Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. How Narcissist Baits You to Become His/her Mother (Skopje Seminar Day 2 Opening, May 2025)

1. 00:19 Boerto Bonjour and Guten Guten >> Morgan. Yes. Guten Morgan. Bonjour. Madame. >> Sorry. >> Gob. Yes. I lived I lived in Czech Republic for uh I live in Poland also but I lived in Czech Republic. I lived in in all these areas. Yeah. Okay. I’m going to answer a few questions that
2. 00:54 I’ve received and there are additional questions which you can ask later during the questions and answers sessions when I’m not here. No. Right. Okay. Dove, you’re smiling. That’s a good sign. You are my calibrator. >> Ask questions and answers.
3. 01:15 >> You can ask the question. You know, in in my case, it’s all your answers questioned, not all your questions answered. Okay. The first uh the first question obviously had to do with uh sex. And um narcissists are what what we call um
4. 01:37 narcissists are what we call socioexual. Socioexual people are people who are willing to have sex outside a committed relationship. So they are open to sexual opportunities outside the committed relationship. But social social sexuality is an attitude.
5. 01:58 It’s an attitudinal dimension of the personality. It does not mean that it leads to action. It just means that the person is in principle all for it. But it doesn’t always lead to action. Socioexual uh social socioexuality is associated with a model and the model is
6. 02:19 called contextual reinforcement model or CRM. The contextual reinforcement model of narcissism says that narcissists seek novelty. They they are they like new things. For example, $400 million airplanes. You know, they like this. They like uh unstable, instability, not stability.
7. 02:45 When they are in a stable environment, they feel suffocated. They feel that they’re dying. So they like to destabilize situations and relationships and so on to introduce to inject instability and they like short-term contexts over long-term context. So narcissists for
8. 03:05 example are much more likely to engage in casual sex than in committed sex in long-term relationships. So this is the contextual reinforcement model which is one of the uh dominant model. Another another model of narcissism is called the agency model.
9. 03:24 The agency model has five elements. And this is just an answer to your questions. Yes, it’s not today’s lecture. The agency model has five uh elements. Number one, the narcissist is more focused, more interested in agency. In other words, the narcissist is
10. 03:40 interested in performance, in acting, in obtaining outcomes. The narcissist is exactly like the psychopath. goal oriented. The difference between the narcissist and the psychopath is that the narcissist’s only goal is narcissistic supply. Whereas the psychopath has
11. 04:00 multiple goals. For example, sex, money, contacts, access. So narcissists are agentic. They are not communal. In other words, narcissists do not emphasize being liked or being loved or being agreeable or being conscientious or anything has to do with the community.
12. 04:20 Narcissists couldn’t care less about they care about agency with one exception. The communal pro-social narcissist. Communal pro-ocial narcissist is a variant of narcissist. variant like v virus is a variant of narcissist who is into community values. The grandiosity
13. 04:41 of this narcissist is about being moral, being altruistic, being charitable. So you see all these narcissists on television ostentatiously announcing big donations and projects they’re initiating and how great they are and how loving and how
14. 04:59 charitable and how altruistic and so on. That’s a pro-social communal narcissist, an ostentatious dogooder. That’s the only exception. It’s a tiny minority. All other narcissists couldn’t care less about the community. This is element number one in the agency model. Element
15. 05:15 number two is the narcissist has surprise surprise inflated self-concept or inflated self-use. Number three, self-enhancement and self-regulation. The narcissist self-enhances, solicits input from others. solicits feedback to support an inflated, fantastic, grandiose, unrealistic,
16. 05:36 counterfactual self-image or self-concept. Number four is entitlement and number five is approach orientation. Approach orientation in psychology means you are emphasizing the rewards much more than the dangers, much more than the risk, much more than the the cost. So narcissists
17. 05:58 are focused on what can what is it what’s in it for me what can I get what can I extract how can I benefit this is called approach uh attitude approach uh orientation and they don’t focus on what is going to what’s the cost uh what are the consequences what’s
18. 06:18 going to happen to me they don’t focus on this they focus on the immediate gratification instant gratification of so this is the agency model. I’m introducing you to these models because today we are going to discuss the dominant model of narcissism. These two
19. 06:33 are not the dominant models. We’re going to discuss the dominant model known as the psychonamic model psychonamic model of narcissism. So, I’m introducing you to others before we do before we do so. Um, let’s see if there’s anything else that I’ve missed. Um one second.
20. 06:57 No, basically I covered all the questions that that you have sent me. And so before we proceed, I need to thank our sponsors. So this uh lecture hall and everything and in it was provided uh gratis free of charge by Southeast European University. I teach
21. 07:17 in this university. I’m a visiting professor of psychology. Uh and the event itself is sponsored by Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Yes. Um the institute uh the Commonwealth Institute for Advanced Professional Studies, which is the post-graduate Institute of uh Cambridge.
22. 07:36 So these are the two sponsors you can see on the board. The seminar itself is organized by the Vaknin Reangelovska Foundation. Galofski is there and she is unfortunate enough to be with Vaknin and they put up together a foundation. So these are the sponsors of your of
23. 07:53 your seminar and we owe him we owe them thanks of course. Yes. I’m going to introduce you to a synthesis um a combination of several several models, several ideas about narcissism and especially about how narcissists relate to other people. Interpersonal relationships, the way the
24. 08:18 narcissist interacts with other people, all other people. That could be a romantic partner, intimate partner, it could be a friend, it could be a neighbor, it could be a colleague. Narcissists interact with all people using an identical template. There are
25. 08:34 no differences as I told you yesterday. And this template has been described by various scholars in up up until the late 80s and these scholars collectively are known as psychonamic schools of psychology. So we have the we have psychoanalysis which is the earliest school. Then we
26. 08:58 have psychoanalytic uh psychology which is the later school. Then we have object relation schools especially in the United Kingdom. And then we have uh psychonamic theories and I put all of them together. I combined all of them 30 years ago not now. I
27. 09:17 combined all of them to describe the way the narcissist interacts with people. Before we go there, we need to understand how the narcissist is formed, what gives rise to the narcissist. So there are basically two opposing views and a synthesis, an integration of
28. 09:35 these views. The first view is that narcissism, pathological narcissism is the outcome of early childhood trauma and abuse. Early childhood trauma and abuse is often misunderstood because people say trauma and abuse is physical abuse, sexual abuse, incest,
29. 09:58 um verbal abuse, psychological abuse. This is abuse. No, these are these are subspecies of abuse. But abuse is a much wider framework. My definition of abuse is anything the parent does to prevent the child from becoming. When the parent does not allow the child
30. 10:22 to become to become an individual to acquire personhood, to develop a self, to establish boundaries. When the parent doesn’t allow these processes to happen, this is abuse and it’s very traumatic to the child because the child is in a position of helplessness.
31. 10:44 The child cannot fight back and the child cannot process the fact that it is the mother who is doing this or it is the father who is doing this. It’s these are trust figures. The child loves these these figures, these adults. The child is invested in them emotionally cathed.
32. 11:06 There is cexis. The child is u the child trusts them and then the very adults that should have should have kept the child safe, should have made the child happy, should have loved the child, should have catered to the child’s needs, these very the very same adults
33. 11:23 betrayed the child. There’s a betrayal here. And the child is not an adult. child doesn’t have the tools to cope with this betrayal to make sense of it to process it and when I’m talking about abuse I mentioned classical forms of abuse but there are many other forms of
34. 11:42 abuse for example if the parent uses the child to realize the unfulfilled dreams and wishes and fantasies of the parent I wanted to be a pianist I failed I failed now you will be a p pianist or I’m a medical doctor, you will follow in my footsteps and they will also become a
35. 12:04 medical doctor. This process is known as instrumentalization. Instrumentalizing the child is abuse. Of course, parentifying the child. When a mother for example confides in her child against the husband, the the child becomes the ally of the mother against
36. 12:26 the husband. Or the mother is so needy and so dependent that the child caters to her needs. The child takes care of her. The child is the parent. This is called parentifying. Of course, it applies to fathers as well. Parentifying is a form of abuse. Spoiling the child,
37. 12:47 pampering the child, idolizing the child, pedestalizing the child are forms of abuse. Because when you spoil the child, when you idolize the child, you are separating the child from reality, you prevent, you don’t give the child access to reality. Reality is harsh. Reality
38. 13:09 pushes back. Reality teaches you lessons. Reality testing. It’s a test. And so when you isolate the child, coset the child, when you’re overprotective, when you’re worshiping the child and so on, when you worship the child, you’re not allowing the child to experience
39. 13:26 failure, to experience loss, to experience pain. In other words, you’re not allowing the child to grow up. You’re not allowing the child to develop. You are not allowing the child to become. As you see, many many parental practices are actually highly abusive
40. 13:47 if the if the parent refuses to allow the child to interact with peers because the parent is overprotective or contemptuous of of the child’s peers or suspicious of the child’s peers. That’s also a form of abuse. There are so many forms of abuse that it
41. 14:05 is a miracle that there are any good parents. It is extremely difficult to obtain the right balance in parenting. It’s a it’s a tight rope tightroppe act. It requires extreme fine-tuning and the most elevated form of unselfish empathy and unfortunately especially in today’s
42. 14:29 world very few people have this very few people and less and less by the year. Fewer and fewer by the year. So the chances of good parenting in today’s world are very low which would explain of course why we have an explosion of mental illness among children and
43. 14:47 especially adolesccents because parents don’t know how to be parents. No one has taught them and they’re not willing to learn and they’re highly selfish and selfcentered and focused and so on so forth. And the child comes much later in life as a kind
44. 15:02 of afterthought or even much worse a toy. So we are faced with a parenting crisis major parenting crisis. There are as I mentioned two schools. So this is the first school abuse and trauma force the child to disengage from reality to develop an imaginary friend and this
45. 15:22 imaginary friend is godlike and all powerful. The imaginary friend pro protects the child against the parents. Protects the child from the parents. The parents are a malign presence. The parents are enemies. The parents are threatening. The parents are what we
46. 15:39 call persary objects. So the child creates an imaginary friend and the imaginary friend is everything the child is not. The child is helpless. The imaginary friend is omnipotent. The child cannot tell what the adults are going to do. cannot predict the behavior
47. 15:54 of capricious arbitrary adults. The false self is omniscient, knows everything, all knowing. The the child is helpless. The false self is godlike. The false self is in other words compensatory. The false self compensates for the child’s deficiencies in the face
48. 16:13 of an impossible, highly threatening situation. So this is the first school and the false the false self is this imaginary friend. And the only difference between typical imaginary friends in the in the early development of healthy individuals is that this
49. 16:29 imaginary friend consumes the child. Simply consumes the child. The child disappears into this imaginary friend. The child merges or fuses with the imaginary friend and becomes it. I always compare pathological narcissism to a primitive religion. It’s a
50. 16:50 primitive private religion. The false self is a divinity. It’s a deity. But it’s a primitive deity. It’s like the mo. It requires human sacrifice. And the first human sacrifice is the child itself. So the child creates this deity. This divinity. This divinity is
51. 17:12 demanding. This divinity is perfect. This deity is all pervasive. And then the child sacrifices itself to this deity. It’s human sacrifice. It’s a highly primitive religion, pagan pagan religion if you wish. And then later on the same divinity, the same god, the
52. 17:33 false self demands other human sacrifices. It gets hungry. It wants to eat. So the narcissist sacrifices other people to this deity. This is what is known as narcissistic abuse. Narcissistic abuse is a continuous ritual, continuous practice of human sacrifice to this
53. 17:59 divinity overriding, uncompromising, cruel, demanding, harsh divinity which of course is very reminiscent of the narcissist’s parents. The false self is a parental figure in effect. Okay, this is school number one. School number two is so school number one is basically
54. 18:23 started with Ellis Havllock Ellis and others before him by the way but mainly Havlock Ellis and then proceeded Ellis emphasized sex a little like me and then proceeded to um all the way to Ziggman Freud and following Ziggman Freud we had numerous others who have contributed
55. 18:42 Ferencey and and Adler and many others. So this is the psychoanalytic school. It started there and it culminated it ended with uh Otto Kernburg. So Otto Kernburg suggested that harsh, demanding, cruel, uncompromising parents, rigid parents create narcissists.
56. 19:06 There’s another school and the other school says that narcissists are not the result of abuse and trauma. Pathological narcissism is a result of overspoiling, spoiling the child. The child is idolized, pedestalized, woripped. The child is little tyrant, the tyrant of
57. 19:30 the family. The child’s wish is God’s command. The child owns and controls the totality of the family, directs the parental behavior, makes decisions. The child is in charge. So the second school says that this type of children become narcissists later in life and this would
58. 19:51 be to some extent he hines cohort uh definitely the object relation schools Gunrip Winnot Fairburn and others and what I did I synthesized all these schools put together and I superimposed on this synthesis the work of a guy called Sander S A N D E R and he came up
59. 20:15 with the concept of the shared fantasy. Sander did not apply the shared fantasy to narcissist that is my work but he definitely came up with the with the concept. So today we are going to discuss the shared fantasy. What is I mean in the first lecture the day the
60. 20:31 day is going to be divided to four lectures. Um, after each lecture, you will have 10 minutes, a 10-minute break, which is enough for for a cigarette and a cup of coffee because I worry about your health. And so it between each lecture is 10 10-minut break. After the first two
61. 20:53 lectures, you will have a 45 minutes of lunchtime and then those of you who are full hardy enough to return will participate in the next two lectures. two lectures, lunch break, two lectures, 10 minutes between each lecture. This is lecture number one. Shockingly,
62. 21:11 it’s about the shared fantasy.
63. 21:17 When I say that the diagnostic and statistical manual, even the alternative model that I read to you yesterday is behind the times and does not reflect fully current knowledge. I’m saying this because I have another text available to me and that is the
64. 21:34 text of the international classification of diseases. In the international classification of diseases, narcissistic personality disorder is absent. There is no such diagnosis. However, the traits of narcissism are listed. They’re known as trait domains. And I mentioned yesterday
65. 21:55 the sociality, negative effectivity. One of the surprising traits of narcissism in the ICD is anastia. Anenastia is a fancy word because we using these words to impress you and to keep you out. It’s these are exclusionary words. We say anestia. We
66. 22:15 look like you know very self-important. Anenastia simply means obsession compulsion. So surprisingly the ICD, the international classification of diseases suggests that narcissism is a form of obsession compulsion is an obsessive compulsive disorder. Now there’s no hint
67. 22:38 or mention or shadow of this in the DSM. The DSM doesn’t hint doesn’t talk about this at all as if narcissism and the compulsive aspects of narcissism are divorced. They have nothing to do with each other. That is wrong. That is dramatically wrong. Narcissism is super
68. 22:57 compulsive. It’s a compulsive disorder. No question about it. And it’s also obsessive. So the ICD is right. The DSM is wrong. And one manifestation of this obsession compulsion. The major manifestation actually is the shared fantasy. It was Freud who coined the phrase
69. 23:18 repetition compulsion. Freud suggested that if you as a child had difficult relations with your parents, relationships with your parents and there were conflicts there that were unresolved. Conflicts that you could not resolve as a child and you grow up and
70. 23:37 you leave the family nest and these conflicts remain with you. They stay with you. What to do with these conflicts? Freud said suggested that we reenact these conflicts. We replay them. Why do we do this? Because we hope to resolve them. We say we got it wrong the
71. 23:57 first time. Maybe if I do it again, I will get it right. Let’s you know the famous play it again Sam. So let’s play it again and see what happens. This is called repetition compulsion. It’s a crucial feature of narcissism. Anyone who has shared a life with a narcissist
72. 24:14 will tell you narcissists do not learn ever. There’s no learning ever. They keep repeating time and again like pre-programmed devices like pre-programmed machines. They keep repet repeating the same actions, the same cognitions, the same the same choices,
73. 24:34 the same decisions again and again regardless of cumulative lessons and cumulative consequences of their previous attempts to do the same. You know the famous apocryphal definition of crazy. Who is crazy? Someone who keeps doing the same thing hoping for different outcomes.
74. 24:54 Yeah. So that’s a narcissist. He keeps doing the same things hoping for different outcomes. Consequently, observationally, we see no learning. There’s no evolution. There’s no growth, no development. It’s a frozen entity that is has a program, has a code, and it
75. 25:13 keeps repeating itself. The shared fantasy is one such program. Think of the narcissist, conceive of the narcissist as a smartphone because he’s not smart, as a laptop. Okay? It’s a laptop and it has several pre-installed softwares. One of the
76. 25:31 softwares is the shirt fantasy and the laptop whenever you switch it on the laptop has to has to replay the shirt fantasy. Switch it on means that you come across as a narcissist and he decides that you are the right material for a shared fantasy. So that minute the
77. 25:52 laptop is switched on and the shared fantasy is at play. Let us talk about the phases of the shared fantasy. Some of them are seriously demented. So you need to be you know it’s like watching a sci-fi movie. Okay. The narcissist is what we call
78. 26:13 hypervigilant. Hypervigilant means that you scan all the time. Scan the environment. You scan their environment for insults. You scan the environment for threats. Narcissists do that all the time. Psychopaths even more so. But narcissist do. But narcissists also scan
79. 26:32 the environment for potential sources of narcissistic supply or for potential participants in the shared fantasy. The shared fantasy are not available. The shared the shared fantasy is a reenactment of early childhood conflicts usually with a maternal figure. Now here
80. 27:00 I am under attack all the time. You keep blaming mothers. You don’t blame fathers. You are misogynistic which is true. you are you you had a difficult relationship with your mother and you’re taking it on taking out on all mothers and so on so forth. When I say maternal figure,
81. 27:20 this is not a lecture in biology and this is not a lecture in anatomy. This is a lecture in psychology. Maternal figure has nothing to do with anatomy or with genitalia. A maternal figure is the person, the caregiver, the adult in the child’s life
82. 27:39 who provided maternal functions. It could be a grandmother. It could be a grandfather. It could be the father. See, someone hates fathers. It could be the father. The father could be the father could be the maternal figure. So when I say maternal figure, it’s not necessarily
83. 28:01 only the mother. Okay? It’s the caregiver who fulfills these functions. The shared fantasy, you could think of the shared fantasy as a child because the narcissist, remember from yesterday, the narcissist is 2 years old, three years old if he’s seriously evolved and
84. 28:16 developed. It’s a two-year-old kid and he is trying to replay and reenact his relationships with his mother, original mother, biological mother, the maternal figure, regardless of genitalia. is trying to reenact whatever he is had with the biological original maternal figure
85. 28:38 with a new mother. That’s a shared fantasy. So it’s a child walking around looking for a mother. Simply if you want to understand the shared fantasy, it’s a child, a traumatized child, a crying child, a a hurt child, a child in pain, a child in need who is walking around scanning
86. 29:00 everyone. That is the hypervigilance. Scanning everyone attempting to find a potential mother. Having found this potential mother, he then begins to replay and reenact the early childhood conflicts with his original mother. This time with a new
87. 29:19 mother, hoping against hope that this time the conflict will be resolved. This time the outcome would be different. This time he would be able to grow up, become an adult, individualized, personalized and so on. This time he will become. It’s a 2-year-old who has never been
88. 29:43 given the chance, never been given a fair chance to develop a self. So there’s a disruption in the formation, constellation, and integration of the self. There’s no self there. Ironically, narcissists are selfless. They are selfless and they have no ego.
89. 30:00 They are not egotist because they have no ego. So um there is this issue of developing a self and the other issue is developing a personality. Narcissists do not have a personality in in any meaningful clinical sense because you can’t have a personality without
90. 30:18 having a self. What narcissists do they for example mimic. So they’re great mimics. They pick up cues and information from other people. They’re like a hive mind. They’re like a collective mind. They don’t have their own mind. They are they put together
91. 30:34 everything kaleidoscopically. And this passes for the narcissist mind. But there’s nobody there. There’s no organizing principle. There’s no structure. There’s no order. There’s no direction and no purpose. And ultimately, consequently, there’s no meaning to any of this. So the
92. 30:51 narcissist is a collector. He’s a collector of human minds. He collects your minds and then he puts them together this way and that way and this way. It’s a child. He He’s playing with Lego bricks and you are the Lego bricks. So this is the shirt fantasy. It’s a
93. 31:12 background psychonamic background for the shirt fantasy. The narcissist starts by with a stage called spotting. Narcissist scans the room. any room. Could be a pub, could be a church, could be a family household, could be. The narcissist is constantly on the alert,
94. 31:29 constantly looking for a new mother, constantly looking for a source of supply, constantly looking to consume people. His food is other human beings. He is eating other human beings alive in the mental psychological sense. He is not. He is a connible a connibal of minds. So
95. 31:52 he’s whenever he enters a room he he begins to scan scan for potentials. This scanning is automatic. This scanning is and the whole process the entire shared fantasy is inexorable. Inexurable means unstoppable pre-programmed. Nothing the narcissist can control. It’s
96. 32:15 not a psychopath. The psychopath does it on purpose. The narcissist can’t control it, can’t help it. It’s in other words a comp a compulsion. That’s where the ICD is right. It’s an anastia. It’s a compulsion. Narcissist is not even aware of most of
97. 32:34 this. Most of it is unconscious. We know that the narcissist is doing this because we have had 130 years of observations of narcissists. Yeah. So the first thing he does, he spots people. Spotting. He’s scanning and spotting. The spotting is done. So he
98. 32:54 stares at you. He glares. He you when you when you look at a narcissist, for example, you’re in a bar and a narcissist enters the bar. Example, it’s not like a normal human being who enters the bar. It’s clear that the narcissist enters the bar and then something is
99. 33:12 triggered. some switch is flipped and he is it’s clear that he is scanning it’s clear that he is gauging evaluating people analyzing them their potential how can I use them how can I incorporate them in the in the shared fantasy what can I get out of them will they give me
100. 33:28 supply will they become my mother it’s clear that he is on a mission the narcissist is always on a mission there’s no respit there’s no rest it’s a highly highly depleting state it’s exhaust exhausting to be a narcissist. I can tell you it’s a highly depleting
101. 33:46 state. And for those of you who are wondering, yes, of course, I’m doing it right now. I’m scanning. This is utterly compulsive. It’s utterly automatic. I cannot control it. I cannot help it. It’s triggered like that. And that’s it. It’s on. It’s on. Not that
102. 34:02 I’m looking for an alternative. Not that actively looking for a partner or for but it’s it’s on. It’s simply on. um questions at the at the end. Okay? But write them down, not to forget. Okay? The spotting is done in what I call the pathological narcissistic space. The
103. 34:24 pathological narcissistic space is a physical space. A pub, a library, uh a church, a household, a physical space where the narcissist develops um a following, develops a group of people who basically admire him or adulate him or provide him
104. 34:47 with attention or feedback. So his local pub, his church and so on. This is the pathological narcissistic space and most of the scanning takes place in pathological narcissistic spaces. In other words, the narcissist is much less likely to scan among total strangers.
105. 35:06 He is much more likely to scan among people who admire him, people who follow him, people who know him, people who give him attention and so on. Then he’s much more likely to scan for potential. The next stage is auditioning. Having scanned and having isolated and
106. 35:28 picked up and identified potentials, the narcissist then homes in or zeros in on these potentials and he auditions them for the shared fantasy. The shared fantasy is a bit like a movie. It’s like a theater production, right? Everyone has a role. There’s a script. The shared
107. 35:48 fantasies has its end happy ending the narcissist hopes. So it’s like a movie and now you’re a potential actor or actress. So the narcissist has to audition you. The narcissist applies to you three tests. The auditioning includes three tests. And if you pass
108. 36:07 these three tests, you get the job unfortunately for you. So the first test, can he idealize you? Do you have minimal traits, minimal assets that he can somehow leverage and idealize? Like, are you minimally intelligent? Are you minimally good-looking? Are you
109. 36:29 minimally submissive and obedient? Are you minimally insightful? So, there’s like a set of minimum traits and minimum behaviors and minimum qualities and minimum assets. And because a narcissist needs these all these assets, all these traits, all these qualities in
110. 36:50 order to agrandise them, in order to exaggerate them later on in the idealization phase, we’ll come to it a bit later. So he auditions you number one, can you be idealized? I mean, if you are seriously stupid and even more ugly than that, it’s would be
111. 37:08 very difficult to idealize you and you would not pass the first test. Luckily for you, next are you a able to provide the second test. Are you able to provide at least two of the four S’s? Remind you of the four S’s. Sex supply, narcissistic supply, or if the
112. 37:32 narcissist is also a sadist, malignant narcissist for example, sadistic supply. Sadistic supply is the pleasure of inflicting pain on you, the pleasure of torturing you. So, sadistic supply or narcissistic supply. Um, services. So, do you have a car? Do
113. 37:52 you have money? Um, are you are you a good cook? I’m kidding you not, by the way. Are you a good cook? Um, do you keep home and so on so forth? And so, services. Um, do you know people like can you provide the narcissist with connections and access and so on. So, and and the
114. 38:15 fourth is stability or safety. Are you by nature a bit submissive? Are you likely to stick around never mind what happens? Are you good mother material? Are you likely to love the narcissist unconditionally, never mind what the narcissist does to you? So, this is the
115. 38:34 auditioning. This is the second test of the auditioning phase. Can you provide sex, services, supply and safety? The third test is are you vulnerable? Because the narcissist needs to penetrate your defenses. The narcissist is about to offer you a deal. And the
116. 38:52 deal is you give up on reality. You enter my fantastic space. You become my slave. And you convince yourself that that’s the best thing that has ever happened to you. the best thing is has ever happened to you is to become my slave in a fantasy. It’s a bit of an
117. 39:10 off-putting proposition for most people. And so the narcissist needs to find your vulnerabilities, your point, your chinks in the armor, the the gaps through which he can penetrate and invade you and brainwash you and indoctrinate you and and convert you into a possible
118. 39:31 potential. So are you damaged? Are you broken by nature? Do you suffer from any mental illnesses which are conducive to the shared fantasy? For example, borderline personality disorder. Are you a daydreamer? Do you like to fantasize? Do you enjoy fantasizing? Fantasy uh
119. 39:50 could be very rewarding, especially if reality is not. Um do you hate reality? Are you an escapist? Do you like to escape? Um are you romantic? Are you the romantic type? Because romance is just another name fantasy. Are you grandios by nature? Because a narcissist tells
120. 40:10 you if you’re with me, it elevates you. You become special. You become unique. You’re chosen. Become amazing. And because I’m amazing, you’re amazing. We’ll come to it a bit later. That’s the core idealization phase. So, are you grandios by nature? Would you like to to
121. 40:26 be special? Would you like to be unique? Would you like to be noticed and attended to and so on? Do you have a what Rosenberg Rosenberg calls a for a self-love deficit? Don’t you love yourself? Maybe you hate yourself. Maybe you loathe yourself. Maybe you’re
122. 40:42 self-destructive and self-defeating. These are great news. Excellent. You fit the profile. So these are the three tests and the three tests together comprise the auditioning phase. Having scanned the area, having isolated a potential, having auditioned the potential, could
123. 41:05 be on a first date or a casual conversation. The auditioning is mostly done by the narcissist. You don’t have to contribute much. So, having auditioned the potential, the narcissist moves on to the next stage. And the next stage is baiting. Baiting is done in three ways. There are
124. 41:24 three vectors of baiting, three components if you wish of baiting. The first one is the narcissist’s alleged inner child. There’s nobody there, not even a child, but alleged inner child. The second bait is your inner child. And the third bait is the mag the
125. 41:46 enormousness of the shared fantasy. And actually later on you discover it’s the enormity. You know the difference between enormity and enormousness. Enormity means something really bad, something incredibly bad. That’s enormity. Enormousness is something
126. 42:05 really grand, something big. So the narcissist starts off by convincing you of the enormousness of the shirt fantasy. You end up describing its enormity. So hello. So the three baits are as I said his inner child, your inner child and the enormousness of the shirt fantasy. I
127. 42:25 will briefly elucidate each and every one of them. The narcissist um gives you access to a simulation of a child. It’s a very convincing simulation because don’t forget the narcissist is a child mentally, psychologically, psychonamically. The narcissist is about
128. 42:47 two years old in most cases. Majority of cases I’ve come across are about two years old. So two to three. And so the narcissist gives you access to this. What you see when you meet the narcissist, especially if the shared fantasy is a romantic or intimate shared
129. 43:07 fantasy and even in friendship where emotions are involved. Emotions are very important. So where bonding is involved, where attachment is involved. So the narcissist gives you access to this child. And what you see initially on the first encounter is an endearing,
130. 43:24 charming, immature, infantile features which are also associated with pain and hurt and neediness and wish for protection and so on. So so it’s a child and the child is very cute. I mean just look at me. Child is very cute. is very endearing. It’s very charming. And at
131. 43:46 the same time, the child child conveys a message. I’m hurt. I am I’m broken. I’m traumatized. I’m in need. I want you to protect me. I want you to engulf me. I want you to cert. This is an appeal that is irresistible to women and men alike. If you as men see a baby who is crying
132. 44:11 and suffering and bleeding, your maternal instincts will be triggered as men and you will take care of this baby the very same way a woman would. So maternal instincts are not limited to mothers as single fathers know single fathers would tell you that
133. 44:29 they’re highly maternal. Maternal instincts are universal and the narcissist triggers them in men and women alike. And at that point, that is when you are hooked. You’re baited. That is when you have accepted and adopted your new your role of new mother. That is when you
134. 44:53 become his new mother. I’m saying his half of all masses is the women. Yes. Of course, no such child exists. These protective instincts are misdirected. It’s a simulation of a child. It’s a simulation of a child. And it is what my late lamented good friend John Latchkar
135. 45:15 called resonance of archaic wounds or resonance of Vspots, vulnerability spots. Lachkar who was a good friend of mine and an amazing figure. Latchkar was the first to describe narcissistic borderline relationships. She wrote the first book ever on the topic. She published it in
136. 45:37 1982 and it’s called the narcissistic borderline couple. And um now it it’s in its second edition I think. And Lashka suggested that what happens is narcissists and their victims share the same background. They both emanate they both emerge and come from dysfunctional families.
137. 46:00 So the victim of the narcissist feels immediately recognized, immediately accepted, immediately and fully understood because the narcissist has experienced the very same things in his or her own family. There’s common ground between the victim
138. 46:19 and the narcissist. There’s commonality. There’s psychological affinity. There is identity. They are both victims of abuse in early childhood. And so she suggested it’s a kind of resonance of pathologies. At this point, when you have responded willy-nilly to the narcissist’s inner
139. 46:42 child, when you have assumed the role of the narcissist’s mother even for only one second, the narcissist leverages this vulnerability because it’s a vulnerability. leverages it to proceed and the next stage in debating is your inner child. So this was his inner
140. 47:02 child. His inner child opened the door. He entered the narcissist entered. He entered your abode. He entered your mind. He entered your soul as a child. And you know children like to play with other children. Hensel and Gretle. Yes. They like to play with other children. So the
141. 47:21 narcissist’s inner child having invaded you is looking for your inner child to play with, to be with, to bond with. And what the narcissist does, the narcissist regresses you, infantilizes you. The narcissist forces you to become a child again.
142. 47:44 This regression and infantilization I are major tools of control and manipulation. major. We’ll come to it when we discuss the dual mothership.
143. 47:58 And so at the end of this stage, the baiting stage, there is a narcissist who is offering you an amazing life, incredibly fantastic Disneyland variant of variation of life, something irresistible you’ve always wanted. It’s divorced from reality and it caters to
144. 48:18 all your psychological needs, vulnerabilities, brokenness and damage and mental illness. It caters to it. It’s tailored. It’s handmade and it’s very reactive to who you truly are. You feel understood. You feel accepted. You feel that you found your soulmate or in
145. 48:38 the worst case twin flame. I love this nonsense. Okay. And so at that point the narcissist triggers in you your inner child. You infantilize. You don’t even realize it but you become more and more infantile with the narcissist. Even all of us date by the
146. 49:01 way. You become more and more infantile. You regress. You begin to lose what we call executive functions. You begin to lose executive functions. So you find yourself for example deferring to the narcissist judgment, letting the narcissist make decisions, consulting
147. 49:19 the narcissist about reality. These are of course this is an abrogation of what we call ego functions. It’s as if the narcissist turns off your ego function by function. Turns you off and leaves behind you your baby version. Just your baby version.
148. 49:40 Okay, having done all this, by the way, those of you who want to to learn more about these processes may wish to look up online concepts like developmental age, um developmental amnesia and maturational crisis. These are the concepts that are used in the shed fantasy. Okay,
149. 50:03 where are we now? You have been spotted. You have been auditioned and regrettably for you, you passed the audition with flying colors. You have been exposed to the narcissist’s inner child and fell in love with it or at least became very protective and very maternal.
150. 50:21 The narcissist has regressed you and infantilized you to an earlier stage of life where you are dependent by definition because you’re a child. And the narcissist has promised you the world a vision of reality which is fantastic and real a vision of a joint
151. 50:38 reality a kind of cult. It’s a cult setting. The last is beginning to cultivate in you what we know in psychology as a cult mind. So and this would lead to later consequences as we shall see onward Christian and Jewish soldiers to stage three. Stage three is co- idealization.
152. 51:01 Now make a make a there’s a major distinction which is of course lost online by on self-styled experts. There’s a major distinction between between idealization and love bombing. Idealization is unconscious. It’s a totally internal process. While love
153. 51:20 bombing is a behavior. It’s a strategy. They they are related m not very not very rigorously but they are related somehow but they’re not the same. They’re absolutely not the same. We start with co idealization.
154. 51:43 Co- idealization is a very complex process. Having auditioned you and and decided that you’re the one you’re the next participant or victim in the shed fantasy. The narcissist introjects you. What the narcissist does, the narcissist takes a snapshot of you
155. 52:02 almost literal snapshot with his mental camera. So he takes a snapshot of you. He internalizes this snapshot. Internalize. This process is known as introjection. He introjects the snapshot. The snapshot is static. It’s inert. It’s fixated. The clinical term
156. 52:23 is fixation. It’s fixated. It’s not dynamic. It is not a video. It is not a video. It is a still photograph. So he takes this snapshot and internalizes. And then having internalized it, it’s available for photoshopping. Photoshopping is my way of saying idealization.
157. 52:47 Snapshot is ready for idealization. Having introjected you, the narcissist begins to work on your snapshot. And here is something that most people, let alone victims, find absolutely impossible to understand. The narcissist from the minute he snapshot you, you no longer exist.
158. 53:14 You no longer exist. End of story. Period. Narcissists are incapable of interacting with external objects. They cannot recognize the separateness and externality of objects. The minute they come across an external objects object, they feel very
159. 53:33 threatened and they convert it into an internal object because internal object can be controlled. It’s a need for control. Narcissism is a post-traumatic reaction. It’s a reaction post trauma in early childhood. So the child is absolutely obsessed with
160. 53:53 control. How to control the situation because situation is terrifying is lifethreatening. So how to control it? Control is a core feature core clinical feature of narcissism and snapshotting is a control mechanism. Narcissists do not interact with
161. 54:11 external objects for the simple reason that external objects cannot be controlled. They change, they evolve, they walk away, they take a trip, they have new friends, they consult family members, they disagree, they criticize, they respond. It’s not good. These are not good things
162. 54:31 for the shared fantasy. So the narcissist converts you from that second on you do not exist as an you do not exist. I want you to understand you happen to be there, but you don’t exist. All the interactions from this moment on to the very end of
163. 54:48 the shared fantasy. All the interactions are exclusively with the snapshot with the introject. Exclusively. Nothing you do, nothing you don’t do, nothing you refrain from doing. Nothing you say and nothing you refrain from saying, nothing you could have done,
164. 55:08 nothing you would have done would have had any impact on the progression of the shared fantasy or its outcomes because you’re not there. You’re not relevant anymore. Having introjected you, the narcissist photoshops you and renders you ideal. He creates an idealized
165. 55:31 version of you in his mind. Idealization of course relies to some extent on the outcomes of the spotting and the outcomes of the auditioning. If you are mildly intelligent, the narcissist would make you a genius in the idealized version. If you are reasonably good-looking, the
166. 55:53 narcissist would make you a beauty queen in the idealized version. It’s an exaggeration of the information gathered during the spotting and auditioning phase. If you are submissive, the narcissist would of course render you an unconditionally loving mother figure in
167. 56:12 his in the idealized version. At that moment, the snapshot, the idealized snapshot, the idealized introject or the idealized internal object no longer has very little to do with you. And the narcissist continues to cct, continues to invest energy, psychic energy in the
168. 56:34 idealized internal object, not in you. So it’s all internal. It’s also lipistic. It’s all inside. It’s nothing nothing to do with reality and nothing to do with you. It’s a totally self-contained system which is utterly un unreal. The narcissist idealizes you
169. 57:02 first of all because he needs to convert you to a new mother and babies, newborns and infants and toddlers they idealize mother. Why do infants idealize mother? Now, we know that mothers idealize babies. Mothers idealize newborn, the newborn. Why? Because raising children sucks.
170. 57:28 It’s absolutely a horrible undertaking. And anyone in his right mind would have never ever done it. So, you need to be not in your right mind to raise children. And one way to lose your mind is to idealize them. And we know that mothers idealize babies.
171. 57:50 You know, walk any street and a mother would show you the ugliest baby ever born and she would tell you, “Isn’t he wonderful? Isn’t he beautiful? Look how beautiful he is. Amazing.” Right? You can throw up in the corner later. So this is
172. 58:09 mothers idealize babies. But why do children, toddlers, infants up to age 36 months, why do they idealize mother? Because their life depends on it. Simply imagine that a baby has a realistic view of mother. Realistic, not ideal. That’s very threatening, very frightening. Because
173. 58:34 if if mother is bad then she could neglect the baby. She could abandon the baby. She could maybe she would could not feed the baby or and the baby will die. So children up to age 36 months associate a realistic view of the mother with a threat to life.
174. 58:59 Children cannot develop a realistic view of mother because this means that they will die. So they need to develop an idealized view of mother. Mother is all good. Mother loves me unconditionally. Mother is amazing. Mother is the world. Up to age 20 18 months the child cannot
175. 59:18 make distinction between mother and the world. So there it’s like the famous song we are the world. That’s idealization. So the baby idealizes the mother. So the narcissist, you are the narcissist’s new mother. The narcissist needs to idealize you the
176. 59:36 same way a baby idealizes mother. One of the reasons to idealize you is preparation, preparing the ground for your maternal conversion, convert you into a mother. Okay. The second reason to idealize you is because if you are ideal then the narcissist is ideal as well.
177. 59:58 Co- ideidalization. In other words, if you are hyper intelligent and you belong to the narcissist because the narcissist possesses you, you are an internal object. Yes, it’s possession. So if you are super intelligent and the narcissist possesses you, that probably means that
178. 60:17 he is super intelligent. If you are drop deadad gorgeous and you the narcissist owns you, it means that he is irresistible. So your idealization enhances and aggrandizes the narcissist. It’s a little like owning a luxury uh brand or owning a flashy car. You know,
179. 60:42 when you own a flashy car, it’s not because the car can take you. Flashy cars are exactly like, you know, down market cars, but it’s a status symbol. It’s an announcement. It’s it’s a bit of information. It’s signaling. You’re signaling who you are. You’re signaling
180. 60:59 your self-worth. Exactly. When you idealize the potential partner, you are signaling to yourself, not to others. You’re signaling to yourself that you are perfect, that you are brilliant, that you are genius, that you are irresistible, that you’re
181. 61:18 amazing. And this process is known as co- idealization. Owning the ideal object is a form of self idealization, self-enhancement in narcissism. Co idealization is a major stage and it is followed by lovebombing.
182. 61:42 Love bombing is arguably unique to narcissists. I mean, border lines sometimes behave in a way that is very reminiscent of of love bombing, but I think there are clinical distinctions. Anyhow, love bombing is mostly narcissistic. Narcissists do
183. 62:00 that. The lovebombing phase is when the narcissist has convinced himself that you are ideal. Yes. Now you’re an idealized image in the narcissist mind and he convinced himself that this idealized image is real. He is communicating this image to you.
184. 62:20 He’s saying, “I want you to know you are amazing. You’re hyper intelligent. You are extremely attractive. You’re this. You’re that.” The love bombing is simply the communication of the internal object to you. Why would the narcissist do
185. 62:36 that? because he wants you to conform to the internal object. He wants to mold you. He wants to shape you so that there are no contradictions and discrepancies between the internal idealized object of you, the your representation in his mind and who you truly are out there. He
186. 62:57 doesn’t recognize your externality and separateness. He wants you to merge with the internal object seamlessly. no daylight between you. So this is an attempt to shape you, to mold you. Love bombing is not so much about acquiring the target because you’re already in the
187. 63:20 shed fantasy at this stage. At this late stage, you’re hooked. It’s not about this so much. It’s also this, but it’s mostly about shaping you. In other words, the narcissist communicates to you his expectations. Actually, when the narcissist is telling you you’re
188. 63:38 amazingly intelligent, he’s not giving you a compliment. And he is not trying to convince you to be with him because you’re already with him. What he’s trying to do is trying to tell you, listen, your idealized image in my mind is that you’re very intelligent. Please
189. 63:56 don’t disappoint me. Don’t let me down down. Don’t contradict the internal object. Don’t dare to contradict the internal object. Internal object is that you’re super intelligent. Act super intelligent. If you say something stupid, if you ask a stupid question, if you prove to me
190. 64:15 that the internal object is is false, is wrong, that the idealization has been a mistake, I will punish you severely. Love bombing is therefore an attempt to force conformity to communicate expectations and to relate to you that you need to work hard to meet these expectations and
191. 64:37 never ever undermine or challenge the internal the idealized internal object. Love bombing therefore is a threat in effect. It’s a threat. This is how I see you. And if you dare to deviate from this, this is how I see you. And if you dare to diverge from this, I will punish
192. 64:57 you severely. Better behave. That’s love bombing. At this stage, you’re already in the sh fantasy. He doesn’t need to acquire you. You’re in. The process of idealization with the narcissist. I keep telling you, the narcissist imposes the same template on all relationships. For
193. 65:13 example, in therapy, when the narcissist finally attends therapy in a covert phase, the narcissist immediately imposes the shared fantasy on the therapy immediately. There is even a name for that. There’s even a name for that. And it’s uh the the
194. 65:33 idealization of the therapist is known as idealizing transference. The idealizing transference. So the narcissist comes to therapy. Okay, first meeting. He scans the therapist. He says, “Oh, great. This therapist could be a source of narcissistic supply.” Okay. Then he
195. 65:54 auditions the therapist. The therapist passes the the audition with flying colors. And the next phase, the narcissist idealizes the therapist exactly like in a romantic relationship. And it is so exact that we have special terms for this in therapy. Like we have
196. 66:14 special words, special phrases to describe these very stages, these very phases in therapy. Idealization in therapy is called idealizing transference. There’s a name for that. So it’s not limited to intimate or romantic relationships. anyone, friends, therapists, intimate
197. 66:34 partners, children, the narcissist’s own children. He would do this to his children. He would scan them. He would audition them. He would idealize them. And he would impose on them a shared fantasy. At that point, something interesting happens.
198. 66:56 The narcissist has introjected you, took a snapshot of you. The narcissist idealized the snapshot. Think of it like a 3D 3D printer. Narcissist idealized the snapshot, photoshopped it. Now in the narcissist’s mind, there is an ideal version of you, a perfect being,
199. 67:17 flawless, amazing, intelligent, super sexy, etc. What the narcissist does then he exposes you to this image via the love bombing. The love bombing is intended to communicate to you the narcissist expectations but incidentally it exposes you to this idealized image
200. 67:43 and you fall in love. It’s actually the first time you fall in love not with the narcissist but with your own idealized image. You become self-infatuated. Your idealized image is perfect and it is irresistible to you. You want more. It becomes addictive.
201. 68:08 You crave this idealized image and only the narcissist can give you access to this idealized image. Only through the narcissist’s gaze can you see yourself as immaculate, perfect beings. more beautiful than anyone, more intelligent than anyone, more
202. 68:28 irresistible than anyone, more anything than anyone. So it’s there this image you’re exposed to it and the narcissist holds a monopoly. If you want more, you have to come to the narcissist and beg for more. I call it the whole of mirrors effect. The whole of mirrors.
203. 68:50 You remember that narcissism, pathological narcissism is a huge emptiness. Think of it as a carnival tent. A carnival tent. It’s empty. In in the middle of the of the tent, there is a hall of mirrors. There’s a hall of mirrors, a corridor with many mirrors.
204. 69:08 The narcissist invites you to the tent and you are forced to walk through the hall of mirrors which bisects the tent. You’re forced to walk through it. As you walk through the hall of mirrors, you see yourself everywhere. You see yourself multiplied. You see
205. 69:25 yourself argandized. You see yourself perfect. You see yourself godlike. And it’s very addictive. This whole of mirror effect is very addictive. You can’t let go. It’s a form of self-enhancement and self infatuation. And for many people, for many people,
206. 69:43 it’s the first time they experience self-love. Actually, it’s the first time they’ve had the experience of self-love or the first time they’ve had the experience of maternal love because that’s the way a mother loves. A mother loves her child, especially in
207. 70:05 the early stages. A mother loves her child as an ideal perfect being. Mother loves her child unconditionally. So when you are in the hall of mirrors, you’re agrandized. You’re inflated. You you’re rendered perfect and then you have perfect love,
208. 70:24 unconditional love for yourself because you deserve unconditional love because you’re blemishless. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s no fault, no frailty, no weakness, no vulnerability. So you can be loved unconditionally and perfectly. And this experience is
209. 70:42 actually the experience not only of self- infatuation but of self-love and the way a mother would love you. This is an amazing experience and many many victims all victims actually describe it. They say at the beginning of a relationship, I felt so loved like never before.
210. 71:04 I felt loved like never before. It was an amazing love. I don’t believe I will ever experience something like this again. And that part is true actually. The narcissist gives you the experience of loving yourself the way a mother would. And it’s once in a lifetime experience.
211. 71:27 We’re moving on. We’re moving on to the dual mothership phase. What has happened until now? You have come across a narcissist child. You’ve had the pleasurable encounter with a narcissist alleged inner child. This simulation of a child. You fell in love
212. 71:44 with this child. You got attached to this child. You became protective or overprotective of the child. So, you’re bonded. You’re bonded with the with the simulated child of the narcissist. The narcissist regressed you, infantilized you. When you walk through
213. 72:02 the hall of mirrors, you became you became you, you have had the experience of maternal love, unconditional love, perfect love for a perfect being, perfect love for a perfect being. And so now at the end of the hall of mirrors, when you exit the hall of
214. 72:20 mirrors in this imaginary carnival tent, you exit the hall of mirrors. You are a mother. You’re a mother. You’re your own child in the hall of mirrors, but still you’re a mother. And the narcissist is a child. You are ready to become the narcissist mother. You
215. 72:43 have had the experience of mothering in the Hall of Mirrors. You were mothering yourself in the Hall of Mirrors, but still you have had the experience of mothering. The narcissist is there. He’s a child. Not only a child, but a child in need, a child who is hurting, child
216. 73:00 in pain. And so now you’re a mother. There’s a child. And the first element of the dual mothership is established. You have become, congratulations, the narcissist’s mother, the narcissist’s new mother. At the same time, the narcissist infantilizes you. Because in
217. 73:21 the Hall of Mirrors, you are both mother and your own child. Your child, not only a mother, it’s a dual experience as a mother and as a child. And the narcissist demands of you to infantilize, to regress, to go back in life, to lose executive functions. The
218. 73:42 narcissist takes over your ego functions, takes over. You becomes your external regulator, your your source of of mastery and control. So you become a baby. You infantilize. So this is the dual mothership. You become the narcissist’s mother and the
219. 74:03 narcissist becomes your mother. You love him unconditionally as a mother would. He loves you uncondition loves you unconditionally as a mother would through the whole of mirrors effect by giving you access to the whole to your idealized image. He creates the
220. 74:20 impression of mothering you. So now you have a situation where you are we are the narcissist’s mother and his child and the narcissist is your mother and your child. This is possibly the most extreme indisoluble form of bonding and attachment there is.
221. 74:46 I cannot conceive of any other type of bond or attachment that is stronger than this. To be someone’s mother and also someone’s child is, I think, the most extreme form of bonding and attachment imaginable. And this is exactly what the narcissist does totally intuitively,
222. 75:08 totally unconsciously. He bonds you to him as his mother and he bonds you to him, he attaches you to himself as your child, as he as your child. So when you try to break up with a narcissist, you have to break up with a narcissist as his mother. You have to give up on your child
223. 75:32 and you have to break up with a narcissist as your mother. You have to give up on your mother and you have to give up on your child when you break up with a narcissist. Nothing compares to this. No romantic or intimate relationship or any type of relationship exists that remotely
224. 75:50 compares to this. This is the most extreme form of bonding. We’ll come to it later today. We will discuss the grief. The grief and mourning and bereiement when you break up with a narcissist. What happens to you? We’ll analyze the grief reaction on
225. 76:07 the way to healing and and recovery, of course, later. At this stage, you are the narcissist’s mother. And remember, the whole purpose of the shared fantasy, the whole purpose is to reenact, replay the original relationship with the original mother. the relationship early
226. 76:31 in early childhood where the narcissist failed to separate from the mother, the maternal figure. Yes. To separate from the mother and to become an individual. There was a failure in what is known as separation individuation. We used to we used to
227. 76:52 describe it as a symbiotic phase or symbiotic bond. The work by Mara, there was a work by Mara that described it as a symbiotic bond. So the the child tries to exit the symbiosis with the mother by separating from the mother. Separating from the mother and exploring the world
228. 77:13 grandiosely. So this stage is known as separation. Having explored the world, having discovered the universe, having interacted with peers and other people, the child then establishes boundaries and within these boundaries, there is the nent emerging self.
229. 77:34 So separating from the mother is a precondition for the formation of the self. A mother who does not allow the child to separate because she is depressive, because she is selfish, because she is emotionally absent, because she is instrumentalizing,
230. 77:50 because she’s parentifying, because she is spoiling the child, because she is overprotective. A mother who gets it wrong, a mother who is not good enough mother in the words of Donald, such a mother would not allow their child to separate. The child would be afraid that if it
231. 78:08 separates from the mother, it will be punished. The mother is not a secure base. The mother is broadcasting to the child, don’t separate from me. If you separate from me, you’re a bad boy or a bad girl. You don’t love me. You’re going to hurt me.
232. 78:27 So the child refuses to separate and remains stuck in what Malle used to call the symbiotic phase in a symbiosis kind of back to the womb. So the narcissist all narcissists no exception have failed in the separation phase and now they found a new mother. Yippee. There’s a
233. 78:48 new mother. She loves them as a mother would. They love her as a child would. The conditions are set for another attempt at separation individuation. A replay, a reenactment of the early dynamics that have failed with the original mother. Now the narcissist will try to separate
234. 79:12 from you his new mother. And by doing so and when you act as a secure base the narcissist will then individuate become an individual grow up become an adult happy ending. That’s the general idea of the shared fantasy. But how does the narcissist know that you’re
235. 79:36 not faking faking it? I mean you’re now the narcissist’s mother. Yes, we are past the stage of dual mothership. He is your mother. You’re his mother. Okay, great. How does he know that you’re not faking it? That you’re not, I don’t know, a gold digger. How does he know
236. 79:54 that you are truly a good mother? How does he know that you are not exactly like his original mother and that you will not let him separate? How does he know that you will not hurt him the way his original mother hurt him? How does he know that he’s going to succeed this
237. 80:11 time? How does he know, in other words, that you love him unconditionally, the way a mother should, the way a good mother should. A good mother who loves her child lets the child go. That is something that many mothers fail in. Good mother, good motherhood is not
238. 80:31 about keeping the child. It’s about pushing the child away, letting the child go, separating from the child, allowing the child to experience the world, the world without maternal presence, without maternal guidance, allowing the child to experience losses
239. 80:49 and pain, to fail. These are crucial engines of personal growth and development. So that’s what a good mother does. The narcissist asks himself unconsciously, “How do I know she is this kind of mother? Maybe she’s a bad mother. Maybe she will keep me captive. Maybe she will
240. 81:09 never let me go. How do I know that? I need to test her. I need to test the quality of her motherhood.” And that’s what he does. He tests you. He tests you by abusing you. He abuses you. He cheats on you. Sometimes he verbally abuses you, psychologically abuses you. Sometimes
241. 81:34 physically it’s very rare. But he abuses you in a variety of ways. And the abuse escalates. It becomes egregious. It becomes overpowering, all-consuming, all pervasive, ubiquitous. The abuse takes over. The aim is to test the quality of your motherhood.
242. 81:51 If you stick around after this, after all this abuse, if you stick around, if you never abandon him, if you never let go, if you never walk away, you’re a good mother. It’s a test. Exactly like auditioning. It’s auditioning phase two. If you remain in the relationship
243. 82:11 despite everything the narcissist is doing to you, it means that you love the narcissist unconditionally. It means that you’re a good mother. It means that the narcissist can move on to the next stage which is separation individuation. Narcissistic abuse therefore is actually
244. 82:30 a test.
245. 82:41 Now the narcissist has convinced himself that you’re an excellent mother, good enough mother. You love him. Never mind how how much and to what extent he has mistreated you, abused you, traumatized you, destroyed you, attacked you, demeaned you, denigrated
246. 82:59 you, degraded you, humiliated you, shamed you. I love these words. So, never mind what he’s done to you. You’re still here. You’re still there. You’re still cater to his needs. You’re still compassionate. You’re still caring. You’re still loving. So that now
247. 83:18 the narcissist is convinced that you’re a good mother and he can safely attempt separation individuation from you. But how to do that? Separation individuation is an internal process and you are an external object. He needs to let you go externally the way a child does with the
248. 83:44 external mother. And yet he is unable to relate to you externally. Do you see the predicament? Do you see the conundrum? A child lets go of the mother physically. Those of you who have had children, the child walks away a few steps and then runs back to mommy and
249. 84:03 hugs her. Hugs a leg. Yeah. This is separation ramo. This is called in theory separation. Rapushmo. The child uh is develops grandiosity. Cohoot hines cohoot described it. The child develops a grandio view of itself. The child says I’m godlike. I can take on the world. I
250. 84:24 can explore and discover everything. I can interact with peers. I’m sufficiently strong. I’m this that. So there’s a first phase of narcissism which is healthy narcissism. Freud called it primary narcissism. So this is healthy narcissism. The child
251. 84:40 then is ready to explore the world but he is still with mommy. He’s still with mother. Maternal figure could be a man. Remember it’s the person who fulfills the maternal functions. So he is still with mommy. He’s still with mother and he’s with her physically
252. 84:56 like he would never let her go. And he’s and then one day he opens his arms. the little the little thing, the little man or the little woman, they open their arms and they walk three steps and they look back at mommy. Is she will she disappear because there’s an issue with
253. 85:13 object constancy. Will she still be there? And will she punish him? These are the two questions. If I leave mom, if I let mommy go and I walk a few steps, will she still be there for me? And will she punish me for having done so? And if the mother is still there and
254. 85:33 encourages the child says, “Wow, great. You took three steps away from me. It’s wonderful. Do it again.” Then there’s a healthy adult waiting to develop. But if the mother is insecure or selfish or then of course she would broadcast negative message, why have you done
255. 85:55 that? You you know it’s risky. Don’t do that. Oh, don’t do that to me. don’t leave me you know and so so and all this is an external process the child really leaves the physical mother really walks away on real on a real road and touches a real tree and interact with real
256. 86:16 interacts with real peers it’s real it’s all real touchwood so uh but the adult narcissist is incapable of doing this because the adult narcissist cannot interact with external objects only with internal objects. So when the adult narcissist wants to
257. 86:40 separate from the new mother, the adult narcissist would have to separate from the internal object, not from the external object. He cannot. So the separation takes place internally, not externally. One of the major reasons why it fails time and
258. 87:03 again, time and again, the narcissist, there’s a repetition compulsion. The Narcissist keeps repeating the same pattern until the day he dies and sometimes in the afterlife. So,
259. 87:30 So the narcissist relates to you as a mother internally with the internal object that represents you as an ideal unconditionally loving mother and he needs to separate and individuate. So what he does he separates from the internal object that represents you in
260. 87:50 his mind. How to do that? You’re an ideal mother. You are loving unconditionally. You have passed all the tests. You have succeeded in all auditions. You you’re an amazing thing. You are you remember yes you idealize. How to do that? He needs to change the internal object.
261. 88:13 Otherwise he would not be able to separate from the internal object. You don’t separate from ideal objects. You separate from pcary objects. you separate from devalued objects. So the narcissist needs to devalue the internal object that represents you in his mind.
262. 88:33 And here we come to the phase of devaluation. Idealization is internal. Devaluation is totally internal. The narcissist devalues the internal object that represents you uh in his mind. The minute the narcissist has devalued the internal object, he is ready to
263. 88:57 separate from you. Because who wants to be with an internal with the devalued internal object? Yeah. Is ready to separate from you. But this creates two complications. Everything in narcissism always creates two complications. And if the narcissist is Jewish, three
264. 89:14 complications. So yeah, the minute the narcissist devalues the internal object, this creates uh a problem because devaluing the internal object means that the narcissist got it wrong. He got it wrong. If you idealize someone and then you devalue them, it means the
265. 89:36 idealization was wrong. You got something wrong. You did something wrong. But narcissists are never wrong. Ask me they are never wrong. This creates dissonance. The narcissist to devalue the internal object must admit that he got something wrong initially that the idealization
266. 89:58 was counterfactual. That fantastic wrong. That’s the first problem. The second problem having devalued the internal object. The narcissist remains stuck with the internal object. Devaluation doesn’t mean that you eliminate the ex the internal object. It
267. 90:15 means you change the nature of the internal object. Now the internal object is devalued. It’s bad and many times it’s evil. It’s what we call percary object. So the narcissist is stuck stuck with an object which is egodistonic. An object which makes the narcissist
268. 90:39 feel uncomfortable about himself, challenges the narcissist’s view of himself as perfection. Let me give you an example from a restaurant. You have a restaurant and all the dishes are wonderful but there is one dish or no you have apples. You have 10 apples that are wonderful and
269. 90:59 one apple is rotten. So you cannot think of yourself as perfect because one apple is rotten. The perfection is destroyed with this single apple. And the this is the apple in the narcissist’s mind. This devalued internal object challenges the narcissist’s grandio self-perception as
270. 91:19 perfect. So there’s a double dissonance. How could I have been so wrong about her that I now need to devalue her? And I feel bad about having inside my mind an object which is less than perfect, imperfect, per secondary, possibly an enemy, hostile, this, that.
271. 91:41 I need to get rid of this object. And this leads to the second phase of the shirt fantasy. But I will give you now 10 minute a 10-minute break.