Narcissism: 3 Frenchmen Ask, Prof. Answers (with Antoine Peytavin and Friends) - Vaknin Transcripts

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Narcissism: 3 Frenchmen Ask, Prof. Answers (with Antoine Peytavin and Friends)

Summary

In this video, Professor Sam Vaknin discussed narcissism, its nature as a genetic trait, cultural phenomenon, and personality disorder, emphasizing its profound psychological and societal impacts. He explained the distinctions between overt and covert narcissism, the role of narcissistic supply, and the complexities of diagnosing and treating narcissistic personality disorder. Vaknin highlighted the challenges victims face in escaping narcissistic abuse, the misconceptions about therapy effectiveness, and the lasting effects on both narcissists and their victims. Narcissism: 3 Frenchmen Ask, Prof. Answers (with Antoine Peytavin and Friends)

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

November 3, 2025

Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Narcissism: 3 Frenchmen Ask, Prof. Answers (with Antoine Peytavin and Friends)

00:00 Hi Sam, it’s such a pleasure to see you today in real after all these years. Thank you. I will be asking you questions and
00:06 there’s also Alfie and Olivier. Can you present yourself to the French? Thank you. Uh I’m Sam Vaknin. I’m a professor of psychology. I um in the
00:18 1980s was the first to describe narcissistic abuse. I coined most of the language in use
00:24 today uh in the field and I wrote a book malignant self- loveve narcissism
00:30 revisited which by now is a mantra and uh the I published this book in 1999 long before anyone was talking about narcissism and so on and I’ve been studying the
00:42 phenomenon of narcissistic abuse for more than 30 years because I think it’s a unique form of abuse and I think um
00:50 the impacts that it has not only on individuals but on societies, on
00:56 cultures, on political processes, on on the economy. The impacts are enormous.
01:02 And if we come to discuss it a bit later, narcissism is not only a trait, not only a disorder, narcissism is also
01:10 an organizing principle of our culture and civilization. A narcissism is a way to interpret
01:19 reality to make sense of it. And the narcissism is also an agenda. Agenda
01:25 that dictates decisions on various spheres and levels, economic decisions,
01:31 business decisions, political decisions and and so on. When you live in an environment that is so imbued with narcissism, it is very difficult. You have to take
01:42 sides. You can either become a narcissist or you become the victim of a narcissist.
01:48 Civilization forces you nowadays to take sides and you must become one of the two.
01:56 Wow. And so I saw that in the 80s and and ‘ 90s because I’m as old as the dinosaurs and I I started my work then. Um so many people see you as a reformed
02:09 narcissist or an insider observer. Do you identify with that image?
02:15 I have uh information that I derive from uh from my diagnosis but that is very
02:22 long in the past. I have spent the last 30 years uh studying narcissism and
02:28 teaching narcissism in universities and and other settings. I have a database of
02:34 2,200 and something people diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder.
02:40 I’ve been following up on these people, not all of them, about 80%. I’ve been following up on them for 30 years. So, I
02:46 have a longitudinal study of narcissism and and narcissists. I think it’s the biggest database in the world by far for
02:54 you to understand the average number of narcissists in a typical study in
03:00 academia in in psychology, the average number is uh five
03:06 five people. A study with eight people is considered to be already you know
03:12 huge big study and my database is 200 something. So no my work today is not
03:20 informed by by my psychology or my life anymore. It reflects information about
03:26 thousands of of people with narcissistic personality disorder. Some countries like France for example don’t really
03:34 quite well um recognize narcissism while Rakame at the time who was French recognized
03:45 it. What do you think about these countries? Shouldn’t it be international? Well, first of all, there were major scholars, for example, Theodoro Milan who believed that narcissistic personality disorder is an
03:57 American phenomenon. Milan said that uh this is a diagnosis that reflects American culture and society. And Milan was a major figure in
04:08 psychology. It’s not a small time, you know, is is together with Otto Kernburg is among the giants of of the field. and he fully suggested that it is um a
04:20 phenomenon limited to United States. The international classification of diseases which is the book uh published
04:28 by the World Health Organization and is the diagnostic manual which is used by 80% of humanity. 80% of humanity uses the ICD not the DSM
04:40 in the ICD there is no diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. There’s no such thing.
04:47 So it’s a big debate whether narcissistic personality disorder is what we call a
04:54 culturebound syndrome. Culturebound syndrome is a set of behaviors and traits that make an appearance in highly
05:01 specific cultures periods in history civilizations and societies but do not
05:07 make an appearance elsewhere. That is not to say that you don’t have French narcissists
05:13 from I of course I have lived here and I can tell you you have French narcissist but um the question arises whether this is a pathology or not for example maybe
05:25 it’s a personality style maybe there are people who are like that obnoxious
05:31 lacking empathy exploitative not sensitive um full of rage and envy
05:38 passive aggress ressive. Maybe you have people like that. Maybe in other words, what we call today pathological narcissism is part of the spectrum and the diversity of the human race. We do
05:50 not need to pathize it. Similarly, there’s a similar debate about psychopathy. Psychopaths are people who do not obey the law, do not obey rules. They are
06:01 their own masters. They are usually lone wolves. They are consumacious. They
06:07 reject authority. They are reckless. They’re defiant. And so they’re not pleasant people to be
06:13 with. And you wouldn’t want to do business with them or to get married to them usually.
06:19 Does this make them mentally ill? Is this a mental illness? I personally don’t think that psychopathy is a mental illness at all. Why? Because I think it’s a social problem.
06:31 Not a not a mental problem, not a medical problem, not a clinical entity, not a diagnosis. It’s a problem with society. These people have problem to function socially.
06:42 It’s not a problem. It’s not their problem. It’s a problem of society. So, it’s the same with with narcissism.
06:49 There there’s a a big debate and and the ICD is offering another another
06:55 attitude, another direction. The ICD, International Classification of Diseases, edition 11, that’s the latest
07:02 edition. The ICD suggests the following. They say, “Don’t talk about narcissism.
07:08 Don’t talk about psychopathy. Don’t talk about any of these. These are artificial distinctions, artificial diagnosis. They’re not real and they reflect
07:15 cultural values, social values, mores, conventions, norms. They’re not they are not medical. This it’s not a medical
07:22 clinical entity. Instead, what the ICD is doing, what they suggest to do, they say like that.
07:30 Take various traits like Lego playing Lego. take various traits, put them
07:37 together, take various behaviors, put them together and create a profile that is unique to every client and every patient. So if you come to a a clinician who is
07:48 using ICD, the clinician will identify your traits, will identify your behaviors and will create a profile that
07:54 is unique only to Antoine, will not apply to Olivia, will not apply to me and will not
08:02 there’s no way to generalize this profile. We see the same the same approach nowadays in medicine where we
08:10 are beginning to tailor we’re beginning to tailor treatments according to the specific genetics of
08:17 the individual. There is customized medicine tailored medicine and ICD is saying the same. We need to get rid of all these categories all these diagnosis labels. Sorry
08:27 this labels. Yes. We need to get rid of labels. We need to get rid of of all these. It’s not working also because today if you
08:34 diagnose someone with narcissistic personality disorder in about 40% of the cases you have also to diagnose them
08:41 with borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, mood disorder, substance use disorder and so
08:48 on. A typical patient in the United States has seven diagnosis. It’s a co-orbidity. Yes. And that is a co-orbidity problem. There are other issues that we’re not going into. Sam I have a question for
09:00 you so that our audience will understand the basics according to your experience now what would be a simple and clear definition of narcissism to you so that audience would you know understand it
09:11 very clearly depends what you’re talking about it’s like you would ask me for a definition of a woman
09:17 you know so and I’m I’m being serious I will
09:24 explain what I what I just said um narcissism is a trait And as a trait, all human beings have this trait of narcissism. You could have
09:36 low narcissism, high level, high intensity, low in, but all human beings have the trait of narcissism because nar
09:42 the trait of narcissism is genetic. We all inherit a trait of narcissism. We
09:49 don’t know exactly which genes code for narcissism. We don’t know which gene arrays collaborate to create narcissism or to express narcissism. But we know for sure that there is a trait. It is
10:00 hereditary and therefore it is 100% genetic. So this is number one. You have
10:08 developmental narcissism. We know that um a child when a child is born in the
10:14 initial phases up to age 36 months it’s very healthy to have narcissism. Children are narcissists and we call it
10:21 primary narcissism. This kind of narcissism remains with you for life and this is known as healthy
10:28 narcissism. We all have I mean you have healthy narcissism. Healthy narcissism
10:34 is a foundation of self-esteem and self-confidence and the ability to even to interact with other people. So
10:42 healthy narcissism is also narcissism. Then you have um then you have societal
10:49 or cultural narcissism which which is infectious. It’s contagious. If as I
10:55 said if you grow up in a narcissistic society, narcissistic civilization and so on, you will gradually develop narcissistic traits, narcissistic defenses, narcissistic behaviors, you will be infected with narcissism.
11:07 Similarly, if you live with a narcissist, if you share your life with a narcissist as a business partner, as
11:13 in intimate partners, never mind. If you’re exposed to a narcissist, you will develop narcissistic traits and and
11:20 behaviors. So, this is let’s call it contagious narcissism or societal, cultural, whatever.
11:26 And finally, you have the disorder. So, the the disorder narcissistic
11:33 personality disorder is very rare actually. It’s 1%. It’s about 1.7%. 1.7% of the general population have a narcissistic
11:44 personality disorder. That means one of every 60 people. The truth is that
11:52 you are extremely unlikely to have had a deep meaningful relationship with a narcissist unless you have had 60 such relationships. So most people don’t.
12:04 And so when people say narcissism online, narcissism, narism, there is a huge confusion. They confuse narcissism
12:11 with psychopathy. They confuse societal and cultural narcissism with individual narcissism. They confuse a disorder with
12:18 a trait. So you have self-styled experts online. They say narcissism is genetic.
12:24 Talking about it, yes. Is genetic, hereditary. Narciss pathological narcissism is not genetic or hereditary. The trait is genetic hereditary and if the trait is
12:35 exposed to certain environment for example abuse in early childhood or trauma in early childhood then the trait becomes malignant like cancer becomes
12:46 malignant and then you have pathological narcissism but there is a confusion. So you have self-styled experts telling you it’s genetic. The confusion is enormous and in and uh it’s extremely
12:58 problematic. Even in academic now online the online sphere but even in
13:05 academ there is a huge confusion. For example, many of the studies about narcissistic personality disorder um deal with people who have
13:17 coorbidities. So you have studies including recent studies uh on narcissistic personality
13:23 disorder and they make all kinds of statements and they’re very they go to the media and so on so forth and then you go to the study and all the people
13:30 in the study also have borderline personality disorder also have substance
13:36 use disorders also have anxiety and depression and so on and therefore the sample is contaminated and you cannot
13:43 say anything meaningful even worse in I would say 50 60% % of the studies they
13:50 deal with dark personalities. Dark personalities are dark triad and dark tetrd personalities. These are people who are not narcissists. They are
14:02 not psychopaths. People with dark personalities are not narcissists and they’re not psychopaths.
14:08 They are subclinical narcissists and subclinical psychopaths. It’s driad or something. Dark tetrd also
14:16 dark tetrd is dark triad plus sadism. Oh so dark triad you have uh subclinical
14:23 narcissism, subclinical psychopathy and mchavelianism manipulativeness. If you add to that
14:30 sadism you have dark uh tetr and I suggested by the way kind of hepto. I
14:37 suggested a five-sided dark personality with borderline with emotion dysregulation.
14:45 Okay. But coming back to the to the point people including scholars and including academics they make the mistake they confuse dark personalities with narcissism. What does it mean
14:56 subclinical narcissism? It means someone who could not be diagnosed with narcissism.
15:02 That’s why we call it subclinical not clinical. But many of the studies deal with dark
15:09 personalities and they say these are narcissists which is wrong. The field is in a bloody mess. Excuse me. Excuse the
15:17 French. Yes, it’s in a in a big mess and it’s very very difficult to make sense
15:23 of of what’s happening not only online but also in in academ
15:32 who want to make money and want to become famous for 15 minutes and so they come with all kinds of nonsense like dark empath and I don’t know what else
15:40 and so you need to be very very careful. uh who you’re listening to.
15:46 Um for example, there is someone called Keith Campbell that’s a real expert on Narcissism. We disagree on many things
15:53 and he is not my fan to is an understatement. He’s highly critical of me. We just gave
16:00 two interviews to New York magazine and he criticized me and I criticize him of
16:06 course. But he is authority for me. He is an expert. I’m listening to him. I’m
16:12 reading him. I’m learning from him. Absolutely. Even though he’s not my friend and I’m not there’s no ego here.
16:18 You I am I am I am a very arrogant man but when it comes to intellect and
16:24 learning a very humble man very humble I learn from but I see that maybe in the
16:31 whole world there are five people I’m willing to listen to when it comes to narcissism. Maybe five not sure. Otto
16:39 Kber Campbell, you know, very few people. The rest is a huge mess.
16:45 You said a sentence that is so hard and I I’m I’m still thinking about it. You
16:51 said one day, and excuse me if the quote is wrong. Uh the narcissist is an emotional corpse dead inside. Can you speak a little bit about it?
17:02 Yeah, that’s not my invention. It’s uh it’s the common view since the at least the 60s. Um it is now widely accepted in all the
17:14 schools of psychology. It’s widely accepted that at the core of pathological narcissism
17:20 there is a a vast emptiness uh where a person should have been where
17:26 a self should have been or Freud called it ego never mind where some structure some construct should have been there is
17:33 nothing what is the self or the ego or whatever you want to call it it’s a
17:39 sense of continuity a sense that you are the same person never mind never Mind how you change physically,
17:46 never mind how you age. You age, you learn more, you have experiences, you change your beliefs, you change your
17:53 values, you change location, you change uh you have an accident, you’re amputated. It doesn’t matter. In all
18:00 these situations, you maintain a core, a core sense I am me.
18:07 This I am me is what we call self. The narcissist did not have the opportunity to develop this sense of continuity. There was a disruption in the formation of this core
18:20 identity. Consequently, where there should have been a person, the process
18:26 of personhood where there should have been a person, there’s nobody and there is nothing. It’s totally empty. It’s
18:33 like empty inside. Yes. This emptiness is also in borderline personality disorder. All right. And so someone like Otto Kenberg suggested that borderline and
18:44 narcissism are the same phenomenon. Basically he said that narcissism pathological narcissism is a defense
18:50 against borderline personality organization. But he suggested that both of them are belong to the same they’re
18:56 very identical twins same family and u in both cases there is emptiness.
19:02 Actually emptiness internal emptiness is a diagnostic criterion in the DSM for
19:08 borderline personality disorder. If you read the DSM in the diagnostic criteria emptiness
19:15 so there is a sense of emptiness and how do you maintain continuity because without it it’s very difficult to in both narcissism and and
19:26 borderline there is enormous dissociation. Um dissociation means memory gaps, lost
19:33 time and in the case of the borderline there are even other phenomena which are very problematic like derealization. The borderline sometimes feels that nothing is real. Things are not real. It’s a dream dreamscape or there is depersonalization
19:48 where the borderline feels that uh she is not in the situation. Her body is
19:54 here but she is not here. So this happens a lot for example in in sex. the the sex life of the borderline. Very often she dissociates, she detaches, her body is there but she’s not there. And um all these dissociative phenomena are
20:10 common in narcissism and in borderline because there is no organizing principle. There is no core that takes
20:18 care of continuity. So what do they do? They go to other people. They generate a
20:24 sense of continuity via other people. So the narcissist uses narcissistic
20:30 supply and this narcissistic supply attention. He uses it to to feel alive,
20:36 to feel that he exists somehow. If people keep looking at the narcissist, keep giving him attention,
20:42 keep giving him input, keep telling him how great he is or whatever, he can then maintain a sense
20:49 that he exists and that he exists in continuity, in perpetuity thanks to the others, only others. Okay, narcissists and border lines have external regulation.
21:00 This is why narcissist can even be married or have a job or have maybe
21:06 friends. This is what keeps him in the in the line. Narcissists don’t have friends. But yeah, narcissists surround themselves with many of them can be at level wife,
21:16 husband. We Yes. Yes. They are suppliers. Wife and husband are these are these are ceremonial roles. It’s there’s no
21:24 emotional correlate in in narcissism. There are no emotions. Narcissists could also be very empathic. Are we? Yes. They they have cold empathy. Cognitive. Cold empathy. So they they can be cognitively empathic. They can be reflexively empathic. But
21:41 there is no emotional reaction to the information that they gather through the empathy. So narcissist would look at you and say, “Oh, this man is very sad.” Okay. It’s very sad, but this would not
21:54 create any emotional resonance in the narcissist. Yes. Because you say that narcissist have only um interaction with their uh
22:03 bad emotions. That’s not the reason in this case. It’s true, but it’s not the reason for this.
22:09 The the the lack of the lack of empathy is because the narcissist has great difficulty to tell the difference
22:16 between internal and external. Narcissists cannot perceive other people as external to them. What they do
22:24 injection, they introject them, snapshotting, they intern. Yes, I call it snapshotting. It’s not a clinical term.
22:30 Introjection is a clinical term. And so they introject, they snapshot these people. They create internal representations of these people. They continue to interact with them. Obviously, if if you don’t exist, then
22:42 narcissist cannot empathize with you because you don’t exist. You are a figment in the narcissist’s mind element
22:48 in his mind. So he owns you. He appropriates you. He controls you. He can play with you. He can manipulate. He
22:54 can talk to you in his mind and so on so forth. Your external existence is deleted completely. These traits make me
23:01 think about psychopaths. They don’t feel things. One, if I’m right, we say
23:08 that one of the first signs of psychopaths is that they are making they make suffer dogs. for example, when they are six or seven years old and it makes them nothing and and and these points in
23:21 in specifically make me thinks about it. Yes, psychopaths also have cold empathy
23:27 exactly like narcissists. And the psychopath uh doesn’t have any emotional reaction or resonance any what
23:34 we call effective empathy. So he would he would identify the
23:40 suffering of the animal or the person but he would have no no emotional reaction. I see that the dog is dying but I don’t
23:47 feel and I know it’s suffering. I know it’s suffering suffering. I can see it but there’s no no emotional reaction and
23:53 consequently there is no action actionable emotion. In other words, there will be no action that follows.
23:59 So if you see a dog is suffering, you will take the dog to the vet or you’ll try to help the dog. the psychopath will freeze. We just look at the dog because there’s no mediation of empathy.
24:10 There’s no nothing will create action. So, but the psychopath is in much better
24:16 mental shape than narcissists. Oh, really? I would bet the opposite. Yes. Psychopaths are in much better
24:22 shape. Psychopaths, first of all, are grounded in reality, whereas pathological narcissism is a
24:28 fantasy defense. And do you think it’s a psychosis?
24:34 uh Kberg believed that narcissism and borderline are pseudoscsychotic state almost psychotic state. I believe the same. I think uh narcissists are in almost psychotic state constantly
24:47 because they cannot tell the difference between internal objects and external objects and reality and reality and fantasy. It’s an interpretation of what they feel inside. They they experience they have only
24:59 inner experiences. They don’t they don’t have any access to reality. They have impaired reality testing.
25:05 So uh that’s the first thing. Psychopaths are grounded in reality. They are goal oriented. They are very
25:12 self-efficacious. They obtain the goals that they want. They want sex. They want money. They want they get it
25:18 and so on. And they don’t interpret anything as as a fantasy. They they know exactly what’s happening. Whereas the narcissist is in a fantasy. And the narcissist constantly in a constantly in a dream state. constantly loses is like on a constant high
25:30 constantly on on LSD you know that’s the first uh difference uh so external
25:36 internal fantasy reality psychopath the the psychopath is uh also
25:45 uh not in need of people. He doesn’t he doesn’t regulate externally. He doesn’t need other people to regulate his internal environment. He can maintain a stable sense of self-worth. The psychopath, he can maintain self-confidence and
26:01 self-esteem at whatever level. Most psychopaths are grandio so it’s high level but it’s stable.
26:07 Whereas a narcissist their sense of selfworth, self-esteem, self-confidence always fluctuate.
26:13 Yes. to stabilize them. The narcissist needs narcissistic supply from people attention and as soon uh they face they are facing a trigger then they can go into a rage
26:26 narcissistic rage and it whenever yes whenever the so the narcissist has a self-concept. The
26:34 self-concept is inflated, fantastic, grandiose, detached from reality. We call it cognitive distortion. And this self-perception or self-image or self concept is godlike. And whenever
26:48 there is a challenge to the self-concept or whenever the self-concept is undermined by reality
26:54 or whenever the narcissist is unable to secure a narcissistic supply so that the
27:00 the self-concept collapses at that point the narcissist can either rage as you say but there are other possible reactions. We have narcissistic injury
27:11 which leads usually to depression and anxiety. We have narcissistic motification which in narcissistic motification then all the narcissistic defenses collapse including the false self and the
27:23 narcissist becomes borderline. He has emotion dysregulation, suicidal ideiation and so on. In other words, the
27:32 narcissistic structure is very fragile, very brittle, very vulnerable. The
27:38 narcissist’s story about himself, the narcissist’s selfnarrative is so nonsensical, so divorced from reality, so crazy, so grandio, so fantastic that
27:50 it is indefensible. You cannot defend it. If you believe that you are a Napoleon,
27:58 would be a bit difficult to defend this belief against reality. Yes, anyone will tell you you’re not Napoleon. Reality will tell you you’re not Napoleon. television will tell you you’re not Napoleon. It’s difficult to defend the
28:11 narcissistic narrative. So the narcissist is always on the defense, always fighting, always hypervigilant, always alert and very fragile and
28:22 brittle and vulnerable and and easily broken and easily challenged and easily undermined. And so that’s why all
28:30 narcissists transition between overt and covert phases because of these collapse states where they go. The psychopath is not like that. Psychopath is not like that at all.
28:41 Psychopath is self assured, self-confident. Psychopath is superficially charming.
28:48 Psychopath is efficacious, has agency, knows reality, highly goal oriented. Da
28:55 da da da da. And psychopath is not narcissist is in much better shape mentally. Yes. Narcissist they pretend that they are grandio but inside them I think they
29:06 feel a bit fragile. No. Well it’s it’s true that this is the case but they don’t feel it. Uh they don’t feel it. It is true that there is a gap between
29:18 what we call implicit self-esteem and explicit self-esteem. Implicit
29:24 self-esteem in the narcissist is a sense of shame, inferiority, vulnerability,
29:32 inadequacy, failure. We call it the internalized bed object. So there is a
29:38 sense of of being less than other people. And then we have the compensation. We have the defense. Pathological narcissism is compensatory. So the the narcissist says, “I am
29:52 godlike. I am not helpless. I am all powerful. I’m not ignorant. I’m all
29:58 knowing. I am not stupid. I am genius. I’m not.” So this the narcissistic
30:06 narrative, the false self, the narcissistic narrative, the this inflated self-concept is compensation
30:12 for what you said, for the inner shame and so on. But narcissist is not aware of that. There’s no awareness. He doesn’t know that as if you if you question a
30:24 narcissist and we study narcissist in in psychology. We talk to them. We you know
30:30 their tests and so on. They would tell you that they experience only the compensatory only the compensatory
30:37 narrative. they don’t experience the inner reality because what you said um that there’s a
30:44 subclinical uh problem with narcissist but is I
30:50 think it’s very difficult for narcissist to go to see a psychotherapist and admit
30:56 his behavior and and how can you be sure that the narcissist will come and tell
31:03 the truth to the psychotherapist? Yeah. Well, a few things. First of all, overt narcissist, which is the kind of
31:10 narcissist we we all when we say narcissist, we have in mind overt narcissist, Donald Trump type. So, I don’t It’s a joke.
31:23 So, why don’t you watch this? There’s ma mugger here. No, because every time he says Donald
31:30 Trump is a narcissist in his videos, he gets insulted. Insulted in the comments. In the comments. So, okay,
31:37 it’s okay. He didn’t say it. I said it and I did not say it as a joke. So, we have this type of narcissist in
31:44 mind. The uh overt, the the arrogant, horty, exploitative,
31:50 envious, uh um self-confident, in your face, go get. In short, what we have is
31:58 a caricature of a psychopath. in effect. It’s not exactly the overt narcissist, but anyhow, the studies show that overt
32:05 narcissists are more likely to attend therapy than general population, not less. And this is exactly narcissistic are more likely more likely. This is exactly what we
32:16 were discussing in the in the taxi. But I told you there is a difference between anecdotes and beliefs and myths
32:25 and studies. That’s why we need studies. You understand? Mhm. Because when you look at academic studies, many of the things that people believe intuitively to be correct, common sense, you know, if you’re
32:37 narcissist, you’re self-confident, you’re why would you go to therapy? You will not go to therapy. You know, this makes sense. It’s common sense. But a lot of common sense is wrong and a lot
32:47 of intuition is wrong. And in this case, common sense and intuition are wrong. Actually overt narcissists are more
32:54 likely to attend therapy than general population healthy people. And the reason is that overt narcissist
33:00 frequently collapse. They go through stages where they cannot obtain supply. They’re down. They no one wants to
33:08 associate with them or they are they go through divorce. They go to bank bankruptcy. They go to prison and so on
33:15 so forth. And then they end up seeking help. They don’t seek help because they think something is wrong with them. They seek help because they think something is wrong with other people and they want
33:26 to learn how to manipulate other people. So the motivation to go to therapy is wrong. But they do go to therapy and
33:34 they get diagnosed. Very interesting. Covert narcissists are less likely to go to therapy than general population. M but it’s it’s difficult to understand because as you said before
33:47 narcissist goes from covert to overt and from overt to covert you know they’re changing when the narcissist transitions from
33:53 overt to covert they are more likely to go to therapy as an overt. It’s an overt that became covert
33:59 but it’s the same person but not the same time of life. Yeah. But we have dominant types. You have dominant types. So in your in your
34:06 lifetime as a narcissist, you spend 80 80% of the time as overt. Then you would be an overt narcissist or you would spend 80% of the time as covert. And and do you think it’s when they are
34:18 covert that they might try to do um what um K Gustav said, separation and
34:27 individuation. No, separation individuation is a entirely different issue and it leads to both types of narcissism, covert and overt. Problems with separation individuation
34:38 result sometimes in in pathological narcissism which is either overt or covert. A covert narcissist is a
34:45 narcissist who is in a constant state of collapse. It’s a narcissist who is unable to secure narcissistic supply
34:52 because they’re shy or because they are they are avoidant. they’re afraid of people’s reactions or because they’re
34:58 stupid or because they are socially disadvantaged. So we tend to believe for
35:04 example that uh many more women are covert narcissists because they are socially disadvantaged in many societies
35:11 not everywhere but so for whatever reason the covert narcissist is prevented from obtaining supply
35:19 subjectively because they are afraid to try or objectively because it’s difficult for them. I think for a a woman narcissist in Afghanistan, it would be a bit of a problem to obtain supply. Yeah. So this kind of narcissist becomes covert. It is in a constant
35:36 state of collapse and then the only way for a covert narcissist to somehow
35:43 survive is self-upp. So the covert narcissist tells himself or herself that
35:51 uh for example I’m a genius but people are envious of me and they don’t recognize me because they envy me. That is a narrative that is totally internal,
36:02 totally delusional, totally fantastic and it is a form of selfupp because it doesn’t involve other people. No. So self-upply is a solution in covert. Another solution is the covert teams up
36:15 with an overt. So the covert is obtaining supply through the overt. It reminds me that in
36:23 in 19th century Germany, if you were married as a woman, you were married to a doctor, they called you fra doctor. Even if you didn’t graduate
36:34 kindergarten, you were fraed narcissist. That’s a type of covert that
36:40 obtains supply by marrying or teaming up with an overt.
36:46 So they can be also in couple. Okay, great. Yes. Couple or or could be business.
36:52 Two narcissist, one overt or one covert. One covert, one overt. Okay. The covert is I call it inverted
36:58 narcissist. And it’s uh it could be in business. Doesn’t have to be inter relationship. It’s to
37:04 team up with someone who is successful. Mhm. You team up with someone who is getting supply, who is successful, who is famous, who celebrity, who is and you are with him, then like the moon and the sun by reflection, you’re getting
37:16 supply, you know, because I’m with him, you know, because we’re asking you this because in France, we have this cliche that a narcissist only target an empath and that two narcissists can’t be together.
37:28 No, we have a lot of belief that yeah, narcissist, they won’t be looking for another narcissist. That’s why we’re
37:34 asking you this question. I have a question for you about this is this comes a lot during therapy. People needs
37:40 to know he must love me. Why did he come back? Why why did he left and why did he come back? What is your answer to those
37:46 victims? To those person who are looking for he must the narcissist must feel love must love me if he came back. You
37:53 see me is it supply? Is it domination? Is it to to to check the power? Yeah. To check his power, his dominance. Listen, what happens to the victim of narcissistic abuse is uh the equivalent
38:06 of a natural disaster. She doesn’t feel I’m saying she Mhm.
38:12 stereotypically she doesn’t but of course could be male victims. She doesn’t feel or the victim doesn’t feel responsible. Doesn’t feel that she had contributed anything to the situation. doesn’t feel doesn’t feel that she deserved it and so on and so as far as
38:31 the victim is concerned some force of nature impacted her life and so on. This
38:38 makes the victim very small. If you are if you are the victim of a random process that couldn’t care less
38:46 about you that was indifferent to who you are and so on you it makes you feel very small makes you feel helpless makes
38:53 you feel meaningless insignificant you know and so you compensate we have
38:59 narcissistic defenses in healthy people as well you compensate how do you compensate as a victim you say I was
39:07 chosen he chose me whatever happened to I was chosen. So I must be love.
39:13 Why I was chosen? Why was I chosen? Because I am super empathic. Empath. Empath is complete unmmitigated
39:19 nonsense. There’s no such thing. But I’m super empathic. I’m empath or I’m amazingly kind and nice person. I’m in
39:26 short the victim develops grandio defenses. She begins to self aggrandise
39:32 just in order to make sense of what happened to her. Why was why did this happen to me? Because I am a good
39:38 person. Because I’m special. because I’m unique in some way and and so on. The second thing, the second narcissistic defense is uh I was special to the narcissist. Not only am I special as a person, not only am I unique as a person
39:54 in some way, but I was also special to him. So he chose me because of something in
40:02 him. Not only something in me. He needed my love. He needed my kindness. He was
40:08 envious of me. He wanted to be like me. He something happened there. I was
40:14 special as on my own as by myself but I was also special to him. And then the
40:21 next stage is to say the narcissist’s behaviors prove to me that he actually
40:27 did love me. You know, he did love me. Fact, he keeps coming back to me or
40:33 whatever. All these are nonsensical nonsensical narratives. They are counterfactual. They have no ground in reality. They’re completely wrong. First of all, narcissists don’t choose people for the simple reason. They are unable to notice people. They don’t
40:50 regard people as external entities. They couldn’t care less. Wow. They couldn’t care less if you’re empathic, if you’re nice, if you’re kind, if you’re evil, if you’re psychopath, if you are short, if you
41:01 They don’t couldn’t care less. Some narcissists may choose you because
41:07 you can help them to idealize themselves. You can help them to attract narcissistic supply. So some
41:15 narcissists would choose trophy trophy wives, women who are super beautiful and
41:21 amazing and yeah that that does happen. But they choose these people the they choose the victim as an object a way to attract supply a channel not not because of the
41:32 victim. Narcissists don’t pay attention to your personal qualities and to your personal
41:38 identity to your personal history to your personal anything. You don’t exist as a person. You exist as a service
41:46 provider. Now what is it that the narcissist wants from you? The narcissist wants from you what I call
41:53 the four S’s. Four S’s is sex, supply, narcissistic or sadistic
41:59 services, uh services and stability or security safety. If you are able to provide two of these four, you’re in. And the
42:10 narcissist initially auditions you. Narcissist is a process of auditioning. He auditions you. He wants to see if you
42:16 can provide these four. For example, can you be a good participant in the shared fantasy? Will you criticize him,
42:23 disagree with him, challenge him? Then you’re out. Never mind how empathic you are. Never mind how gorgeous you are. Never mind how intelligent you are. Never mind even how rich you are.
42:34 You’re out. You’re out. If you don’t provide two of the four, you are out. So
42:41 you’re a service provider. Are you emotionally attached to your internet service providers? I hope not. If you
42:48 are, you need help. So, it’s the same. Are you emotionally attached to your refrigerator? Well, again, I hope not. It’s the same.
42:59 It’s an object that provides these S’s, these four S’s. It doesn’t have to be
43:06 all four. As I said, two two out of four is enough. Consequently,
43:12 anyone who can provide two out of four is equal to anyone else who can provide
43:19 two out of four. This is equipotence. Anyone is equal to anyone if they can
43:26 provide these two out of four. Exactly the same way that you can switch from one internet provider to the other because they can provide the same broadband internet access, you know, that’s it. uh the victim people in the narcissist
43:42 life, not only victims, not all of them are victims. They’re interchangeable. They’re funible. They’re commoditized.
43:49 They’re commodities. They don’t have personal identity. They don’t have anything that renders them special or
43:55 unique or whatever. If the narcissist comes back to you, the narcissist come back comes back to you for his own
44:01 reasons. He comes back to you because he needs to finalize the shared fantasy. We
44:07 can discuss it a bit later if you want. These are internal processes that are inexurable. They are stronger than the
44:14 narcissist. Narcissist is a slave of the shared fantasy. Exactly like the victim.
44:20 And they push the narcissist to to hoover you to harvest you to take you back. And in all these stages, you don’t exist really.
44:31 You don’t exist. You definitely don’t exist as a special thing. You definitely have not been chosen. And you are easily
44:37 replaceable and replaced in the majority of cases. Narcissist abandons you or you
44:43 abandon the narcissist the next day has someone else. You’re speaking about test like for job interview to get the it’s a job interview. It is a job. Do you have example classic example of a
44:55 shared fantasy the job test at the beginning of a relationship?
45:01 So the narcissist is always in a state of shared fantasy. The only way the narcissist can interact with other people doesn’t have to be intimate partners. Could you explain what is a ch fantasy to the
45:12 Yes. A shared fantasy is a a story, a narrative, a movie script
45:18 within which the narcissist is grandiose. So within which the narcissist is a genius or is amazing in
45:25 some way, unique in some way, um will become super rich and super powerful. So
45:32 it’s a it’s a narrative that organizes the narcissist relationship, interpersonal relationships in a way
45:38 that maximizes and guarantees an uninterrupted flow of narcissistic supply necessary to maintain the grandio
45:46 self-concept. So shed fantasy is a way if you want to look at it differently is a way to extract narcissistic supply on
45:55 a regular basis from highly specific sources so as to butress or support or uphold a
46:03 grandio inflated fantastic self-image known as self-concept. That’s the shared fantasy. Now consequently there are many types of shared fantasy. narcissist would have one shared fantasy
46:15 with his wife, another shared fantasy with his children, another shared fantasy with a good friend, another
46:22 shared fantasy at the workplace. So a typical narcissist has dozens, sometimes hundreds of fantasies. Yes. Example, imagine you you go on Tinder
46:33 and then you you meet someone. What will be the test about shark fantasy at the first date? So the narcissist I save the whale or is it something enormous? So no so the narcissist auditions
46:45 everyone all the time auditions and part of the auditioning is is the testing. So for example, do you challenge the
46:51 narcissist? Do you disagree with the narcissist on a first date? You go on a date. Let’s assume that the idea is to
46:59 have a shared fantasy with an intimate partner. So that’s easier to So you go on a date
47:05 and you don’t know but the other person is a narcissist. So, he’s going to say something. He’s going to express a political opinion or a scientific opinion or whatever, and he’s going to wait. If you challenge him or disagree
47:18 or criticize, you’re out. Or offer another opinion alternative, you’re out. You failed the test.
47:26 You cannot say no to narcissist. As soon as you say no, you’re finished. You’re finished as a source of
47:32 narcissistic supply or participant in the in the shed fantasy. You’re finished in this sense. M masses may continue to be in touch with
47:38 you because you can you can offer other things you can offer money you can offer access you can offer you know so but as
47:45 a source of supply or participant in the shared fantasy you are done you’re finished and that’s one example of of
47:51 one of the tests another another test would be maternity test maternal test
47:58 analysis will on a first date will try to see whether you can be a good mother and that doesn’t matter if you’re female or male doesn’t matter Doesn’t matter if you’re intimate partner or good friend.
48:08 Doesn’t matter if you’re a boss or coworker. Everyone should be the narcissist’s mother. Narcissist converts everyone
48:15 into maternal figures. It’s a dual dual mothership fantasy. Yes, a dual mothership fantasy comes a
48:21 bit later when the narcissist but first of all he needs to make sure that you can be a good mother. So for example, the narcissist would would on a first date try to see whether you can accept him as he is unconditionally and he will for example expose something unpleasant
48:36 about himself. Minor thing not big confession but something minor
48:42 and he would monitor your reaction. If you are critical, if you are rejecting
48:48 or if you are not enthusiastic about it or if you’re not all embracing and forgiving, then you’re gone. You’re
48:55 dead. It’s the test. You failed the test. So the narcissist subjects you to
49:01 series of tests in the auditioning phase. And if you succeeded in this test, the narcissist moves on to the
49:07 next phase in the shed fantasy, colloquially known as love bombing. M and again in love bombing it’s about the
49:14 narcissist. Nothing is about the victim. Nothing is about the victim. The narcissist love bombs not because of the
49:22 victim. It’s not even to acquire the victim because the victim is already acquired. She just doesn’t know it.
49:29 She is in the fantasy. She just doesn’t know it. But it’s not about the victim at all. The love bombing has two
49:35 functions. The first function is co idealization. When the narcissist idealizes the other
49:43 party, by implication, he idealizes himself. Because if my wife is the most
49:51 beautiful woman, the most intelligent woman, the most amazing woman, what does it make me? She is my wife, you know.
49:59 Of course, it’s like owning a fleshy car, you know. I have I have a Lamborghini. What does it say about me? So when the narcissist
50:07 idealizes the other party, he is actually idealizing himself because in the narcissist’s mind, the other party
50:14 is in here, not out there. Introjected in the narcissist is idealizing the
50:20 introject. He’s idealizing the snapshot, not the other person. You photoshop the snapshot. Yes, he photoshops it. So it’s I love it. In this sense, in this sense, the love bombing is is a way to idealize
50:33 himself through by idealizing the other. Even more, love bombing is about
50:39 convincing himself. It’s not about the victim. The narcissist repeats, “You’re amazing. You’re incredible. You’re drop dead gorgeous. You are super intelligent. I’ve never had someone like
50:51 you. I’ve” And what is he doing? He’s trying to convince himself. Mhm. is actually trying to convince himself. Of course, to the other party, this is very addictive. It’s intoxicating to see
51:03 yourself suddenly as this gorgeous, amazing, incredible, super intelligent,
51:09 unique, unprecedented uh person is uh is addictive. And so people fall for it and
51:16 they want more. They want to see themselves through the narcissist’s gaze. But it’s a common mistake of the victim.
51:23 coming back to you. It’s a common mistake of a victim to to believe that she has anything to do with any of these processes and any of the dynamics of the
51:34 narcissist. The victim injects herself into the narrative and into the story because
51:40 it’s very difficult for her to accept that she has been absent completely. It’s very difficult. It’s a narcissistic
51:47 defense. It’s in a way this is one of the vectors of contagion. I’m saying that narcissism is contagious. If you’re exposed to the narcissist, you are gradually becoming more and more
51:57 narcissistic. And this is what’s happening to the victims in an attempt to render themselves significant to make
52:04 sense of what happened to them. They are becoming narcissists in effect. And if you go to forums
52:10 online of self-styled empaths and I don’t know all these nonsense, you will see that these people are grandiose and
52:17 they’re highly narcissistic. They are aggressive. They are you know they resemble very much narcissist.
52:25 You said uh him her in some studies they say is a number equal of women and and
52:33 ma male narcissism and in other studies it says it’s mainly men. What’s the
52:39 truth? Half half of all narcissists are women. that is accepted now and that in the
52:45 text revision of the diagnostic and statistical manual fifth edition published in 2022
52:51 you will find that they say that 50% of all narcissists are are men. So that means 50% are women. You said that narcissism is an adaptation after some mistreatment from the parents and uh do you agree with
53:08 this? Again there is this confusion online. People say narcissism no is
53:14 genetic is hereditary. I explained to you that there is a trait that is universal to all human beings and it’s a
53:20 trait of narcissism. But exactly like the healthy cell in the body if the healthy cell is exposed to radiation or
53:26 toxins or it can become cancerous. Same with the trait of narcissism. If the trait of narcissism which is genetic, is
53:34 hereditary is exposed to the wrong kind of environment, it can become cancerous.
53:40 And that’s why my book is titled malignant self- loveve. It’s a cancer. It’s a cancer of the soul. It’s stage
53:47 four cancer. Narcissism is stage four cancer. Otto Kenberg and others and I’m I think
53:54 the same. We think that narcissism, pathological narcissism is as bad as
54:00 schizophrenia and Kenberg even said that it is a form of psychosis. So it’s bad. It’s a really bad uh disease or mental illness. And
54:12 what is this environment? What is this toxin? What is this radiation that convert the healthy cell? It’s
54:19 dysfunctional family environment. Now when we say abuse again there is
54:25 common misunderstanding online. As you say abuse people think physical abuse, sexual abuse, you know verbal abuse,
54:33 psychological abuse. These are the classical forms of abuse but they are in the minority. Very few people sexually abuse their children. Very few. This is the minority
54:44 of cases. Abuse is any situation. Parental abuse is any situation where
54:51 the parent usually the mother but any parent when the parent refuses to allow the child to separate from her and become an individual
55:02 refuses to allow the child to develop boundaries and feels threatened when the child
55:08 develops a self that is abuse. So now that’s a much wider definition. For
55:15 example, a mother that is overprotective would not allow the child to go to the
55:21 street, would not allow the child to play with peers, would not because she’s afraid, she’s scared, she’s highly
55:27 insecure. This mother is abusive because she is preventing the child from
55:33 interacting with reality and with peers. And these are the main engines of personal development and growth. It is
55:40 through interaction with reality and peers, through suffering, through losses, through pain, through mistakes
55:47 and failures that we grow. If the mother doesn’t allow the child to experience all these, she’s abusive. She’s not allowing him to grow. Let’s take another kind of mother. A mother who is
55:59 neglectful, abandons the child, absent, emotionally absent. Andre Green, which
56:05 was a French psychoanalyst, called it dead mother. This kind of mother who is dead
56:11 metaphorically, she’s also abusive. Why is she abusive? Because she’s not allowing the child to
56:18 separate from her. But wait a minute, you say she’s abandoning, she’s neglecting, she’s allowing the child to separate. No, because the mother is abandoning and neglecting the child is
56:29 in panic. The child always tries to get mother back. As the child is trying to
56:35 get mother back, the child cannot separate. child will be terrified to separate from the mother because he will
56:42 be afraid to lose her completely. So this kind of mother is also abusive. Let’s take another kind of mother. A
56:49 mother who uh is in a bad relationship with her husband let’s say and she converts the
56:56 her her son into a husband. She uses the son as a husband.
57:02 There is emotional incest. There is a lot of conf. She she she makes
57:08 confidences with the son. She she conspires with the son against the father and so on so forth. This is known
57:14 as parentification. A mother or a or a father who uses the
57:20 child as their own parents. The child is responsible for the parents happiness
57:26 well-being. The child is is responsible to feed the parents to take care of the parents to this is parentification. It’s abuse of course and that’s what happens in the
57:37 relationship when uh they are trying to do the reenactment. Yeah. Allow me allow me to finish the inventory of abuse because this is a seriously problematic area online
57:49 when people don’t understand what is abuse and they say it’s not true. My narcissist he had a wonderful mother. He had a great family. It’s not true
58:00 that there is abuse and trauma. But what people understand as a great family is actually highly abusive. That’s incredible. Let’s have another example. Imagine parents who push the child to realize
58:14 their own unfulfilled dreams and wishes and fantasies. The mother wanted to be an actress. She’s pushing pushing her daughter to become a model and an actress. The father wanted to be a
58:24 pianist, failed, did not succeed, pushes his son to be a pianist. It’s a famous case in Australia. The sun ended in
58:32 mental asylum. There’s a movie Shine. It’s called Shine. It’s a great movie about this. So when the parents push the
58:39 children to realize their own unfulfilled fantasies and dreams and wishes that’s abuse in all these
58:45 situations as you see the child that’s this kind of abuse is called instrumentalization.
58:52 In all these situations you can see the child cannot separate. uh you have emotionally blackmailing
59:00 parents. They say to the child, you owe us, we sacrificed ourselves for you
59:07 or I cannot live without you. If you leave me alone, I will die. You know, or I cannot do this. Uh you need to fix to change my bulb. You need to fix my television. You need to and they all the
59:18 time. So all these parents refuse to let the child go. What is the main role?
59:26 main function of a good enough mother. In a minute I will explain why mother and not father because also online you
59:34 have debates about this why mother father figure unfortunately it’s mother
59:41 uh this so this these uh these are all forms of abuse the child is not allowed
59:47 to separate and individuate and uh not not allowed to become a person in all
59:54 these situations we have a chance of 2% of uh pathological narcissism. The child
60:00 is may react uh with pathological narcissism. What is pathological narcissism? It’s a fantasy defense. The
60:08 child finds finds reality unacceptable. Uh the child grieavves because the child
60:15 wants to become and is not allowed to become. So there’s grieving. There’s lifelong grieving for what you could
60:21 have been and you will never be. Mhm. So you are going to say what is a good
60:27 mother? Yes. Come to it in a minute. So in all these situation there is a 2%
60:34 chance that you will have end up having a narcissist as a as a child. A good enough mother is a good enough mother is a term coined by a phrase coined by Winnott. Wot. Winnot was pediatrician later became psychologist. So a good enough mother has essentially
60:51 one role and one role only. Is it to feed the child? No. Is it to love the
60:58 child? No. That’s not her role. Her role is to push the child away.
61:04 This is the role of a good a good mother. Her main role is to push the child away to legitimize
61:11 to to give the child a good feeling about walking away.
61:18 So a good enough mother would not be narcissistic, would not be self-centered, would not be insecure,
61:24 would not be depressive, would not be abandoning, would not be neglecting, would not be instrumentalizing, not parentifying, not ped pedestalizing, not idolizing, none of this. These are all bad mothers. A good mother is a mother
61:37 who tells the child, don’t worry about me. Go go explore the world, play with your
61:44 peers. And you said it’s between 6 months and 3 years. So separation individuation starts at 18
61:50 months. 18 months and ends at 36 months. Um it has multiple stages. It was first
61:58 described by Mara who was a psychologist. It has multiple stages. They’re not easy to manage. They’re not easy to manage. And parenting is uh
62:09 fine-tuning um function fine-tuning behavior. And many many parents get it wrong. Maybe even the majority. I don’t know. In a society where we divorce, one out
62:20 of two divorce today, we can easily imagine that two parents were mandatory
62:26 to to raise the kids. Today it’s not the case. How come that despite the fact that divorce increase the number the percentage of narcissist stay the same since 50 years? Because fathers are not very necessary.
62:43 Senator fathers are not very necessary. Oh okay. Okay.
62:49 The father the father fulfills an important role usually after age 36 months and uh the father’s role is to teach. The father teaches skills to play
63:01 baseball. You know the father teaches what we call scripts. Scripts means
63:07 specific behaviors and specific situations in society. So a very famous script is the sexual script. So the
63:14 father teaches by example or or directly teaches about sexuality, flirting,
63:20 courtship and so on. Usually it’s by example. The child observes the relationship between the parents and
63:26 adopts a script. This is called modeling. This process is called modeling. The child the father is also a
63:33 socialization agent. The father teaches the child what is right, what is wrong. And so the father is instrumental in developing uh what Freud called super ego conscious whatever these are all social roles I could say
63:45 the following the mother is responsible for developing the self the ego the the
63:53 personhood who you are core identity father the mother makes you
64:00 after the mother made you she hands you over to the father and the father teaches you Mhm.
64:06 So that’s why all the major authorities including Bowelbe and you name it all
64:13 the major authorities and Freud of course I mean and to a lesser extent Salvakin we all agree that it is the
64:19 mother that is crucial. I always thought that the mother was taking care at home and the the aim of
64:26 the father was to cut to cut the rope and to push the baby outside. No, it’s the mother. The mother and it’s the mother. The mother is doing this. If you look, if you go to the park, you go some, you
64:37 see mothers with children. So the child walks away a few steps and then runs back to mommy and hugs her.
64:44 So for the debates and uh don’t criticize me in the comments when we when a couple divorce and we split half
64:53 one week for the father, one week for the mother. It’s it could be a bad thing. We should depends on the age more on the on the on the depends on the age to the mother. Depends on the age. the the the why did I why did I say that fathers are much
65:04 less necessary than mothers because you could learn skills and scripts from multiple sources.
65:10 You can learn it from teachers. You can learn it from role models on television. You can learn it from peers.
65:16 Actually today we know that peers teach the child much more than any father and mother combined. Wow. Peers are the major in major shaping influence in So you can learn things you
65:27 can learn things from multiple sources. Mhm. You don’t need the father basically where whereas your formation as a human being is crucially dependent on the
65:38 mother and if the mother is the wrong sort uh you’re going to be you’re going to pay a price lifelong price you know
65:44 in a way you have to break the biosis between the the body of the child who
65:50 was inside the body of the mother this is a very interesting topic you raised it ma called it the symbiotic
65:57 phase ma and others suggest suggested that uh children and mothers are one
66:03 organism psychologically speaking uh initially physically speaking but let’s say psychologically speaking after the birth they’re one organism and that
66:14 later the child breaks away from the mother the child realizes that the mother is separate and external and
66:20 breaks away think about it think about it in terms of trauma there is a major trauma when you’re born it’s mostly a physical trauma. You do
66:31 have mind when you’re born. It’s very basic, very primitive, redimementaryary. You are able to perceive sounds, especially the sound of your mother, mother’s voice, which you recognize
66:42 instantly in the first minute that you’re born. Uh you are able to recognize mother’s face, but no other face. By the way, the first six weeks, mother’s face, no other face,
66:53 which shows you the importance of the mother. You know, we today is politically correct age. You’re not supposed to say such things because it’s sexist. You’re not supposed to say mother is more important than father. You’ll be
67:05 fired from the university. But this happens to be the truth. So when you’re born, you have such a
67:11 basic mind that the trauma is mostly physical. However, a bit later, you you have a
67:19 trauma which I personally considered as the worst trauma ever in your life. When
67:25 you realize that mother is not you and you realize that mother is out there
67:31 she’s separate she’s external that is shocking because until that moment the
67:37 child mother and the world were one it was a unitary universe where the child Freud called it the oceanic feeling said you’re like in in an ocean it’s like oceanic feeling and then suddenly it
67:50 breaks the world breaks there is a chasm there’s a breaking of the world And then in an a duality
67:57 I world ex internal external suddenly everything breaks apart and at that
68:04 moment you feel existentially alone existentially alone but loneliness
68:10 soypistic loneliness the likes of which you will never experience uh again
68:16 and it’s terrifying because if you and mother are not one you cannot control
68:22 mother you realize suddenly that there is no control over a mother. She can frustrate you and she does. You want
68:28 food, she’s away, you want, you know, and so suddenly everything falls apart and it’s a gigantic trauma. Here’s the
68:35 key. How do you how do you come to learn that you’re separate? How do you know that you’re you’re not one with mother?
68:43 Because you see yourself in mother’s eyes. You see yourself through mother’s gaze.
68:49 And at that moment if you see yourself through her gaze you realize she can’t
68:55 be me. She cannot be me. If I’m seeing me there it’s not there is me.
69:02 Suddenly there is a sense of me. There is no sense of me until 6 months. We
69:08 know it from from rigorous experiments and so on. There’s no sense of me. Suddenly there’s a sense of me. At that moment is the beginning of the self. At that moment a boundary is formed. Externality, internality, separateness
69:23 and so on. Everything is formed and now starts a process that leads to individuation. You become individual.
69:31 This is where there is a disruption with narcissism. This process in narcissism is broken.
69:37 Start the start of the construction of the self. Yes. Is broken completely. M
69:43 I have a question for you about uh you often say that victims of narcissist unknowingly participate in a psychological dance. What draws an empathic person toward the narcissist?
69:54 And can empathy itself become an addiction to drama? You have some people who say they go with a narcissist then
70:02 they meet a second person. It’s a narcissist and they start to be addicted to something that makes them feel
70:08 butterflies or vibrate and stuff. And then when they get into a healthy relationship, it sounds flat,
70:14 boring, boring. [Music]
70:20 While the narcissist is nondiscriminating, as I explained, narcissist couldn’t care less who you are as long as you provide whatever. No, it’s not discriminating. The victim is discriminating.
70:33 Narcissists are not victims are to be attracted to the narcissist you definitely need to have a highly specific personality structure. Why am I saying this?
70:45 Again, if you go online, self-styled experts would tell you that narcissists are irresistible. They’re great actors.
70:51 They are charming. They are this that. None of it is true. Unfortunately, studies show that we have a very negative reactions to narcissists within
71:02 the first 30 seconds. Multiple studies, multiple studies, not one study, many studies, most famous of
71:10 which in Harvard, studies in Harvard that actually came up with a different answer. The studies in
71:16 Harvard said that we we have this reaction in three 3 seconds, not 30. But the majority the consensus of these studies many studies had it been one study you know I’m skeptical okay one
71:28 study but many studies and so what happens is within 30 seconds we develop extreme acute discomfort even when the exposure to the narcissist
71:39 through the to the narcissist is through a video even when the exposure is through an
71:45 email by reading an email I think you said even on Tinder on on YouTube if Any exposure any exposure to another even email message
71:56 uh creates this I call it the uncanny value reaction uncanny value okay so it is not true that there is
72:04 this inexurable irresistible attraction you cannot help yourself magnets I don’t know what and you fall prey to the
72:11 narcissist you you choose the narcissist it’s a choice you have to overcome this
72:17 uncanny value reaction you have it but you have to overcome it. You have to deny it. You have to lie to yourself. You have to reframe the situation. You have to see the good side of the
72:28 narcissist. You have to say, “I should give him a second chance.” You have to say, “It’s not okay to judge someone in 30 seconds.” You know, there is a cognitive process going on active to
72:39 falsify the situation for you to stay with the narcissist because normal healthy person has a
72:46 reaction of getting away immediately. Mhm. Even in Facebook and I remember there’s a study on Facebook Facebook
72:52 posts you said a normal you said a normal person should
72:58 gets away gets away gets away we made a we made a a series of studies
73:04 where we asked people uh do you think it’s a narcissist or not and we showed them uh posts from Facebook
73:11 do you think it’s a narcissist or not and we exposed them to 30 seconds of posts so they saw two three posts I how
73:18 many posts you can see in 30 seconds. Then we asked them to identify who is a narcissist, who is not.
73:24 They were 85% accurate. Wow. They identified people who who were
73:30 diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder 85% of the time accurately.
73:36 And it created in them extreme discomfort. The victim has to overcome this. The victim has to lie to herself. How is it possible? Yes. some mirroring process. Maybe
73:48 the mirroring process. Well, we are not quite sure what’s happening there, but there are other studies that show that we judge people
73:55 accurately within within 3 seconds. The other studies, Harvard studies that I mentioned before and they showed that uh on average 3 seconds are enough for us to evaluate
74:07 people more or less appropriately. Wow. Intuition intuition is wrong 50% of the
74:13 time when it comes to facts. facts and predictions, we are wrong 50% of the time. But it’s almost 90%
74:21 accurate when it comes to other people. So it means if if someone is always having love relationships with narcissist, it means this person is actively looking
74:33 for a narcissist. It’s a choice like this like like this woman falling in love with people in jail, men in jail. It’s a choice. It’s a choice. It’s an absolute choice because she has to overcome king the choice to go with someone that
74:45 will hurt me because she has to deny and overcome and suppress the uncanny value reaction incredible.
74:51 So why what makes why? So I said it’s a special personality structure but I had to explain why I
74:57 think so. So that’s one of the reasons and we have studies for example that showed that border lines are much more likely to have relationships with narcissist than the average population.
75:08 So we have some studies about some types of I think first of all it should be
75:14 someone who intensely dislikes reality. Someone who is disappointed in reality
75:20 who had bad bad uh bad outcomes in reality is not self-efficacious.
75:26 No agency has no power over her life. She feels helpless hopeless.
75:33 Someone who has just experienced something bad. She’s vulnerable or he’s vulnerable because of recent event like
75:40 death or divorce or whatever. But someone who is disillusioned and disenchanted with reality
75:46 maybe al also an artist or potential could be. Yes. Mhm. Someone who escapes reality as a as a
75:53 method as a as a system. So this kind of person would be attracted to the masters of fantasy the
76:01 masters of fantasy analysis. There is no group of people on earth which are better who are better at fantasy than narcissists. That’s why most modern technology was invented by narcissists. Because most modern technology, social
76:17 media, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, metaverse, all these technologies have one thing in common. Have one thing in common. Escape from
76:28 reality. They are the the current technologies are about escape from reality. That includes movies, of
76:34 course, movies and so on. And in all these industries there is very little debate that there is over
76:40 representation of narcissists, you know. So they’re experts at fantasy. If you hate reality and you come across a
76:47 narcissist, the narcissist has something to offer you. He can offer you augmented
76:53 reality, alternative reality, virtual reality, and it’s irresistible. The second thing is you need to be somehow exposed to narcissist
77:04 previously. Maybe your parents were narcissists. Maybe your siblings were narcissist.
77:11 Maybe you grew up in a highly narcissistic culture or or society or civilization.
77:18 Somehow you need to have previous exposure to narcissist. You need to be you need to have what we call
77:24 premobidity. Premobility. You need to be conditioned to react to narcissists, sensitized to
77:30 narcissists. So, and that prepares the ground. So, it’s not wonder that people
77:36 who have who grew up in abusive families tend to end up with narcissistes.
77:43 The third thing is I think we I think it’s very difficult for all of us to accept that narcissists are the victims much more victims than
77:54 the victims. Narcissists are victimized children.
78:00 They’re victims. So, we have two types of victims attracted to each other. It’s not
78:06 narcissist and victim. It’s one type of victim with one type of solution and another type of victim. Victims attracted to victims because they share the same language, same background, same
78:17 history, same sensitivity, same, you know, they’re the same. and and often in the
78:24 relationship so we feel like the other the narcissist wants us to experience
78:31 their own traumas. Yes. And that’s why keep this keep this in mind and ask me a bit later because what narcissists do
78:38 they impose everything on the victim. It’s a good question but in a minute.
78:44 So often the victim will tell you I never felt more understood in my life.
78:50 That’s true. never or I was so accepted fully. Why? Because
78:57 it’s the same family. Narcissist and victim are the same same same people. Only the narcissist chose a different
79:04 solution. What the narcissist chose is is known as psychology as identifying with the aggressor. There was a a psychoanalyst his name was Ferencey and Ferencey coined this phrase and he
79:16 suggested that some victims of abuse their solution is to become abusers and
79:22 say you know from now on I will never be a victim. I will be the abuser now. So this is the narcissistic solution but
79:29 it’s a victim. The third the next thing is the narcissist baits or lures the
79:36 victim baits her how? in a variety of ways. But let’s take one
79:42 way. The narcissist is a child mentally and so on. Narcissist about two years old. Intellectually they are developed. They have what we call uh semantic
79:53 memory. That means they they can learn how to do things. They can learn how to you know they can be professors of psychology. They so but they are children emotionally and psychologically they’re children. So when they meet what we call a victim, they expose the
80:11 victim to the child, they expose and then the victim reacts with maternal
80:17 instinct. She she becomes protective. She wants to nurture. She wants to love. She wants to So this is a bait. Narcissists have a very sophisticated
80:28 system of baits. Another bait, the hall of mirrors. The other bait is like I you
80:36 will see yourself idealized through my gaze and you become addicted to it and so on. Another bait is I will be your
80:43 mother. I will love you unconditionally. I will accept you as you are and so on. So there are baits and lures that the
80:49 narcissist uses to attract the victim. And ultimately
80:55 if you have the correct personality structure and personal background, you would find the narcissist irresistible.
81:01 And if you don’t, you will run away after 30 seconds. It’s as simple as that. It’s a binary
81:07 situation. It’s a dichotomy. You don’t have people who they come across a narcissist or they
81:14 meet the narcissist like for six years and then they fall in love and they have a shared fantasy. There’s no such thing.
81:21 Or you fall for the narcissist in like two weeks or you don’t fall for the narcissist. It’s a it’s black and white,
81:27 yes or no. And the reason is this the personality structure. Okay.
81:34 Um before we will speak of a little bit about your method and your book. Uh before this what do you think about uh
81:41 other experts on YouTube for example that are self-proclaimed narcissist and there is a legend that say that most of them are border lines and not narcissist. Is is it true? Have you seen
81:53 them? What do you think about them? expert is only someone who possesses an academic degree and is uh
82:01 I’m speaking about the one saying that they are narcissist self-aware narcissist is one thing expert is another self expert self-styled experts is another I’m very
82:12 sensitive to this because there’s a lot of contamination in the field you know
82:18 um I have no problem with self-aware narcissist I I was the first obviously I
82:25 I came out if you wish in 1995 and I was the first person I think in human history actually who has admitted to being a narcissist. So I have no problem with this kind of
82:36 confessional creed or attitude. Where I have a problem is that when people say because I’m a narcissist I’m an expert on narcissism. M that is uh not something um that is not
82:51 legitimate because to be an expert on narcissism you need to study narcissism in an establishment of higher education. You need to be exposed to experiments and studies. You need to
83:02 work in the field and and so on so forth. These people obviously don’t have this. And even less legitimate is to say
83:09 I am a reformed narcissist. I’m a recovering narcissist. I’m a healed narcissist.
83:15 um and so on. This is this is um this is uh con artistry. These people are these
83:22 people are swindlers and scammers. There is no such thing as recovered, reformed, or healed narcissist. Period.
83:28 You can’t heal from narcissism. Sorry. You can’t heal from narcissism. I don’t even understand the the term. I
83:35 don’t know. What does it mean to heal from narcissism? The narcissist is his narcissism. Mhm.
83:41 How can you heal from being Antoine? Tell me can you heal from being on one? It’s not a disease.
83:47 Because we had a question about therapies and about your cold therapy. Yeah, we can discuss this but but you cannot. Narcissism is not uh is not um the flu.
83:59 It’s a true narcissism is not extraneous to the narcissist. It’s not an acquired disease. Some narcissism is the narcissist and as exactly as borderline is the borderline.
84:11 Now again we live in a politically correct age and uh we are not supposed to say that people are their disease.
84:18 You’re not supposed to say that there is a person who happens to have narcissism and there is a person who happens to
84:25 have borderline as if the narcissism and borderline are incidental. They are like
84:31 paint, makeup, you know, veneer. That it’s not true. In severe mental health issues, in severe mental healthil mental illnesses, the
84:42 illness is the person. You cannot divorce it. A schizophrenic is a
84:48 schizophrenic. Maybe you can restrain yourself a little bit. You can modify behaviors a little bit, adapt a little bit. Yes, you can adapt. You can modify behaviors. That that much is true. Absolutely. We can teach a narcissist to
84:59 be less antisocial, less abrasive, less obnoxious, more socially acceptable and so on so forth.
85:08 It requires a lot of work and a lot of repetition because narcissists relapse exactly like alcoholics
85:14 and there are many studies that say that alcoholics are narcissists in effect. So there’s a lot of relapse and al and
85:20 narcissism can easily be described as an addiction because narcissists are addicted to narcissistic supply. Mhm.
85:27 So and and so you cannot whereas for example I mentioned addiction the
85:33 alcoholic is not only alcoholic that means I can’t say that the alcoholic
85:39 alcoholism is the alcoholic because alcoholism is a behavior I can’t
85:45 say that alcoholism is the alcoholic but narcissism is the narcissist it’s
85:51 not only behavior it’s everything it’s traits behaviors interpersonal relationships Everything you name it, any field, anything, everything, family, workplace, everything is influenced.
86:02 I understand. It’s all it’s and it’s not some vaccine. It’s a DSM. The DSM says that narcissism is all
86:09 perervasive. Mhm. All pervasive. So, it’s idiotic to say that you can heal narcissism or cure it
86:16 or it’s well, so what therapy are they for? In one of your videos, you said most of the time
86:23 why therapy failed is because they’re treating those narcissists as adult, the narcissist as a child. You you you you had your therapy called cold called
86:34 therapy. I had a question about that and you let you even said that the result were not those that you expected to
86:40 have. And so what is your today? What is your view about that about the future?
86:48 Will we be able to not heal but treat or deal with this personality style?
86:54 I think we need to to distinguish between two facets of narcissism. There
87:00 is the suffering individual or there is individual. This individual is suffering. They just deny that they’re suffering. They don’t know they are suffering. Many of them don’t know that they’re suffering but they are suffering. We know they’re suffering
87:11 because they’re dysfunctional and they go through many crisis, collapse, modification, injury.
87:18 It’s not a condition I would wish on anyone. It’s a mental illness. It’s a serious problem. So there is this and the question, can we help this individual in any way? And there is another aspect and that is the
87:30 relational and societal aspect. Can we minimize the damage that these people have on other people? Exactly. So therapy, it’s legitimate for therapy to cope with both sides. It’s legitimate
87:41 to give therapy in order to minimize societal damages and impact on others. It’s totally legitimate. And it’s legitimate to give therapy to make the individual more functional, more happy
87:54 and so on. When it comes to the individual, the maximum we can do is we can modify behaviors. Cold therapy.
88:02 Um first of all therapy uh I had huge seminars with clinicians in in many in
88:10 many places and and uh the clinicians acted as the patients. The clinicians we tried call therapy on the clinicians. So it was never tried on on uh on real
88:22 narcissists in the wild. We called it in the wild. It was never tried in the wild. It was tried on on clinician populations in Brazil, in Hungary, in in Austria, in in Russia, in
88:34 other places. Uh the clinicians passed some basic tests and those which had a high level
88:41 of narcissism um we administered NPI, they were treated with they experienced cold
88:49 therapy. It was not treatment even they experienced cold therapy. Call therapy has was intended and has only one impact and that is to eliminate the false self,
89:00 eliminate the need for narcissistic supply and eliminate the grandio defenses which falsify reality. Restore
89:07 reality testing and allow the narcissist to function without the need for self
89:13 aggrandizing inflated fantastic um narratives and that’s it. It call
89:20 therapy doesn’t touch anything else. Okay. Not empathy, not interpersonal relationships, not capacity for
89:26 intimacy, not nothing. Only this. It’s not a small thing because the need for
89:32 narcissistic supply is compelling. It’s a compulsion and consumes a lot of resources and pushes the narcissist to
89:39 do all kinds of things that he shouldn’t do. The need for grandiosity, the need for grandio sustenance, for narcissistic
89:45 supply, pushes the narcissist to harm other people. So it’s not a small thing
89:51 but even cold therapy which is extreme and dangerous and uh you know last
89:58 resort definitely even cold therapy can touch one element one clinical feature
90:04 of narcissism not much more than that and we don’t have longitudinal studies we don’t know how long the imp the
90:10 effect uh the longest we have is about 8 years so it looks good but that’s it
90:18 currently accepted treatment modalities acceptant accepted therapies call
90:24 therapy is not accepted is experimental never tried on the wild in other words it’s not a serious treatment modality
90:31 right now serious treatment modalities such as schema therapy transactional analysis
90:37 to some extent gestal to some extent DBT and so on so so these
90:44 can modify the narcissist’s behaviors the short term and make it easier to
90:50 live with the narcissist. So these have some societal benefits but none to the
90:56 individual. The individual cannot be touched. There’s no change no discernable change
91:02 in anything in the individual. Now you have quite a few therapists and and psychiatrists who will tell you
91:08 otherwise until you check their background and you see that they’re making a lot of money from treating narcissists. that makes
91:15 them in my eyes very suspect. So it’s like 20 years ago I will cure your
91:21 homosexuality was in churches churches and all these things give me a lot of money and your
91:29 son will not be homosexual after after that. I think it’s the same thing. Yes. One of the most one of the most amazing things in the literature
91:35 is that the articles that claim that there is treatment for for narcissistic
91:41 personality disorders are written and evaluated by the very clinicians who administer
91:48 the the treatment which is unheard of in any other field. Unheard of. What should have happened is
91:55 that the clinicians should have submitted data sets and professors like me and you know should have evaluated
92:02 the data sets but that’s not happening. Recently there was a major article that
92:09 uh proved that uh eight eight that’s a big study eight eight uh narcissists
92:16 improved over six years if I remember correctly with with a combination of treatment modalities they improved over
92:23 six years and they lost a diagnosis everyone I mean there was a firestorm in
92:29 the media in the everyone wow cure for narcissism found and so on so forth Well, eight people. But uh the problem was the article was written by the very
92:41 psychologist and therapist who treated these people and then evaluated by the very these
92:47 very there was no outsider in the whole process in the whole article there was not a single outsider.
92:54 So of course what do you want what do you want to tell you? You want them to tell you we worked for six years and we had zero zero impact
93:01 zero results. They’re human after all. Even if they are not intentionally deceptive, they’re human. So, we won’t change the narcissist. What about the victims? What is the the
93:12 easiest, the shortest, the fastest way to heal from a narcissist abuse?
93:19 In the majority of cases, the victims came into the situation, came into the church fantasy already damaged and
93:25 broken, already with many problems. Even if these problems were not overt, were not
93:31 overpowering, were not overwhelming, and still there is some problematic background involved.
93:38 And the and the greatest lesson that victims can take out of a narcissistically abusive relationship is
93:45 that something is wrong with them and they need to work on themselves. Victims contribute to the situation. They make choices. They make decisions every single day. Not to walk away is a decision to stay.
94:01 And uh to deny this, to deny responsibility, to to demonize and mythologize the narcissist so as to remove any guilt and blame and shame from yourself as a victim. That’s not very helpful to any process of healing.
94:16 And it it means you will end up in the same situation again. The problem with the narcissistic abuse
94:23 is that it’s not superficial. It’s not that someone beat you up.
94:29 Someone beat you up, you know, hospital, this, that, police. It is much more insidious,
94:35 much more. It’s about it’s a takeover of your mind. Your mind has been hijacked
94:41 and then re-engineered, reprogrammed in a variety of ways. Entrainment, introjection, and so on. And then uh
94:52 you were infantilized. You were regressed. So all your adult faculties and agency
94:59 were taken away. Damage is enormous. M the damage is enormous because you were
95:05 converted into an internal object and through something known as projective identification the narcissist forced you to to uh to lose your externality and
95:18 separateness. It forced you to become an internal object in a way. So you lose your core identity. You lo so you lose everything. You lose your mind, core identity, agency, adulthood and so on. And you need to
95:31 start from zero in the wake of the relationship. You need to start from zero. You need to you’re two years old
95:37 now. And you need to devel to separate. You need from the narcissist who was
95:43 your mother. You need to separate. You need to individuate. You need to eradicate eliminate the introject the narcissist voice in your mind. You need to get rid of the entrainment with CBT with cognitive behavior therapy. You need then to learn to walk to become
96:00 independent again to develop agency, trust in yourself, self-efficacy. You then need to begin to trust the people and world again. Damaging narcissistic abuse is so
96:13 massive and all all pervasive that I had to coin a new phrase because otherwise we could have said abuse. Why why to say narcissistic abuse? It’s not the same as any other type of abuse. You were not
96:25 targeted because of something you had or something you did. You were targeted because you were
96:33 you existed. Most of the YouTube channels and videos speaks about the the step one which is uh this is his fault. The narcissist his
96:44 fault. He did this. He did that. And by the way, it’s nearly the same sentences. They all say the same techniques. It’s quite perturbing. I remember my my first YouTube videos that I saw about it was
96:57 was exactly exactly what I was leaving at home. The same phrases, sentences, um
97:03 habits and and but YouTube is is a place to to accuse the others. He is a narcissist. He did this to me. And I I have the feeling that to to go further to to to heal, you need to see a
97:15 therapist and and and to start thinking it’s not him. what what it reflects about me. If you don’t assume responsibility for what has happened to you, you don’t hear
97:26 you then you will never get regain your sense of independence, personal autonomy, agency, power, you will always
97:34 remain disempowered. If the narcissist, if the narcissist is has did all these
97:40 things to you and you had nothing to do with it, then you are completely powerless and you will remain powerless as as long as this is your version of reality. You need to regain your power. The power is the first thing that you need to regain. It’s like electricity.
97:57 Without electricity, we don’t have cameras. We don’t have smartphones. We don’t have anything. Nothing. Can go home without electricity. You need to
98:03 regain the electricity. Mhm. We need to regain the power and the only way to regain power is to say this
98:09 was a collaboration between me as a victim. Definitely have been victimized.
98:15 This was a collaboration between me and my abuser. We collaborated. We did this together. It’s a joint venture. Now I need to see what what has been my part and my contribution.
98:27 I need to learn not to repeat it. And now I need to recover. And now I have enough power to recover because now I’m
98:33 again I have you know my agency my I’m in control again. You need to regain locus of control. If you say the narcissist did this to me it’s an external locus of control.
98:44 You need to regain and then you say okay now I can work on myself. What do I need to do? First of all his voice is inside my mind
98:52 keeps telling me that I’m keeps putting me down keeps denigrating me criticizing me attacking me. It’s like the harsh a harsh uh inner critic. So, I need to get
99:03 rid of this voice. Target number one. Target number two. I was infantilized by the narcissist. He made me an infant. He
99:09 made me dependent. He made me clinging. He made me needy. He he with intermittent reinforcement, he created
99:16 trauma bond. He need to get rid of all this. You know, I need to get rid of of things. But how can you get rid of things if you’re powerless? And how can you get rid of things if all
99:27 the power is with the narcissist? So only he can take away his voice. Only he can, you know, you give him all the
99:35 power. You and so power goes with responsibility. Mhm. Power goes with blame. Spiderman, some of the victims need to know this answer. Did the narcissist knew what he
99:51 was doing? Was it intentionally? And if that’s the case, like it would help them to know, okay, if he did that
99:57 intentionally, then there’s no reason for me to keep hoping he knew what he was doing. But some experts say that
100:04 they are aware. Some experts says that they’re not aware and they don’t care. So what’s the difference between that
100:10 and them suddenly collapse and becoming self-aware narcissist? And how do they view that? Especially that when in one
100:16 of your videos you found out that narcissists don’t have access to their memories. They have memory gaps. sometimes 80% you said and that’s why they use confabulation and not
100:26 gaslighting more and what do you think about that? Do they know what can you say to the victims about that?
100:32 Narcissists know everything they’re doing and they absolutely know what what will be the consequences and outcomes of what they’re doing and the impact on other people. They know all this. They
100:43 just don’t know why they’re doing it. So there’s a big difference between motivation and action. You could know
100:50 that you’re doing something without understanding why you’re doing it. And of course, we have this in
100:56 compulsions, for example. You do something compulsively, but you don’t know why you’re doing it. Repetition, compulsion, repetition. Yeah. Even simple compulsion. You wash hands all the time. You wash your hands all the time. You know you’re washing your hands. You’re
101:07 not you know you’re washing your hands, but you don’t know why you’re washing your hands. So, it’s the same with the narcissist. It’s a compulsion. The
101:14 narcissist is slave to an algorithm inside himself and this algorithm forces
101:21 him to repeat the same behavior over and over again. That’s a repetition compulsion and he doesn’t know why he’s
101:27 doing it. But as he is acting he’s fully aware of what he’s doing and he knows also from previous
101:34 experience what would be the the effects on other people the price that other people will pay. Yes, narcissists don’t
101:42 care. They do not care. They do not. Exactly like psychopaths. They have no remorse and no regret. Although unlike psychopaths, they’re capable of a feeling of shame
101:54 and uh rarely of guilt strangely. But they have no regret and no remorse.
102:00 They have aloplastic defenses. So they blame everything on other people or the situation or the environment or the
102:06 circumstances or the period or you name it. It’s never their fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. They reframe and
102:13 justify their behavior. They could say, “Yeah, I’m very tough and cruel, but it is for your own good. I’m helping you. Tough love. I’m educating you. I’m waking you up. You know, I’m waking you up.”
102:24 Uh, so there’s no no way to reason with a narcissist, to argue with a
102:30 narcissist, or convince a narcissist and so on because they have myriad multiple defenses that immediately kick in.
102:36 Reframing, you name it. and uh justifi and the reason they justify their actions is because they cannot help it. If they did not justify their actions, they would have to admit that they’re helpless. Like if I don’t justify what I’m doing
102:52 and I’m still doing it means I cannot help it. But how come I cannot help it? I’m God. I’m godlike. So if I admit that
103:00 I cannot helply, that I’m helpless, it challenges my grandiosity. So it is their grandiosity that forces
103:07 them to to somehow justify or explain what they’re doing because they cannot help what they’re doing precisely. If they could help what they’re doing, they would be psychopaths.
103:18 Psychopaths absolutely can stop immediately what they’re doing. We know it because the behavior of psychopath psychopaths changes in prison. We have uh we have a similar situation
103:31 with narcissists in prison for example or the army or hospital. These are called total environments.
103:37 So we we have observations of narcissists in prison and all their narcissistic behaviors stop. So you could say you see the narcissist is not
103:48 compulsive. The narcissist can control their actions. You know they can change. So they choose not to change. That is not true because what happens in prison is extreme fear. So we know that in all humans when
104:06 you’re exposed to an extreme emotion you freeze. What happens with the like when you’re
104:12 threatened there’s what we call freeze fight flight form response. So
104:18 what happens to the narcissist when he’s in in prison is that he freezes. He simply freezes. And we it’s not that he
104:26 changes, it’s that he freezes. So he doesn’t act like those toki. Yeah. Not from the underground. And uh
104:34 but the psychopath for example is stable across environments. Psychopaths
104:40 continues to be a psychopath. Exactly the same psychopath in prison, outside prison, this that and there are various
104:47 reasons for it. But the most critical uh reason is that psychopath’s behavior is
104:53 a choice. It’s not compulsive. Well, most of it some elements are compulsive, but it’s it’s mostly a choice. And the
105:01 psychopath chooses to be himself because he he regards himself as, you know, above the law and superior and so
105:11 uh time for one one more question. Do you have a do do you like a question to be asked to you? Do you have this one? Do you think
105:24 do you think that for the diagnosis of a narcissist we could use medical imagery?
105:33 Oh yeah, good question. Yeah, because you have some pictures today on internet they scan MRI the
105:40 brain of narcissist see that there’s something missing about emotion. Yeah, there are no studies right now.
105:46 no serious studies or rigorous studies that connect brain abnormalities to
105:52 pathological narcissism. Uh one of the main reasons is that as I told you there’s a lot of confusion on
105:58 who is a narcissist and who is not dark personalities, psychopaths, things that so clinical entity is illdefined. There’s a problem with the clinical entity with what is a narcissist. It’s a
106:11 big problem with it. And even as I told you the ICD decided to get rid of it completely.
106:18 And uh the second problem is that very often these changes that we see in the brain involve u antisocial narcissist also known as malignant narcissist.
106:29 Mhm. These are narcissists that actually psychopaths. They’re psychopaths and narcissists together.
106:35 And in psychopathy there is there are brain abnormalities that have been documented for more than 40 50 years. We know that in psychopathy there are major
106:46 changes to quite a few parts in the brain. Gray matter, white matter, amygdala and and so on. And and these these brain scans that are presented online that are
106:58 attributed to narcissists are actually psychopathic narcissists. Okay. uh at this stage we don’t have any
107:05 of this and of course there is a much more fundamental issue which demonstrates the problems in psychology
107:11 and why psychology would never be a science okay you scan the brain let’s assume we
107:18 finally settled on a definition of NPD that is acceptable all over the world because now is not acceptable and let’s
107:26 assume we find people who are diagnosed only with NPD not with BPD not with only
107:32 They don’t know how difficult it is. Okay, let’s assume and let’s assume we scan their brains and let’s assume we
107:39 find brain abnormalities in all of them and say voila is a brain abnormality which is
107:45 associated with narcissism. Maybe white matter, maybe amydala, I don’t know. Okay, here’s the problem. How do you know that it is not the narcissism that created the the changes in the brain? We don’t scan babies when they’re born
108:01 and follow them for 40 years. We don’t know which of them will become narcissists. So it’s like we would have to take uh population a million babies. Mhm.
108:12 Scan them repeatedly for 40 years. 1.7% of them will become narcissists and then we will know if their brains were abnormal from the beginning or if it is the narcissism that
108:24 destroyed the brain gradually. So even if we were to spot brain abnormalities, it would be a meaningless finding because it could be a lifelong of stress, collapse, motification, uh you know, lack of self. It could be a lifelong of these clinical features that
108:45 destroy the brain rather than being born with a brain which is problematic. We
108:51 simply don’t have information to with psychopathy. We know with psychopathy we have a similar problem. We know that
108:57 there are brain abnormalities but we don’t know if it’s not the psychopathy that caused but in psychopathy is something different something else. Um excuse me for the long answer in psychopath is something else. There are also differences in the in the body not
109:13 only the brain. Mhm. So for example psychopaths sweat differently. Oh really? Yeah they have skin conductance. Wow. That is different.
109:24 uh they have uh when they when they are exposed to fear the the brain reaction
109:30 reactions in the brain not the structure of the brain the reactions in the brain are so we know that the whole body of
109:36 the psychopath is different that is the brain that makes that leads us to believe that
109:42 they are born with defective brains because if the whole body is compromised
109:48 and then probably it’s you know autism is the same if strange haircuts
109:54 when you are autism. A lot of Yeah. In autism, autism is is a great example because in autism we do have a
110:01 massive body of brain scans of children, babies, babies, children and so on. Because autism, most autism, not all, but most autism is diagnosed relatively early. Relatively early. I mean, 2 years
110:13 old, 3 years old, and so on, even earlier. And so we we have scans of of babies.
110:19 But narcissism usually is diagnosed after age 25.
110:25 That’s the average diagnosis about 25 27. So by that time it’s really it’s too late to say if they were born with such a brain or if the brain was and they don’t have any differences in
110:36 the body. They have totally normal bodies unlike why don’t you encourage you say in one of your videos it is not it is foolish to try to diagnose a youth teenager with narcissism. we have to wait 25. What would you say to those parents that they start to notice a behavior strange
110:54 behavior in their child? What what should they do then? All all adolescence are narcissist. I hope
111:00 narcissism is a healthy phase in adolescence and narcissism is a healthy phase in early childhood.
111:06 Age 2, three, the child should be a narcissist. Consider how narcissistic you should be
111:14 to leave your mother and go to explore the world. when you’re two years old, look how how grandiose you should be.
111:22 So, it’s healthy. Consider how narcissistic you should be at age 15 to criticize society and and
111:31 you reject your parents and to think you know best and to
111:37 and yet this is very healthy. We identity formation depends on rejecting the parents and so you need to
111:44 be a narcissist at this age. No one is saying that they are not narcissist but we are saying that it is healthy that
111:50 they are narcissist good that they’re narcissist therefore we don’t diagnose at this age we diagnose depending on the
111:56 on the there’s a debate if it’s 18 21 and Campbell believe that it should be
112:02 25 so this is but then it’s too late to say if if there is brain contribution or
112:09 it’s way too late because this person probably was a narcissist all his life and and you know it’s too
112:16 Sam, I’ve got a very last question for you. How hand up a narcissist when he’s hold or very old? And I I ask you this question because
112:27 you are different from the other because a lot of the victims um hope
112:33 because they are victim who they think they are.
112:39 A lot of the victims hope that the narif will will end up badly because it will be a kind of of revenge. What what’s what’s your experience about it? All narcissists end badly. Uh they end badly externally. So they are bankrupt.
112:55 They are alone. They are you know ignored. They are so
113:01 they and badly externally mostly isolated socially and and uh in bad
113:07 shape because it’s harder to to put the cycle again in in place.
113:13 It’s uh unless you constantly move and some narcissists do that. They constantly move physically. They create pathological narcissistic spaces. They move from one space to another. But the
113:25 majority don’t. At some point your reputation and and the experience that people has have had with you is it’s
113:32 difficult to find new sources of supply and if you do find new sources other people warn them. They warn them against you. It’s simply difficult logistically difficult to so narcissist end badly
113:45 externally. Even when they end well externally they are rich, they’re famous, they are this that internally
113:52 they end they end badly. Nar narcissism is why? because you could call it a degenerative disease. Narcissism is uh has gradual corrosive impact on
114:04 cognitive faculties, cognitive ability. Your brain changed with with time. I don’t know if the probably but there
114:10 are no studies so I I can’t say but I mean I mentioned Donald Trump look at Donald Trump. Look at Donald Trump u 40
114:23 years ago or 30 years ago. It was a different person. Completely right. He was charming. He was funny.
114:30 He was whatever you whatever you may think of him. He’s not a great genius, but he was
114:36 charming. He was funny. He was energetic. He was Look at him now. He’s president of the United States. But
114:42 he’s bitter. He’s angry. His wife did his wife didn’t change a lot. She’s quite the same 30 years ago.
114:49 But he it changed a lot. But look at him. He’s no longer funny. He’s not not funny in a good way. He’s funny aggressively, violently funny. He’s not he’s bitter.
115:00 He’s angry all the time. He’s you could say that this is an unhappy man.
115:06 He pretends to be very happy, but from time to time he says, “Smart people don’t like me or I know you hate me.” Or
115:13 so that’s so he’s inside is decaying. He’s d he’s decomposing. is dying
115:19 inside. And that is very common to all narcissists. You either pay a price externally or internally and very often
115:25 both. As you grow old, your capacity to attract narcissistic supply declines. Of course,
115:31 if you if you used to use your body to attract supply, for example, with sexual conquest and so on, it becomes
115:37 difficult. If you if your cognition was amazing, if you if you’re truly brilliant and a genius and so on, it becomes more difficult. And the targets are naive at when they’re 20 years old. they are less
115:48 naive when they’re 50 60s and there is the situation that now everyone knows about narcissism narcissistic supply it’s it’s more difficult now and you will be easily identified as a narcissist and so on but
115:59 even if you put that aside objectively your assets your assets depreciate you’re not as handsome you’re not as healthy you’re not as as sharp as you used to be you’re not you know so it’s
116:11 also difficult to attract supply gradually what most narcissists do they isolate themselves and they begin to self-supp supply, they become even more delusional because narcissism is a fantasy. Narcissism is rejection,
116:23 renouncing reality and narcissism is a falsification of realities, impaired reality. When you’re old, you stay at
116:30 home and you supply yourself, becoming your own narcissistic source of supply
116:36 and old fantasy, totally self-contained delusion that no one has access to. and reality is totally ignored and you become in my
116:47 view and in Kenber’s view and others you become really indistinguish indistinguishable from psychotic
116:54 indistinguishable from psychotic also maybe behavioral patterns become psychotic you
117:00 are less orderly you dress less well you groom you don’t groom
117:06 so you’re neglected you know psychotic people are like that they don’t uh very psychotic yeah We have only 55 minutes left.
117:14 Sam, thanks a lot for your time today. Thank you for having me. It’s an honor after all this to meet you in person.
117:22 Thank you for having me and have a good time in Paris. Okay. Thank you. We wish you the best. Thank you. And thank you for the work you’re doing. Thank you. You’re welcome. Good.

Summary Link:

https://vakninsummaries.com/narcissism-3-frenchmen-ask-prof-answers-with-antoine-peytavin-and-friends/

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

In this video, Professor Sam Vaknin discussed narcissism, its nature as a genetic trait, cultural phenomenon, and personality disorder, emphasizing its profound psychological and societal impacts. He explained the distinctions between overt and covert narcissism, the role of narcissistic supply, and the complexities of diagnosing and treating narcissistic personality disorder. Vaknin highlighted the challenges victims face in escaping narcissistic abuse, the misconceptions about therapy effectiveness, and the lasting effects on both narcissists and their victims. Narcissism: 3 Frenchmen Ask, Prof. Answers (with Antoine Peytavin and Friends)

Tags

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

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