Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Why Delulu Narcissists, Delusional Victims Bond (Delusional Resonance Bonding)

1. 00:02 Trauma bonding is a reaction to intermittent reinforcement. Intermittent reinforcement is hot and cold. I love you. I hate you. Come here. Go away. When there’s a an uninterrupted stream of mixed signals, contradictory messages, the result is disorientation.
2. 00:29 and a feeling of dependency on the source of the messaging or the signaling. Trauma bonding therefore is a reaction to this technique if you wish or this strategy of relationship management. The abuser triggers in the victim the kind of trauma she is used to from early
3. 00:51 childhood, from a dysfunctional family, later on in life. The intermittent reinforcement triggers in the victim reactions which are hardbaked into her psychology. In a way, intermittent reinforcement which leads to trauma bonding is the victim’s comfort zone. But today, I do
4. 01:16 not wish to discuss trauma bonding. Yay. I’m going to discuss something different. I’m going to discuss what I call delusional resonance. Sounds good. My name is Sam Vaknim. I’m the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, and I’m a professor of psychology.
5. 01:38 Exactly the way intermittent reinforcement leads to trauma bonding. The resonance of traumas between abuser and abuse accounts for the adhesive properties of trauma bonding. Trauma bonding keeps the abuser and the victim together because they both share the
6. 01:59 same traumatic background and the abuser is capable of triggering the trauma time and again in the victim. Exactly the same way delusional resonance works. The abuser is able to trigger in the victim delusions which are addictive, gratifying, explanatory and organizing. Delusions
7. 02:25 which create the semblance of a secure base, a sense of safety. The victim becomes intoxicated. She falls in love with these delusions. She’s unable to let go. But the abuser would not have been able to generate the type of trauma that the victim is used to. The tri the type of
8. 02:49 delusions the victims the victim gets addicted to. The abuser would not have been able to trigger all these had the abuser not shared with the victim the very same background. Abuser and victim are flip sides of the same coin. They have had access to the same traumas
9. 03:12 and in response as a compensation they develop the very same delusions and this is the glue that holds them together within the shared fantasy. Trauma resonance trauma bonding accounts for the adhesive properties of the shared fantasy. The inability to let
10. 03:33 go to break apart to push back. In the same way, the matching delusionality of the abuser and the victim, the fact that they share the same delusions, the delusional resonance accounts for the adhesive properties of the shared fantasy. In other words, there are two processes
11. 03:55 at work, not one. Trauma bonding and delusional resonance. Trauma bonding founded on the resonance of traumas between abuser and victim and delusional resonance founded on the fact that victim and abuser are actually equally delusional and the contents of
12. 04:18 their delusions is the same. What are the narcissist delusions? What are the delusional beliefs that the narcissist holds about himself or herself? We call it the inflated grandio fantastic self-concept aka the false self. So what is the delusional content of the false self and
13. 04:44 in which way does this delusional content resonate with complements conforms to the delusional content of the victim’s mind? In other words, which are the delusions which are shared by both the abuser and the victim? Let’s go one by one. The narcissist
14. 05:06 delusion is I’m special. I’m unique. I’m unprecedented. Unprecedented. I’m one of a kind. I’m amazing. The victim’s delusions. I’m special. I’m unique. I’m irreplaceable. I’m indispensable. I have been chosen by the narcissist. I’ve been chosen because I’m special,
15. 05:32 because I’m unique, because I’m unprecedented, because nobody else can replace me. I’m irreplaceable. You you you see already that the narcissist grandio inflated self-concept which is counterfactual which is fantasy based resonates very deeply with a similarly
16. 05:55 inflated and grandio self-concept of the victim. The victim says the narcissist has chosen me because I am special not because he is special. It is not a narcissist who is special. It is I who is special. For example, I’m endowed with amazing empathy. I’m an empath.
17. 06:19 Or I’m so kind and good-hearted. Or I
18. 06:25 take care of of him the way no one else could. Or I bring joy and life and light and love into his life the way no other person has ever done. These are all grandio delusions of the victim and as you see they ra they resonate mightily with identical delusions of the narcissist.
19. 06:51 The next delusion is the narcissist believes that his fantasy is real. The narcissist is unable to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. That is a major clinical feature of pathological narcissism. It’s pseudocs psychotic. It’s delusional.
20. 07:10 But at the same time, the narcissist believes that the shared fantasy which he perceives as reality is able to elevate and heal the victim. It is through the shared fantasy that the victim can become whole and perfect and functional. It is through the fantasy that the
21. 07:33 victim can experience contentment and happiness. It is through the fantasy that the victim can be integrated. It is through the fantasy that the victim can actualize his or her potential. In short, the victim can become only through the fantasy. The fantasy is a
22. 07:53 vehicle of both individuation and selfactualization. The fantasy therefore in the narcissist worldscape, the fantasy is not only about the narcissist. The fantasy is a kind of supervening narrative which renders both the narcissist and the victim
23. 08:18 superior, supreme, godlike, perfect beings. The victim has a similar conception of the fantasy. The narcissist believes that he is in love with the victim. The narcissist fully fully believes that his attitude towards the victim, his effective response to the victim is what other
24. 08:44 people call love. When you ask a narcissist, “Do you love her?” He’s going to protest and say, “Of course I do. Don’t you see? Don’t you see how much I care for her? Don’t you see how much I work for her? Don’t you see how I protect her? And so on and so forth.
25. 09:03 Narcissists therefore mislabel emotions. And it is the mislabeling of emotions that allows the narcissist to mispersceive the fantasy not only as a form of reality but as a path or a journey of enlightenment, a kind of self-elevation. a an epiphany, an apotheiois.
26. 09:25 The victim has a similar fantasy. The victim believes that love can heal, that love has curative properties, that love is a solution to everything. That love can redeem and love can remedy and love can compensate and love can elevate and love can transform and love can transcend.
27. 09:51 In short, whereas a narcissist believes that his fantasy, the shared fantasy, is a way to transcend reality, a transcendent experience that drives both himself and the victim closer to God, if you wish, or to a god-like state. The victim similarly
28. 10:13 believes that her love or her capacity to love, her empathy, her kindness, her compassion, are enough to create a situation where the more abrasive and antisocial aspects of the narcissist, including his abusive behavior, can be mitigated, amilarated,
29. 10:36 and finally suspended. It is of course a delusion. And you see again that there is a resonance between the narcissist perception of fantasy as lovebased basically and the victim’s perception of the fantasy as lovebased as well. They both resonate. The narcissist seeks the
30. 10:59 victim’s love as a kind of nectar, a kind of panacea, a kind of med medicine. He the narcissist self-medicates with the victim’s love within the shared fantasy and the victim is more than willing actually the victims is pushy. She wants to dispense with her love. The next
31. 11:24 delusion is on the narcissistic side. The narcissist believes that he is when I say he and she by the way half of all narcissists are women. So the gender pronouns are interchangeable. In your mind, if you have had an experience with a female
32. 11:42 narcissist, simply replace he with she. The narcissist believes that he is the victim of envious, malevolent, pucilanimous, stupid, ignorant, malicious people. The narcissist is a conspiracy theories. The narcissist constructs paranoid narratives which amount to paranoid
33. 12:07 ideiation. The narcissist believes that everyone is out to get him. Everyone is out to take him down. Everyone is in cahoots to destroy him or to steal from him or to abscond with what is his. And this conspiratorial paranoid perception of reality places the
34. 12:31 narcissist at the center of the universe. He is the axis around which everything revolves. He is the target of the conspiracy. It is the aim and the purpose that drives other people that drive other people to confront him to punish him to humiliate him to shame him and
35. 12:54 ultimately to destroy him. And so paranoid ideation is a form of grandiosity. And when the narcissist casts himself as a victim, when the narcissist abrogates, gives up on and abdicates an external locus of control and replaces it an internal locus of control and replaces
36. 13:18 it with an external one. The narcissist is actually creating a narrative or generating a narrative where he is still the most important person in the room because he is he is the focal point of everyone’s malign malevolent intent. And so the victimhood stance of the
37. 13:42 narcissist is a delusion of course. But of when we come to the victims of the narcissist, they entertain a similar delusion. When you talk to victims, they would tell you that they are angelic, they are blameless, they’re flawless, they are empaths,
38. 14:02 they did nothing to contribute to their predicament. Um, and this is a victimhood stunts very similar to the narcissist. Actually, it’s extremely difficult to tell apart narcissists, especially covert narcissists, from victims of abuse. The victim of abuse says, “I’m an
39. 14:28 angelic victim of evil people. I did not contribute to my mishap and misfortune.” The narcissist says, “I’m an angelic victim of evil people. I did not contribute to my mishap and misfortune and it is difficult to tell them apart.”
40. 14:48 And so the delusionality of victimhood as an identity, as an organizing principle, as an explanatory principle of reality, the victimhood that makes sense of what is happening, imbuss everything with meaning. This is common to both the narcissist and the victim. Remember we
41. 15:09 are discussing delusional resonance. The fact that both the narcissist and the victim harbor identical delusions. The narcissist delusions are also the victim’s delusions. This is the reason that narcissists bond with victims and victims attach themselves to narcissists
42. 15:32 in an adhesive unbreakable way. The next delusion of the narcissist is I deserve concessions because I’m so special, because I’m so unique, because I’m so superior, and of course because I’m a victim. I deserve concessions. I deserve special treatment. I own
43. 15:55 rights which no other people do and these rights impose obligations on other people. This is known as entitlement. But entitlement is a delusion of course because the premises are wrong. The premises are delusional. The victim is similarly entitled.
44. 16:15 a victim would tell you as a victim and owing to my victimhood I am I should be subjected to special treatment I deserve concessions I have rights so both the narcissist and the victim claim the pedestal both the narcissist and the victim self idolize self pedestalize
45. 16:43 self elevate or As the phrase goes in clinical psychology, self- enhance again, we witness a delusion which is common both to the narcissist and to the victim. Another delusion in narcissism is I always get away with it. I have impunity and immunity. I’m
46. 17:08 untouchable. I’m imper impermeable. I’m invulnerable. I’m godlike. The victim entertains a similar delusion. The victim says the abuser is actually a good person who has had a difficult life. I can transform the abuser. And by transforming the abuser, I can no longer
47. 17:34 be a victim. I can forgo my victimhood. Forgo my victimhood. So whereas the narcissist says no one can touch me. No one can punish me. I’m above above any and every law. I’m a law unto myself and so on so forth. The you the victim says exactly the same. She says victimhood is
48. 17:58 something I can control. Victimhood is something I can anull. Victimhood is something I can suspend. Victimhood is something I can dispense with by transforming the abuser. I have the power, the godlike power to transmute the abuser into a good person. My love can do it.
49. 18:23 My understanding can do it. My compassion and empathy can do it. I have tools the abuser doesn’t have. And I can put these tools to good use. And by doing so, I can no longer be a victim because I get I rid the abuser of his or her abusive behaviors. That is of course
50. 18:46 a perception of immunity to abuse. Impunity, a perception of abuse. I am in charge. I am in control. I’m the master of the abuse. The abuse only continues as long as I haven’t applied myself to the transformation of the abuser, a power which I possess as a victim.
51. 19:11 I hope I have demonstrated to you that the delusional internal landscape of the narcissist is identical and fully resonates with a delusional in internal landscape of the victim. Victims and narcissists inhabit the same fantastic delusional space.
52. 19:35 They understand each other profoundly. They comp comprehend and apprehend each other’s psychological processes. They resonate with each other. They complete each other in many ways. And because they share a common psychological historical personal background, because of this
53. 20:00 shared commonality, they are able to penetrate each other’s defenses and they are able to somehow bond and merge and fuse symbiotically adhere to each other, attach to the point of inseparation. It is very difficult having set foot in the shared fantasy to withdraw, to
54. 20:27 disengage, to break apart, to detach, to put distance. The shared fantasy’s adhesive properties. The ability to of the shared fantasy to suck you in like quicksand is because when you enter the shed fantasy, you recognize yourself immediately.