Narcissist's Alien World (with Blake Anderson)

Narcissist’s Alien World (with Blake Anderson)

Summary

and you know I do different modalities approaches um you know family systems theory and using Bowen and um you know No text I've come across your work um you know maybe about five six years ago and you know I've read your book and I watched u many of your videos and I know that I understand that you um what to say defined narcissism abuse and were you know the first one to really coin a lot of the terms and so I guess yeah just I'll go get into my first question and um we'll go from there. But um but then I contrast that with a bit more your approach cuz I you know obviously I.

Abuse, narcissism, narcissist, Personality, Psychology, Reality, Sam Vaknin, Trauma, Vaknin, Vaknin Summaries

July 2, 2025

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00:00 No text Here we go. Sure. I'm recording. Okay. And and maybe I'll do, if you don't mind, maybe an intro on my own if that's fine. Or if I can introduce me. You want
00:11 to introduce Introduce yourself? Okay. Well, my name is Blake Anderson and I'm
00:17 a registered social worker here in Toronto, Ontario. And I'm I've been a therapist for the last 5 years. And I specialize, you know, help helping people with um, you know, this dynamic
00:29 with either emotionally immature parents or I guess have a level of narcissism.
00:35 And so it's often working with, you know, those on the receiving end, uh, of that dynamic.
00:41 and you know I do different modalities approaches um you know family systems theory and using Bowen and um you know
00:47 No text I've come across your work um you know maybe about five six years ago and you know I've read your book and I watched u many of your videos and I know that I
01:00 understand that you um what to say defined narcissism abuse and were you know the first one to really coin a lot of the terms and so I guess yeah just I'll go get into my first question and
01:12 um we'll go from there. That's Yes, please go ahead. Great. Well, so um where to start? So,
01:21 you know, I guess how do you like so I I've in this course I'm doing I'm I've been kind of framing things in a either
01:28 an emotionally mature lens in terms of I take from uh Lindsay Gibson's work and I'm sure maybe you've come across her and she's quite popular in some circles and you know she sees it obviously as
01:39 more of a developmental lens where perhaps there's more to say optimism in the sense that it's more maybe about how
01:45 you can communicate with these adults of um emotionally immature that are emotionally immature. But um but then I
01:52 contrast that with a bit more your approach cuz I you know obviously I think you're talking more about the cluster B and about narcissism and I
02:00 think uh it's what to say maybe more dire perhaps or just maybe you're more realistic in the sense of these individuals and and just the capacity they have right so I guess how do you make that distinction I know that you
02:12 know there's obviously diagnosed narcissists and there's also ones who might have characteristics and and I I know you probably know that all narcissists are emotionally mature but not allot mature people are narcissistic. But anyway, maybe how do
02:24 you define that and do you make that distinction or and I understand cluster B as well was originally seen as
02:30 immature. Uh that was the way it was framed I think originally maybe. So um anyway
02:37 cluster B is actually described as erratic or dramatic. The erratic or dramatic cluster and of course children are toddlers to be more precise.
02:48 dramatic and an erratic. So there's a confluence here. Narcissists No text definitely are emotionally immature. They are stuck somewhere between the ages of two and three prior to what
03:01 Miler called separation individuation. The pathological narcissism is a
03:07 disruption in the process of the formation, constellation and integration of a functional self.
03:15 So these people are devoid of a functional self. Ironically, narcissists are selfless. They are they don't have an ego if you want to use Freud's um language.
03:28 But emotional immaturity is the least of the narcissist problems and the list of the narcissist's nearest and dearest
03:35 problems. Narcissist, pathological narcissism is an ex exceedingly severe
03:42 mental health illness, mental illness. And that is not Samb Vaknin, that is No text Otto Kernburg, one of the fathers of the field who essentially claimed that
03:54 narcissism and borderline are flip sides of the same coin or actually that narcissism, pathological narcissism is a
04:00 defense against borderline personality organization and then proceeded to
04:06 suggest that they're both on the verge or on the edge between neurosis and psychosis. In other words, they are pseudocychotic. They're almost psychotic. Kberg implied that narcissism is a form of schizophrenia, attenuated if you wish, or amilarated schizophrenia. But a
04:24 really severe issue. It's not only emotionally immaturity. He's not only a Peter Pan syndrome. He's not only
04:30 someone who refuses to grow up and and abures his adult responsibilities and
04:38 chores and and so that we're not talking about these kind of people. We we're talking about people who as I said are
04:47 devoid of a functional self. We are talking about people who cannot tell the difference between external objects and
04:53 internal objects. So when they come across you they convert you instantaneously into an internal object
04:59 and they begin to regard you as an extension as a prop. They are unable to
05:06 accept or digest or come to terms with your externality and separateness.
05:12 These are people who have extreme deficiencies in self-concept
05:18 um in intimacy in the capacity for intimacy in uh I mean we are talking No text about a devastation we're talking about a wasteland we're not talking about people who are you know a bit a bit
05:30 childish a bit not serious a bit you know they grow up only in their 40s and
05:36 50s if if ever we about these kind of people these kind of people are benign compared to the Nazis narcissist and
05:43 conflating the two is unwise. It's uh because emotional immaturity in the case
05:49 of narcissism is derivative. It's the outcome of um adverse and pernicious
05:56 psychological dynamics and processes. Whereas in classically emotionally
06:02 mature people, that's the major problem and it's the primary issue and you can
06:08 cope with it. The prognosis for these kind of people is pretty good. I mean it's not a big not a big deal so to
06:14 speak. A bit a bit of CBT, a bit of this, a bit of that. Internal family system, uh transactional analysis, I
06:22 mean you name it and the results are impressive because these people are mentally healthy. No one has proven convincingly or
06:34 created a paradigm convincing paradigm or theory that emotional maturity
06:41 is the equivalent of mental health or is a precondition for mental health. No one
06:48 came up with this. There's no theory. Um there are of course theories like social learning and this and that but
06:55 the conflating mental health with emotional maturity is wrong is absolutely wrong because
07:03 children are emotionally uh mentally healthy. Children are not mentally ill.
07:10 So you you need something in in addition to being a child and this is where the
07:16 all pervasive insidious disastrous calamitous nature of narcissism comes
07:22 in. The narcissist has an impact on his environment
07:28 because he's not a full-fledged human being. He's halfbaked.
07:34 He is um to to a large extent some kind of artificial intelligence. Now, I know
07:40 this is politically incorrect. You're not supposed to say this is wrong. You may lose your job or license or both if
07:46 you dare to say these things. But that happens to be the truth. Take away empathy. Take away access to positive
07:53 emotions. Take away a functional constellated integrated self, a unitary
07:59 core identity. Take away um the ability to regulate, self-regulate, take I mean
08:06 take away so many things. What is left? What is left? Someone with a few skills.
08:15 Even even if that person is accomplished, is that a person? Is there personhood there?
08:21 I strongly and greatly doubt this. I think the minimal conditions for
08:28 identifying someone as a person, in other words, imputing personhood and
08:34 personality, these minimal conditions are not met in the case of narcissism. In many ways, even the psychopath is a lot more mentally healthy than the narcissist.
08:45 and even to some extent the borderline in some ways empathy for example capacity to experience emotions the borderline is superior to the narcissism
08:56 and um so we're talking about a really really you know extreme case of mental illness here okay I see that makes sense um I so I
09:09 just want to go back yet you mentioned the notion that they make you into internal objects um they convert you to
09:15 internal objects. And I've followed your work and you talk about snapshotting and
09:21 there's this notion that I I think you're saying like they have this idolized image of you and then they they interact with that idolized image and like I'm thinking with parents, right? You could maybe it's they have this
09:33 snapshot of you maybe when you're 12. And I think what you say is that there's, you know, healthy people, I think we all have snapshots, I think you
09:39 said, but that we update it over time and we, you know, as we get to know the person, but with a narcissist, they very
09:45 much, they might add maybe to it, but it's largely, I think, intact, my understanding. So, and I think, you
09:51 know, you go back home maybe with your parents and if they're narcissistic, they they kind of revert you, it seems, back to this like 12-year-old or this
09:57 young part of yourself. And as long as you go along with that snapshot or the way that I guess you're giving them narcissistic supply, everything is fine. But if you you kind of go out out of that and I guess be your authentic self,
10:09 um you you want to differentiate from the family that becomes a threat. So yeah, I'm just curious is that how you see it or is there anything I'm missing and what I kind of shared? Well, the
10:20 ideology definitely has to do with a a family or household setting that is
10:26 um not conducive to the emergence of a of a self, not conducive to the formation of an individual, someone divided from the parental
10:37 figures. Um, and I've dwelt I've dealt with this and dwelt on it uh in in hundreds of
10:44 videos. Um in a nutshell we are talking about
10:50 parental figures with a strong emphasis on the mother in the first 36 months. No text A mother who is not good enough in Winnott's terms and dead metaphorically
11:03 speaking in Andre Green's um lingo language. It's a mother who is
11:09 emotionally absent, depressive, or narcissistic and selfish or insecure.
11:17 So, she doesn't provide a secure base, a sense of safety. A mother who is clinging and needy, overprotective.
11:24 A mother who may be spoiling and pampering and idealizing or idolizing the child, pedestalizing the child, thereby denying the child access to reality and peers.
11:37 In short, a mother who has no idea how to be a mother cannot cannot fine-tune herself, cannot find the delicate balance between being there and not being there. The art of motherhood is is about not
11:53 being. Because the mother's crucial essential primary role is to
12:01 push the child away. Is to allow the child to separate from her and become divided from her and then
12:08 walk away and then have a life of his or her own. Now many mothers find this a very threatening prospect and so they keep the child tethered and they don't allow
12:20 the child to explore the environment to interact with peers and simply to give
12:26 up on mother. A mother needs to have a very stable grounded core
12:33 in order to feel safe enough and loved enough to let the
12:39 child go and these mothers don't. So when we use the terms abuse and trauma
12:45 in the ethology of pathological narcissism, we don't mean we don't only mean sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, psychological abuse. These
12:56 are definitely precursors of both narcissistic personality disorder and
13:02 borderline personality disorder. But we also talk about
13:08 parents and especially mothers who would not let go, who bridge the child's nent
13:14 emerging boundaries, who do not allow the child to develop a self, who won't
13:20 let the child walk away and explore and discover. Mothers who do not uphold the
13:26 child's grandio self-concept initially, the what we call healthy narcissism.
13:33 mothers for example who are overprotective as I mentioned these kind of mothers so there are many forms of
13:39 abuse if you instrumentalize the child if you use the child to realize your own
13:45 unfulfilled dreams and wishes that's abuse if you parentify the child if you treat the child as your substitute spouse or your substitute father or mother if you as I said ped pedestalize the child and all these are forms of
14:02 abuse and trauma And they exist in the anomnesis. They exist in the background of literally all
14:09 narcissists. Now that is not to say that narcissis narcissism pathological narcissism
14:15 does not have a hereditary genetic component. It stands to reason that there is a genetic hereditary component. And that is not to say that narcissism is not associated with brain
14:26 abnormalities. Again, it makes sense to assume this. We don't have any proof of these two
14:33 claims, but they are reasonable claims. Having said all this,
14:39 your genes and your brain are not going to make you a narcissist unless and until you're exposed to this kind of
14:47 household. A household that is the equivalent of a permanent unseasing
14:54 earthquake where the parental figure are arbitrary, capriccious and threatening.
15:01 And so you have no resort and no way to derive a sense of calm and safety
15:09 to feel that they are a secure base. And at that point the child gives up on
15:15 reality. As usual with uh with these things, Sigman Freud was the first to suggest
15:22 that the reality principle precludes the pleasure principle and vice versa. Like
15:28 you have to make a choice in life. Either you choose reality or you choose pleasure, but you can't choose both. And he was largely right. And the choice this kind of child makes is to give up on reality and to substitute fantasy for reality. And the fantasy the child comes
15:45 up up with is very reminiscent of primitive pagan animistic religions. The
15:52 child comes up with a deity or a divinity which is the false self. And this deity and divinity is protective,
16:01 is impermeable, is immune, is untouchable, is omnisient, is
16:08 omnipotent. In short, it's godlike. At that moment, the child the child has
16:14 renounced reality usually for life. And that for the pro that choice
16:20 unfortunately is irreversible. Never mind all the claims by self-interested therapists and clinicians who make a lot of money out of selling useless therapies to
16:32 narcissists. Narcissism is the totality of the personality. It's
16:38 a choice to establish a self or to establish a personality founded on
16:44 counterfactual narratives, fantastic narratives, narratives that
16:51 involve essentially extreme cognitive distortions about the world out there
16:58 and about the self, about the self-concept. At that moment the child also becomes
17:04 very defensive because when you embed yourself in in fantasy
17:10 you are opening yourself to a barrage of challenges by harsh uncompromising
17:18 factual reality. So you're constantly on the defense. As you're constantly on the defense you need to deploy aggression to survive. So it's a very aggressive
17:31 disorder and again there are variety of manifestations of aggression but it's an essentially an aggressive disorder.
17:37 There a close affinity between narcissism and antisocial
17:43 antisociality or as as we call it in the ICD dissoci. So this is the ideological ideological picture and then you easily understand
17:56 why the narcissist is incapable of perceiving the external world. This
18:02 No text pathological narcissism relies fundamentally on the renouncing of reality and reality
18:11 therefore becomes at that moment the enemy. It is not that narcissist would like to
18:18 I mean like fantasy like daydreaming or even membership in a cult or even
18:24 membership in a cult like political movement or something like that. That's not the same because all these people
18:31 even psychopaths even they can they maintain reality testing. They're able to tell the difference
18:37 between reality and fantasy. The narcissist is not able to make this distinction. And in this sense,
18:44 pathological narcissism is a form of delusional disorder, extreme delusional
18:50 disorder involving even psychotic elements. So when the narcissist comes
18:56 across you and he says to himself, there's a process that I call spotting and auditioning. He says to himself, "Wow, this guy or this girl, they could
19:07 be great sources of narcissistic supply or they could participate in my shared fantasy.
19:13 or whatever. At that moment, the narcissist has to internalize you. He has to introject you. He has to create a representation in his mind of you as an
19:25 external object. Because if he were to relate to you as an external object, it
19:31 would open the gates to reality. And nothing is more threatening to the narcissist than reality. So the only way
19:40 to interact with you is by creating an avatar, a snapshot or in clinical terms
19:46 an intro and to continue to interact only exclusively
19:52 with this internal object which of course then raises the problem
19:58 that you are real. You are not an internal object ontologically speaking.
20:05 You are an external object. And immediately this creates conflict. There
20:11 is a divergence between you as an external object and the fixated internal object in the narcissist's mind. I mean you're alive, you're breathing, you have friends, you have family, you travel,
20:23 you have a job. Sometimes you're angry and sad. Sometimes you're happy and laughing. I mean, and all this
20:30 challenges the internal object. And the narcissist feels very threatened by the fact that you exist. And he needs to eliminate your existence because if he were to accept that you have agency and personal autonomy,
20:48 he would have performed the gates to reality. If he were to accept that you can diverge from the internal object, that you can deviate from the internal
21:01 object. If you were to accept this then he would have been for he would be forced to accept your externality and
21:08 separateness somewhere out there in reality and that is utterly unacceptable. So he needs to eliminate you. It's a process of
21:20 annihilation and negation. It's at the core of the narcissistic interpersonal
21:26 pathology. And the narcissist deadens, introduces death to everything and everyone around him. He he injects everything with the mayasma of death. He makes everything
21:43 around him and every one around him dead because only dead objects are
21:50 sufficiently inert and sufficiently pred predictable to not challenge the fantasy
21:59 that had become the narcissist. The narcissist vanishes as a child completely disappears and be he becomes the false self. It
22:10 becomes the fantasy. And so whatever the narcissist experiences as a as a child, he attempts
22:18 to impose on you as an intimate partner or a friend or a colleague or whatever. He attempts to impose it on you. The
22:25 narcissist never experience separation from his mother. He does not allow you to separate from him. So there is a
22:33 symbiotic bond. The narcissist never had the chance to
22:39 experience reality. He does not want you to be real. He is trying to impose his internal world on you, which is what all humans do. All human beings do this. But in the
22:51 case of the narcissist, this internal world is really, really sick. And unless
22:57 you conform to this sickness, unless you agree to become as sick as the internal
23:03 object, as sick as the fantasy, and ultimately as sick as the narcissist himself, you have no place in the
23:10 narcissist's life and world. Those who stay, those who stick around ultimately
23:16 become very sick. I say that narcissism is contagious.
23:25 Yeah. That that that makes sense. It's Thank you for that. It's um this relates to think because you say that narcissist
23:31 doesn't really gaslight or manipulate necessarily, but it's it's kind of global of who they are or is that kind
23:37 of related to what you're talking about. It's you're saying it's like a psychosis or they're reality testing's off. And so
23:44 it's not necessarily they're intentionally gaslighting you or manipulating you per se. I guess that's what made my question is like you kind
23:51 of some people say they don't have conscious they don't know what they're doing sort of thing or it's unconscious but I think you seem to suggest that
23:57 there's a level of cold empathy or they they have some capacity to know what they're doing but they maybe they just
24:03 don't care or maybe you can clarify that like yeah just yeah first of all it's important to to realize that introjection as a process is a healthy process in children in childhood
24:16 introjection Well, is introduction is is a is the language of object relation schools. But many other theories in in uh many other schools in psychology have
24:28 the equivalent of introjection. For example, Bura social learning theory has the equivalent of introjection, imitation and imu emulation and so on. So introjection seems to be a real thing. An introjection in the case of
24:41 the of the child who is about to become a narcissist. Introjection there is like a sandbox. The narcissist uses introjection. The the child who who
24:53 is about to become a narcissist. So I will use the word narcissist. The narcissist as a child uses introjection
25:00 in order to create safe representation of people inside the sandbox that is
25:08 fireworld and allows him to interact with people to have interpersonal relationships with these introjects rather than with real people because real people are hurtful. Real people are threatening. Real people are I mean they
25:25 suck. Nari the the child doesn't want to interact with real people. So he creates
25:32 replicas clones of real people in his mind in his imagination. They're figments
25:38 and he creates this sandbox of introjection within which he he works.
25:44 And this sandbox is total and all inclusive. It's like a totalitarian regime you know in Aren's work. So it's
25:51 total and this means that the narcissist never ever for the rest of his life
25:58 exits the sandbox. It's like a child who's playing and then if you want to play with this child you
26:04 have to enter the sandbox. As you enter the sand sandbox you have to shed
26:10 your critical thinking, your reality testing, your personal autonomy, your
26:17 agency, your independence. You have to shed all these. You have to shed your affiliations, family, friends.
26:24 You have to. So, there's a lot of shedding going on. And by the time you've entered the sandbox, you're no longer yourself. You've given up given up on your identity. As far as the target or the victim or
26:37 the partner or call it as you wish of the narcissist is concerned, the experience is the experience of gaslighting.
26:48 So while it is true that the narcissist does not gaslight, the victim
26:54 experiences this as 100% gaslighting. The narcissist does not gaslight because he cannot tell the difference between
27:05 reality and fantasy. And when he makes claims about reality, ontological claims
27:11 about reality, and when he makes claims about his own thinking, epistemological claims, he believes the veracity of these claims 100%. He believes these claims to be 100% truthful. He does not for a second believe think
27:29 that he is misleading you or lying to you or deceiving you. No way. On the very contrary, he would insist
27:36 ferociously that he is the most truthful person ever, the most morally upright
27:43 and superior, you know, human being conceivable, he would defend this. He's very becomes very defensive about this. And because he cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy,
27:54 in other words, because he's delusional, there's there's no issue of premeditation or cunning or scheming or
28:02 goal orientation. It's all very very unconscious. Whereas gaslighting is definitely goal oriented. It's manipulative macavelian. It's conscious. It involves planning and execution feedback. And the gaslighter knows the
28:21 difference between reality and fantasy at any given moment. A psychopath, for example, would gaslight you and would
28:28 never lose sight of reality. Of course, it is in reality that the psychopath wants to realize his goals so he cannot lose touch with reality. It's there that
28:40 he would reap the rewards of the gaslighting. It is there that he would harvest the benefits of the gaslighting.
28:47 So psychopath remains firmly in reality intact reality
28:53 testing. That's not the the narcissist. Let me let me give you a um let me give you a a simile. Imagine that you have a psychotic patient. The psychotic patient says, "Do you see this lady at the corner? She's flirting with me. She's
29:09 grinning at me. She's winking at me. She's pouting at me. You know, she's flirting with me. Of course, there's no
29:16 lady at the corner. It's a hallucination. It's a psychotic person. Would you then say that the psychotic person is gaslighting you?
29:27 Of course you wouldn't. Although he is trying to change your reality,
29:34 your perception of reality. He is trying, the psychotic person is trying to convince you that you are deficient,
29:42 that something's wrong with you. A paranoid. The same a paranoid. You know,
29:48 you see all these conspiracy theories online. you know these paranoid people and they would tell you that you are stupid that if you don't believe in this conspiracy theory something's wrong with
29:59 you maybe you're stupid maybe you're deluded maybe someone maybe someone bought you paid you to not believe this so they they would challenge your reality your perception of reality in many ways they're gaslighting you aren't they no they are not because they
30:16 believe they're conspiracy theories they don't think they are somehow falsifying something. Nor do they want anything
30:22 from you. There's no goal orientation here. No. So definitely Nazis don't gaslight. However, you raised an issue
30:30 which baffles many people, layman, I'm talking baffles many laymen. On the one
30:37 hand, we say that narcissists are perfectly aware of their actions and they are. Narcissists are also capable
30:45 of telling the difference between right and wrong morally at least. So we have all the elements of agency
30:52 and all the elements of self-efficacy and so on. We have we have the elements
30:58 of mental health. These are people who know what they're doing and they know they know whether what they're doing is
31:04 considered to be uh wrong or right. In other words, one cannot use
31:11 narcissistic personality disorder as an insanity defense because there's no insanity here. There is the ability to tell right from wrong and there is full control over
31:22 one's impulses and so on. We know that this is the case because when we change the environment of the narcissist, the
31:30 behaviors change dramatically. They get modified. So when we put a narcissist in
31:36 prison, all narcissistic behaviors vanish overnight because if you are a classic narcissist in prison, it is not conducive to your
31:47 life expectancy. Let's put it this way. It's a good idea to not be a narcissist in prison. And that's exactly what happens. They lose their narcissism. They behave completely differently
31:59 empathically even. I mean, so people say, you see, it's a choice. That's a
32:05 choice because when they're in prison, they change. So they they can change. They're capable of change. So if they
32:12 don't change, it means they don't want to change. They don't care about us or they believe that they are superior or whatever. They have no incentive to change. But that is of course ignoring
32:23 the fact that in prison there is fear and actually the the disappearance of
32:30 the narcissistic behaviors is the equivalent of playing dead like animals
32:36 that play dead when they're threatened. The narcissist freezes. It's a freeze response.
32:42 So it's not real behavior modification. We know it's not real because the minute
32:48 the narcissist exits prison, he reverts fully to his previous uh misconduct.
32:56 So, it seems to be a freeze reaction. And so, the narcissist knows what he's
33:03 doing, but disagrees with society's judgment and opinion about his actions.
33:11 So the narcissist would do something truly evil if you wish and then when you tell the narcissist what you've done is
33:18 really bad really wrong it's not okay he would tell you you are wrong you know what society is wrong I have acted out of altruism tough love
33:30 I just wanted to help you or he will reframe his actions in a manner which is
33:36 self-enhancing egoonic and self-justifying So while narcissists know what they're
33:42 doing, they disagree with a moral judgment of which pertains to what
33:48 they're doing and they are also 100% unconscious as to why they are doing what they're doing. What what we call motivational attitude. They are 100% unaware of
34:02 motivations and attitudes. They are very very in this sense robotic. They go
34:08 through the motions. These motions are largely inexurable. The motivations and attitudes are
34:15 unconscious. They have no access to them. They don't have they a clue as to
34:21 why they've chosen a particular course of action rather than another. And they
34:27 just know that they have to do it. It's compulsive in this sense. So narcissism is a compulsion. And indeed Freud
34:34 described it as repetition compulsion. So because it's compulsive, we know that
34:40 in the case of obsessivecompulsive personality disorder, obsessivecompulsive disorder, we know
34:46 that the roots of the compulsion are totally submerged. They're totally unconscious. So you could describe the narcissist as a self-aware robot or a self-aware
34:59 artificial intelligence. Self self observing artificial intelligence.
35:05 There is a code. There is a program that dictates the behavior of the machine. But this machine is capable of observing itself doing whatever it is that it's doing. But this machine is not aware of
35:18 the programmer or the coder. It's not aware if you wish of the god. There's no there's not this machine has there's no god in this machine. And so
35:29 that's why while narcissist should be held accountable and responsible for their actions, it is wrong to say that
35:39 it is a a conscious choice. That is true of psychopaths.
35:46 Psychopaths are perfectly capable of modulating their behavior. They make choices which are totally conscious.
35:52 They're goal oriented. They're capable of verbalizing the goals, con conceptualizing the goal, embedding them
35:58 in a bigger narrative. So they have a vision they have a So while N psychopaths are impulsive and reckless
36:06 when you look at the larger period of time or bigger picture it's clear that the psychopath is goal oriented and the
36:14 goal dictates the actions and the whole process is premeditated conscious
36:20 analytical scheming cunning and so that's not the narcissist. The No text narcissist, I'm sorry to say, is nuts. It's a mentally ill wacko. It's a crazy
36:33 person. As we would not judge the psychotic, you know, we should not judge the
36:40 narcissist. Now, I'm using these words on purpose. They're politically incorrect. They're very evocative
36:47 because people can't seem to get it through them their heads. You know, it doesn't seem to penetrate the collective
36:53 thick skull of victims and and layman alike.
36:59 They attribute to the narcissist some demonic evil cunning and scheming.
37:06 They are they're confusing. They're conflating narcissists and psychopaths. No text Narcissists are pitiful. They are they are at the mercy of their pathology. They're as much victims of
37:18 the pathology as anyone else. and they've been victimized since age one or two.
37:25 Yeah. And that's the I think the tricky part, right? Is that you know, you let's just say you wake up to this reality in
37:31 your family that your parents are this way and you know I guess the risk is that you spend the majority of your life
37:37 just delving into all this and seeing yourself as maybe a victim but or you try to keep the narcissist accountable
37:43 but then there's no closure usually. And my I guess to me that's my question is what cuz it's tricky, right? Cuz
37:49 sometimes maybe you have parents that have narcissistic qualities but not maybe full-blown narcissism for a lot of
37:55 my clients, right? They they they you know they're traditional. They maybe want to have family and they don't want to push their family completely away.
38:01 But I I one of your videos you had like I think the top 10 reasons why you should maybe decide to leave your family
38:07 if it's really abusive. So I'm just curious what to say. Like some people want to work with their family. They might limit contact like just say on special occasions or they want to maintain that relationship with their father but the mom's kind of got narc
38:20 qualities but yeah how do you make that discernment between where when you should because if someone's emotionally mature like you said I think you can deal with that to some degree you can kind of um anyway so how do you advise
38:31 uh I guess your clients or patients about that apological I don't have patience I'm not a clinician okay I'm a I'm a professor of
38:40 clinical psychology So, but I'm not a clinician. I have clients and I provide consultations, but I don't have
38:46 patients. Just so full disclaimer. So,
38:52 um first of all, the parental figures in the narcissist
38:58 background don't have to be narcissist. As I mentioned, I I gave I gave a long
39:06 list a few minutes ago. It could be simply an insecure mother or a depressive mother.
39:12 or an absent mother physically because she had to go away or she got sick or something or an emotionally absent
39:19 mother because by nature she is cold and has an insecure attachment style. It doesn't have to be a narcissist or it
39:27 could be a great mother but the family as a unit is dysfunctional. For example, No text the mother is being abused by the father and consequently she's rendered dysfunctional. We call it adverse childhood experiences. ACEs. So narcissism can
39:43 emanate and emerge from ACCE which are essentially
39:50 um not reflective of the quality of the of the parenting. So you could for
39:57 example divorce the a divorce could give rise to a narcissist domestic violence can give rise to a narcissism. um deaths in a family would give I mean adversity
40:09 adversity can give rise on the flip side of this we have parents
40:16 who refuse to let the child grow up separate from them and become an individual in a million ways like
40:24 emotional blackmail I need you don't go away I will die if you leave me there is
40:30 the instrumentalizing the child I had I've had a fantasy I never realized it you will you know I always dreamt of No text being a pianist or a doctor I never made it you will um parentifying and and so
40:43 on so forth so whenever the parental figures with emphasis on the mother crucially in the first 36 months where whenever the parental
40:54 figures do not allow the child to develop healthy boundaries uh within which the self can can emerge um boundaries which allow the child to
41:06 interact with the environment in a secure manner with peers with with others. When the parents don't allow the
41:14 child to develop boundaries and whenever the child attempts to develop boundaries they invade they breach
41:21 they they impose they they digest they subsume
41:27 No text in a bad way or in a good way. In a good way for example they become overprotective. So whenever the
41:35 boundaries are are breached on a permanent basis, we have a narcissist.
41:41 Narcissists don't do boundaries first and foremost with themselves. That's why narcissists are stuck in what used to be
41:47 called by Marlor and others the symbiotic phase. Even when a narcissist develops a
41:54 full-fledged relationship, for example, with an intimate partner, the narcissist exactly like the borderline and the
42:00 codependent will try to merge and fuse with the intimate partner. The the
42:06 reasoning is different. I mean, the narcissist would do that in order to control the intimate partner. The
42:13 borderline would do that in order to avoid abandonment. The codependent would do that in order to feel safe. So each
42:20 one of them has different different reasons but they all do this and so the this merger this fusion this becoming one uh with a narcissist is a crucial
42:31 features because narcissists don't they don't have a clue about boundaries not theirs and not other people's because
42:39 this is the case I strongly recommend never to be in
42:45 contact with a narcissist to go no contact which is a set of 27 strategies I developed in the 80s. I recommend to go no contact. And I No text don't care if the narcissist is your mother, your your daughter or son, your
43:02 spouse or your boss. You should go no contact. The cost of going no contact, financial,
43:09 emotional, legal, and so on, would always be much less than the cost of
43:16 maintaining a relationship. However, tenuous and intermittent, a narcissist can damage you on a Thanksgiving dinner, a single Thanksgiving dinner, and the damage
43:28 would last a whole year. Because narcissist, as you mentioned, they possess cold empathy, and they
43:34 cannot help it. It's unconscious. It's automatic. It's inexurable. It's robotic. They possess cold empathy. They penetrate your defenses. They map your
43:45 vulnerabilities. They inventory your weaknesses and then they pounce on you.
43:51 They home in on you. They penetrate you. They invade you through the chinks in
43:57 your armor and they dis dissipate you. They they destroy you
44:03 from the inside. They have to do this because you threaten them as an external object.
44:11 They must deanimate you. They must take away your life force.
44:18 They must do this because the alternative is very threatening to them. So even minor exposure to a narcissist
44:26 on a queue in the supermarket, the most minor exposure can have longlasting consequences. That's why I said that narcissism is contagious because exposure to
44:37 narcissism triggers in you narcissistic defenses. Your empathy is like you're
44:43 likely to lose your empathy. You're likely to become highly aggressive when you deal with a narcissist. Yeah. You
44:49 are likely to find yourself ultimately emulating and imitating the narcissist to the point of becoming one.
44:56 And that's not a pleasant experience of course, but the damage is is serious. So no contact is the only and people say,
45:02 No text "But I I can't leave financially. I don't buy any of this. I'm sorry. There
45:11 are of course alternative techniques to use when you are in contact with a narcissist.
45:17 But why be in contact? That's you know and I I don't think I
45:24 have never come across in 30 years of I'm 30 years in this racket. I've never come across a good reason to stay ever.
45:32 Not children, not money. I don't buy any of this. M
45:38 and um I'm sure you come across right where let's say you grow up in this kind of family and but then you know you're
45:45 an adult and you might start attracting those like in your romantic relationship or your work environment I I think
45:52 because subconsciously you're used to that dynamic I assume and so what to say is it just becoming aware of that almost addictive quality that you might have towards these types of people um like
46:05 you don't want to I guess shout out the whole world and become distrusting of everyone. And I think sometimes that's what people do. Or um that maybe they're
46:12 naive and they they see kind of the only the good in people. But does that make sense? Um that a child that grows up in
46:20 that environment, if they're not narcissistic, they might continue to attract those people into their life. Not to attract, but to be attracted to. Yeah. Narcissists couldn't care less who
46:30 you are because they cannot perceive you as an external object. It is a myth, an online myth that narcissists select.
46:37 They have mate selection. They don't select anyone. They don't care if you're empathic or psychopathic. They don't
46:43 care if you are kind or cruel. They don't care if you are nice or obnoxious. They don't give they don't give a damn
46:50 about who you are. They care a lot about what it is that you can provide them with. Can you
46:56 provide them with supply, narcissistic supply? Would you agree to participate in the shared fantasy and butress the
47:02 narcissist's inflated fantastic self-concept? Uh would you play play the
47:08 roles that they assigned to you? Would you provide them with sex, with services, with a sense of safety? Would
47:14 you stick around despite the egregious abuse? So the auditioning process is about what's in it for me. Nice is asking what's in it for me? And
47:27 it's like an an internet service provider. Do you really care who owns the internet service provider? How the
47:34 office looks? What kind of refrigerator they have? You don't care about any of this. You care about the latency of the
47:42 connection. Is is your connection permanently on? Can you trust the connection? And what's the speed? That's
47:49 how the narcissist see people. However, the the reverse is not true. Whereas a narcissist is promiscuous and indiscriminate in choosing mates as long
48:01 as they can provide what he's looking for. The the mates of narcissists, the No text people who end up being intimate partners of narcissists or friends, good friends and so on, they are attracted to
48:12 narcissists as a default to start with. It's the comfort zone.
48:18 They're used to it. They know the ropes. They know how to behave. They can predict behav predict narcissis conduct
48:25 or misconduct. They have developed over the years coping strategies, survival strategies,
48:33 adaptations. They're adapted. They're like it's a lock and a key. It's like a substrate
48:39 and a reagent. It's they're adapted to the narcissis. And they feel good. They feel comfortable. And they feel
48:45 uncomfortable with a healthy person. They find a healthy person to be a bit
48:51 threatening because they're unable to decipher and decode the internal dynamics of the healthy person.
48:58 So they would even push the the their partner to emulate and imitate a
49:04 narcissist if he is not. So they would use something called projective identification. they would trigger and
49:11 provoke narcissistic behavior in non-narcissists
49:17 just in order to feel comfortable or in order to reestablish the comfort zone.
49:24 And so that's the first reason. It's a comfort zone. The second reason is that the narcissist caters to deep psychological needs of these people. Take for example the borderline someone
49:35 with borderline personality disorder. One of the key features of borderline personality disorder is dysregulation.
49:42 Emotional dysregulation or effective dysregulation where the emotions out of control. They overwhelm the individual with a borderline and threaten to drown the individual. So the the borderline is
49:56 in search of an external regulator. What she wants to do, and I'm saying she because that's a tradition, but half of
50:03 all borderline are men. What the borderline wants to do, she wants to outsource
50:09 her internal regulatory functions. She wants someone else to regulate her emotions, stabilize her moods, make her feel good and become a safe haven, a
50:22 rock, a stable presence so that she does not experience separation, insecurity,
50:29 abandonment, anxiety. And so she's in search of this external regulator, this
50:36 service provider. And the narcissist is the perfect answer
50:42 because the narcissist exudes self-confidence, supreme self-confidence.
50:48 The narcissist replaces reality with fantasy, which is much easier for the
50:54 borderline. The narcissist takes over regulatory function with relish because
51:00 he wants to be the savior, the rescuer, the guru, the teacher, the, you know, he
51:06 loves it. So they're perfect for each other. She provides him with a fantastic
51:15 butressing of his fantastic self-concept. She adulates him and admires him and so on. She agrees to participate in the fantasy. She caters to this need and she renders him this
51:26 god-like supreme figure in her life. She's likely to tell him, "You are my world. You are my world." You know, so
51:33 they're perfect match. And the borderline would gravitate towards the narcissist because her main concern is
51:41 about the stability and safety and security afforded by the partner. She wants, as I said, a rock. And the narcissist gives the impression, the counterfactual impression, ironically, that is the most stable structure around. While in reality, of
51:58 course, the narcissist is by far the most fragile and vulnerable in internal
52:04 structure, psychological structure constructs we know of. It's even more
52:10 vulnerable and fragile than the psychotic because the psychotic has a defense known as hyperflexivity.
52:17 The psychotic is hyperrelexive. He absorbs the world. So that gives him a sense of strength and stability.
52:24 Psychotic is less fragile and less vulnerable than the narcissist. The borderline is less fragile and
52:30 vulnerable than the narcissist. Narcissist is the most fragile and vulnerable construct ever. Both the
52:36 overt and the covert, they're both actually very brittle. And yet they're very deceptive. And they tend to attract people who are looking for a leader, people who are
52:48 looking for guidance, people who are looking for shity and determinacy and certainty, certainty, people who are
52:54 looking to offload responsibilities and to others so that they never feel guilty
53:00 or ashamed because it wasn't my choice. It wasn't my decision. was his. So here
53:07 you see the match and the borderline gravitates powerfully irresistibly
53:13 towards a narcissist because he's appears to be the perfect solution. But the narcissist for example
53:20 if he has a choice between a borderline and a completely healthy person and the completely healthy person provides him with more he would choose the healthy person.
53:31 In this sense, it's not about the person, it's about the provision. So, it's not true that the narcissist
53:38 would always prefer the borderline. Depends. Depends. For example, is she
53:44 irresistibly attracted to him and would participate in kinky sex? That's a question. Would she admire him
53:52 all the time or would she become critical? Border lines tend to be critical. They
53:58 externalize aggression. So if she's critical, he doesn't care. He would walk away. So it's not true that the narcissist has a type. It is
54:09 true that some types are attracted to narcissists.
54:15 Okay, that makes sense. And um I know we've talked for a little bit here and maybe I can ask you one more question.
54:21 Um well so in one of your videos I think recently you talked about the notion that the narcissist doesn't have necessarily an inner child that but they are like a child and then but also
54:33 you've talked about it there's no self there other than maybe like skills or but and you know like almost like a
54:39 terminator or like a death machine or like um and I think from my understanding I think you're agnostic or
54:46 No text atheist are you and what to say like some people will talk about like these are like evil people. They, you know,
54:52 like even say that maybe the devil's kind of whispering their ear kind of thing, but I don't obviously you're a clinician. I don't think you go there in
54:58 your, you know, ontology or way of understanding the world. But anyway, what do you because you do mention evil
55:04 sometimes, but maybe it's more clinically defined. Um, but anyway, what are your thoughts about that as a child?
55:10 Um, exactly like people perceive the narcissist's behavior as gaslighting and experience as gaslighting and their experience is valid. They are being gaslighted. However, the narcissist is not gaslighting them. Similarly, people may experience the narcissist as evil,
55:27 wicked, malevolent, malicious, and their experience is valid because they're
55:33 harmed, they're hurt, they're damaged, they're broken, sometimes irretrievably so, and they have to spend many years on recovery and healing, if at all, and so
55:44 on. It's an evil experience. But the narcissist is not evil. People
55:51 should must understand that generally speaking, not only with narcissism, the way you experience
55:59 something doesn't make it. So this is what we call magical thinking. Magical
56:05 thinking is a primitive infantile defense where you say if I experience something in a certain way, it means that it is this way. Magical thinking. I I am the world. So if I wish something to happen, it will happen. If I just strongly wish it to happen, it will happen. This is
56:26 children, you know, 18 months old, 24 months old. That's the age for magical thinking. And so you say if I've
56:34 experienced it is gaslighting, it is gaslighting. No, it doesn't have to mean
56:40 it. That's magical thinking. That's not science. That's not you know. So yes, the experience is that of an evil
56:47 person. But evil requires premeditation. The devil is very very goal oriented.
56:54 The devil is very very uh you know um kind of cunning and scheming and
57:01 premeditated and the devil has a plan and it's it knows what it wants to obtain and accomplish. The devil is not
57:09 a deluded hallucinatory hallucinating uh psychotic. That's not our view of the
57:15 devil. In this sense, if I ever use the word evil, if I were to forced to use
57:22 the word evil, the word evil doesn't belong in clinical psychology, of course. But if I were like with a gun to
57:28 my head and you know have to, then I would use it with a when with a psychopath, not with a narcissist.
57:36 Psychopath to some extent are what we used to call evil because they know that they're going to hurt people. They don't care at all. They hurt people and a substantial portion of psychopaths
57:54 greatly enjoy doing so because there is a coorbidity a very high coorbidity of
58:01 sadism with psychopathy and actually there's a hybrid of narcissist psychopath and sadist known as malignant narcissist psychopathic narcissist.
58:12 So when you see someone who harms you and hurts you on purpose in a manner
58:19 which is disproportional to the benefit that they derive. So they would kill you to take $50 from
58:26 you. For example, they harm you disproportionately and the benefit is minimal. So if you see this
58:33 disproportionality, if you see someone who enjoys doing so, relishes it, is elated by it, euphoric,
58:41 you know, make makes him euphoric, maybe then you're justified in calling such a person evil because they know right.
58:48 They can tell right from wrong. They know the difference between reality and fantasy. They know that what they're
58:55 doing is is wrong in the eyes of society. They couldn't care less. They are a law unto themselves. and they hurt
59:02 you in a disproportional manner. I think the key here mostly is disproportionality
59:08 because people can become deluded and then they can hurt you but they would do
59:14 this in a way that they find morally justified and so they would strive to maintain
59:22 some proportionality. Even in the most extreme cases, for example, genocide. In genocide, the
59:28 perpetrators are very often deluded because they believe that the people they're killing
59:36 constitute an existential threat. When Nazi Germany exterminated the Jews,
59:42 they exterminated the Jews because they believe the Jews are going to kill all the Germans.
59:48 It was a complete delusion. was completely sick, completely counterfactual, insane for all intents
59:55 and purposes, but they did believe it. So there there was proportionality. They
60:02 perceived the Holocaust as an act of self-defense. But with a classic psychopath, this is
60:08 no proportionality. He would not hesitate to cut your throat, to take away $20, to walk away with $20. I'm
60:16 kidding you not. So it is this disproportionality, the fact that he regards you as dispensable,
60:23 disposable, interchangeable. He objectifies you to the extreme. You're nothing but an impediment. You're
60:30 nothing but an obstacle to be removed by any means. And there is no moral judgment here. It's done in an impersonal um impulsive
60:41 disinterested way. You're like, you know, like so much dust.
60:48 You have to sweep the dust away. That's what psychopath does. This I think comes closest to evil. If I had to use the
60:55 word narcissism is nothing like nothing of the sort, not even remotely.
61:02 Narcissism is driven by his own demons if you wish. Narcissism is a is the victim of abuse. He's a victim to start with. is a victim who has gone arry. A
61:14 victim who has chosen to become an abuser as a solution to the overwhelming
61:21 emotions that he had experienced as a victim. So he said, "I'm going to be a victim no more. From now on, I'm going
61:27 to be on top. I'm going to be the abuser." It's a dysfunctional solution. It's a a wrong solution and everything.
61:34 But this is a driven person. Uh in the medieval ages, we would have said it's a possessed person. You know people who are possessed, can you hold them responsible and
61:45 accountable for their actions? It's dupious. Even in the 16th century, there were
61:52 moral debates as to the culpability of witches. Those of them who were already possessed
61:58 by Satan and so on. Huge debates about this. Should should we should they be
62:04 burned and executed and and so on. Are they at all responsible or are they the victim victims of Satan? No.
62:12 So the narcissist is a victim driven by
62:19 memories of the victimhood which haunt is haunted and he's he can't help it. He
62:26 can't help what he's doing. The key here is agency. If you can help what you're doing and you still do it, you're evil.
62:36 If you can't help what you're doing, never mind the harm you cause. You're not evil. You should be put away.
62:43 You should be put away. Should be punished. Should be executed even. I mean, I'm not saying, of course, society
62:49 should defend itself against you. But you're not evil. You're a danger.
62:55 You're not evil. And I compare it to a virus. A virus kills millions of people. Is it
63:01 evil? It's a laughable question. In which sense is a virus evil? Can
63:07 never be evil? It has no no self-control, no sentience, no
63:13 consciousness, no it's not evil. It's driven. It's programmed. It's Yeah, but
63:19 it's not evil. And yet the outcomes are evil, of course. I mean, millions of people dying, that's evil. So, we should not confuse our experience with reality. These are
63:32 two separate things. And if you confuse the two, then something's wrong with you.
63:38 That makes sense. Um, yeah. Um, and just to touch on that sense that, you know, you said that it's like they have Well, the narcissist can present like a child, right? But they're kind of maybe looking for your empathy or like is that a way you said, well,
63:53 they're not manipulating, but but there's no inner child. So, but there's kind of this innocent maybe part that
63:59 they can show. But then maybe in the past you would be empathetic. Okay, well maybe they're just like young immature, but I find that but it can also be aggressive at the same. So they can be a bully but also be this innocent child
64:10 almost or that's just them figning like it's not a true I think you said something like that there's there's not
64:17 that they can be like children but they're not they don't have no inner child. The false self is uh is godlike
64:23 and because it is godlike it's all encompassing exactly like God. It's a it's a
64:29 religion. It's an absolute religion. The false self is a is a deity. The narcissist makes human sacrifice. He
64:36 sacrificed himself as a child and he sacrifices you to the false self. It's a primitive religion. The mo with human
64:43 sacrifice. And it's a missionary religion. The narcissist tries to convert you to his religion
64:50 to his fantasy. So the false self being a god, a deity, a divinity, the false
64:56 self is all-encompassing. In this sense, you could conceive of the false self as a library. It's a library
65:05 with um an infinite number of manifestations. The false self can manifest as a child.
65:12 Then the next minute the false self can manifest as a great leader and the next
65:18 minute as a genius and the next minute is utterly stupid. So everything is
65:24 contained in in the false self. And when the narcissist comes, for example, across an intimate partner, the narcissist wants to reenact early childhood conflicts with a with a
65:36 mother, the mother who never let him go, the mother who did not allow him to separate and become an individual, the
65:42 mother who abused him in a variety of ways, the mother. So, it's not getting
65:48 back at mother. It's not payback. It's just the the compassion to reenact this
65:54 unfinished business, this unresolved chapter, this conflict that has never ended, somehow obtain closure. And the
66:02 narcissist attempts to do this by converting you into a maternal figure, into a substitute mother.
66:10 In order for you to accept your role as a mother, as an intimate partner, as a best friend, as a you're a mother
66:16 figure. Even best friend is a mother figure. Even when you are two males, you are the mother figure to the narcissist.
66:22 So for you to accept this role, you need a
66:28 child. You can't be a mother without a child. Obviously, there's no no such thing as childless mother. So in order
66:36 for you to become the mother, the narcissist becomes a child. So in
66:42 the initial phase, in the initial phases, which is spotting, auditioning, love bombing, idealization and so on,
66:49 what the narcissist does in order to induct you into the fantasy within which
66:55 you are his mother, he becomes your child. The false self
67:01 attains be manifest as a child.
67:07 No text And it's not just any child. It's a suffering child. It's a crying child.
67:15 It's a child in need in need of help and protection. And it triggers in you your maternal instincts. Everyone has maternal instincts. If you ever saw a man
67:26 interacting with a baby, you know that men also have maternal instincts. So it
67:32 triggers in your maternal instincts and you wish to protect this child to
67:38 heal the child. You develop the delusion that your love will somehow complete
67:44 this child allow this child to escape to emerge from this enchantment this spell
67:52 you know awaken the child revive it somehow. And so you're drawn into this
67:58 role as a mother because the child triggers in you protective instincts and
68:04 and so or reflexes actually not instincts protective reflexes and this is the role of the of the child guys of the child disguise of the false self. Now that you have mentioned religion the
68:19 devil is supposed to be like that. The devil can present himself in a variety of forms and manifestations and and
68:26 guises. That's why in exorcism we say that we are casting out a legion, not a
68:34 specific demon but a legion of demons because the various and so if you want a
68:40 religious comparison, it's like that. So um before you know it, the narcissist
68:46 baits you and reels you in in a maternal role having interacted with you
68:53 initially as a child. Now it doesn't have to be a child in the sense that he doesn't use maybe an infantile voice or
68:59 but he he becomes a bit helpless. He becomes a bit needy.
69:05 He informs you that his survival depends on you emotional and maybe physically even. He he makes you he renders you
69:12 indispensable. He introduces you into his life as a pre as a condition for his own existence and
69:19 for his own becoming. And a victim victims would say when he's with me he's alive. When he's with me so happy. When he's so and that's like you
69:31 make me be. So you can't just walk away. It's like a mother giving up on her child. And it's even worse. It's like murder because you say to yourself, if I walk
69:42 away, he will revert to his dead state that preceded me. He was dead before he
69:49 met me. I gave him life. And indeed, mothers give life. No. So, I gave him
69:55 life. And now to walk away is to orphan this child and to kill it as well, to
70:02 murder it. Who can do that? Very few. That is the glue that holds you,
70:10 holds the narcissist and you together, that's the glue, the super glue that won't allow you to walk away. The grief when you do walk away is overwhelming because you're grieving not
70:23 only the fantasy and not only having lost a mate or an intimate partner, but you're grieving the child, your child.
70:31 And you're also grieving your own mother because a narcissist later on plays the role of your mother. He loves you
70:37 unconditionally. He idealizes you and then you can see yourself through the narcissist's gaze. There are intricate
70:45 motherhood dynamics in the initial phase of the shed fantasy. It's a reenactment. He gives you a chance for a second childhood and he asks you to become his mother
70:57 which allows him to reenact the conflict with his original mother. So the child bait is irresistible and stays with you
71:06 even long after the relationship is over. And all victims would tell you this that
71:12 they saw the child inside. They saw the inner child. They were interacting with some childish aspect that something
71:19 there reminded them of their own children or children in general or this is such a common refrain among victims.
71:25 It's clearly a technique. Again, an example. It's not a It's a technique. Of No text course, the narcissist infantilizes himself, then he infantilizes you. Never
71:38 mind, but initially infantilizes himself. He triggers your maternal reflexes. It's a technique. But is he
71:44 doing it intentionally? No. It's unconscious. It's robotic. It's automatic.
71:50 So, it's not really a technique because technique implies that there is a choice. There is intentionality. There's premeditation and there's implementation. That's not how the
72:02 Narcissist does this. It's triggered in him. It's triggered. He's absolutely and most of the time he's not even aware of it. Like if you were to talk to narcissist as I've been doing for 30 years and ask them about this stage, they would deny it vehemently.
72:18 Me child, no way. I'm a man's man. I'm viral. I'm this. I'm that. If it's a man
72:25 or a woman would say I'm not a child, you're wrong. I was his mother not his child. They would deny this face
72:32 completely unself-aware of of these unconscious dynamics. So in which sense
72:38 are they responsible for it? In which sense is this a technique? Where is the evil here? Where's the you can't you
72:45 can't accute blame them for this? No. Makes sense. Um
72:52 yeah. Um, I don't know if I have any more questions, but like I like I appreciate your time and um I think our
72:59 viewers would wander away if we were to exceed this time. Yeah. No. Uh, no, I
73:06 appreciate your time and and so I mean I guess what I was thinking is I would edit the video and put some like stats
73:13 or you know some like facts to it if and but I don't know if you you wanted to put it out or whatever but um yeah do do
73:20 with it reservations. It's yours as much as mine. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, um yeah, you may wish to make shorts some shorts like shorts too. Lis it somehow. It's a bit long and people lose the attention span nowadays is like maximum 10 minutes.
73:37 Yeah. No, it's definitely helpful. It's um anyway, we didn't really touch on it, but sometimes the tricky part is that
73:43 these people are never really sometimes diagnosed. And so often my clients are just always wondering like am I is my
73:49 parent a narcissist or are they emotionally mature? How do I have contact with them? Do I not? Yeah. Let me let me talk a bit about prevalence and to to round up the the conversation.
74:00 Yeah. Um a common myth, a prevalent myth is that
74:07 narcissists do not attend therapy and consequently they are underdiagnosed. It's a myth in the sense that it applies to all mental health
74:18 disorders. People with psychosis are extremely reluctant to attend therapy.
74:24 Border lines are very arrogant. They're grandios and many of them are reluctant to to attend therapy. And when they do
74:31 and they are given the diagnosis, they reject it. Majority of them reject it. Bipolar. Of course, people with bipolar would never attend therapy, especially in the manic phase. So, it's not unique
74:44 to narcissism. All people with mental disorders and illnesses are averse to being labeled,
74:52 stigmatized, and exposed to manipulation and intervention as they see it.
74:59 So, this is not unique to Nazis. So, how do we know how many Nazis there are? We use extremely powerful population and cohort statistics.
75:10 We know how to do this. This is called sampling. We have samples. So we know how many
75:16 people approach or end up in clinical settings that have psychosis. How many
75:22 end up with narcissism? How many end up with borderline personality disorder and so on. And then we have tools,
75:29 statistical tools that remove the bias, that render the results significant,
75:36 that adjust for specific parameters like age and and sex and and so economic
75:42 background and so on. We know how to do this. We've been doing this like more than 100 years. And and um the figures
75:50 are reliable. The fact that narcissists do not attend therapy applies to all other mental health illnesses. And if you challenge the
76:01 statistics of narcissistic personality disorder, you should challenge the statistics of all other personality
76:07 disorder. We know for example that in major depression the majority of people do not go to therapy. They're too depressed. They can't leave the bed. Can't leave bed.
76:18 Can't you know? So, and yet we we have statistics for all mental illnesses and
76:25 disorders and they're pretty we consider them pretty reliable. So, it's a it's a
76:31 yes or no situation. Either you reject all statistics and you say I don't
76:37 believe any of these statistics because people with mental illnesses and mental health disorders do not attend therapy
76:44 are averse to therapy. Okay, it's all right. It means generally that you have
76:50 no idea, not the slightest idea about statistics, but it's okay. But what you cannot do is say the statistics about psychotic people are reliable. The
77:01 statistics about autism are reliable, which we now know are extremely unreliable. But the statistic about narcissism are not reliable. This you cannot do. You cannot pick and choose.
77:13 Either you believe the tools we have or you don't believe the tools we have. and you have no middle ground. You can't pick and choose. So, here are the numbers. 1.7% of the general population
77:25 have narcissistic personality disorder. I'm not saying diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. I'm saying have narcissistic personality disorder. 1.7%. That's all. Not 10, not
77:37 15, not 16. There's a self-started expert online with an academic degree who goes around spewing nonsense that one sixth of the population are narcissists.
77:49 That's the kind of misinformation I have to cope with day in and day out. You know, and an academic degree in
77:56 psychology does not guarantee that you know what you're talking about in all fields of psychology. Doesn't guarantee
78:02 that you know what you're talking about when it comes to narcissism. And so people think that if you have a
78:08 PhD in psychology, then automatically you're an expert on on narcissism.
78:14 I don't know much about schizophrenia. I wouldn't walk around saying that I, you know, I'm an expert on schizophrenia, but I've spent 30 years studying narcissism. I think I am an expert on narcissism. So it's 1.7% period, not
78:28 16%. And half of these are women. We're
78:34 beginning to accept this. It was difficult to accept in the 1980s and the third edition of the DSM and so on. We
78:40 believe that 75% of narcissists were men. Today we're beginning to accept that it's equally divided possibly
78:47 because women are becoming more menly. They assume masculine gender roles and
78:53 gender adjectives. So they said describe as men and so
79:00 maybe it has something to do with masculinity narcissism. But right now half half and half women and men in in
79:08 narcissism. So the chance that you have come across a narcissist is minuscule
79:17 is very small. Of 100 people you meet on a daily basis fewer than two are narcissist. Not 10 not 16. Definitely not half.
79:29 Fewer than two. And of these one would be covert and one
79:36 would be overt. So and so when you when people say all my
79:42 family are narcissist, my mother, my father, my siblings, my my grandmother, my grand that is unmititigated nonsense.
79:50 There's no bearing or relationship on reality. Everyone in my workplace is a narcissist or my boss and these two
79:58 co-workers are narcissist. in a workplace of 10 people. No, not not going to happen.
80:05 Could you say though like is this on a spectrum to some degree like have narcissistic qualities? I'm talking about narcissistic personality disorder.
80:11 There is something called narcissistic style. It was first described by Lens Perry
80:17 famous psychoanalyst at the time and the notion was adopted by giants like Theod
80:23 Milan and so on. So it's accept accepted today. There's something called narcissistic style and they these are
80:31 people who are subclinical narcissist. In other words, they have narcissistic traits and narcissistic behaviors but
80:38 they don't have the psycho psychological damage that characterizes narcissists.
80:44 For example, they're able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy. They can tell the difference between
80:50 external objects and internal objects. They do have some empathy. They do have access to positive emotions. These are
80:57 people with narcissistic style. Narcissistic style is someone who is obnoxious, abrasive, exploitative,
81:05 reduced empathy definitely um self agrandizing, boastful to some
81:11 extent and so on. But it's a far cry from pathological nar far cry from narcissistic personality disorder.
81:18 Narcissistic personality disorder is a sickness. It's a little like comparing someone who
81:26 um who has uh a vivid imagination and can visualize things. Comparing someone
81:32 like that with a psychotic who has hallucinations. So, and of course the key difference is
81:40 that people with narcissistic style can totally control their behaviors, modify
81:46 and modulate behaviors. They can make choices and decisions. They can't reverse the clock. Narcissists are
81:54 helpless. Their disorder is unforgiving and overpowering and there's nothing they can do about it. So you may have come across people with narcissistic style. There are studies by
82:07 tween and Campbell and others that show that the narcissistic style is increasing in our civilization,
82:13 especially among young people. It's because narcissistic style pays. It's a
82:19 positive adaptation. If you have narcissistic style, you end up being president of the United States. So, it's
82:25 likely that you have met quite a few people with narcissistic style. If you're young, even more. It's very unlikely that you may met a
82:36 narcissist in your entire life, by the way, because how many people have 100 close people? How many people have 100 close, you know, friends and family? Very few. And of these 100, one and a
82:49 half are narcissist. So it's actually pretty likely that you have never met a
82:56 narcissist. Never come across one. However, we label we stigmatize today.
83:02 Everyone and his dog is an expert on narcissism. And and of course, everyone's mother-in-law is a
83:08 narcissist. And so we label people, we throw it bandit about. Narcissism is
83:14 also very helpful as an organizing principle and hermeneutic principle. In other words, narcissism allows us to
83:22 make sense of the world. When we try to understand a certain politician,
83:28 if we apply to him the etiquette of narcissist, suddenly his actions and behaviors make sense. When we try to understand why we have been betrayed by our best friend, if we apply to him the label of narcissism, it has his behavior
83:45 has meaning, direction, goal. Narcissism makes sense of the world, makes sense of
83:51 specific industries like the entertainment industry, politics and so on. Makes sense of people around us.
83:58 Sometimes narcissism helps us to make sense of ourselves. So we call it a hermeneutic principle.
84:04 It's a principle that makes sense of the world. It's also an organizing principle because if you look at society in
84:13 postmodern civilization, narcissism helps to organize it, helps to structure it. For example, technologies, modern technologies cater to narcissism. They enhance narcissism. They reward narcissism. So narcissism organizes and
84:31 structures for example social media. So that's why people think that
84:39 narcissism is everywhere. But social narcissism
84:45 has nothing to do with a pathology. Narcissism as a structural principle has
84:51 nothing to do with a pathology. People who are obnoxious are not necessarily narcissists. very
84:57 likely not narcissism. Don't go don't go around labeling everyone, especially if you're not
85:04 qualified to diagnose, which the overwhelming vast majority of people are not qualified to diagnose.
85:10 Don't become an armchair self-imputed psychologist because that's exactly what a narcissist would do.
85:19 And do you I guess the risk you think is that if let's just say that you think your parents have maybe narcissistic
85:25 qualities or emotional maturity but you keep trying to like kind of interact with them but each time they they show
85:31 these characteristics. Um I'm guess I'm just trying to say for your own protection is it better like
85:37 you don't want to label the world and like reject people but sometimes people continue to get why why do we have to label? We don't have to label why do you have to be a why do you have to be a diagnostician in order to make decisions in your life? the person you're with,
85:50 you feel I do you feel good with them or do you feel bad with them? If you feel bad with them, walk away. Why do you
85:56 need to know if they're narcissist or psychopaths or money? I guess that's when it's family, right?
86:02 You just like you don't want to give up on them or you think, okay, you don't like I think there's a lot of culture around depends to what extent if they are egregiously abusive of you, even if they are totally healthy. By the way, the vast majority of abusers are
86:14 mentally healthy. But if they're egregiously abusive because they are controlling, they're contemptuous, they
86:20 are walk away. There's nothing to do with narcissism. Why do we need this? Nar pathological narcissism should be left to clinicians, scholars, diagnosticians.
86:32 It's none of the layman's business or lay woman's business. None. It's very bad that it's out there on YouTube. It's not helping anyone. There's a lot of
86:43 misinformation. People make wrong decisions. families break down. It's a mess. I'm not happy with it at all. I
86:49 contributed to it, unfortunately. But I'm not happy with the outcome at all. It's been corrupted completely and
86:55 contaminated. It's adulterated. It's leading is not leading to good places. Pathological narcissism is a clinical entity and it should be left to psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist
87:07 and so on. Exactly the way cancer is left to medical doctors.
87:14 End of story. Yeah, you can discuss unpleasant people, obnoxious people, abusive people, contemptuous people. Yeah, sure as a layman and you can make your your decision whether you're willing to live
87:25 with such misbehavior or to coexist with this misconduct. But the minute you
87:31 start to labor, you're acting the way a narcissist does. The narcissist believe that they're omnicient. They don't need education. They don't need study. They don't need training. They know everything already. So if you walk go
87:43 around diagnosing people, you're actually acting exactly like a narcissist would. If you go around
87:50 demonizing narcissist, that is splitting. That's an infantile defense known as splitting. I am all good. The narcissist is all bad. You know who is doing this? Narcissists.
88:02 Narcissists and border lines have a splitting defense. After all, if you go around diagnosing
88:08 people and demonizing people, you may wish to sit back and ask yourself, am I the narcissist? Actually, am I just
88:15 projecting? And that's a dangerous game. So, don't start.
88:21 Yeah. And I was going to ask you about just like projection and like the notion of the shadow. And I think we I think we
88:28 have many many more topics to discuss and but I think we've exceeded an hour and a half and I don't think anyone will survive this. That's for sure. Yeah. But I appreciate your time and um I I would be open I would be open and admirable to
88:39 have another talk. Okay. So we can have another talk but the only the only
88:45 condition would be and we could have this other talk let's say in June but the only condition would be that you post it uh we will agree on a date
88:51 because to avoid saturation if you post uh videos with me all the time the
88:58 audience is saturated and it uh it's not not good for you not good for me. So we could record the interview in June but we will agree for example that you will post it in September or something like
89:08 this and then okay make a list of questions you want to discuss defense mechanisms I'm sure there are many
89:14 topics we can discuss and we can have another hour and a half in June I I'm perfectly open to that. Okay great I
89:20 appreciate it thank you for your time and uh have a good day. Take care you
89:26 too. Bye bye.

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

Abuse, narcissism, narcissist, Personality, Psychology, Reality, Sam Vaknin, Trauma, Vaknin, Vaknin Summaries

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