Mysteries of Narcissist's Hoovering - Part 2 (Compilation)

Mysteries of Narcissist’s Hoovering – Part 2 (Compilation)

Summary

No text Hey Vaknin, you tell me it is not true that the narcissist invariably devalues and discards his intimate partner. My grandfather was a rank prime narcissist.

Fantasy, it's, narcissism, narcissist, Personality, Psychology, Sam Vaknin, Shared, Vaknin, Vaknin Summaries

July 24, 2025

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00:00 No text Hey Vaknin, you tell me it is not true that the narcissist invariably devalues
00:08 and discards his intimate partner. My grandfather was a rank prime narcissist.
00:16 And my grandmother drove her wheelchair away and left him after 46 years of
00:23 marriage. Yes, I have a video here dedicated to No text the island of stability. The narcissist has an island of stability surrounded by
00:36 an ocean of chaos. The island of stability could be the narcissist's marriage. He remains
00:43 married to the same woman for five ownorous ordinary difficult decades. At
00:50 the same time he changes 263 jobs or he
00:56 persists works in the same company for 52 years becomes the chief executive
01:02 officer and at the same time divorces and marries six times. So there's an
01:10 island of stability and an ocean of chaos. This would explain such long-term stable No text marriages. But what about separation individuation?
01:23 What about devalue and discard in such extremely long marriages?
01:29 There's no hint of this. You say, and you would be wrong, of course. The
01:35 narcissist always, read my lips, always devalues and discards his intimate
01:43 partner. The devalue and discard can occur and sometimes does occur does happen in long-term stable relationships. So in
01:55 such a 50-year long relationship, we would have 25 incidents or 25 cycles of
02:03 devaluation and discard. It is just that the partner, the intimate partner refuses to walk away.
02:12 She engages in what I call self hoovering.
02:18 She doesn't leave the narcissist. She doesn't abandon him. She doesn't
02:25 break up. She doesn't divorce. She stays in the relationship or in the marriage
02:32 and she hoovers herself. How is this possible? Don't forget that No text the narcissist entrains his victims. He implants in his victim's mind a voice,
02:47 an introject. The narcissist creates an internal object in the victim's mind
02:53 that stands in for the narcissist, represents the narcissist. Even when the narcissist is long gone physically,
03:01 the introject, the narcissist's voice is still there inside the victim's mind,
03:08 nagging, cajoling, criticizing, humiliating, shaming, manipulating,
03:16 etc. When the narcissist devalues and discards an intimate partner who refuses
03:24 to walk away, who would not dream of breaking up, who is so trauma bonded
03:31 that she cannot even conceive of living without the narcissist. When the devaluation and discard occur
03:38 in such a relationship, the victim hoovers herself. No text The narcissist introject the voice of the narcissist inside the victim's mind
03:50 hoovers her. She re idealizes herself through the
03:57 narcissist's voice in her head. She has no need for the narcissist out there. The narcissist out there, her long long-term husband or long-term partner
04:08 is devaluing her, is discarding her, is abusing her, is pushing her away, is
04:15 shaming and humiliating her, is cheating on her, is doing everything he can to get rid of her and separate and individuate. And in his mind he is separating and individuating if
04:27 necessary by maintaining parallel relationships with other intimate partners.
04:33 But the traumab bonded codependent intimate partner in such long-term relationships
04:41 she refuses to be discarded. What she does, she refers, she
04:48 disengages from the actual narcissist and she refers to the internal voice of
04:54 the narcissist in her mind and that introject that internal voice
05:00 reidalizes her and hoovers her and she is ready to continue in the
05:07 relationship. So self hoovering is a trauma bonding
05:13 response and it allows the narcissist longsuffering intimate partner to remain
05:20 in the relationship despite having been clearly and abundantly
05:26 discarded and devalued. It's a habituated,
05:32 automated, internalized, introjected self hoovering. The narcissist's voice, the introject that represents the
05:43 narcissist in the victim's mind is a proxy. The proxy of the narcissist,
05:50 the long arm of the narcissist, the fifth column of the narcissist, the narcissist mole in the victim's mind.
05:57 And it does it does the hoovering all phases, re idealization, love bombing,
06:04 they all take place inside the victim's mind. And they have no compliment, no correspondence to anything that's
06:12 happening in the outside. In this sense, it's a narcissistic defense. The devalue and discard create extreme
06:23 narcissistic injury and sometimes narcissistic motification. even in victims who are not narcissists
06:31 No text and then they react with a narcissistic defense. They snapshot the narcissist
06:39 and they have an internal dialogue with a introjected narcissist with a voice
06:45 inside their head. They continue the relationship with a representation of the narcissist in their mind. And this relationship goes through the
06:56 entire cycle, love bombing, idealization, shared fantasy, and so on and so forth.
07:03 At some point, having been devalued and discarded, the the trauma bonding is so extreme and
07:10 the victim is so traumatized that she actually loses touch with reality. She
07:16 disengages from the world. She withdraws into her mind. She avoids
07:22 everything the narcissist included. The devaluing, discarding, hurtful, painful
07:28 narcissist is blocked out. And then she continues her existence
07:35 inside her head. And there there is the narcissist.
07:41 The narcissist voice, the narcissist image is inside her mind. So she continues to have a relationship with it. She hoovers herself. Now self hoovering
07:54 is part and parcel of the narcissist and training conditioning all of mirrors and
08:02 so on so forth the narcissist relies on the victim's self hovering. Even in classical hoovering there is an element of self hovering.
08:13 The victim convinces herself that the narcissist loves her. She recalls the
08:20 good old times but forgets or represses the bad times. This these are forms of
08:26 selfovering. There are ways to resolve cognitive dissonance. I love him but he but he is
08:32 abusive. How can I reconcile this? Well, I will falsify reality.
08:39 I will live inside my head and there I will arrange things as they should
08:45 should be and should have been. I will continue the shared fantasy. I will feel idealized and loved.
08:52 This is a narcissistic defense. It's exactly what narcissists do when they're faced with frustrating, difficult,
08:58 hurtful external objects. They ignore the external object. They
09:04 create a snapshot of the external object and then they continue the interaction with the internal object only. And this
09:10 is what happens to victims. So yes, there are multi- multi-deade
09:17 relationships between narcissists and their spouses or their intimate partners or what is left of the spouse or what is left of the intimate partner. It is not easy to survive this. It's the
09:30 equivalent of a concentration camp. So, but these No text very very very long relationships again cater to the narcissist's need to
09:41 have an island of of stability on the one hand and are predicated and premised
09:48 on they are founded on the victim's selfdeception,
09:54 introjection defense, snapshotting, narcissistic defenses and so on and so
10:00 forth. Fortunately, self hoovering can be unlearned.
10:08 Can be unlearned. I repeat this. Narcissism cannot be unlearned.
10:15 And this leads us to the topic of today's video. Is narcissism trauma, a
10:22 post-traumatic condition, or is it role play? If it's role play, it can be
10:28 unlearned. And there are indications that it some behaviors can be unburned.
10:35 If it's a post-traumatic response, we have a bigger problem. Houston,
10:41 now one last comment before we go into the video itself. People tell me you advocate no contact No text and then in the last video you said that during the hoovering phase you should you should get in touch with the Narsis.
10:55 You should be in contact. And people tell me, "You didn't invent no contact. My grandma walked out on my grandpa."
11:03 No contact is not about walking out on someone. That is not no contact. That is
11:09 breaking up. No contact is a set of 27 highly nuanced
11:16 strategies. And I encourage you to watch the relevant video on my on my channel. And I did come up with these strategies in 1995. And I was for 10 years I suffered for it
11:28 because most psychologists and therapists said that it's nonsense and it's bad and it's counterproductive and it should never be become the mainstream and so on so forth. But remember no contact doesn't mean no communication
11:42 with the narcissist. You can have no contact with the narcissist even as you are communicating
11:49 with him via third parties for example lawyers. So call it study what is the real no contact. It's No text not a rule. It's 27 strategies. Now one of the strategies has to do with
12:09 hovering. And during the hovering phase you should communicate to the narcissist
12:16 once and once only your boundaries. You should do it firmly but not aggressively
12:24 and preferably do it through the services, good services for third party,
12:31 a therapist, a lawyer, an accountant if necessary, the police.
12:37 I hope I made this clear. There's a link to my video on no contact. If you want
12:44 to really grasp what is no contact, you must watch this video because everything else online is again a caricature of the
12:52 real thing. And now let's proceed to today's topic.
12:58 What the heck is narcissism? Is it a response to extreme trauma and abuse in early childhood that has deformed the brain to the point that it can no longer be reversed
13:10 even with neuroplasticity? Or is it play acting, thespian roleplay?
13:19 Is narcissism a choice or is it a something constitutional?
13:28 Well, I'm about to answer. Stay tuned.
13:35 No text So, what is narcissistic personality disorder? Is it roleplay?
13:43 Is it a choice? Or is it a post-traumatic condition beyond the can and reach of the narcissist, beyond his ability to gain
13:54 control over it? Is it a reaction to life's tribulations,
14:00 abuse and trauma in early childhood, rejection by peers, other circumstances and environments which were not
14:07 conducive to personal growth and development, which were traumatizing?
14:14 Or is it a series of calculated decisions
14:20 and choices among alternatives that put together constitute a positive
14:27 adaptation, an adaptation that is conducive to heightened self-efficacy?
14:34 Let me translate this to English. Can the narcissist help who he is or is
14:44 he beyond help? Does he control his behaviors? Does he choose to behave the way he does or he
14:53 can't help it? He's helpless. And this is the topic of today's video. My name
15:00 is Sambakn. I'm the author of malignant self- loveve narcissism revisited. And no, I cannot help it. There's nothing I
15:07 can do about it. and I'm a former visiting professor of psychology also a fact what can I do and currently on the faculty of seps
15:20 so let's delve right in is narcissism a No text post-traumatic condition or is it a role play I've been advocated for well over advocating for well over 28 years to reconceive of narcissistic personality
15:37 disorder as a post-traumatic condition. Narcissists are created in the throws
15:44 and in the bowels and in the incubator of abuse and trauma in early childhood.
15:51 The narcissism, pathological narcissism is a response to these unfortunate
15:57 adverse childhood experiences. And so clearly narcissism, pathological
16:05 narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, even narcissistic style, they have deep roots. They are embedded in a
16:15 traumatic or post-traumatic background. No one can deny this. Same goes for
16:21 borderline personality disorder. Psychopathy, antisocial personality disorder has strong elements of
16:30 genetics. It has a hereditary background, brain abnormalities, physiological abnormalities.
16:36 It's not the same with narcissism. Ignore all the neuroscience nonsense,
16:42 self- aggrandizing nonsense online. As of this minute, there are no serious
16:49 rigorous studies that connect pathological narcissism to any brain
16:55 abnormality or end physiological abnormality. Period. The studies that
17:01 exist are reasonable. They are they are shameful and definitely they do not
17:08 justify the grandiloquent claims of
17:14 narcissistic neuroscientists. I'm sorry to say online and offline.
17:20 So narcissism is a reaction to childhood abuse and trauma. It's a defensive reaction. It's a way to fend off shame and hurt that are life-threatening. No
17:31 one can deny this and no one does actually. I'm not aware of anyone in the literature who does
17:38 um in the serious literature mind you but it's also a role play. No text We know that it is a role play because in certain settings the narcissist
17:50 behavior or set of behaviors change changes dramatically. The narcissist is unrecognizable
18:01 in prison, in the army, in hospital.
18:07 In these settings known as total institutions, the narcissist is kind, empathic,
18:15 supportive, helpful, attentive, compassionate, and empathic. Yes, believe it or not, I've seen it with my own eyes. I've been to
18:26 the army and I've been to prison and I've been to a hospital and I've witnessed firsthand how narcissists are
18:33 transformed overnight. They shed like a snake shedding its skin. They shed
18:41 their narcissistic overlay. The set of behaviors and to some extent traits that
18:49 define them as narcissists in the outside. In this sense, clinically speaking, narcissists who are in total
19:01 institutions as inmates, as patients, as soldiers can no longer be diagnosed with
19:09 narcissistic personality disorder. It's as if they have lost the diagnosis. We also know that in therapy there's there are several treatment modalities
19:21 most notably EMDR schema therapy to some extent DBT when it applies to comorbid
19:28 border lines analysis and even CBT. These therapies No text are successful at modifying narcissistic behaviors. They reduce
19:43 sometimes dramatically the frequency and manifestations of antisocial and abrasive behaviors of the
19:50 narcissist. Narcissist becomes more pleasant, more sociable,
19:56 kinder, nicer, more attentive,
20:02 to some extent more empathic. So therapy does this to narcissists.
20:08 They shed their behavioral coat. And so, can we say therefore that
20:15 narcissism is a role play? That narcissist make choices? When they are not in prison, they're narcissists. When they are in prison, they're not narcissists. This sounds a lot like a choice.
20:28 When they when they are in the army, they're not narcissists. Then they leave the army, they're discharged, they
20:34 become narcissists again. When they are in therapy, they modify their behaviors unrecognizably
20:40 and then out of therapy for three, four years, they become narcissists again. What's going on here? This reversion to
20:46 narcissism, this remission, this relapse, is narcissism more like alcoholism.
20:53 I for one believe that alcoholism and drug abuse are not diseases. They cause
20:59 diseases of the brain, but they are not diseases. They're choices. So, is
21:05 narcissism the same? Is it a choice? Well, here's the surprising answer. Narcissism is both a post-traumatic condition
21:16 about which the narcissist can do nothing. The narcissist is helpless in the in the face of his own post trauma. So, it's both a postraumatic condition
21:28 and a choice-based role play. both.
21:34 But each of these characteristics applies to a different set of
21:42 parameters. For example, the narcissist grandiosity, No text the cognitive distortion that divorces the narcissist from reality,
21:54 shields the narcissist within a delusional bubble, reframes and falsifies information that
22:00 tries to penetrate the narcissist's defensive firewalls. Grandiosity,
22:07 this cognitive distortion is not something that the narcissist
22:13 chooses, nor can he modify it. There's nothing he can do about it. It's who the narcissist
22:20 is. All types of narcissist, overt, covert, they're all grandio. So, by the
22:26 way, are border lines and psychopaths. So, grandiosity is a fixture.
22:33 It's there to stay. And there's nothing you can do about it. Cold therapy, the treatment modality
22:39 that I've developed to some extent amilarates grandiosity and gets gets
22:45 gets rid of the need for narcissistic supply. But that's the extent of it. Otherwise,
22:51 grandiosity is there to stay. Take another feature shared fantasy.
22:57 The fantasy defend defense writ large and gone gun orai
23:03 that is that is there to stay. That is an attributes of a narcissist. Attribute of a narcissist that is a dimension of the narcissist that is always there and
23:14 will always be there to the day the narcissist dies and probably in the afterlife as well. Narcissists relate to
23:21 other people and to the environment via shared fantasies. These are fixtures.
23:28 It's fixed. Nothing can be done about it. Period. Get it through your head.
23:34 There's nothing to be done. Again, with the exception of cold therapy and grandiosity, nothing can be done.
23:43 But on the other hand, the way these fixtures are expressed, the way these
23:49 attributes manifest, this is acquired. This is the role play.
23:57 The narcissist is grandiose. Grandiosity defines the narcissist. It's
24:03 at the core of narcissism. It's a cognitive distortion that collaborates or colludes with the narcissist fantasy defense. And this is the narcissist. The
24:15 No text narcissist narcissism is who he is. It's his squidity. It's his essence. You
24:21 can't get rid of the narcissism more than you can get rid of the narcissist. So, but the way the grandiosity is
24:31 expressed, the way the fantasy manifests, the way the narcissist communicates these to other people, to his human environment, the way he leverages them
24:44 to manipulate and to accomplish goals, especially narcissistic supply. All
24:51 these are idiosyncratic. In other words, all these manifestations and expressions
24:57 and behavioral behavioral translation of the fixtures of the narcissist's
25:03 mind. All these are role play. They do involve choices and decisions. The narcissist can express his grandiosity
25:14 one way and he can express it another way. He can be contemptuous and he can be benevolent, altruistic, pro-social, communal.
25:25 He can be aversive and he can be abrasive. He can be
25:31 extroverted and be introverted. All these are choices. All these are role
25:38 plays. All these is play acting. All this is theater thespian. It's not real.
25:48 It's a veneer. It's a coat of arms. And the narcissist sheds it
25:55 when it becomes life-threatening. Because I have a surprise for you. If you're grandios in prison, your life No text expectancy is somewhat limited. If you're abrasive, if you're antisocial,
26:10 if you are hateful and contemptuous in the army,
26:16 similarly, you don't have long, you don't have much longer to live or to go. You don't have where to hide. So, the narcissist gets rid of this. These are outer layers. These are not these are not essential elements of the narcissist.
26:33 They're not who the narcissist is. They are who the how the narcissist behaves.
26:40 And he knows to modify his behaviors in order to survive
26:46 and later to accomplish goals such as narcissistic supply. When survival is at stake, the narcissist becomes unrecognizable. But even then, the core of the
26:59 narcissist is immutable. his grandiosity, his shared fant his fantasies,
27:06 his basically sense of superiority, his lack of empathy. These are all there.
27:14 They are just blocked. They're firewall. They're not allowed to be expressed or
27:20 manifest manifested because it's life-threatening. The environment
27:26 modifies the narcissist's behaviors. the signals the narcissist receives from people around him tell him listen it's not a good idea to be contemptuous here
27:40 because if you're contemptuous you wake up in the morning with a knife in your back so well I'll not be contemptuous therefore behavior modification in
27:51 therapy the army prison hospital in total institutions behavior modification in narcissism is very common Actually narcissists are among the best prisoners
28:03 for example the example prisoners prisoners to be emulated and so on
28:09 because of this inordinate control of their behavior. So why don't they why No text
28:16 don't they act the same out there in in family settings in relationships
28:23 in the workplace because they couldn't care less because the consequences are either reversible
28:31 or meaningless or minor. So the narcissist is an optimizing
28:38 machine. It's a calculating machine. He says to himself, I have to invest five units of effort in controlling my behavior. And the benefits I'm getting amount to three units. So I'm not going
28:50 to control my behavior, but I have to invest five units of effort in
28:56 controlling my behavior or else I will die. Yeah. Okay. I will control my behavior. It's calculation,
29:03 simple calculation of risk to reward benefit ratios.
29:09 Now we must distinguish between traits, behaviors and roles.
29:17 These are three separate issues. While the narcissist cannot control most of his traits, not all of them, most when I say he, it's a she. When I say she, it's a he. Gender pronouns are
29:29 interchangeable. Half of all narcissists are women. Okay? The narcissist cannot control his traits
29:37 or most of his traits. Actually, he can control some of the traits or at least the way that these traits are expressed or manifested. But uh Gorso, the narcissist cannot control his traits. He can control his behaviors and he definitely can control the role he
29:54 plays, the role, the social role he chooses. So let's go one by one. Let's start with
30:00 traits. I'm going to use the APA dictionary which is the most authoritative dictionary of psychology
30:06 in the world. And let's define trait. Trait an enduring personality
30:13 characteristic. You notice enduring that describes or determines an individual's
30:19 behavior across a range of situations. In item response theory, an individual's
30:26 level of competence on a certain task or aptitude measurement. So these are traits. The narcissist cannot modify
30:34 most of the traits because they define him. He is his traits. His personality
30:40 is comprised of these tra traits. But he can control behavior. No text How does a dictionary define behavior? Behavior is an organism's activities in
30:54 response to external or internal stimuli, including objectively observable activities, introspectively
31:01 observable activities, covert behavior, and non-concious processes.
31:08 Any action or function that can be objectively observed or measured in response to controlled stimuli. Historically, behaviorists contrasted objective behavior with mental activities which were considered subjective and thus unsuitable for
31:26 scientific study. So this is behavior. Clearly behavior
31:32 involves some form of self-control, some form of decision making, some choices. Now not 100%.
31:44 Some behaviors are out of control. For example, impulsive behaviors, compulsive behaviors, they're out of control. If someone lacks impulse control, he's
31:55 likely to act impulsively. If someone is a borderline and he goes or she goes through
32:02 decompensation, she's likely to act out and there's no control over the acting out. If someone is a is a narcissist and
32:10 he's triggered or provoked narcissistically injured or motif, the behaviors that follow are almost
32:16 automatic. So there is a realm of automatic behaviors, compulsive behaviors, for example, that cannot be controlled. Not really. Well, in
32:27 therapy, you can learn techniques. For example, in dialectical behavioral therapy, you learn techniques to control
32:33 some of these things, some of the impulses and so on. But by and large behavior is much
32:40 um much more controlled than traits. So overall the narcissist is able to
32:47 control most of his behaviors. Very few of his traits, most of his behaviors. In
32:54 short, the narcissist, the psychopath, the psychopath less than the narcissist, but the narcissist especially learns to internalize rather than externalize.
33:07 An environment which is life-threatening, ominous, uh total,
33:13 an environment which is punitive and so on would encourage a narcissist to internalize his traits rather than externalize them. For example, via
33:25 aggression. Externalizing behavior, internalizing behavior. Narcissist would become
33:31 clinically speaking internalized kind of covert in effect covert narcissist. So
33:39 this is behavior. What about role? How does the APA dictionary defines role? A
33:45 No text coherent set of behavior is expected of an individual in a specific position within a group or social setting. Since
33:52 the term is derived from the dramatical concept of role, the dialogue and actions assigned to each performer in a
33:58 play. Role theory suggests that individuals actions are regulated by the
34:04 part they play in the social setting rather than by their pre personal predelections or inclinations. Very important. I'm going to read it again. Listen well. It explains why
34:17 narcissists change dramatically in different social settings or institutional settings. Listen again. Role theory suggests
34:28 that individuals actions are regulated by the part they play in the social
34:36 setting rather than by their personal predelections or inclinations.
34:42 When the behaviors associated with a particular role are poorly defined, role ambiguity may occur. When group members occupy two or more roles that call for
34:54 incompatible behaviors, the result may be role conflict. We'll go into it in
35:00 another video. We will discuss role theory, but it explains the narcissist's amazing transformation in various settings like a chameleon. Now many of the uh many of many traits
35:15 most behaviors and all roles are acquired. What does it mean acquired?
35:22 The dictionary again a response behavior idea or information that has been
35:29 learned or developed on the basis of specific forms of experience. So we have
35:35 for example learned helplessness. You learn to be helpless throughout life. You learn to be dependent. You learn to
35:42 be narcissist. Narcissism on the behavioral level and the role
35:49 level is acquired. It's learned. The trauma response is there. It's the
35:57 foundation. The trauma created or generated the defenses. The fantasy defense. The
36:03 trauma distorted cognition, grandiosity. The trauma divorced the child from
36:09 reality in order to avoid hurt and shame, impaired reality testing. These things are never going to go away.
36:17 They're never going to go away. But the way they manifest, the way they're expressed, the way they're translated
36:24 into behaviors and roles, this is acquired. It's an acquired characteristic, a
36:30 No text structural or functional characteristic or psychological feature, trait or behavior of an organism that arises from experience or through interactions with
36:42 the environment rather than resulting primarily from genetic or historical or
36:49 psychological factors. So, this is acquired character. I hope I clarified. There's going to be another video on role theory in which I will delve much deeper to all this. And now
37:03 go and act your role in your social setting. Just remember, behave yourself.
37:13 No text So next time the narcissist tries to hoover you, he may be doing it because
37:20 he's holding a grudge against you. How could you tell the difference? First of all, resist hovering. In any case, it's
37:28 a bad idea to team up again with the narcissist. No contact is the only solution. But if you are wondering intellectually speaking, what's the difference between rail hoover when the
37:40 narcissist is trying to re idealize you and match you with the object with the internal object inside his head. This is real hoover. Narcissist wants you again in his life. and vengeful hoover or
37:53 grudgdriven hoover. When the narcissist wants to hoover you
37:59 in order to gain access to you, in order to somehow punish you for what you have
38:06 done to him, in his mind, in reality or not, imaginary or actual, in his mind,
38:12 you have transgressed. You have acted as a perpetrator, as an enemy, and you need to be punished. And one of the ways to accomplishing this is to over you. How can you tell the difference? So first of
38:26 all, ask yourself, did did the narcissist ever accuse you
38:32 of having done something to him, of having transgressed against him, of having shamed him or humiliated him or
38:39 criticized him or disagreed with him in a way that inflicted on him pain and hurt or rage or anger or whatever? Has a
38:47 narcissist repeatedly claimed this? Was this a constant
38:53 kind of complaint of the narcissist? That's a warning sign. If he has, then
38:59 he's bearing a grudge. It hasn't gone away. Don't convince yourself that time
39:05 heals all wounds. Time heals all wounds in human beings, not in narcissists.
39:11 So that's the first question. Second question, the transgression the narcissist accuses you of the
39:17 misbehavior, the misconduct he imputes to you, the he attributes to you, are they real or imaginary? If they've actually occurred, it's one
39:30 thing. If they are imaginary, it would indicate the existence of a grudge. Be very careful.
39:37 Next thing, does the narcissist idealize you in the same way when he's trying to over you?
39:44 Does he puts does he put emphasis on the same things? The first time he lovebombed you, first time he's
39:51 idealized you, the first time he's introduced to you to his shared fantasy, he emphasized, for example, your good looks. Is he emphasizing the very same
39:58 things right now? If he is not, it's an indication of the existence of a grudge, an attempt to change his perception of you and consequently his perception of himself.
40:12 The next thing does the narcissist insist that he must win, he can't lose, he
40:22 can't be outweitted, he is always right with you regarding a specific case. So,
40:29 the narcissist homes in on a specific event, specific argument, specific
40:36 fight, specific uh public shaming, specific something and then he insists
40:44 that he must rectify the situation because he can't lose. He insists that
40:50 he hasn't been outwitted. He was just biting his time. He insists that he he has he has been right and you have been
40:56 wrong. If he keeps emphasizing this, he's trying to reconstruct his grandiosity by hoovering you. Stay away.
41:04 It means he's holding a grudge. Next, is he righteous?
41:11 Is he being sanctimonious and righteously indignant about it? Is he
41:17 rigid? He won't consider any other point of view. Does he claim to have suffered a moral injury? Does he say or insist that is has attained the high moral
41:29 ground where you have acted in a manner which is immoral and unethical? Does he
41:36 try to blame you? Does he want you to own the blame? Does he insist that what you've done to him has caused such
41:43 injury that is irreversible, irreversible, cannot be solved, cannot be healed, cannot be treated. These are
41:51 signs of a major grudge. Is he trying to restore justice in his own mind and equity? Does he ask you or demand for some kind of confession, reparation, restitution, making amends?
42:04 Does he insist that you should alter his behavior? Spoil him, cater to his needs,
42:10 act obsic and submissive. Obey him in every every way, shape, or form because you owe it to you owe it to him. having having transgressed against him, you now have to prove yourself. These are all signs of a grudge. Is a
42:26 narcissist being punitive, vengeful? Does he seek vindication from you? Does
42:32 he overtly and openly punish you in a variety of ways? Silent treatment, verbal abuse, I don't know. Is he trying to reassert control? Does
42:44 he begin to micromanage you? Does he uh inject himself into every area of his
42:50 life? Is he trying to isolate you? Does it amount to coercive control? Tries to
42:56 control your finances, going out, um and so on. Coercive control is a major sign
43:03 of a grudge. Um does he demand that you modify your
43:09 behavior? Does he ask or insist on guarantees that you will never ever offend him, insult him, transgress
43:16 against him, criticize him, disagree with him, humiliate him in public or in private, argue with him and so on? Never
43:23 ever. These are taboos, not allowed, nos in the relationship. Is he trying
43:29 therefore to detail you and modify your behaviors? Does he try to demonstrate to you how strong he is, how resilient he is, how invulnerable he is? These are all signs of a grudge. Does he claim
43:41 that what you've done to him has borne severe consequences, was part
43:47 of a pattern, was inexcusable, immoral, gratuitous, mean, nasty, cruel? Does he
43:53 pose as a victim and claims that he has suffered much more than you have gained?
44:00 Your actions have been disproportional. Does he ruminate and obsess about his victimhood status and how you
44:07 have victimized him and abused him? In all these cases, cut your losses. Walk
44:13 away. This is not overing. This is an attempt to introduce you into the
44:19 fantastic space in order to inflict punishment and vengeance upon you. Don't
44:25 let him. No contact.
44:34 Narcissists find it nearly impossible to forgive, to forget and to move on.
44:43 Why is that? What is so special with narcissists? What is so unique? What predisposes them
44:51 to holding grudges seemingly forever? to never overlooking
44:58 insights, slides, humiliation, criticism, disagreement.
45:06 Why are they so fragile and brittle? Why why are they incapable
45:13 of transitioning to another phase in life? In other words, why are narcissists
45:20 deficient when it comes to forming neutral or not neutral memories? Why
45:27 they can convert perceived transgressions into memories?
45:34 Perhaps because transgressions, as far as the narcissist is concerned,
45:40 are mostly arbitrary, inconsistent, and imaginary.
45:46 It is the narcissist who decide when you have transgressed. It is the narcissist
45:52 who is calling the shots. The narcissist is a law unto himself or herself.
46:00 The narcissist one day decides that a certain action constitutes a violation,
46:08 a breach of contract or of boundaries. and the next day he takes the very same
46:14 action in stride as if nothing has happened. This shape-shifting cap capricious
46:26 definition redefinition and re redefinition of transgressions
46:32 within a shared fantasy space. This is what destabilizes the victim on the one hand and doesn't allow the narcissist to
46:44 move on on the other hand. The
46:50 inconstant nature of what the narcissist perceives to be an offense against him, what he perceives to have been offensive.
47:01 This inconstant nature makes it impossible for the narcissist to take a stand
47:08 to to defend values to declare convictions, boundaries and beliefs makes the fact that the narcissist has no core identity, no fixed Archimedian
47:22 point, a self, an ego. The fact that the narcissist exactly at the borderline is
47:29 subject to identity disturbance makes it very difficult for the narcissist to be the same person the
47:35 next day after the transgression. And only the same person can forgive. When
47:42 you forgive someone for having transgressed against you, it's because you are the same person with the same
47:48 memories, with the same identity, with the same continuity. You are you. You have a self. You have a
47:55 core. You have a pivot. The narcissist doesn't have any of this.
48:01 It's narcissism is smoke and mirrors. It's an absence masquerading as a
48:07 presence. Who is there to forgive? Who would be there to move on if the
48:13 narcissist is not the same person from one day to the next? This v video is
48:20 based on grudge theory. First suggested by Roy Balmeister,
48:26 Julie Exine and Christine Smer in the 1990s.
48:32 My name is Saknim. I am the grudgeolding uh author of malignant self-love,
48:38 narcissism revisited, the unforgiving former visiting professor of psychology
48:44 and the constant or inconstant member of the faculty of SEAPS
48:50 Commonwealth Institute for Advanced Professional Studies. Okay, Shashaniman
48:56 Panim stay with us for the continuation of this video. No text a grudge. It's important to understand that a grudge is a relationship
49:07 management tool. People use grudges in order to
49:13 communicate hurt and pain and expectations.
49:20 Grudges reflect changes in the perception of the perpetrator or alleged
49:27 perpetrator and change in the perception of oneself. The grudge redefes the diadic space or the relationship
49:39 space. In a way, the grudge converts reality
49:47 into a form of fantasy. It doesn't have to be a revenge fantasy, although this is the most common fantasy. It's a fantasy of victimhood.
49:58 It's a fantasy of injustice. It's a fantasy of retribution. But it's a
50:04 fantasy. It is the use of fantasy in the form of a grudge to redefine
50:12 the role of the perpetrator, the role of oneself
50:18 within a relationship that either continues or is no more.
50:26 So it's a management tool. It serves to terminate the relationship. It serves to perpetuate the relationship under new
50:33 terms and conditions. redefine the relationship. But in any case, it's a relationship
50:40 management tool. In other words, a grudge is relational. It's never individual. You cannot hold a grudge in empty space, deep space. You have to hold a grudge
50:52 against someone. The minute you hold a grudge against someone, you're in a
50:58 relationship with that someone. If only in your imagination and your mind that
51:04 someone has occupied your mind. The grudge is a way to obtain internal
51:11 closure to communicate your offense and hurt to the perpetrator to force the
51:17 perpetrator at least again in the imaginary space between your two ears to
51:23 force the perpetrator to make amends. So it's a relationship management tool whether the relationship is still
51:29 ongoing and external or whether the relationship is totally internal between internal objects. In the case of the narcissist, the No text grudge fulfills numerous other functions which explains why the narcissist finds it extremely difficult to not hold grudges.
51:50 So the first function of a grudge is to reconstitute grandiosity.
51:56 Narcissists perceive transgressions as narcissistic injuries.
52:02 And in extreme cases when there's public shame and humiliation, narcissistic
52:08 motification ensues. In both cases, narcissistic injury and
52:14 narcissistic motification, there's a challenge to grandiosity. as an undermining of the cognitive distortion
52:21 that misinforms the narcissist about reality and his place in reality.
52:27 A cognitive distortion that allows the narcissist to maintain an inflated fantastic outlandish uh sense of self or substitute sense of
52:39 self known as the false self. The narcissist has maintains a self-image
52:45 and self-perception that have extremely little to do with the world out there with external objects. The narcissist is hellbent on
52:57 maintaining, preserving, protecting, defending and perpetuating
53:03 narrative which casts him in the role of God. He is godlike within this
53:10 narrative. So any infringement, any impingement, any breach, any
53:16 challenge that somehow dares to hint that the narcissist grandiosity is miscon misconstrued or perhaps fantastic or perhaps counterfactual.
53:29 This results in narcissistic injury and the narcissist then desperately needs to reconstitute his or her grandiosity. two elements especially
53:41 omnipotence all being all powerful the narcissist is
53:47 unable to countenance loss there's an inadmissibility
53:54 of losing or of being or having been outwitted the narcissist is the cleverest the smartest the
54:05 sharpest the most cunning the was super hyper intelligent. Therefore, never
54:12 gullible, never naive, never anyone's fool. He can never be outweed and he can
54:19 never lose lose a match. Narcissist perceive the perceives the world in terms of an ongoing battle, a warfare, urban warfare zone. And so losing would
54:34 be to acknowledge the narcissist's inferiority, however localized and limited in time,
54:41 but still inferiority. Gods don't lose. Gods are never outweitted. Well, modern gods in uh Greek mythology and Indian
54:54 mythology, that's not true. That doesn't apply. But modern gods,
55:00 Yahave in the Bible, uh Allah, these modern gods are highly
55:06 grandiose and highly narcissistic and they are never outwitted and they never lose and they're omnipotent and they're omnicient and so on so forth subjects for the narcissist emulation.
55:18 And so, um, the narcissist needs in the wake of a
55:26 transgression, the narcissist needs to reestablish his sense of omnipotence. He
55:34 needs to prove to himself that he hasn't lost, that he hasn't been vanquished,
55:41 that he hasn't been outwitted, that he is still the smartest, that he's still a winner, not a loser. And the second
55:48 element in grandiosity that has to be re reconfirmed is omniscience or more precisely
55:54 omniscient infallibility. The narcissist is always right. He's never wrong.
56:02 And so um having been transgressed against
56:08 usually implies some kind of poor judgment. Uh making friends with the wrong person.
56:17 who has proven to be a snake in the grass and a fake friend. Uh getting
56:23 married with the wrong spouse who who emerged as a borderline or a covert
56:29 narcissist. At any rate, there's poor judgment involved. And poor judgment is the antithesis, the antonyym of omniscience. You can't be
56:42 omnisient. You can't be all knowing and have poor judgment because if you know everything, you're never wrong. And if
56:48 you're never wrong, your judgment is always right. Being always right is critical to the narcissist. So any
56:56 injury, any transgression, any hurt, any they they're all indicative that he is
57:02 not omnicient and he has he has to somehow restore the balance, recalibrate
57:08 the scales and settle the accounts. Hence the grudge. Now this is all emmed
57:15 embedded in righteous indignation a kind of self-imputed
57:22 moral injury. Narcissist always assumes especially covert narcissist always
57:29 assume the high moral ground. They cast life. They view life as a kind of
57:36 morality play. Good against evil. with the narcissist, of course, the epitome and raification of the good and everyone
57:43 else is evil. It's a splitting mechanism, a primitive splitting mechanism. Narcissists are all bad,
57:50 victims are all good or narcissist all good, victims are all bad and so on so forth. So there's righteous indignation
57:56 involved and it's righteous indignation which is ananchcastic. In other words,
58:02 it's a kind of righteous indignation, kind of moral, ostentatious morality, a
58:08 kind of virtue signaling that is very that is subject to very rigid laws and
58:16 regulations and rules and norms and mores. This rigidity is known as
58:22 anastia. It's a trait domain. Um
58:28 and an anastia is perfectionism which is basically obsessivecompulsive
58:35 and adheres this perfectionism adheres to some rigid sets of rules.
58:41 So it's like being very stringent, very strict, very very unforgiving. Grudges are the outcomes of these
58:52 alleged moral injuries. The narcissist becomes invested in this morality play
58:59 as the good guy or the good girl. He seeks to aortion blame, to allocate
59:07 blame, to establish who is guilty, to force the other party to admit, to
59:13 confess, to accept responsibility. Underneath it all, there's the hidden assumption that harm and damage and transgressions
59:26 are irreversible. like you cannot undo the transgression. As far as a
59:33 narcissist is concerned, there's zero tolerance. One strike and you're out.
59:40 Having infringed or challenged or undermined the narcissist grandiosity in any way, shape or form, privately or in public, you're out. You're out because the harm you've done, the damage you have inflicted are irre irreversible and
59:56 therefore by definition unforgettable, unforgettable, unforgivable,
60:02 morally wrong. And the Narsis has an obligation, an ethical obligation to
60:09 restore the moral balance of the entire universe. In effect, it's a cosmic
60:16 cosmic task or cosmic assignment. It involves, of course, restorative
60:22 justice, equity, reparations, restitution, making amends. The
60:29 narcissist wishes to see the transgressor wishes to witness
60:36 the transgressor humiliated, confessing, begging, crying,
60:44 uh, supplicating. So there needs to be a symbolic
60:53 but yet conspicuous and ostentatious and totally visible. uh act of remorse and regret on behalf of the transgressor. He needs the
61:06 transgressor needs to offer restitution, reparations and amends only to be
61:12 rejected by the narcissist because the narcissist is not interested in restitution. Narcissist is interested in
61:18 retribution. But still it's great fun to witness your enemy cowtowing
61:25 um begging, supplicating, crying and so on. It's fun. It's the fun part. It's
61:32 the grandiosity reconstruction part. All this leads to punitive vengeance.
61:41 The narcissist vengeance has less to do with the transgressor
61:47 than with the narcissist himself. The narcissist wishes to avenge himself,
61:54 wishes to punish the other party, not in order to accomplish any change in
62:01 the other party or to educate the other party or to bring about a new constellation in which the other party
62:08 won't be able to transgress again or to reform and educate the other party or any of these altruistic nobel sounding
62:15 words or attitudes. No way. The narcissist seeks vengeance and
62:22 revenge. Wants to avenge himself for one reason only. He wants to prove himself
62:28 vindicated. It's about self vindication. I've always been right. I've always been
62:35 in the right. I've always been the moral party. I've always sought justice. I've
62:41 always acted well and okay and according to standards. I have done nothing wrong.
62:48 It is the other parties the other parties punishment.
62:55 It is the other part is other parties suffering that proves me right that proves me just
63:03 that proves me moral. It is a form of course of reasserting
63:09 control over a situation that is that is perceived as out of control.
63:16 The narcissist creates a shared fantasy and introduces other people into the shared fantasy. Friends, family, spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, his own children, colleagues, bosses,
63:28 everyone is somehow embedded and incorporated and assigned roles within a
63:34 shared fantasy. And it's a script. It's a script. It's rigid. One has to adhere
63:40 to the script. And the outcome is the narcissist movie of his life.
63:48 When someone confronts the narcissist, criticizes the narcissist, disagrees
63:54 with him, humiliates the narcissist, mocks the narcissist, ridicules the narcissist, exposes the narcissist.
64:02 That's that's a bridge, a violation. That's ripping the script apart. That's
64:10 ignoring the shared fantasy that's ruining the movie. It's unforgivable and
64:16 the narcissist has a panic attack. He reacts with an extreme anxiety known as
64:23 panic and he tries to reassert control. He tries to reestablish the set, the
64:31 movie set. He tries to reintroduce the actors into their appropriate location in the script, appropriate role in the script. He tries to reimpose the script
64:43 somehow. The grudge is a control and manipulation
64:49 strategy. It's an instrument. It's a tool guaranteeing
64:55 that other people would not stray, would tow the line, would obey, would be
65:02 submissive, would observe the narcissist expect demands, would
65:09 fulfill or meet the narcissist expectations because they don't want to be subjected to the narcissist's vengeful fury within his grudge. Of
65:20 course, one of the main roles of grudges is deterrence. The idea of a grudge is to induce behavior modification in the offender,
65:32 in the perpetrator, in the transgressor. Holding a grudge is like saying, I
65:38 expect you to change your behavior otherwise you will I will never forgive you. That's a grudge. So, there's an
65:44 element of deterrence. There's an element of education, a missionary element of education and there's an
65:50 element of behavior modification in a typical healthy grudge which usually
65:56 selfexpires is an expiry date is self-limiting is a shelf life. But with
66:02 a narcissist, the grudge is infinite. It never goes away. The narcissist never
66:08 forgives. He keeps revisiting his own humiliation and shaming, his own
66:15 sense of injury, including moral injury. He keeps revisiting it. He keeps ruminating. He keeps obsessing. So there's not much deterrence
66:26 accomplished. And the narcissist is totally not interested in the alleged
66:33 perpetrator or offenders behavior and its modification. It's not external. I keep explaining to you the narcissist's grudge is not external.
66:44 The narcissist grudge doesn't even have to do with reputation.
66:50 Although there is a component, a reputational component in in in the narcissist grudge. A typical grudge a grudge with a healthy person has to do
67:01 with reput the reputational costs of forgiving. When you forgive, you may
67:08 appear weak and vulnerable to others and then they may misunderstand and think
67:15 that you are ready and available prey. You attract predators by forgiving. You
67:21 attract predators. So, it's much better to maintain a grudge thereby enhancing
67:27 or sustaining your reputation and deterring other potential predators, other potential offenders and perpetrators and and so on. The
67:38 narcissist is interested in this component of reputation in as much and in as far as it is an integral element
67:46 of his grandiosity, but not otherwise. Because a narcissist is incapable of
67:52 perceiving other people as external objects. The narcissist doesn't really care about
67:59 his or her reput reputation. The narcissist wants to be known, wants
68:05 to be famous, wants to be celebrated and agulated and admired and so on. But all these have nothing to do with reputation. Reputation is about dignity, self-respect, integrity.
68:18 Narcissists don't do these things. They don't manage reputations. They don't care about reputational cost. But they do care about appearing weak,
68:30 appearing vulnerable. They want to appear strong. They want to be feared or
68:36 they want to be respected or they want to be both, feared and respected. So grudge in the case of the narcissist is less about other people and more
68:48 about himself. He it's in it's a form of impression management. He wants to
68:54 impress people with his inability to forgive and to forget. Don't screw with
69:00 me because I never forgive and I never forget. It's kind of a mafia thing. An immature mafia thing. Mafias are
69:08 generally immature. there's a lot of infantilism among uh
69:14 organized in organized crime. Now, one last comment.
69:21 Those of you who have watched um or unfortunate enough to watch my videos about narcissistic motification, one of the solutions to narcissistic
69:32 motification is known as the external solution. Just to remind you, narcissistic motification is when the
69:39 narcissist is shamed in public in front of meaningful others or significant others that creates a kind of snowball
69:47 effect and the compensation and total disintegration of the narcissist personality and so on and so forth. I
69:53 will not go into this. Please watch my videos on notification. There are two solutions to motification. One of them
69:59 is known as the external solution. blaming others, assigning guilt to others, saying other
70:07 people are evil, other people are malicious, other people have conspired against me. It's a bit a bit of a
70:14 paranoid solution, but not entirely. So the external solution to narcissistic
70:20 modification demands or requires the perpetuation and nourishment of an
70:27 eternal grudge or because other people there's a mechanism of splitting. Other people are
70:34 evil. Other people with malevolent malign intent have conspired against me
70:40 to humiliate me in public and so on so forth. I can never forgive these people because this is their essence. Their
70:48 wickedness is who they are. How can I forgive them? It would be an irrational thing to do to forgive them.
70:55 And within the external solution to narcissistic motification, the narcissist generates or creates a
71:02 narrative whereby he is the victim. It's a victimhood narrative. He is the victim
71:09 of people who are unscrupulous, callous, ruthless, in other words,
71:16 psychopathic. And narcissist emphasizes the severe consequences the motification has had.
71:24 He insists that it's a part of a pattern. People have been conspiring against him all the time and especially
71:30 these people, these wicked lot. He claims that what has been done to him is inexcusable. immoral, gratuitous, unnecessarily mean, nasty and cruel. Um he emphasizes that as a victim he has
71:46 lost much more than the perpetrator has gained. This is known as magnitude gap.
71:52 And finally he claims that what has has been done to him has been disproportional.
71:58 The victimhood stance of the narcissist is so crucial to his to the management
72:04 of his own internal world. And I've explained it in numerous other videos. So crucial
72:11 that he chooses to to maintain long-term grudges because
72:17 these long-term grudges provide the proof, the evidence, and the justification for his self-perception as
72:25 an eternal victim. a victim uh that is innocent,
72:31 a victim that bears no responsibility or contribution to what has been done to him, didn't have it coming and so on and so forth. Again, of course, we are
72:42 dealing with a splitting mechanism. As you can see, the narcissist has
72:48 excellent psychonamic reasons, psychological reasons to maintain a grudge. Not to get rid of it, to on the
72:57 very contrary, nourish it, make it flourish and thrive, make it take over the personality. Because a grudge is an organizing principle. A grudge makes
73:08 sense of the narcissist's life. It explains to the narcissist what's happening to him and what has happened
73:14 to him. It also puts the narcissist places the narcissist firmly in the camp
73:20 of good against evil. It fulfills so many functions. It allows the narcissist
73:26 to constitute or reconstitute his grandiosity, exact revenge,
73:32 payback, justice, equity, uh vindication,
73:38 restoring a sense of control over over his life. Too many too many good reasons
73:45 to hold a grudge and literally no reason to give up on
73:51 the grudge. And this is why narcissist. So have a grudgeless day, have fun,
74:00 forgive, forget, and move on. Unless, of course, you're a narcissist.
74:10 Hoovering is one of the greatest mysteries in narcissism. Never mind who has done the dumping, who
74:18 broke up with whom. The narcissist experiences usually narcissistic injury
74:24 of some kind. Narcissists are incapable of experiencing emotions the way normal
74:30 people do, healthy people do. They mislabel, misinterpret emotions,
74:36 including negative emotions, definitely positive ones. The breakup is translated in the
74:42 narcissist's mind as a rejection. And in this sense, the narcissist is very similar to the borderline. He perceives
74:49 everything in terms of abandonment, in terms of rejection, in terms of humiliation.
74:56 So the experience is unpleasant even in the best of times and especially with the narcissist. Why would he wish to
75:03 revisit this trauma? Why would he reenact
75:10 um the failed relationship? Basically,
75:16 because narcissists constantly reenact conflicts.
75:22 Narcissists are engaged in reenacting early childhood conflicts with their biological mother, the mother of origin. This is known as the shared fantasy. And
75:33 similarly, hoovering is a reenactment of the fate relationship with the
75:40 usually crazy expectation of a different outcome. And I propose crazy
75:46 expectations. My name is Sanvakn. I'm the author of malignant self-love, narcissism
75:52 revisited, a former visiting professor of psychology and currently on the faculty of seps.
76:00 Hoovering involves the re idealization of a persary object. You remember last
76:08 time you were with a narcissist, he devalued you. He discarded you. He began to regard you as the enemy. He developed a secretary delusions and ideiation,
76:19 paranoid ideation. It was really bad. You became the bet noir. You were the
76:26 enemy. and then he got rid of you in order to reenact the separation individuation
76:33 from his mother and he failed. But what's left behind, what was left behind
76:39 was the internal object that represented you in the narcissist's mind. Initially
76:46 this object has been idealized in the lab bombing phase and then the object
76:53 has been devalued painted and tainted with hues of hostility and enmity and
77:01 animosity. So there the narcissist is stuck with a persary object that used to
77:07 be you. And this pseudary object is somehow minutace. It's a bit
77:13 threatening. It's nagging. It's a constant reminder that the narcissist
77:19 has failed and that he is not such a good judge of character as he considers
77:25 himself to be. He is not godly. He is not omnisient. In short, the persary the
77:31 persistence and survival of a persary object in the narcissist's mind is a
77:37 constant engine of dissonance and anxiety. And to get rid of this dissonance and
77:44 anxiety, there's only one way out to re idealize you.
77:50 And so hoovering is driven by internal dynamics, not by external ones. Now,
77:57 there are two ways to re idealize the persary object. And again, to remind you, the persary object is the internal
78:05 object in the narcissist's mind that represents you. In the last phase of the relationship, you became the enemy, the foe. And when you've left, when he discarded you or you dumped him, the persecutive object was left behind. And Naris needs to re idealize it in order
78:23 to avoid dissonance and anxiety. And there are two ways of doing this. He can
78:29 reacquire you. He can reintroduce you into a shared fantasy. And then he would
78:35 be able to idealize you all over again. And the other option is to find someone
78:41 else, not you, and then superimpose your internal object or the internal object that represents you, your introject, to
78:52 superimpose it on her. Now, throughout this lecture, the gender pronouns are
78:58 interchangeable. Half of all narcissists are women. So, option number one, the narcissist
79:06 would try to get back with you. try to somehow reestablish the connection, um, reintroduce you into a shared fantasy, offer you a way to re reconcile and be
79:18 together, and then he would love bomb you and idealize you all over again. And that would resolve the inner discomfort, the dissonance, and the internal narcissistic injury of having failed with you. Option one. Option two, he finds someone else and then he re
79:36 idealizes your object. The object that represents you in his mind, but he
79:42 projects it onto the new partner. The new partner becomes in in in the
79:48 narcissist's mind, the new partner becomes your clone, your replica, your extension, your continuation. You these are the two ways. So the
80:01 narcissist could re idealize successive partners with a single internal object
80:07 which used to be yours or which used to represent you. Or he could fetch you specifically in
80:15 order to match you again with the exter internal object and be able to idealize
80:21 it. All in all, it is an attempt to resume
80:28 the disrupted shared fantasy. It's about the resumption of the shared fantasy.
80:34 Shared fantasy has been disrupted owing to the narcissist needs,
80:40 the need to separate, the need to individuate, and the derivative needs to
80:46 somehow get rid of you as a representative of the mother. get rid of mother in a way. You were the maternal figure getting rid of you is as good as
80:57 it gets when it comes to separation individuation. But now this leaves behind a gaping hole
81:04 where you used to be. And this is a very threatening hole. It's a it's a vacuum
81:11 or lacuna or emptiness that threatens the narcissist's precarious internal
81:17 balance because it is the figure of an enemy. An enemy within a Trojan horse, a
81:24 fifth columnist needs to get rid of it by resuming the shared fantasy.
81:31 This is also an attempt to establish object constancy
81:37 based on introject constancy. Now you remember that the narcissist has
81:43 problems with object constancy. He has something called object inconstancy
81:49 because he's unable to perceive the externality and separateness of other
81:55 people known as objects in psychology. because he's unable to do this. He's
82:02 unable to uh maintain a constancy of these people in reality. He's unable to believe if you wish to convince himself
82:13 somehow that these people will be there the next day. Instead, what the narcissist does, he
82:19 compensates for this object inconstancy by creating stable, safe, permanent,
82:27 perpetual introjects, internal objects that represent people in his life. But
82:34 whereas people in his life can vanish, can abandon him, can separate from him, can run away, etc.,
82:42 The internal objects that represent these people in his mind can't do any of these things. He cannot be abandoned by
82:49 these internal objects. They're safe. They become a kind of internal secure
82:55 base. So hoovering is an attempt to match an external object which is inconstant coming going an external object that has
83:09 abandoned the narcissist that has been discarded by the narcissist that has dumped the narcissist that has gone out
83:15 of the narcissist's life and therefore cannot be trusted to be there. So there's an attempt to match this kind of
83:21 external object with the internal object that used to represent this external object in the narcissist's mind. The
83:29 internal object is still there, will always be there. It's stable. It's safe. So the narcissist tries to extend this stability, this sense of security, this
83:41 determinacy. He tries to extend it onto the external object by matching the
83:47 internal object, the introject with the external object. And this is hoovering.
83:54 And of course, time stands still in the narcissist mind. the um effort the the idea or the effort
84:05 of bringing you together with with your introject kind of a marriage a second marriage between you as an external object and
84:16 the internal object that represents you in the narcissist mind. This attempt to merge you somehow with the internal
84:23 object uh uh occurs or happens at the exact point
84:31 of the breakup. It's as if time stood still as if the narcissist attempts to resume
84:40 or renew the shared fantasy at the moment that it stopped at the moment of the breakup at the moment of the separation. is as if no time has passed
84:52 between the termination of the previous shared fantasy and the resumption of the new one. Even if 10 years have passed,
85:00 as far as a narcissist is concerned, you're frozen in time because your introject is inside his mind and it
85:06 hasn't changed. So the narcissist resumes, takes off where the previous
85:14 shared fantasy has ended. And all this is accomplished by combining dissociation. Narcissis
85:21 dissociates the in the the intervening time. Dissociates the time lapse or the the
85:27 period between the old shared fantasy and the new shared fantasy is as if time hasn't passed at all. You haven't
85:34 changed. Nothing has happened. It was just a dream, a bad dream. So dissociation and confabulation. The narcissist bridges the dissociative gap between the
85:46 old fantasy and the new fantasy by creating some kind of narrative. I don't
85:52 know you are waiting for him. You are destined to be together. Your twin flames, soulmates, you name it. You are
85:59 there's a narrative. There's a story that compels both of you to end up time and again within the same shared
86:06 fantasy. If you take dissociation and combine combine it with confabulation,
86:12 you get a time artifact, you get a kind of uh um smooth transition between the
86:22 past and the future without any present. So you broke up in 2020
86:31 and time stood still and then in 2030 the narcissist picks up where you have
86:38 ended in 2020 and pretends that nothing has happened between 2020 and 2030. Dissociation and
86:46 tribulation. The object you is frozen in time because
86:52 the narcissist interacts with the internal object in his mind with the introject with the avatar that represents you never with you. So what happens if and when the hoovering
87:08 is successful when you've been baited and trapped yet again in the new shared
87:15 fantasy? First of all, the hoovering shared fantasy, shared
87:21 fantasy number two 2.0 is unstable as opposed to the first fantasy. The first shared fantasy which had a goal, a
87:33 direction, purpose and orientation. The second shared fantasy doesn't.
87:40 The initial shared fantasy with you converted you into a maternal figure
87:46 and allowed the narcissist to separate from you and to try to become an
87:52 individual to somehow reenact the conflict with his original mother hoping
87:59 for a different much more favorable outcome. So the first shared fantasy is goal oriented dynamic. It had an end point and a beginning. It was a cohesive
88:11 coherent narrative which invariably ends with a separation.
88:18 The second shared fantasy, the successive shared fantasy, the hoovering, the shared fantasy generated
88:24 by the hoovering attempt has no goal and no purpose. It has lost its reset.
88:32 Um, it is not about separation anymore because the separation has been accomplished in the discard phase of the
88:40 previous shared fantasy. When the narcissist has discarded you or when you have dumped the narcissist,
88:47 separation has been accomplished. Mission accomplished. The second shared fantasy doesn't have
88:53 separation as its goal, but unfortunately it doesn't have anything
88:59 else as its goal. The narcissist is lost, confused, discombobulated.
89:06 He doesn't know where he's going with his shirt fantasy, with his hoovering shirt fantasy. And the hoovering shirt
89:12 fantasy, the secondary fantasy is very unstable because it's very fuzzy. It's unclear.
89:21 It's nondirectional. H the narrative, the story line is
89:27 mangled somehow. The second shared fantasy, the hoovering
89:33 shared fantasy revolves around individuation. Whereas the first shared fantasy with
89:40 you had to do with separation, the narcissist tries to use or leverage the
89:47 second shared fantasy with you in the wake of his hoovering in order to individuate. But the narcissist doesn't know how to become an individual. The narcissist is
89:59 subject to negative identity formation. The narcissist's identity is in
90:05 contradistinction to others, in conflict with others, in contradiction to others.
90:11 The narcissist is antisocial, he's defiant, he's consumious, he rejects authority, he's reckless. These are his identity parameters.
90:22 So when the narcissist tries to individuate within the hoovering shirt fantasy, the second shirt fantasy with
90:29 you, he becomes extremely self-destructive, self-defeating,
90:35 aggressive, sometimes violent, defiant,
90:41 um hateful, reckless, addictive, addicted to this and that
90:48 substances for example. The second shared fantasy is very labile, very disregulated and
90:56 resemble and the narcissist in the hoovering shared fantasy resembles a borderline actually precisely because he
91:05 has lost the plot. He now tries to be to become something an individual
91:13 in which he has no experience. He's never been an individual. is never really separated.
91:19 And so the second shared fantasy, the hoovering shared fantasy is doomed to fail. But whereas the first shared
91:27 fantasy what had failure had the concept of failure baked into it, hardwired. The second shared fantasy fails by
91:39 default. It fails because um it it's not working.
91:45 The narcissist really tries in the hoovering shared fantasy. He really tries to learn from his mistakes in the
91:51 previous fantasy and somehow accommodate you and him and cater to your needs. But he's incapable of any of this. So the second shared fantasy, the hoovering shared fantasy is a lot more tragic,
92:03 heart-rending um and heartbreaking than the first one.
92:09 In the first one, the narcissist is robotic. He he goes through the motions
92:15 half awake as if he's sleepwalking inexurably drawn to the act of
92:22 separating from you in order to resolve early childhood conflicts. In the second
92:29 fantasy in the hoovering fantasy he tries and keeps failing. All his
92:35 attempts crumble. He tries to be an individual and also fails. He just becomes
92:42 disregulated, leiile, antisocial, defiant, a brazy, unpleasant, obnoxious
92:49 and so on so forth until this second second shared fantasy fails as well. It
92:56 doesn't preclude hoovering a third time and a fourth time. But all these are secondary shared fantasies and are liable to end the very same way. The
93:08 narcissist's life is tragic in many ways.
93:17 Out of the goodness of my infinite heart and the uncontested benevolence that is
93:23 associated with my name, I hereby dain and consent to respond to two of your
93:31 queries. Don't push your luck.
93:38 Okay, my name is Sam Baklin. I'm the author of Malignant Self Love, Narcissism Revisited. I'm also a professor of psychology unfortunately for all my students.
93:49 First question that I received on in the comment section. I have a question about narcissists
93:56 talking after a romantic relationship ending. Narcissis is calling, texting, sending
94:03 messages through third party with the aim of reuniting. Could it be viewed as a prolonged
94:09 Ubering? I would be most grateful for an extensive answer from a person with
94:15 credentials such as yours. Thank you. A little flattery will go a
94:22 long way with me. Okay. Shashanim or Shashan. In this
94:29 particular case, there is a um an abyss, a gulf, a huge difference
94:38 between stalking and hoovering. One could even say that hoovering is the opposite of stalking. Yes, I know it
94:44 sounds strange because outwardly they look the same. In both cases,
94:51 stalking and hoovering, there's a person who is on your case, keeps calling, keeps messaging, keeps u um interfering in your life, keeps communicating with
95:02 you via third parties including flying monkeys and so on and so forth. Both in both cases in both cases um the this
95:12 attention is usually unwanted. Not always, but usually unwanted. In hoovering, some some people like it, but stalking is definitely unwanted. So,
95:23 what are the differences? Stalking is about control and sometimes
95:29 about vengeance. It's a form of exerting or reasserting control over the the one who got away
95:37 and then manipulating via fear and intimidation
95:43 in order to create circumstances favorable to some to the attainment of
95:49 some goal. The goal could be sex, the goal could be vengeance, the goal but it's goal
95:55 oriented. Stalking in this sense is psychopathic. Hoovering is narcissistic
96:02 and like everything else about narcissism, it has to do with narcissistic supply. Hoovering is a form of co-idalization. Let me remind you what is co-
96:14 idealization. Co idealization is when the narcissist lovebombs you, tells you that you're perfect, you could do no wrong, you're drop dead gorgeous, you are hyper intelligent, you're the best thing that has ever ever happened to him, you're a gift to humanity and
96:30 definitely to him, etc., etc. So, in this process of idealizing you, the
96:36 narcissist is actually idealizing himself as well because he is the owner. He is your own. He owns you. is the owner of an ideal object which renders
96:47 him ideal as well. It's like owning a flashy car or the
96:54 latest smartphone. You know, it it's a kind of status symbol. It says something about you. So, idealization is always co- idealization. The narcissist
97:06 idealizes you mostly in order to idealize himself.
97:12 If you are super intelligent, what does it say about the narcissist? That he is your equal or probably your superior,
97:20 more intelligent than you and therefore a genius. If you are drop dead gorgeous, it means the narcissist is irresistibly
97:27 attractive and so on so forth. Coidalization hoovering is an attempt to re idealize
97:37 to introduce again idealization into the relationship. in order to re idealize the narcissist.
97:45 So hoovering is about self-supp. The narcissist idealizes you or re
97:53 idealizes you, having discarded you, having devalued you, having mistreated you, having abused you, having fought
97:59 you in court, having stopped you perhaps, having tortured you and tormented you and punished you and
98:05 everything. It's as if nothing has happened because narcissists don't have memory. You may you may recall. Yes,
98:13 there is severe problem with dissociation and memory gaps. They always start from zero. Every day is new. No credit is accumulated. No memories are there. So the narcissist
98:25 approaches you as if there is a blank slate. no history,
98:31 no egregious acts, no no attempts to compromise you and ruin your life. Nothing. None of this has happened. He approaches you as innocently as the in
98:42 as the driven snow and he asks you to be in a relation to be in the shared fantasy and he starts immediately embarks immediately on re idealizing you
98:53 thereby re ideal re idealizing himself in relationship in relation to you. So
98:59 as you see this has nothing to do with stalking. It's not about control. It's not about any goal like sex or vengeance or money or whatever. It's not psychopathy and it's not about you.
99:12 Hoovering is not about you. Stalking is about you. Hoovering is not about you. Hoovering is about the narcissist. Okay,
99:19 I think I've exhausted the subject and the subject exhausted me which forces me
99:25 to move on to the next question. Why do female
99:31 covert narcissist Why does she allow an awful amount of
99:37 abuse from cerebral narcissist and other similar types
99:43 but when she's dating a normal non-narcissist? She is furious over innocent mistakes or minor mistakes. In
99:52 other words, a double standard. When the covert narcissist is with a
99:58 cerebral narcissist or you know she allows the cerebral narcissist to abuse
100:05 her egregiously even extremely and so on. But when she's with a normal guy
100:11 um you know healthy relatively healthy definitely not a narcissist she does the
100:17 same to that person. She abuses that person the way the cerebral narcissist
100:24 abuses her. Why this double standard? Well, the answer is that the
100:30 aforementioned female covert I don't know why female by the way. Half of all narcissists are men, but okay. The
100:36 aforementioned female covert narcissist is submissive with people she perceives as dominant. And
100:47 she is dominant with people she perceives as submissive. She abuses downwards, never upwards. She exerts dominance and control
100:59 downwards, never upwards. Upwards, she's a lucky. Upwards, she's
101:05 an ass licker. Upwards, she's she's obserious. Obsicuruous. Up. Upwards.
101:12 people who she perceives as superior to her or in a superior position to her
101:18 somehow. People she needs, people she deres narcissistic supply from or
101:24 through narcissistic supply by proxy vicariously and so on. These are
101:30 significant people in her life and so she would not dare to abuse them and she would tolerate their abuse. However,
101:38 people who are beneath her, inferior to her would trigger in her the narcissist
101:44 and she would become extremely abusive. It is a way to compensate
101:50 um for the humiliation and the rage associated with being submissive. In
101:56 other words, when she abuses a healthy, normal guy,
102:02 it's as if she's compensating for having been abused by a cerebral narcissist. And we call this process,
102:11 the clinical term is displacement. She displaces her negative effects, her
102:18 negative emotions. and uh she displaces them from someone
102:24 who cannot be a target to someone who can be a target. She she is very
102:31 selective in targeting people. Actually displacement is a very common phenomenon even among healthy normal people. You go to work, your boss is on your case. Your boss humiliates you
102:44 publicly, shames you, attacks you, criticizes you relentlessly and endlessly, and so on so forth. You've
102:50 had a horrible day. But you can't shout at your boss. You can't demean or criticize your boss. You
102:57 can't humiliate your boss unless you want to lose your job. So, you bite your lips. You You stand down.
103:08 You accept. You're meek. You're weak. You're there and you are the target of
103:18 the boss's attentions, negative attentions, and you are like the dart
103:24 board. You know, you're you're there's a bullseye on your back, and everyone is shooting at it. So, there's a lot of
103:32 resentment, a lot of humiliation, a lot of shame, and a lot of rage or anger in you, but they're pent up. cannot express them as the boss is not a legitimate
103:43 target. The cost of counterattacking the boss would be calamitous. You would lose your job and you really need it. So what
103:54 you do, you go back home and you take it out on your wife or your children or the
104:00 neighbor or some stranger and that's called displacement. Happens a lot. And
104:06 the question described the typical displacement in narcissism
104:15 because all narcissists, not only covert, all narcissists displace negative effects. They rage at the wrong targets.
104:26 They envy the wrong people. They they always displace because they don't dare.
104:32 They're cowards. The bullies. Bullies are cowards. They don't dare to attack
104:38 or to counterattack or to to respond in kind to their own tormentors and so on.
104:46 When they have a role model, for example, they would accept anything. When they have a boss or an authority
104:52 figure which they are afraid of or respect or whatever then they would
104:58 tolerate anything and everything and they would go home and they would take it out on the intimate partner or they would externalize aggression in some way. Uh it could even push them to the point of becoming momentarily a psychopath. So this is the answer displacement.
105:18 Okay, as you as you see, narcissism is a delectable phenomenon
105:24 and I wish you all uh good recovery from this video.

Summary Link:

https://vakninsummaries.com/ (Full summaries of Sam Vaknin’s videos)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/mediakit.html (My work in psychology: Media Kit and Press Room)

Bonus Consultations with Sam Vaknin or Lidija Rangelovska (or both) http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ctcounsel.html

http://www.youtube.com/samvaknin (Narcissists, Psychopaths, Abuse)

http://www.youtube.com/vakninmusings (World in Conflict and Transition)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com (Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/cv.html (Biography and Resume)

Summary

No text Hey Vaknin, you tell me it is not true that the narcissist invariably devalues and discards his intimate partner. My grandfather was a rank prime narcissist.

Fantasy, it's, narcissism, narcissist, Personality, Psychology, Sam Vaknin, Shared, Vaknin, Vaknin Summaries

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