Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Narcissism is So Hard to Believe! (with Yulia Kasprzhak, Clinician)

1. 00:00 They’re not the same. They can survive together very nicely and have long-term relationships and and so on. Understand? Thank you. Um if narcissist makes something wrong, something
2. 00:17 terrible and then he says next day, I didn’t do it. I don’t remember it. It it
3. 00:24 it’s not u truth is it really? He doesn’t remember it or it is liar.
4. 00:32 He really doesn’t remember. Um there is this misconception especially online that narcissists lie, that
5. 00:43 narcissist gaslight, that narcissist future fake. They make you promises and
6. 00:49 they don’t keep the promise. Yeah. All this is not true. This is true of psychopaths. Psychopaths lie. Psychopath gas lie. Definitely psychopath future
7. 01:00 fate. All these psychopaths do narcissists are delusional.
8. 01:06 They are almost psychotic. Ottober suggested that they are actually kind of psychotic people. They almost have psychosis. They’re not very far from schizophrenics.
9. 01:18 This is very serious disease. It’s not a joke. Much more serious than
10. 01:24 psychopathy. Much more. So they are delusional and they not only delusional
11. 01:30 but they are 100% in fantasy. They have no contact with reality. We call it impaired reality testing. Narcissists have zero contact with reality. They live 100% inside their
12. 01:43 minds in a fantasy. Other people don’t exist. They exist inside the mind. They are internal
13. 01:49 objects. It’s totally crazy. And the narcissist has dissociation.
14. 01:56 Dissociation, severe dissociation, like the borderline. In other words, the narcissist has
15. 02:03 memory gaps, gaps in memory. Narcissist forgets a lot. A lot.
16. 02:11 And so to compensate for these memory gaps, the narcissist invents stories,
17. 02:19 narratives. Narcissist uh creates bridges, fictional bridges
18. 02:28 to paper over to somehow compensate for the memory gap. And then he believes in
19. 02:34 these inventions, in these stories, and he regards them as facts.
20. 02:41 So even when you confront the narcissist with a video recording, he would deny it because that’s not how he remembers things. He remembers it differently. Now
21. 02:53 this process is called confabulation. The n and it is very common. Confabulation is also very common in schizophrenia and other psychotic patients. Confabulation.
22. 03:06 confabulation is uh the narcissist remembers point A
23. 03:13 remembers event event A let’s call it event A and then he remembers event C
24. 03:22 event A happened half an hour ago event C happened 5 minutes ago 25
25. 03:30 minutes are missing nothing he has no memory of this 25 minutes he just remembers A and C. So he says it’s panic reaction. It creates
26. 03:41 anxiety, creates dissonance and there’s a panic reaction. And he says what happened? What happened between A and C?
27. 03:49 And he says probably what happened is this and that. Probably what happened is
28. 03:55 event B. A B C. I remember A. I remember
29. 04:01 C. probably there was B. Otherwise, how did I get to C B? And then he says,
30. 04:08 “Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was B.” Yeah, absolutely. I remember B. I was there.
31. 04:14 It happened. And then you come to him and say, “It was not B. I have a video of you.” And this video shows it was not
32. 04:22 B. It was L. There’s no way it was not L. It was B. I
33. 04:31 remember it clearly that it was B. I was there. Nothing. You cannot convince him that it was not B. It was L. Not even even a video recorded because he is emotionally invested. He is cafeed. There is cexis.
34. 04:47 There is emotional investment in the confabulation. It is very frightening
35. 04:53 not to have continuous memory because when you don’t have continuous memory,
36. 04:59 you don’t have identity. Identity depends on memory and is derived from
37. 05:06 memory. Core identity is the sum total of your memories. If you have zero
38. 05:12 memory like in Alzheimer’s disease, if you have zero memory like in Kosakov
39. 05:18 syndrome, you don’t have identity. So it’s very frightening. And so the
40. 05:25 narcissist uses confabulation as anxolysis to reduce anxiety. The
41. 05:31 confabulation is axiolytic. And then the only way for the confabulation to work is to believe that it is not a confabulation. It is
42. 05:42 reality. It really happened. And then he’s invested in it and you cannot
43. 05:48 change his mind. So there’s a combination here of psychotic features, hyper reflexivity, confabulation. These are psychotic features coupled with
44. 05:59 delusionality because narcissism is delusional disorder. The narcissist is totally delusional about the world. When
45. 06:05 you put the two together, you begin to understand that the narcissist is not lying to you. He’s not gaslighting you.
46. 06:12 He’s not future faking. When he makes you a promise, he really believes that
47. 06:18 he will keep this promise. When he tells you that he remembers something, he really believes that he remembers.
48. 06:25 Everything he says, he really believes. When there is a fantasy, he thinks it’s reality. He’s a sick individual.
49. 06:32 It’s sick. People refuse to accept that it is a a sickness. They think of the
50. 06:38 narcissist evil creature who is they’re confusing narcissist and psychopath.
51. 06:45 Psychopath knows exactly what they’re doing. Psychopath knows that he’s lying to you, falsifying your memory, challenging your reality, perception of reality, manipulating you, taking things
52. 06:57 from you. He’s a psychopath. Yes, psychopaths are coming scheming. Not a narcissist.
53. 07:04 Not a narcissist. Fantastic. And um what is the reason of the sadistic resource? Why for they are doing that? What were they feeling? What is the reason of it?
54. 07:21 Very few narcissists are sadist. the the prevalence of sadism in the incidence of
55. 07:27 sorry of sadism in among psychopaths is much higher. In other words, many more
56. 07:33 psychopaths are sadist than narcissists. Psychopaths are likely to be sadistic to some extent. Many psychopaths are seriously sadistic like you know sexual sadist and
57. 07:45 so on. In narcissism, sadism is a lot less common. A lot less common. And
58. 07:51 again, we believe that about 2 to 3% of narcissists are sadist. Sadism makes you feel powerful, godlike.
59. 08:02 If you have the capacity to in to inflict pain, if I if the
60. 08:09 narcissist can create in you pain, if the narcissist can can make you feel pain, it means the narcissist has power over you.
61. 08:21 pain the ability to create pain in another person is proof of omnipotence
62. 08:29 proof of all being all powerful so it’s a grandio construct the sadism
63. 08:37 in narcissism goes hand inhand with grandiosity the narcissist would say to himself the
64. 08:45 fact that I can hurt people the fact that I can harm people. The fact that I can cause them pain, the fact that I can make them beg me to stop, this proves that I’m godlike. Even if I take someone’s life, it makes
65. 09:02 me God. Only God can take life. So I can take life. Makes me God. So narcissism is very common among serial killers.
66. 09:14 Very common among serial killers. because serial killers very often
67. 09:20 um use the the murders to self arrandise to to
68. 09:26 support their own grandio self-concept. And so luckily sadism is very limited
69. 09:32 and even when sadism exists it is usually verbal sadism
70. 09:38 and usually brief brief sadism like it’s not all the
71. 09:45 time. It’s like there are eruptions. There are bursts of sadism. Bursts of sadism and then it stops. Burst and it
72. 09:51 stops. Intermittent. We call it intermittent sadism. So in among narcissists, sadism is not a a prominent not a dominant clinical feature. It is
73. 10:03 not even mentioned in the diagnostic manuals, not in the DSM, not in the ICD,
74. 10:09 nowhere. Um, there used to be a sadistic personality disorder in the DSM3.
75. 10:16 There was sadistic personality DSM diagnostic and statistical menu. Yeah.
76. 10:22 Uh, but they deleted it. They eliminated it. So today we don’t have sadism anywhere by the way in the DSM. You
77. 10:29 cannot find sadism in the DSM. And um, but sadism is real. There are
78. 10:37 people who derive pleasure and a sense of grandio omnipotence and a sense of
79. 10:43 being godlike by inflicting pain on other people. That is absolutely clinically real phenomenon. I don’t care
80. 10:51 what the DSM says. It’s absolutely real. And um when this happens usually these
81. 10:58 people are narcissists. So small minority of narcissists are sadist but a majority of sadis are
82. 11:06 narcissists. Thank you. I understand.
83. 11:12 Uh how could you explain why the most narcissist is it true believe in
84. 11:20 esoteric conceptions? Yeah. One more thing before we go there. Um when I say pain that the sadist likes
85. 11:28 to inflict pain. There could be many types of pain. For example, extreme acute discomfort or humiliation, shaming someone
86. 11:39 or exposing someone. So you could have even pro-social sadism, communal sadism.
87. 11:47 For example, you could be a journalist and you could be all the time investigating corruption
88. 11:54 and you’re exposing people who are corrupt and they end up in prison or they kill themselves and you enjoy it. You love it. You love hurting people.
89. 12:06 You love the pain that you you’re not exposing the corruption as a journalist.
90. 12:12 You’re exposing the corruption as a sadist. You understand? So sadism can be moral. You could have moral sadism. You can use morality. You can use ethics
91. 12:24 to be sadistic. You can your morality your ethics could
92. 12:30 be so extreme, so harsh that you are torturing people. You’re hurting them
93. 12:36 with your morality. You understand? So that’s just to clarify that pain has
94. 12:43 many there are many ways to inflict pain. You could even use sense of humor
95. 12:49 to inflict pain. You could have a brutal sadistic sense of humor. You know
96. 12:55 anything can be used to inflict pain on people. There is no uh there is no correlation or evidence that
97. 13:06 narcissists are likely to be more esoteric or more inclined to esoteric
98. 13:12 studies than normal people. There is a personality disorder where people are
99. 13:18 more inclined to study esoteric topics and it is the schizotipal personality
100. 13:24 disorder. In schizotipal personality disorder, people are likely to be conspiracy theorists. They’re likely to
101. 13:31 believe in things like UFOs or witchcraft or astrology or so. This is
102. 13:37 schizotipal personality disorder, not narcissism. Understand?
103. 13:44 And is it clear what is dynamic of of this disorder? Uh what will be in with
104. 13:51 this person in old age? If nothing will influence on it, we know that some today today the approach to pathological narcissism
105. 14:04 is we we emphasize traits. We call them trait domains. So we
106. 14:11 emphasize certain traits in narcissism, certain qualities, most of them genetic as I said, all of them actually.
107. 14:19 And we we pay we pay less attention to
108. 14:25 behaviors. We emphasize much more traits and and dynamics, internal dynamics.
109. 14:33 And so when you look at the narcissist from the framework of traits,
110. 14:40 some traits ameilate with age. Some traits become better with age. For example, the
111. 14:46 narcissist is less likely to be antagonistic, less likely to seek
112. 14:52 conflict, less likely to be aggressive. Antagonism is a psychopathic, antisocial
113. 14:59 element in narcissism. And we know that psychopathy, antisocial traits become
114. 15:07 better with age. Generally even among psychopaths for example the rate of criminal behavior
115. 15:15 among psychopaths collapses after age 45.
116. 15:21 Psychopaths after age 45 are almost never criminal. So we know that many of these traits
117. 15:28 change and so antagonism is one example. Um
118. 15:35 we know that um some types of negative effects
119. 15:41 become less intense. So for example, narcissist is becomes less envious as
120. 15:47 they age. But Gorso modem overall
121. 15:53 there is no discernable change over the lifespan.
122. 16:00 In other words, narcissism is there to stay regardless of age. This is not the case in borderline. In
123. 16:06 borderline personality disorder, after age 45, 81% of people with borderline
124. 16:13 personality disorder lose the diagnosis. Same with some behaviors in psychopathy.
125. 16:20 So the prognosis for borderline and psychopathy is much better than the prognosis for narcissism.
126. 16:27 Narcissistic personality disorder seems to be a lifespan disorder common in all
127. 16:34 stages of life and doesn’t change noticeably or um
128. 16:41 in intensity or in manifestation. There was a study a few last year there was a study that suggested that narcissists become more empathic with age. The study is very flawed and it actually did not study narcissists. It studied people with dark personalities. As you
129. 17:02 remember from the beginning of our conversation when we were both much younger that people with dark
130. 17:08 personalities are not narcissists, they are subclinical narcissists. So at this stage we believe that narcissism in the best case remains the same. And there
131. 17:20 are some scholars who suggest that narcissism becomes worse with age
132. 17:26 because the narcissist is much more difficult for the narcissist in old age to obtain narcissistic supply. When the narcissist is old is much more
133. 17:37 difficult for the narcissist to find intimate partners, much more difficult to the narcissist to impress people,
134. 17:43 much more difficult to obtain attention when he’s old. So narcissistic experience in old age uh collapse
135. 17:52 narcissistic injury, narcissistic motification. They become covert much more often. And so there are scholars
136. 17:58 who believe that narcissism actually aggravates with old age becomes worse.
137. 18:05 This by the way goes hand inhand with disorders uh diseases that are common in
138. 18:12 old age. for example, dementia, Alzheimer’s and other dementias,
139. 18:18 for example, diabetes. These disorders have uh um kind of have
140. 18:25 synergy with narcissism. They they contribute to narcissism. They enhance narcissism.
141. 18:31 So, because many many old people have diabetes, many old people have I mean some old people have dementia,
142. 18:39 this would exacerbate the narcissism. It would make the narcissism much much worse. A narcissist who has dementia is
143. 18:45 a nightmare. Is the worst type of patient because he has both dementia and
144. 18:51 narcissism and they feed on each other all the time. They mutually reinforce, mutually enhance. Same to some extent diabetes. Diabetes another example.
145. 19:02 There are other diseases which are common in old age. old age diseases that collaborate with narcissism, make it
146. 19:09 make it stronger, make it feel more pronounced.
147. 19:16 Um, question. Um, women like to ask this question because it is excitable for them. Uh, um, often
148. 19:28 narcissist uh, makes narcissistic pinks. So he disappear I I explain uh he
149. 19:37 disappears from the woman’s life and then he appears again and say that how
150. 19:44 you no problem it say that he was all the time was was
151. 19:50 with her but it’s no problem that she didn’t see him several years
152. 19:57 means pink it’s called pink Yeah. Hovering. It’s a form of hovering.
153. 20:03 Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Why do they make them and how to
154. 20:09 react for woman on this behavior? I think the narcissist uh interacts with intimate partners via a construct called
155. 20:21 the shared fantasy. The shared fantasy is highly complex. It includes various elements. um both both parties to the shared fantasy play roles.
156. 20:33 Both of them play maternal roles for example and so on. At some point the shared fantasy always leads to
157. 20:42 devaluation of the partner and discard of the partner, getting rid of the partner, breaking up with the partner
158. 20:48 for reasons that I will not go into right now. If you want to learn more about this, then you can watch the
159. 20:54 shared fantasy playlist on on my YouTube channel. Shared fantasy deserves its own its own interview because it’s really very complex. Um, following the the discard, the narcissist remains stuck with the
160. 21:12 internal object that represented the partner in the narcissist’s mind. You remember that narcissist do not interact with external objects. They cannot perceive the separateness and
161. 21:23 externality of people. So what they do? They create avatars. They create visuals, mental representations in their minds and they continue to interact with these
162. 21:34 representations. When the narcissist breaks up with the partner, the partner is gone, but the representation stays.
163. 21:41 The internal object that represented the partner and with which the narcissist had the most interaction remains.
164. 21:49 So this creates dissonance. There is an internal object that is supposed to represent an external object
165. 21:56 but there’s no external object. It’s a sense of something missing. It’s
166. 22:02 a I compare it to amputation. When you amputate a leg, you still feel the leg
167. 22:08 is there. This is called phantom phantom pain or phantom. So
168. 22:15 the when the narcissist amputates the partner, he still feels the partner is there. And this creates a lot of
169. 22:22 anxiety, a lot of dissonance. And so the narcissist tries to overcome this. He tries to
170. 22:29 overcome it by finding another partner. He tries to overcome it by re recasting,
171. 22:36 re reccharacterizing the internal object as what we call up a secondary object, an enemy. So he changes the nature of the internal object into for example an enemy you uh he tries to uh pretend that the internal object is not there to deny
172. 22:53 repress the internal object. Now sometimes it works sometimes the narcissist finds another partner and he’s so busy with the other partner he creates another internal object to
173. 23:05 represent a new partner. He has a new shared fantasy and so on. And sometimes it works. Sometimes
174. 23:12 uh it changes the nature of the internal object. And this also works especially if the the real partner the external object really becomes an enemy. So then
175. 23:24 the internal object conforms to the external object and the dissonance disappears. So if the narcissist changes the internal object and says my exartner
176. 23:36 is my enemy now and the exartner is really an enemy now really becomes an
177. 23:42 enemy then the internal object and the external objects match and there is no
178. 23:48 dissonance. But sometimes this fails and the internal object is active and this creates a lot of anxiety and and uh and
179. 23:59 so the only way to solve this is to reacquire the external object to take
180. 24:05 her back by re idealizing her and creating a new
181. 24:11 shared fantasy. So then the narcissist would approach the exartner
182. 24:19 and would offer to her in effect to continue the shed fantasy. He would re idealize her and then she would be out there. The internal object is here and the dissonance and anxiety disappear. This process is known as hoovering.
183. 24:35 Um in the narcissist mind you don’t exist externally. So the relationship never ended
184. 24:46 because your internal object is in his mind and he continues to interact with his internal object.
185. 24:52 This is why you and the narcissist break up 10 years
186. 24:58 later. 10 years later he comes back to you and he continues to talk to you like you
187. 25:07 broke up yesterday, not 10 years ago. because in his mind you were never gone.
188. 25:14 He continued uh he continued the interaction in his
189. 25:20 mind with your internal object. So he would he would try to hoover you to
190. 25:26 create to remove the discrepancy between external and internal to match you to
191. 25:32 the internal object again and to restart the shed fantasy. Because as long as
192. 25:38 you’re out of his life as an external object, the internal object is bothering him. There is external Ulia, Ulia is
193. 25:46 gone. But there is internal Ulia inside his mind. There’s Ulia inside his mind and she’s active.
194. 25:53 This creates a lot of mess. And the only way is to bring Ulia back
195. 25:59 to match her with the internal object. there’s no no difference, no discrepancy and he can rest. Not always but sometimes if he fails to find other
196. 26:10 solutions. What do you recommend for to for woman
197. 26:16 to do in this situation? No contact. No contact. When I started my work in the 1980s, I came up with a set of strategies and I
198. 26:28 called them no contact. This is the famous no contact today that everyone is saying. So is the only the only
199. 26:36 long-term solution. There are many many small strategies other strategies that you can use if you want to survive with
200. 26:43 a narcissist. If you want to continue the relationship or you’re forced to continue the relationship maybe. But
201. 26:49 none of them is in the long term. And none of them solves the issue. You must walk away. And you must walk away
202. 26:55 because narcissism is also contagious. It’s like a virus. And uh if you stay in the presence of the narcissist, if you interact with a narcissist, if you have a relationship
203. 27:06 with a narcissist, you will become a narcissist. So this is a serious danger. Um, the only way to survive with the
204. 27:18 narcissist somehow is to adopt narcissistic
205. 27:24 behaviors, narcissistic reactions, to become abusive yourself.
206. 27:30 This is known as reactive abuse to you become more and more narcissistic all the time. You lose your empathy.
207. 27:37 You are trapped in the fantasy. You lose contact with reality. You lose all touch with your friends and family. You’re
208. 27:44 isolated. You This is You’re becoming a narcissist. You just don’t realize it.
209. 27:50 So, it’s contagious. It’s an infection. You need to walk away before it’s too late. There have been studies in Harvard
210. 27:58 University, Alamra, others that showed that if you’re exposed to the narcissist for 3 seconds, seconds seconds, you already feel uncomfortable. You already something in you, you feel bad. This is known as the uncanny valley
211. 28:15 reaction. There have been many many studies that have shown that if you’re
212. 28:22 exposed to a narcissist for 30 seconds 30 seconds not years not days not
213. 28:29 minutes seconds and if you’re exposed to the narcissist for 30 seconds not directly through a
214. 28:36 video or through an email you develop extreme discomfort.
215. 28:47 cognitive dissonance and you begin to react in ways which resemble narcissism.
216. 28:54 For example, you become a lot more aggressive, internally aggressive. You don’t do anything but you become a lot
217. 29:00 more aggressive, a lot more empa empathic, very paranoid and so on. This is in 30 seconds. Now imagine if you’re with a narcissist
218. 29:12 for 30 years, you’re you lose your identity. You’re no longer yourself. It’s a very very high price to pay. You need to walk away. The narcissist
219. 29:25 the narcissist needs you to disappear because the narcissist interacts,
220. 29:33 responds to and has a relationship with only the internal object.
221. 29:40 Your external existence is a threat, is a problem
222. 29:46 because there is the internal object in the narcissist’s mind. The narcissist
223. 29:52 controls the internal object. The narcissist manipulates the internal object. The narcissist talks to the internal object. The relationship of the narcissist is with the internal object that looks like Ulia has the face of
224. 30:04 Ulia and the history of Ulia and everything but is not Ulia is an internal object is an avatar.
225. 30:12 Uh so the narcissist interacts with this and you are outside. You’re real. You’re
226. 30:20 external. You have a life. You make decisions. You travel. You make new friends. You
227. 30:28 talk to your family. Every time you show any sign of life, every time you show
228. 30:34 any sign of independence, you create conflict with the internal object.
229. 30:42 You talk to your mother, but the internal object is not talking to your mother. So this is discrepancy is a
230. 30:50 problem. It doesn’t sit together. your life, your personal autonomy, your
231. 30:57 independence, they challenge the internal object. They are threat, the threatening to the internal object. So the narcissist wants you dead, metaphorically dead. He wants you, he
232. 31:10 wants to deanimate you, take away your life force. He wants you to be static, inert object. He objectifies it. There
233. 31:18 is a famous movie by Alfred Hitchcock. It’s called Psycho.
234. 31:24 It’s a 1960 movie. In the movie Psycho, there is a motel. Motel is a small hotel
235. 31:31 hotel in the United States. So, there is a motel and the owner of the motel is a guy
236. 31:37 called Norman Bates. Norman Bates killed his mother. He killed his mother.
237. 31:45 What he did? He embalmed her. He he converted her into Egyptian mommy. like
238. 31:51 a mummy. Every morning he goes up to her room. He
239. 31:57 takes out the mommy. It’s dead. The mother is dead. She’s like a stuffed animal, you know. So, he takes a body.
240. 32:05 He goes to the shower. He gives her a shower. He bring he puts her clothes. He brings
241. 32:12 her back to the room. He puts her on a chair facing the window so that she can
242. 32:18 see outside. That’s in the morning. In the evening, he comes up, he takes
243. 32:24 her out of the chair, he washes her, he puts her to bed, he kisses her on the cheek or whatever, and says, “Good night, mom, mother. See you tomorrow.” She’s dead.
244. 32:37 This is the ideal partner of the narcissist.
245. 32:43 That’s the ideal partner of the narcissist because she never moves, she never talks, she never answers, she never challenges the internal object in
246. 32:54 the mind of Norman Bates. As far as he’s concerned, he has a mother. She’s alive in his mind. He
247. 33:02 washes her. He talks to her. He argues with her. He puts her in bed. He puts her in the on the chair. They have a
248. 33:09 relationship. In Norman Bates mind, they have a relation. They’re having a relationship, but she’s dead. And so, this is how the narcissist wants you to be an Egyptian mommy
249. 33:22 because everything you do that the internal object does not do,
250. 33:28 you are challenging the narcissist mind and he hates you for that. Ultimately
251. 33:34 you become an enemy because if you challenge him once, twice, 10 times, 20 times, 50 times, 100
252. 33:41 times, you become an enemy. You are source of frustration. You constantly undermine, destabilize his mind because in his mind the
253. 33:52 internal objects are fixed. They are everything is arranged beautifully as and here you come and you destroy everything. So you must be an enemy is changing you in his mind into a secretary object an enemy. Then he devalues you and he discards you. So
254. 34:10 it’s a very sick unhealthy dynamic and you don’t want to be a part of it.
255. 34:17 You don’t want to play the role of the mother in in the movie cycle. But if you are not careful, you will end up this
256. 34:24 way. Maybe not dead physically but dead mentally definitely.
257. 34:35 It’s difficult to but it’s time. Imagine this.
258. 34:41 Think about think about the narcissist as a psychotic. The mistake we all we all make is to
259. 34:48 think about the narcissist as just another another person, another guy, another girl, you know, not nice, not
260. 34:55 pleasant, aggressive, obnoxious, this that, but generally like one of us. The narcissist is not one of us. He is not no longer with us. He is psych is
261. 35:06 absolutely I agree with Kberg is psychotic. This is a form of psychosis. He is completely in another universe. He he’s not hallucinating. So clinically
262. 35:17 we cannot say that narcissism is psychosis because there are no hallucinations.
263. 35:23 But there is very close to hallucinations very very close when you confuse external object with internal
264. 35:31 object that is very very close to hallucination. And it and the narcissist has key
265. 35:38 feature key clinical feature very important clinical feature of psychosis hyper reflexivity. Hyper reflexivity is
266. 35:45 when there is a confusion between self and the world. There is the you can’t
267. 35:52 you can’t tell you can’t say where you end and the world begins.
268. 35:58 Everything is one like huge oneness. And so the psychotic
269. 36:04 when something happens in the psychotic mind the psychotic believes it is happening outside not in his mind. When
270. 36:11 the psychotic has an internal voice he thinks it’s external voice. When psychotic sees something internally he
271. 36:18 thinks it’s out there. There is a confusion in psychosis between external and internal.
272. 36:24 Same with the narcissist. There’s a confusion between external and internal. And there is hyperrelexivity in the
273. 36:31 sense that the narcissist in is embedded in a fantasy that replaces reality
274. 36:38 completely. Think about it for a minute. I keep saying that the narcissist lives in a
275. 36:45 fantasy. Okay? That he has no access to reality. But wait a minute, where is
276. 36:51 this fantasy? In his mind. The fantasy is in his mind.
277. 36:58 So the narcissist lives inside his mind never in reality
278. 37:04 exactly like the psychotic exactly like the psychotic no difference here so I
279. 37:10 think like kbeck that this is pseudocsychosis it’s form of psychosis absolutely and in this sense I think it’s a mistake in the DSM that
280. 37:22 they’re putting this together with psychopathy psychopathy the antisocial personality
281. 37:28 disorder has nothing to do with narcissistic personality disorder in my view. These are totally different
282. 37:35 clinical categories and so on. Uh the narcissist and the borderline have some things in common. They have dissociation for example both of them. They have fantasy defense both of them.
283. 37:48 They have a false self. The narcissist and the and the borderline have a false self. So there’s some things in common
284. 37:55 between nar but narcissist has very little in common with psychopath. I’m talking about psychonamics. Psychonamics
285. 38:02 of narcissist has nothing to do with psychoynamics of psychopath. So I think it’s a mistake to make this grouping
286. 38:11 that is that is the situation as long as you refuse to accept that the narcissist is really really really very very very
287. 38:19 sick and maybe should not be outside maybe should be in a institution. You know as
288. 38:26 long as you refuse to accept this then you will not never understand narcissism.
289. 38:32 You will blame the narcissist. You will argue with the narcissist. to try to convince you. All this is nonsense. Even
290. 38:38 in therapy, it’s nonsense because we talk to the narcissist in therapy. As if as if it’s some kind of adult, as if we
291. 38:45 can make agreement with the narcissist. We can convince the narcissist. We can compromise with the narcissist. It’s
292. 38:51 complete nonsense. It’s a 2-year-old child who is also psychotic.
293. 38:58 End of story. Nothing to do. Nothing to do in a relationship. Nothing to do in
294. 39:04 therapy, nothing to do anywhere. You can help the narcissist as you said
295. 39:10 correctly. You can help the narcissist adopt. We can help the narcissist with adaptation to teach the narcissist how to survive his own disorder somehow
296. 39:22 function. But not nothing more fundamental than this.
297. 39:30 How it will better to survive not not marry
298. 39:36 doesn’t see doesn’t see any problem. He doesn’t regard himself as problematic.
299. 39:43 But I advise other people to not marry narcissist. Yes. Absolutely. Not be in any contact. Any any kind of contact. Not even employ a narcissist. Not marry. Not any kind of contact. If you bring a
300. 39:56 narcissist into your business, he will destroy the business. If you bring a narcissist to your family, he will destroy the family. If you become friends with a neighbor who is a narcissist, sooner or later that
301. 40:08 neighbor will destroy your life. You can negotiate with a psychopath. You
302. 40:15 can make agreements with psychopaths. Can psychopaths are goal oriented. They want something. They want your money. They want they want something. It’s not the case with the narcissist. Narcissist
303. 40:26 is crazy. These are crazy people. So simple. I don’t know how else to put it. These are simply crazy people. Maybe it will be any medicines, medical
304. 40:38 treatment, possibly in in maybe a combination of medicines, but
305. 40:45 maybe some things could be controlled. We have there are experiments with certain psychedelics
306. 40:52 um where people report having experiencing enhanced empathy when they
307. 40:58 take certain psychedelics. They feel more connected to other people, more empathic and so maybe we could start
308. 41:05 with psychedelics to some extent. Psychedelics reduce depression. We know that they are they’re good with anxiety
309. 41:13 and anxiety and depression are key features in narcissism. and empathy, lack of effective empathy.
310. 41:20 So maybe we could start with a combination of psychedelics and maybe some other things. I I don’t know. Um I don’t know. Remember the following.
311. 41:32 Schizophrenia only 50 years ago schizophrenia or 60
312. 41:38 years ago schizophrenia was considered the worst possible mental illness. Like nothing worse than this. A destruction of the mind. nothing is left and people were talking about schizophrenia the way
313. 41:49 I’m talking about narcissism but today with antiscychotics and other
314. 41:56 medications schizophrenia is totally manageable condition totally manageable if you take your medication regularly you can function perfectly you can have a family you can have you can work you
315. 42:07 can Same with bipolar disorder bipolar disorder 40 50 years ago people were
316. 42:13 saying the end nothing to do. Crazy people, this that and today with minimal
317. 42:19 medications, bipolar is totally controlled. One pill a day, bipolar is totally controlled. So maybe there is
318. 42:27 ground for optimism because bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are highly complex conditions
319. 42:34 and they are completely controllable with medication. I would even say practically speaking
320. 42:42 they are curable because if you take a medication all the time then you will never have symptoms.
321. 42:49 So maybe the same will happen with narcissism. I’m more optimistic about borderline thing because in borderline we have absolute proof that there is there are brain abnormalities and genetic hereditary components. So it’s borderline is much more biological.
322. 43:05 There’s no question about this. So I’m much more optimistic about borderline and even to some extent I’m more optimistic about psychopaths psychopathy when it comes to medication
323. 43:15 because psychopathy is definitely definitely involves massive problems in the brain and in physiology change
324. 43:23 physiology of the body and uh probably a genetic component. So I think borderline
325. 43:30 and psychopathy would be the first to be medicated efficaciously.
326. 43:36 But maybe then narcissism as well. I hope. I hope because it is sad. It’s a
327. 43:43 sad situation. Many narcissists are very gifted. Many narcissists are talented.
328. 43:49 Many narcissists are intelligent. They can contribute to society. They are children. It is also said because they’re really children. I’m not it’s not just metaphor. Internally their
329. 44:01 internal experience is the experience of a completely confused child completely traumatized completely abused in panic. Child in panic you know this is the internal experience of the
330. 44:13 narcissist and it is sad. It’s simply sad. So as a child the narcissist tries
331. 44:19 to cope in in adult society and he keeps failing. He’s trying to have relationships. He fails. He cannot experience love. He he’s trying to build
332. 44:30 things and they fall apart. He’s he’s constantly threatened from the outside. He becomes paranoid. It’s and that’s
333. 44:37 because of the immaturity of the narcissist. He’s immature. Is he’s is a baby. It’s a baby, you know. And um that
334. 44:46 is also a sad aspect. So it’s a sad disorder. I would say you know in in
335. 44:53 when we teach psychology we say to the student there are three types of people mad, bad and sad.
336. 45:01 So mad would be borderline. Bad would be would be psychopath. And I think sad is narcissist. I find it to be very sad
337. 45:13 disorder because the psychopath doesn’t try. Psychopath couldn’t care less.
338. 45:20 Psychopath doesn’t care. Really, honestly, doesn’t care. He wants what he wants and he’s going to get it. He’s
339. 45:26 going to kill people. He’s going to steal. That’s it. He’s a machine. He wants something. That’s it. He’s goal
340. 45:32 oriented. So, borderline has a very difficult life and difficult
341. 45:39 experiences, but at least she has hope. There’s hope there. Narcissist
342. 45:45 all the time is trying Narcissists always try to find love, to find relationship, to find to have a family, to work, to build, to all the trying they’re trying. Psychopath
343. 45:57 doesn’t try and borderline waits. Sooner or later the problem will be solved. Narcissist keeps trying, keeps trying, keeps trying until dies. And I think this cifus, this cifian picture is sad. I think there’s a lot of
344. 46:14 melancholy in narcissism. It’s a melancholic condition and uh it doesn’t mean we should pity
345. 46:23 them but we should not allow this pity influence our decisions. That is a mistake of many women that you mentioned. They allow pity. They pity the narcissist and then they allow this
346. 46:35 pity to influence their decisions and that is a mistake. You can pity someone and not not sacrifice yourself, you know. And I think
347. 46:47 we need to understand that narcissists cannot help it in many ways.
348. 46:53 They choose. They make choices. I’m I’m not saying they don’t make choices. And I’m not saying the some of these choices
349. 46:59 are not bad choices, even evil choice. That’s not what I’m saying. I think narcissist should be fully held fully
350. 47:06 accountable and responsible for what they’re doing. But many of these choices and so on are
351. 47:13 driven by forces that the narcissist is not aware of and cannot control. And
352. 47:19 many of these choices have to do with the narcissist’s attempt to become normal.
353. 47:25 I would say the narcissist’s greatest wish is to become not average, superior
354. 47:31 but normal. And normaly is very important to the narcissist. That’s why the narcissist
355. 47:37 get married because they want to show the world I’m normal. Unlike everyone, I’m normal. You know, deep inside the
356. 47:45 narcissist knows that he’s mentally ill. Deep inside there’s a lot of shame, a
357. 47:51 lot of discomfort deep inside, buried, unconscious, a lot of and the narcissism
358. 47:57 is compensatory. It’s compensation. The false self, these grandio claims, I’m
359. 48:04 God, I’m this, I’m that. This is compensation for a child that is inside very frightened, very ashamed and very so it’s I’m not a child. I’m not ashamed.
360. 48:15 I’m not frightened. I’m God. I know everything. I’m all powerful. I’m you know he’s trying to convince who?
361. 48:22 Himself. He’s trying to convince not other people so much. He’s trying to convince himself that he is like that. That’s why we call it self enhancement.
362. 48:34 And he uses other people, he asks other people to help him. He’s saying, “Help me to convince myself that I’m God.” You
363. 48:41 know, give me narcissistic supply. Tell me, give me attention. Tell me that I’m
364. 48:47 irresistible. Tell me that I’m a genius. Tell me that I’m brilliant. Tell me that I’m handsome. Tell me, tell me, tell me
365. 48:54 because I don’t believe it. I need you to tell me this to convince
366. 49:00 myself because then I can say other people are saying it, not me. And if other people are saying it, it must be true. I don’t really believe I’m a genius. But
367. 49:12 if other people are saying I’m a genius, I can calm down. I can relax. I probably am a genius. Other people are saying it, you know. And this is this is the mechanism of
368. 49:23 narcissistic supply. They must be good fathers because they
369. 49:29 as a child and they have very big internal mind for fantasy. No.
370. 49:36 Ah good fathers in this sense. Uh Mhm. Not really because they use everyone.
371. 49:42 They they cannot perceive other people as external including their own children with the children is even much worse
372. 49:49 because child definitely is not external to the narcissist. Oh, they can. So
373. 49:55 they’re using people. So they would use the child to get attention or they would use the child to get admiration or they will create a fantasy where they are god and the child is a worshipper or they
374. 50:08 the child admires them or worships them or so always the child will have to play a role in some movie in some theater
375. 50:16 production of the narcissist. children would be like actors and so no I wouldn’t say they’re good fathers they they’re not they cannot interact with other people in a way which would be good for other people there simply no way to accomplish this
376. 50:34 even child it’s that even child even teacher even there’s no way they can interact with other people
377. 50:40 in a manner which would be beneficial to the other person it could come accidentally but it’s never part of the
378. 50:47 plan of the structure the the narcissist takes from other people. He’s a taker.
379. 50:55 He’s not a giver. He’s a taker. Whatever he gives, he gives, as I said, incidentally, accidentally, not
380. 51:01 intentionally, gives, but he’s a mainly a taker. Some narcissists pretend to be givers. They are the pro-social communal
381. 51:09 narcissist. They pretend to be givers, but they’re not really giving. They’re giving in a way that would trigger narcissistic supply. So if they give a donation or charity or they give money to the poor, they will give money to the
382. 51:21 poor in front of television camera to get supply and then what the poor feel
383. 51:27 ashamed because they’re exposed to the television the poor. So as you see even
384. 51:34 giving money to the poor is bad for the poor people because they will be ashamed on television. So there’s no way to benefit from the narcissist and anyone who thinks there
385. 51:45 are many people who think many stupid people who think they can manipulate the
386. 51:51 narcissist. They can control the narcissist. They can make use of the narcissist too. These are seriously stupid people. It never ends well. There is no way to
387. 52:04 benefit from the narcissist. None. It always end badly ends badly with destruction. So this is the picture.
388. 52:16 Can we discuss few words about sex because it is very strange
389. 52:24 this part of the life because women say that um in few months or year it is
390. 52:33 stopped as usual and you say about alteratism.
391. 52:39 Yeah. Can we say that if
392. 52:49 Sam usually says that all interaction of narcissist is autootic basically because he interacts with his object in his mind but Andre warned me not to discuss this
393. 53:00 didn’t you? No just not inic terms you can express in academic terms it will be fine. Oh academic terms are okay. Okay okay
394. 53:06 okay. Um, all narcissists are autoerotic in the
395. 53:13 sense that they perceive their bodies as sexual objects. They are
396. 53:20 sexually aroused by their bodies because narcissism is fantasy based
397. 53:27 and because the fantasy excludes external objects. The fantasy is
398. 53:33 populated only with internal objects. The libido, if you wish to use the term libido, the sex drive cannot be outwardly directed. If you don’t have an
399. 53:44 external object, you cannot be attracted to someone outside. So there is no what we call uh cexis, libidinal cexis. There is no direction
400. 53:55 of the libido outward. But libido has to go somewhere. It’s energy. So instead of
401. 54:02 going outward, the libido goes inwards. I mean so we call it narcissistic libido.
402. 54:09 Narcissistic libido means that the libidinal cexis the libidonal investment is in one cell and this is known as
403. 54:16 autoeotism. Autogotism has multiple multiple impacts.
404. 54:25 First of all the sexual partner is always internalized. In other words,
405. 54:32 even when there is a physical sexual partner in bed or wherever, that sexual partner will immediately be converted into essentially an instrument
406. 54:43 or a tool or aid. And the narcissist would make love to himself
407. 54:50 through the partner’s body. He would make love to himself through the partner’s gaze. So he would look for example he would look at a partner and he would say wow she is
408. 55:03 attracted to me. She is attracted to me that proves that I’m attractive
409. 55:11 and because I’m attractive I can now be attracted to myself. So she confirms my attractiveness to myself. So that’s one example where the narcissist uses the gaze of the other to get attracted to himself via another
410. 55:28 person’s gaze, via his her agency. Similarly, the narcissist would use the partner’s body to masturbate with. As simple as that. Um
411. 55:40 so this is one reason that ultimately the sex dies out because the sex is usually bad, very bad. It is
412. 55:47 self-centered. the partner’s pleasure and the partner’s wishes, the partner’s preferences are
413. 55:53 not relevant at all. The partner feel the partner feels objectified and dehumanized and gradually and so this is one reason. Second reason, the
414. 56:04 narcissist converts the intimate partner into a maternal figure and you should not have sex with mother.
415. 56:12 The partner becomes a mother gradually. It’s a gradual process. So when the partner finally becomes a mother 100%
416. 56:20 the sex stops because of the incest taboo to avoid incest.
417. 56:27 The third reason is the narcissist uses sex to lure to attract the partner to
418. 56:34 it’s it’s a bait. He uses sex to deceive the partner if you wish to to convince her to come to join him in the fantasy. And then when she’s in, when she’s
419. 56:46 already hooked, when she’s addicted, when she’s in the fantasy, when she’s trapped, when she’s a hostage, there’s no need for sex anymore.
420. 56:53 So sex is instrumentalized. We call this process acquisition. Sex is
421. 57:00 instrumentalized to acquire the partner. Once the partner becomes captive,
422. 57:06 prisoner, hostage or addicted, unable to walk away
423. 57:12 for whatever reason, there’s no need for sex anymore and the sex stops.
424. 57:18 Even with cerebral narcissists, this is common. And finally, the narcissist has a
425. 57:25 betrayal fantasy. The narcissist’s original experience for example with a woman was
426. 57:32 with his mother and his mother basically betrayed him. His mother did not allow
427. 57:38 the narcissist as a child to separate and become an individual to become so there was a betrayal there and it is
428. 57:44 called by the way betrayal trauma betrayal trauma. So the narcissist felt betrayed
429. 57:51 and so when he finds a new mother, the intimate partner becomes a mother, new mother.
430. 57:58 He wants to reenact what he had with his original mother.
431. 58:04 So he wants to go through all the motions, all the processes, all the dynamics he had with his original mother, including betrayal. He would push the partner away,
432. 58:16 for example, by withholding sex, by not giving her sex. He would push her to
433. 58:23 betray him. He would push her to cheat on him, for example. He would push her
434. 58:30 to become absent emotionally or otherwise. He would push her away because it’s the only way he knows to
435. 58:37 interact with a m with a feminine figure, with a with a woman. So not having sex
436. 58:45 creates something known as betrayal fantasy. The narcissist creates within the shared
437. 58:52 fantasy a fantasy of a mother who is betraying the only mother he knows.
438. 58:59 And the most evident sign of betrayal is sexual. So he pushes her sexually. Some
439. 59:06 narcissists would even propose openly. They would tell the partner, “Go and find another man and have sex with him.” They would
440. 59:17 offer it to the partner either in kinky sex or they would push the partner. They would arrange circumstances where the partner is with another man because they need this to happen. They need it to happen in order to confirm
441. 59:33 the that she is the maternal figure. For them, if you don’t betray, you’re not a mother.
442. 59:39 You know people talk about narcissistic abuse and one misconception of narcissistic abuse
443. 59:45 the narcissist initially abuses you because you are his mother.
444. 59:51 He is testing you is testing. Are you a real mother? Are you a good mother? Will
445. 59:59 you love me? Never mind what I do to you. Will you love me unconditionally?
446. 60:05 Never mind how egregiously, how badly I misbehave. Never mind how much I torture you. Will
447. 60:12 you stick around? Will you stay? Because if you do, if you accept me as I
448. 60:18 am, you are my good my good mother. I know then that you are my mother. So
449. 60:25 narcissic abuse is one of the major functions of naric abuse is to constantly test you for motherhood. to
450. 60:31 test how good a mother are you, how much will you tolerate, how much will you accept, how long will you stay? It’s
451. 60:40 testing you all the time. Testing, testing. The betrayal fantasy is a test. Is testing you. But ironically, if you do not betray him, you fail the
452. 60:53 test. He needs you to betray him. He needs you actually to treat him
453. 60:59 badly. That’s why women keep saying but I treated him wonderfully. Why did he
454. 61:05 abandon me? Because you treated him wonderfully you know. So you see that
455. 61:11 there are very very intricate dynamics here. Dynamics are not simple. They go
456. 61:17 back long time and they have many many layers. Some unconscious, some conscious, some behavioral, some
457. 61:23 relational, some it’s a very complex disorder. It’s not like what people say online you know this and
458. 61:31 so the sex stops for all these reasons combined
459. 61:37 and then you know devaluation starts and discard and so now people say to me
460. 61:44 but I’ve had a relationship with the narcissist for for 20 years and he did not devalue he did not discard me we’re
461. 61:50 still together there are many ways to discard you can be in a relationship with the narcissist
462. 61:56 and he has discarded you. He got rid of you 10 times. You’re still together, but
463. 62:02 for example, he found another woman and cheated with her. That’s a way to
464. 62:09 discard you. Or he pushed you to cheat on him. That’s a way to discard you. Or
465. 62:16 he found a job in another country and he disappeared for a whole year. That’s a
466. 62:22 way to discard you. Narcissists always devalue and discard. Even when they’re
467. 62:29 with you for 50 years, they always devalue and discard because this is a
468. 62:36 part of the shared fantasy. The shared fantasy is inexorable, unstoppable, is stronger than the narcissist. And the shared fantasy is the only way the
469. 62:47 narcissist relates to other people. Romantic or not, it’s the only way.
470. 62:53 Sam, what about that claim about weight and homosexuality?
471. 62:59 Well, uh there are no studies that support the claim that narcissists are more or less uh latent homosexuals than the general
472. 63:11 population. There are no such studies. Um but we do know for example other aspects. We know for example that
473. 63:18 narcissists are more likely to engage in kinky sex which very very often in
474. 63:24 involves bisexual experiences. We know that that has been established.
475. 63:31 We know that um narcissists are much more likely to
476. 63:37 become bisexual than the general population. So it’s reasonable to assume but there’s
477. 63:44 no proof. It’s reasonable to assume that the percentage of latent homosexuals among
478. 63:50 narcissists would be higher than in the general population. Although we have only indirect proof of
479. 63:56 that. Uh it’s a common mistake to believe that bisexual people are homosexual. They’re not. These are two
480. 64:02 distinct phenomena. But in the case of the narcissist, I think the bisexual aspect is a bridge, a
481. 64:10 bridge perhaps to homosexuality. But I’m totally speculating. There’s no data.
482. 64:16 Thank you, Sam. Are you tired now?
483. 64:23 Yeah, I think one more question and we call it a day. It’s been three hours. I I wanted to ask the the last question.
484. 64:30 it. Um, one member of our group asked us to to to
485. 64:37 ask you about it because nobody can’t help him and he really search the help.
486. 64:44 The thing is that he decides that he is Andre
487. 64:51 psychopath. Psychopath. Okay. Yes.
488. 64:57 All right. Can psychopath experience guilt?
489. 65:06 Yeah, I understand. No need to translate. By the way, I spent I spent seven years in Russian. You and the rest of the question.
490. 65:26 So he fantasizes that her partner is narcissistic and he tries to create some
491. 65:33 way of constructive communication between them given that he is a covert psychopath and she’s an narcissist.
492. 65:42 That’s apparently very general question with that input data. We are beginning to change our view of psychopathy pretty fundamentally. So for example in the past 15 years we
493. 65:53 realized that psychopaths are anxious that they suffer from anxiety disorder while prior to that we
494. 66:02 believe that psychopaths have no anxiety they have no fear they’re fearless and so on. Today we know that this is not true. The psychopaths experience anxiety
495. 66:13 and they actually experience fear but their bodies and their brains react to fear differently than the general
496. 66:20 population. They they experience fear but they don’t realize it fear not
497. 66:26 mentally and not physically. So similarly we definitely have a cascade
498. 66:34 of studies recently that show that psychopaths are capable of shame. They’re capable of guilt
499. 66:41 and they even can have a rudimentary form of conscience.
500. 66:48 It’s very interesting because a psychopath for example can be very ashamed and feel very guilty about doing
501. 66:54 something but only inside a highly specific group. the inroup. For example,
502. 67:01 a psychopath could be very ashamed for doing something bad to his family member, but he would not feel ashamed or
503. 67:08 guilty doing the same thing to someone outside the family. In other words, the affiliation, the
504. 67:15 ingroup, outgroup define the parameters of of what we call negative effects, shame, envy, guilt, and so on. But if you’re capable of feeling guilty about
505. 67:26 your family member, then you’re capable of feeling guilty. Period.
506. 67:32 Then the problem is not that you’re not capable of feeling guilty. The problem is social your perception of who
507. 67:40 deserves your guilt, who deserves your shame. So that’s a social problem. That’s not a psychological problem.
508. 67:47 And so today um so I recommend to this uh guy the
509. 67:55 questionaire I recommend that he watches my video titled the new psychopath the new psychopath where I explore these new studies that would answer his
510. 68:06 question about guilt and uh then there is a covert psychopath as well. Now
511. 68:13 um psychopath and narcissists generally
512. 68:19 speaking and that includes covert psychopaths and they establish a hierarchy. Psychopaths are very
513. 68:26 hierarchical. They immediately establish I’m I’m on top you’re bottom. I’m dominant you’re submissive. They
514. 68:33 psychopath never have equal relationships. They because the organizing principle of psychopathy is power whereas narcissism the organizing
515. 68:44 principle is attention. In borderline the organizing principle is emotion and
516. 68:51 presence not being abandoned. In psychopathy the organizing principle is power.
517. 68:58 So if he is with a narcissist, the first thing he would do in totally
518. 69:04 instinctively, reflexively is to establish a hierarchy with him on top and the narcissist his
519. 69:11 slave or submissive or um now there are two options. she accepts
520. 69:17 the hierarchy and then the relationship could be relatively functional and could last or she does not accept the hierarchy because for example she’s grandios.
521. 69:29 So it’s very difficult to be submissive when you’re grandiose. She she thinks she’s god so she cannot be number two.
522. 69:36 She’s always number one and he’s a psychopath. He’s always number one. So if she re rejects the hierarchy, the
523. 69:44 implicit hierarchy, then this would render the relationship
524. 69:50 power play, highly unstable and dangerous, risky. They will both end up
525. 69:57 externalizing aggression. I’ll go a bit further, a bit deeper. The narcissist has a discrepancy, a gap between what we call implicit self-esteem and explicit
526. 70:09 self-esteem. There’s a there’s a gap, an abyss between how the narcissist feels about herself really truly when she’s
527. 70:17 all alone in the toilet and how the narcissist presents herself to the world
528. 70:23 like, you know, I’m gorgeous, I’m amazing, I’m genius, I’m godlike, I’m this and that. So there’s a gap between
529. 70:30 implicit and explicit self-esteem. To compensate for this gap, the
530. 70:36 narcissist project an image called the false self and expects other people to
531. 70:42 confirm that the image is real. That her claims are correct. Her claims
532. 70:48 about herself, her self-concept is correct. The psychopath is unable to do this
533. 70:57 because one of the main claims in narcissism is I’m superior.
534. 71:03 It’s a main message, main signal of the narcissist. When the psychopath says, “No, you’re
535. 71:09 not superior. I’m superior. You’re not number one, I’m number one.”
536. 71:15 This would lead to externalized aggression. Ironically, clinically, what happens when the narcissist is challenged this way, the narcissist initially becomes a borderline
537. 71:28 and then uh becomes a secondary psychopath. She becomes a bit psychopathic. So, there’s a power play. At that point, the narcissist will become highly emotionally disregulated.
538. 71:41 she would become very um crazy, very chaotic, very all over
539. 71:47 the place and so on and then she would become very aggressive, very violent.
540. 71:54 At the same time, the psychopath would need to reassert his superiority. So, he would try to suppress the narcissist. He
541. 72:01 would become also aggressive and violent in trying to establish hierarchy. To cut a long story
542. 72:08 short, in a relationship where the narcissist is grandiose and the psychopath is any psychopath, this ends either in the establishment of a
543. 72:20 hierarchy and sub total submission, slavery in a way or in externalized
544. 72:27 aggression and violence between the two. I don’t know the particulars of the situation. If he sees any signs of aggression, verbal aggression, verbal abuse, he
545. 72:41 should walk away because this aggression escalates and ends in violence, including deadly violence, this is extremely combustible, explosive,
546. 72:52 dangerous situation. If on the other hand, she’s submissive. She says, “Okay,
547. 72:58 you’re the boss. You’re the alpha male. You’re superior. I obey you. I listen to you. You’re my reality. You’re my life.” And so on so forth, then this is
548. 73:09 sustainable for for the long term for if she becomes essentially inverted. She
549. 73:15 becomes inverted, covert. She lives through him. She enjoys his supply.
550. 73:21 So I don’t know enough about this particular situation but I gave him the I gave him the indications. If he sees any sign of aggression and and so on he should walk away. If he sees submission then it’s sustainable in the long term.
551. 73:33 He asks in particular about specifics of mortification in covert psychopath how it goes because he suspects something
552. 73:40 like that in his case. How is it different from mortification in narcissist?
553. 73:46 No, it’s very different. In narcissism, in pathological narcissism, narcissistic motification leads to a borderline
554. 73:53 state, a borderline personality organization. Otto Kernber said that pathological
555. 74:01 narcissism is a defense developed in early childhood against a borderline personality
556. 74:08 organization. The child experiences trauma and abuse. The child reacts with
557. 74:14 extreme intense overwhelming emotions. These emotions terrify the child and the
558. 74:21 child develops narcissism to keep these emotions down to bury them somehow. This
559. 74:27 is the view of Kber to which I subscribe. I agree with when you remove
560. 74:33 the narcissism what is left is a borderline. So narcissistic modification
561. 74:39 disables, deactivates all the defenses of the narcissist. It creates
562. 74:45 decompensation, decompensate. So all the defenses of the narcissist shut down. You can hear it
563. 74:51 cluck cluck cluck cluck. The defenses are down and what is left behind is a borderline. So the narcissist becomes
564. 74:58 emotionally disregulated, overwhelmed by emotions, especially negative emotions, negative affectivity. The narcissist
565. 75:05 becomes suicidal. He develops suicidal ideiation. He has depressive develop depressive illness. So this is in
566. 75:13 narcissistic motification. To remind you narcissistic motification is when there
567. 75:19 is an abrupt sudden unexpected public usually instance of humiliation
568. 75:26 and shame. This causes narcissistic modification. In psychopathy, narcissistic the
569. 75:33 modification has to do with a failure to accomplish goals.
570. 75:39 When the psychopath fails to accomplish goals and this leads essentially to a state of collapse, when the psychopathic defenses
571. 75:50 are decompensated, what is left behind is a narcissist.
572. 75:57 So when you disable narcissism, you get a borderline. When you disable psychopathy, you get a narcissist.
573. 76:04 When the psychopath fails to obtain goals in reality, he obtains these goals
574. 76:11 in fantasy and he becomes a narcissist. So while narcissistic motification in a narcissist is life-threatening,
575. 76:24 motification in psychopathy including covert psychopathy is not life-threatening. It simply creates an
576. 76:31 interim phase usually limited in time of retreat, withdrawal to narcissistic
577. 76:37 fantasy which is compensatory and allows the psychopath to recover, regroup and
578. 76:43 try to tackle the same goal. very often from a different angle or in different way. So
579. 76:50 motification feels very different in the case of the narcissist. It feels like dying like he’s dead. In the case of a
580. 76:57 psychopath motification resembles extreme overpowering overwhelming
581. 77:03 frustration like a child who is temper tantrum, you know, spoiled breath. And then the psychopath can become aggressive and even violent and so on so forth. And ultimately he settles down to
582. 77:16 a phase which resembles very much overt narcissism. Um
583. 77:22 and this applies to factor one psychopath to both. Yes, it applies to factor one and and factor two actually. Although in factor two uh the narcissistic phase following
584. 77:33 motification if the narcissistic phase doesn’t hold there will be a third phase of
585. 77:39 borderline. But in majority of cases it holds. So it’s another round of mortification.
586. 77:46 Narcissistic narcissistic defenses also don’t hold up and then it mortifies to second the next stage. Yes. That’s why border lines when they experience collapse border lines become
587. 77:58 secondary narcissist. They go through all these phases. They become narcissistic and then they become secondary psychopath. So from borderline to narcissist and then to secondary psychopath. So if you
588. 78:09 frustrate a borderline for example if you abandon her or reject her humiliate a borderline initially she would react
589. 78:17 the way a narcissist does. She would become grandiose she would humiliate you. She would
590. 78:23 declare herself superior. She she would become very narcissistic and then she would transition from
591. 78:29 narcissism to secondary psychopathy. She would become defiant and reckless and
592. 78:35 she would act out. she would do crazy things. So that second stage happens if your
593. 78:41 first transition doesn’t lead to any positive outcome. Then she goes into that second stage of
594. 78:47 mortification. If the narcissism doesn’t, for example, when she becomes a narcissist, you you
595. 78:53 challenge her with abandonment, rejection, humiliation, and she becomes a narcissist. She tells you, “You don’t
596. 78:59 know what you’re missing. I’m the greatest. I’m amazing. I’m the most beautiful girl you ever had, and you’re stupid, and you don’t you don’t know what you’re doing.” And so if this gets the work done,
597. 79:09 if then you say, you know what, I’m really stupid. I should never abandon you. You’re amazing. You are the best thing that happened to me in my life. And so that’s where it stops and she returns back to borderline
598. 79:20 stage. Sorry. And she returns back to her borderline state. She reverses to border. If however you
599. 79:27 tell her you’re not as you’re not as beautiful as you think and if anyone is stupid it’s you and so on then she would
600. 79:34 transition to secondary psychop and she’s very likely to act out including become violent
601. 79:41 reckless and also violent. She’s likely to break things or even attack you physically and this and reverse process with covert
602. 79:48 psychopath. So simply reverse. Um but there is something I want to say
603. 79:54 to this guy in particular. If he’s experiencing motification,
604. 80:00 possibly he’s experiencing it unbeknownst to him, maybe because of the
605. 80:06 narcissist in his life. One of the main triggers of motification in psychopathy is narcissism. the
606. 80:13 narcissist having someone who is a narcissist with you because the narcissist frustrates the psychopath the
607. 80:21 narcissist does not allow the psychopatha to obtain goals and we know from dollar in 1939
608. 80:28 frustration leads to aggression so if you if you as a psychopath covert
609. 80:35 not covert secondary secondary primary doesn’t matter if you’re a psychopath they’re all goal oriented if you are a
610. 80:42 psychopath you have someone with you who constantly competes with you, doesn’t allow you to realize your goals and so on and so you are likely to experience motification much more likely, let’s
611. 80:53 say, than if you don’t have someone like that. In short, I think this is a seriously bad idea for a combination.
612. 81:03 I would reconsider the whole uh the whole thing. U they will trigger each other all the time. He will trigger her her grandiosity by claiming superiority.
613. 81:14 She will trigger his motification by frustrating him. It’s going to devolve into essentially a borderline landscape,
614. 81:21 you know, where both of them go bananas and they become disregulated and fight all the time and it’s a bloody mess. So,
615. 81:27 I don’t know why why why they need this, but it’s up to them. You know, love love is blind. Yeah. As I remember he explained that as some isolated event they were kind of agreeing with each
616. 81:39 other for quite some time and now something happened and he kind of tried to find some optimal solution for his
617. 81:45 situation what to do in this I don’t know enough I don’t know enough this I don’t know enough but again if this
618. 81:52 isolated event included aggression I advise him to walk away because the minute it starts it escalates
619. 82:00 and there’s no end to the escalation it could definitely and seriously badly, you know. Mhm. So, she played the game. She was submissive and so on and then at some point was too much maybe and there was an incident. Now, if the incident was
620. 82:15 innocent, maybe verbal exchange, but if it was aggressive in any way, shape or form, including verbal abuse,
621. 82:22 then this is a sign that she can’t do it anymore. She can’t act anymore
622. 82:28 and that’s bad. then he must definitely walk away because it’s absolutely dangerous. I don’t know how much I can
623. 82:35 emphasize. Thank you very much. Thank you. I think before all collapse and need a hospital urgently.
624. 82:48 We must have the time to think about Yes, it was a great pleasure to see you here. Thank you. Thank you for having me and apologies for for the misunderstanding
625. 82:58 at the beginning but I never give interviews to groups groups I have seminars groups I have lectures I never do it online absolutely
626. 83:06 hate this type of interaction with groups online I I really hate it when you’re with a group face to face in a space the dynamics are so much more better you know than I don’t know so
627. 83:22 they were plann just absorbers they wouldn’t interact without our Yeah, I understood but still you see the faces and you see the you know it’s not a good dynamic for me at least anyhow for you to know andre Andre for you to
628. 83:34 know I don’t know if Julia is capable of traveling but for you to know um there would be um seminar in
629. 83:42 University of Zsburg in September in midepptember so um if
630. 83:50 you want to attend and so on by the way the topic of the seminar is different It’s u the emergence of the evolution of
631. 83:57 cluster B personality disorders in childhood and adolescence. Mhm. Which I think would be very interesting
632. 84:03 for Julia but I don’t know if she’s capable to travel. It is somewhere on your website or will you send the link? No no no it’s a seminar physical seminar in University of Zatu.
633. 84:13 Yes but announcement is available somewhere. Oh announcement will be in due time on Instagram YouTube. Yeah everywhere. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Okay. If you send a link, I will be most happy apparently to attend.
634. 84:24 Yeah. Make a note to yourself. It’s in the middle of September. If for some reason you haven’t seen any announcement or something, contact me. And
635. 84:31 it’s the 15th of September. So, contact me. Let’s say middle of August or something and I will give you the details. Yes. Thank you very much. And of course, everyone is invited. Julia is invited and all the members of
636. 84:42 your group. You’re all invited to the seminar. um if you’re able to travel and so on.
637. 84:48 The seminar is 5 days. So it opens with a lecture uh the use of philosophy in
638. 84:54 the treatment of mental illness and then four days of seminar on theology in childhood and and adolescence. So it’s emphasis on how cluster B personality
639. 85:05 disorder emerge in these ages critical ages. I think it’s I this topic
640. 85:11 interests me a lot. So I I find it interesting. Okay. Thank you. We will have our eyes
641. 85:17 open. Okay. Thank you. Thank you again. Thank you much. Thank you. Maybe we will have another opportunity. But for now we are. Yes. Pleasure. I’m available again by the way. Not immediately but like in one month or two
642. 85:29 months if you want another another round. Same arrangement. You, me and Andre. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Take care. Thank you very much Tim. Bye bye. Bye-bye.