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1. 00:00 No text that's simple Sam can you describe in stick staying with personality disorders can you describe your view of the self and because the story that we often hear is that the narcissist and the borderline personality disorder has a weak sense of
2. 00:19 self and that that because of the weak sense of self for the narcissist they're constantly seeking an affirmation of themsel to feel present Do you agree with that view and I think the borderline story is that the person with the borderline personality disorder
3. 00:35 also has a weak sense of self and that they tend to overidentify at first with somebody They love somebody they fall in love very easily and then they fall out of love very easily Uh again the the Hollywood starlet sort of picture or archetype seems to come in there Is that
4. 00:53 your view of the self um and talk us through that issue No text Yeah So um you've raised several issues which are only tangentially related but that's that's a common a common kind of thing to do if you're not really deeply into the literature So the first thing the first
5. 01:17 thing is idealization devaluation cycles that is common in both borderline and in narcissism In both these disorders initially the intimate partner or the friend or the colleague or whoever is idealized in the sense that the affected individual the narcissist or the
6. 01:37 borderline the afflicted individual I'm sorry develops a representation of the other person in their mind which is then photoshopped I call it snapshotting creates a snapshot and then snapshot is photoshopped and becomes uh ideal perfect entity and then owing to some inexurable
7. 02:02 dynamics in both these conditions It's not the same dynamics different dynamics in both these conditions This internal object is then devalued and becomes per secondary And so there are these cycle these cycles of idealization devaluation in both cases In the ca to give you in a
8. 02:22 nutshell in the case of the borderline the the reason is what we call abandon uh separation insecurity or colloquially abandonment anxiety is when the borderline experiences or anticipates rejection abandonment and so on and what she does she devalues the
9. 02:41 for example the intimate partner uh in preparation for the inevitable separation So then like it's a resolution of cognitive dissonance If he is devalued it's not such a big loss you know So to mitigate the horrible reaction to abandonment she simply
10. 03:00 changes her perception of the object that is about to abandon her H that's a borderline In narcissism the idealization and devaluation have to do with a much deeper psychonamic They it's a reenactment of early childhood conflicts with a usually maternal figure with a
11. 03:19 mother So what the narcissist does he converts for example his intimate partners but not only his friends and so on He converts them into maternal figures and then idealizes them the way a a baby idealizes mother and then in order to experience separation from the
12. 03:38 mother and individuation becoming an individual something that he has failed to do as a child He now wants to accomplish with his new surrogate substitute mother And so then he has to devalue her That's the only way to separate from her because so initially
13. 03:56 he idealizes her as a mother and then in order to separate from her still as a mother he needs to devalue her and then there are grounds for separation She's devalued She's the enemy She's stupid She's ugly She can do no right and so on And this gives rise to the inevitable
14. 04:13 separation and it's a reenactment what Freud called repetition compulsion So the dynamics are different but the idealization devaluation cycle is the same and looks the same from the outside which is very confusing to many people So this was the second part of your
15. 04:30 question Can you remind me what was the first part i lost myself Um the sense of self our sense of self right sorry
16. 04:40 No text um again there's a different difference in ethology Ideology means the causation of the disorders Whereas in narcissistic personality disorder there is a disruption in the formation of the self Early childhood disruption the the child fails to
17. 04:59 develop a self and then to integrate it and constellate it These are processes that are described in the literature as to how the self is created So to summarize it the child fails to create a self and then because there is no self there the child creates a
18. 05:17 substitute known in the literature as the false self It has all the hallmarks of the self of a self It has all the hallmarks of a self and at the same time it's godlike It's impeccable It's perfect It's omniscient It's omnipotent It's it has all the qualities of a god
19. 05:36 So in this sense narcissism is a primitive religion You have a deity or a divinity which is a false self which substitute for the non-existent self in the child And what the child does engages in human sacrifice The child sacrifices itself to this mo to this
20. 05:56 divinity In other words eliminates the true self and all that remains is the false self for the rest of the narcissist's life M so inside the narcissist there is an absence masquerading as a presence there is nobody there we call it in clinical literature
21. 06:16 the empty skitsoid core it's a an emptiness it's a void howling void it's a was compared later by thirstin and others to a black hole identical situation exists in the borderline actually in borderline personality disorder internal emptiness is a diagnostic criterion One of the
22. 06:38 diagnostic criteria Now this emptiness in the borderline is completely different to the narcissist Whereas in the narcissist the absence this howling void is the outcome is where the self should have been and is not In the borderline the progression of the
23. 06:58 disease is very different There is actually no major disruption or interruption in the formation of a self But there is a major dis disruption in the formation of an identity Now identity and self are not the same thing Self is your sense of
24. 07:18 continuity Self is just another name for this sense of continuity and contiguity Wake waking up in the morning and saying I'm still Michael Shelon I'm still me Never mind what has happened I'm become 40 years older I've divorced I've I've had an accident I lost four of my limbs
25. 07:37 I'm still u m Michael So this is the self Whereas identity is something completely different Identity is the sum total of your beliefs your values your experiences your memories your it's like a narrative It's a narrative about yourself So in borderline the disruption is not
26. 07:59 in the formation of the self but much later to age 12 13 in the formation of an identity this narrative about the self Consequently whereas the narcissist has an empty schizoid core in other words nothing nothingness There's nothing there with a borderline there is
27. 08:20 someone there There is something there But there is what we call identity diffusion identity disturbance In other words the borderline has a sense of continuity But she can wake up in the morning and have completely different values or profess to completely different
28. 08:41 beliefs become a completely different person Change her appearance her preferences her prejudices her biases her beliefs her values her conduct or misconduct her interactions the people she likes the people she hates Completely different person utterly So
29. 08:59 there is a core the core the identity is in flux Whereas the self is there the identity is in flux With a narcissist there's no self It is imported from the outside This is the false self So there's a false self and the whole regulatory system the whole regulation of sense of
30. 09:21 being who I am of everything comes from the outside sense of selfworth everything comes from the outside So there is this false self which is a device to extract and elicit reactions from other people The soul the major function of the false self is to present
31. 09:42 the kind of facade the kind of interface that would trigger people to provide uh responses known collectively as narcissistic supply The responses don't have to be positive It's a common mistake common myth They could be negative For example the narcissist
32. 10:02 could uh would would bask and love adulation admiration and admiration But a narcissist would also feel uh fantastically grandio and and so on if he is feared feared You know I'm the dawn of the mob and you know you don't screw with me and if you do you know so this
33. 10:22 is narcissistic supply Um and a narcissist doesn't have to be the best the greatest the most That's another common misconception A narcissist has to be unique So a narcissist can brag about being a complete failure the greatest failure that has ever been the most
34. 10:44 amazing victim constantly victimized by everyone all the time Mhm Or so even negative things things that other people would hide somehow become sources of narcissistic supply because they render the narcissist unique You could even find a narcissist who
35. 11:04 says no woman had ever agreed to sleep with me That renders him unique Of course so No text that is a source of narcissistic supply Would go around bragging about it You have this in the inel communities online right they they compete as to who is more repulsive to women There's a
36. 11:23 competitive victimhood you know No I'm more repulsive No I'm more repulsive Here's a story to prove that I'm more repulsive you know So this is all narcissistic And so uh the compensatory mechanism in narcissism has to do with this absence or lack of self In the early literature
37. 11:45 and to this very day among less informed scholars there's a belief that the compensation in narcissism is uh to a sense of inferiority like the narcissist internally feels shame feels inferior and he compensates for this by projecting a facade of impunity um
38. 12:10 grandiosity godlike qualities and perfection So the compensation here is counterfactual is a falsifying compensation He internally the narcissist feels inferior inadequate a bad object as we call it unworthy and then he just pretends to not be He pretends to be the opposite of
39. 12:31 all this So this was the perception of the compensatory aspect of narcissism early on Today we don't think this way At least those of us who are informed we don't think this way today What we think the compensation is all about is a desperate attempt to project a force uh
40. 12:51 self I'm sorry that does not exist Like the narcissist wants you to tell him that he exists Of course he wants to exist in a highly specific way unique grandio fantastic godlike etc But the whole thing is focused on convincing himself that he is that he exists that
41. 13:14 he's alive It's an existential disorder And so whereas the borderline is a much simpler disorder that's not some that is autobe father of a field Kbeck suggested that narcissism is a highly complex defense against borderline personality disorder And
42. 13:32 there was another psychoanalyst Grostein And Groshine said that as a child develops a child with borderline is terrified of her borderline condition her borderline personality organization So what the child does the child develops narcissistic defenses against
43. 13:50 the borderline state But Grostein added when the child fails it remains stuck in the borderline phase So he said border lines are failed narcissists These are children children who attempted to become narcissists as a defense against the underlying
44. 14:10 borderline condition They have failed So they remain borderlines When they succeed they become narcissists So in every narcissist there's a borderline kernel a borderline core But the reverse is not true It's not true that every borderline is a narcissist It is true that every
45. 14:33 narcissist has a borderline aspect or is a borderline So this is the the picture Borderline is much less sick than the narcissist The narcissism is a real severe um problem I'm hesitant to say mental illness but it's really a problem There's a dysfunction there And this
46. 14:57 attempt to convince everyone hey listen uh I exist tell me that I exist Convince me convince me that I exist You know this attempt is pitiable in effect but on the other hand is very could be very antisocial because there's another variant of narcissist that is the
47. 15:17 pro-social narcissist Pro- social Nazis is someone who brags about being morally superior moral high ground about being a dogooder about being altruistic and magnanimous and charitable the likes of which have never been seen before or stentatiously so So that's also a form
48. 15:34 of narcissism But the majority of narcissists end up being antisocial And they end up being antisocial because they have to coersse people They they must somehow force people to tell them what they want to hear And if you don't they become punitive So there's a lot of kind of
49. 15:54 friction and unpleasantness and you know worse and worse abusive behavior No text Sam do you view those disorders on a spectrum in other words is it a switch or is it a dial uh is everybody a little bit narcissist and some people are more narcissistic or do you think it's more
50. 16:15 just uh you're either a narcissist or you're not a narcissist so there was a guy a psychologist by the name of Len Sperry and in the 70s and 80s Sperry dealt with exactly this question Is it a spectrum or is it like pregnancy either you are or you're not
51. 16:31 And he came up with a kind of a compromise a mid midground solution And he said there is disorder and there is style And he said there's for example narcissistic personality disorder and there is narcissistic style M now the C6 style these are people who are
52. 16:53 obnoxious disempathic to some extent exploitative envious you know not someone you would like to go grab a beer with or befriend or associate with let alone get married to So these are people with narcissistic style but they don't have the pathology
53. 17:15 So for example they have a fully functional self They can tell the difference between reality and fantasy Narcissistic personality disorder is fantasy based The fantasy about the self-concept The fantasy about the self-concept falsifies reality So there
54. 17:31 is a problem with reality testing The real narcissist the the person with narcissistic personality disorder cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy because he is affected is emotionally invested in the fantasy as the only locus the only space within
55. 17:49 which his or her inflated grandio fantastic self concept can survive So it is only within the fantasy that the narcissist can tell himself I'm a genius If he were to exit the fantasy and confront reality he would have learned very fast that he is not a genius and
56. 18:06 that it would have been unbearable and would have led to what we call narcissistic motification It would have removed the narcissistic defenses and what would have been left was the borderline core that this kind of narcissist becomes suicidal the suicidal
57. 18:22 ideation and emotionally disregulated indistinguishable clinically from a borderline simply because you remove the the defenses and the only way to remove the defenses is to confront reality So narcissists avoid reality exactly like vampires avoid garlic is it or whatever
58. 18:40 So and but with narcissistic style they're perfectly grounded in reality They don't have a fantasy defense They don't have a They have a functional self They're not narcissist They're narcissistic And so when Theodor Milan who is one of the towering geniuses of
59. 18:59 20th century psychology when Theodore Milan adopted this classification it became mainstream And today we discuss we say that there is narcissistic style and narcissistic personality disorder They're distinct It's not that the style can lead to the disorder or it's not
60. 19:18 that if you exaggerate the style it becomes the disorder nothing to do with each other but to a layman from the outside they resemble each other like both of them are obnoxious so people say narcissist you know and so the ICD for example u when it discusses when it deals with
61. 19:38 personality disorders the ICD does say that there is a spectrum of a spectrum of severity like how severe the disorder is So whereas the DSM doesn't the DSM adopts the view that I've just espoused that there is a style and there is a disorder the ICD
62. 19:59 disagrees with it The ICD thinks that yes you could have a disorder with various settings of severity I've been in this racket for 30 years and I've dealt with thousands of narcissists a database of narcissist and uh I've dealt of course with I don't know how many family
63. 20:20 members and so on so forth I think Sperry was right and I think to a large extent the ICD is wrong on this I think you definitely have people with a disorder and clearly they have extreme deficiencies and defects in the in self-concept in the very existence of a
64. 20:39 self in ability to tell reality from fantasy in reality testing You know they are no longer with us They are delusional They are it's and you can't confuse them You can't conflate them with someone with a with a narcissistic personality style because the person with a
65. 20:57 personality style is with us fully fully functional or fully So I think Sperry was right if Sperry and Milan were right and the ICD I think is getting it wrong my view