virtue of who you are, aggrandizing yourself, putting yourself above others,
867. 116:05 demonizing other people, never mind who they are, and so on so forth. That’s a very good description of narcissistic
868. 116:11 behavior. Yeah. End of story. If it if it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, it’s a
869. 116:18 duck. What a beautiful way to end the podcast. I love that.
870. 116:25 One thing disemberts pop up uh especially after the corona uh period.
871. 116:32 Yes, they were so disappointed in uh how the
872. 116:38 their country’s government administration institutions carried on. They lost trust the basic trust in the
873. 116:45 institution or they they felt threatened. So they were betrayed. Yes. threatened, betrayed, ashamed, they didn’t develop uh some normal life
874. 116:58 before but they were missing during the quarantine periods. Okay. So they were
875. 117:04 calling actually they pop up like popcorn really only after the corona you search and uh what happen if they are mentioned uh just before uh 2020
876. 117:16 especially and uh they are calling actually everyone else uh on respon
877. 117:23 being responsible in the society. So make your research. It’s interesting
878. 117:29 uh dynamic what happened with the people in the in the social level and how they
879. 117:36 turn up to be more narcissist than ever. I was shocked. I was shocked. I would add to this uh and with this we’ll finish the interview. Uh when you
880. 117:47 feel helpless in reality, you’re helpless. Nothing you can do. When you feel helpless in reality, very often the only solution is to pretend that you are
881. 117:58 not helpless in fantasy, pretend that you are superior, that you’re all powerful, that you’re all
882. 118:05 knowing, fantasy is always compensatory, it compensates. So when in reality
883. 118:11 you’re weak, everyone people or governments are taking advantage of you, you are humiliated, you’re what’s the solution to confront reality
884. 118:22 as it is. Some people are weak. They can’t do that. It will break them apart if they confront reality.
885. 118:28 So the dependent so they retreat to fantasy and in the fantasy they are everything. They are not in reality. And this is how the
886. 118:35 false self is generated. When the child creates the false self, the false self
887. 118:42 is everything the child is not. The child is helpless. The false self is omnipotent. The child cannot predict the behavior of the adults. Remember, it’s a traumatized abused child. Cannot predict the behavior of the adults. The false self is all knowing, omnisient. The
888. 118:59 child is being told by the adults that he’s stupid and ugly, the bad object. The false self is genius, perfect, brilliant. And the false self is a
889. 119:10 fantasy defense. It’s everything the child is not. And empaths in my view are a form of fantasy defense because these people can no longer cope with reality. Maybe the relationship with the narcissist has been too much for them. Could also be but they have developed a narcissistic
890. 119:27 defense. They became narcissist. It’s sometimes and this has a name felony
891. 119:33 very famous psychoanalyst felency he said that sometimes the only way to cope with abuse and aggression is to become
892. 119:40 the aggressor of the abuser. So to embrace to to incorporate the abuser and
893. 119:47 the aggressor. So sometimes when you’re with the narcissist and you feel really helpless and there’s nothing could sometimes you you become the narcissist
894. 119:55 because it’s as if you’re saying from now on I’m the one doing the abuse I will never be abused again you know. Yeah. Wow. Uh it’s incredible. I I’m so
895. 120:07 grateful for for this and and I hope if if we do talk again we’ll
896. 120:13 get into more like society and how like the world is operating right now. And of course, we mentioned forgiveness and lessons from narcissists and psychopaths like to have more positive conversations
897. 120:24 about it too because I want people to understand why we stay uh because we
898. 120:30 stay for a lot of the positive things as well and I think it’s it deserves an episode but of course I wanted to just
899. 120:37 like ask you anything in the whole universe. So thank you guys so so much.
900. 120:44 Thank you for having us. I’m very very honored and um Okay, if you uh if you wouldn’t mind to send
901. 120:51 me your recording in case mine is uh not so good. You your war was disrupted.
902. 120:59 Yes, you don’t have it. I will send you the recording. But our what is it? What is it the evening? You’re in Cairo. You’re in
903. 121:06 Cairo and I’m just an hour ahead of you. It’s 6 p.m. right now. 6 p.m. So
904. 121:12 Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.
905. 121:19 Bye. Bye. Thanks. And then how