Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Lovebombing to Discard: 5 Energies of Narcissist’s Cathexis Cycle

1. 00:02 Minnie is back from one of her trips with a mug the way I look I can’t blame her at any rate no sooner had she settled down that she complained to me she said he used to meanie so much to me and now we are just mean to each other what’s the meaning of all this
2. 00:30 this video is my attempted answer I hope you find it meaningful The Narcissist five stages of emotional investment within the shared fantasy the cycle of cathexis my name is sakin I am the owner of mini and I’m a professor of Clinical Psychology and the author of bignal self
3. 01:00 of narcissism Revisited that was Shakespeare of course or my take on Shakespeare and here’s another thing Shakespeare had to say all the world’s stage and all the men and women merely players they have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many
4. 01:22 parts he was a wise chap wise bloke this Shakespeare he knew his stuff and his stuff was human nature today we’re going to deal with a particular population a particular group of people known as narcissist what is typical of narcissist is that this this switch between all out
5. 01:51 emotional investment emotional commitment emotional displays hyper emotionality and total absence withdrawal avoidance Detachment coldness cruelty even and these pendular shifts between one state of utter immers immersion and intensity and another which is essentially absence
6. 02:22 rifi these pendular motions are typical of the narcissist I call it splitting cathexis cathexis is just a fancy word for psychic energy emotional investment when you put energy into something you know during the love bombing stage when the narcissist is laser focused on you
7. 02:44 and you feel it physically it’s as if his gaze carries some kind of energy and
8. 02:53 so this energy is cathexis and the narcissist switches between 110% cathexis and minus 110% cathexis and this the only human being capable of doing so and today I’m going to describe the minutia the exact details of the cycle of cathexis in general I call it splitting
9. 03:18 cathexis because the narcissis um pendulate the narcissis shifts oscillates between all good and all good perception of you and an all bad perception of you all out investment in you and all out absence and this division of the world into I’m all here and I’m out of here
10. 03:43 you are perfect perfect being and you are decrepit and stupid and ugly and possibly demonic this constant swings these constant shifts between states of Mind these are this is the outcome of A Primitive infantile defense mechanism known as splitting and that’s why I call
11. 04:04 the whole phenomenon splitting cathexis the narcissist uh as far as the narcissist is concerned everything is a is a stage is a theater The Narcissist in this sense is a Shakespearean hero everything to the narcissist is role playing narcissist plays a role
12. 04:28 self assigned Ro he is now cerebral tomorrow he’s somatic he is career oriented tomorrow he switches a career he is in a relationship and then he is out of the relationship none of it feels real to The Narcissist it’s all a simulacrum it’s all a kind of movie he
13. 04:50 is just an observer a tourist in his own life in the landscape of his being it’s just passing through non-committal not as a matter of policy but as a matter of inability to experience positive emotions narcissists are capable only of negative emotions such as envy and hatred and
14. 05:14 rage and so in the absence of positive emotions there’s no attachment no bonding no commitment and no investment and everything appears to be unreal surrealistic nightmarish dreamlike fantastic through a a glass Darkly through a gauze and so the narcissist experien life
15. 05:40 secondhand mediated and brokered Via his
16. 05:46 cognitive distortions defense mechanisms and the absence of a self a black hole where a self should have been because the narcissist does not exist in any meaningful sense of the word The Narcissist imposes his own absence on everything and everyone around him he
17. 06:10 does not really believe there’s no conviction there that he is living a life that what he’s experiencing is external and objective that other people have are separate from him that the universe is really out there regardless of him everything to the narcissist is a
18. 06:34 projection everything is his mind r large and everything is subsumed within his mind in the form of internal objects in this sense of course as I keep saying in many of my videos The Narcissist is psychotic this derealization in the case of the narcissist is
19. 06:56 constant in the case of the borderline der realization is episodic from time to time at this when the borderline is under stress under duress uh tension anxiety aband abandonment real or imagined engulfment when the borderline is is exposed to torsion to powers of
20. 07:19 tension then she might react or he might react with a feeling of derealization this is not real or depersonalization this is not happening to me the narcissist is in a constant state of D realization in the sense that he does not perceive reality as real he does not
21. 07:45 perceive what’s happening to him everything around him animate or inanimate is real it’s a prop in a theater production the theater production of his life he is walking talking living fiction a piece of fiction a story and so there’s no investment no stable
22. 08:10 cathexis no commitment no emotions and no grief no mourning when something is lost the narcissist does not grieve or mourn is or her Los losses the narcist doesn’t grieve over anyone and doesn’t mourn any anything except for his for himself or herself
23. 08:35 half of all naris is the women yes so the narcis narcissism as I kep keep saying in many of my videos is a a prolong grief disorder it’s a process of mourning what the narcissist could have could have been and has never become owing to bad parenting dysfunctional
24. 08:56 family abuse trauma and inst instrumentalizing parentifying and so on so forth for a variety of reasons The Narcissist did not self-actualize remained in a state of potential and the narcissist Grieves this he Grieves his non-existent self the self that could have been could have
25. 09:17 become and never did but he does not grieve anyone or anything else because as far as a narcis is concerned only he is real he is only object imbued with
26. 09:33 reality with with an existential Dimension everyone else everything else these are figments of his own mind they are internal objects and so this is why the narcissist doesn’t grieve or mourn the narcissist is capable of nostalgia for periods of plentiful
27. 09:59 narcissistic Supply but that’s the extent of his ability to look back in any mean emotionally meaningful way so no emotional investment no emotional Comm commitment no mourning no grief constant switches between all out and nothing kind of splitting the narcissist
28. 10:23 in his shared fantasy with you in his so-called relationship with you and this relation ship could be romantic intimate friendship or collegial narcissists impose the same shared fantasy structurally speaking and functionally speaking they impose a shared Fantasy on all their
29. 10:47 interpersonal relationships and within the shared fantasy the narcissis goes through stages we are all acquainted with it idealization devaluation discard replacement overing these are inexorable inevitable stages because they reflect internal Dynamics within the narcissist
30. 11:09 for example his need to resolve early childhood conflicts but each and every one of these stages requires psychic energy requires emotional energy and so in parallel with the stages of the shed fantasy there are stages of cathexis the cathexis
31. 11:32 cycle in the love bombing phase in the infatuation phase in the limerance phase and again this is not limited to intimate sexual romantic relationships The Narcissist gets infatuated and liant with a prospective source of narcissistic Supply with a
32. 11:52 friend so-called friend with a colleague with anyone who flatters him and so so shared fantasy is a universal pattern of interpersonal relatedness in the narcissist life and it starts with love bombing which involves infatuation limerance and so on in the love bombing
33. 12:12 phase there’s a lot of cathexis there’s a huge investment inordinate investment of emotional energy normal people are incapable of such intensity the narcissist is in Psycho Analytics theory cathexis is the investment of psychic energy in an object of any kind it could be a person
34. 12:37 could be a wish could be a fantasy a goal an ID a social group the self so cathexis is there it’s like undifferentiated energy ready to be invested or directed at a specific object so when the narcissist commences the relationship what he does he simp he
35. 12:58 simply creates a burst a huge burst a huge explosion of psychic energy and this is the cathexis the object is cathected the narcissist attaches emotional significance significance to the object again the object could be an intimate partner a friend a colleague and so so at that
36. 13:23 point when the object has been confected by The Narcissist the narcissist actually appropriates the object because the narcissist is unable to perceive other people as external or separate any cathexis in other people is actually self cathexis The Narcissist perceives other
37. 13:46 people as internal objects within his mind so when he invests in them emotionally he is actually investing in himself it’s a process of autoerotic self infatuation actually via the agency and the mediation of another person exactly like in sex The Narcissist
38. 14:09 masturbates with the body of his partner it’s all autoerotism the narcissis is attracted to himself or to herself as a sexual object via another person another person’s Gaz another person’s body another person’s touch and another person’s availability submissive
39. 14:28 availability for sex so similarly when the narcissist directs um emotional energy and cathexis also includes Sexual Energy by the way libido libido and AOS never mind that but when the narcist directs any energy at someone for whatever reason with
40. 14:49 whatever goal in mind at that point the narcissist is actually cathecting himself he is the soul exclusive confected object so the idealization is actually core idealization The Narcissist by idealizing you is idealizing himself by emotionally investing in you is
41. 15:15 emotionally investing in himself by creating a shared fantasy for you he’s creating a shared fantasy for himself you are just a prop in his theater an instrument of gratification and pursuit of pleasure among other things at the same time you fulfill maternal functions and
42. 15:36 so on I recommend that you watch the playlist of um the share shared fantasy playlist for more so the first stage of the Shar fantasy involves what is known as object cathexis the investment of libido or psychic energy or emotional energy or call it what you will a l
43. 15:57 vital in objects outside the self such as a person a goal an idea an activity a social group a a collective religion church I mean you name it object cathexis is always the first stage object cathexis is followed by hyper cathexis an excess of psychic
44. 16:21 energy invested in the object and this is what is this corresponds to the love bombing and IDE idealization phase so the narcissist starts by redirecting emotional energy redirecting cathexis at an object and that object could be a potential source of Supply
45. 16:43 potential intimate partner potential friend or colleague or whatever so but could also be a potential leader potential fan or follower any any ex any external object the narcissist cects the external object and at the same time cects himself via the external
46. 17:06 object that is the initial phase then the narcissist idealizes the external object and love bombs the external object love bombs and then this involves hyper cathexis hyper cathexis is cathexis on steroids is exaggerated cathexis hyperbolic cathexis crazy cathexis
47. 17:30 insanely intense insanely frequent crazy making cathexis which kind of kind of disorients and is also very addictive and very flattering and so hyper cathexis is is a hook it’s a bait it’s intended to lure you in um by rendering you a a perfect
48. 17:54 entity or a perfect object and making you fall in love with yourself through the narcissis gaze that is the second phase of the cathexis cycle the next phase of the cathexis cycle is hypo cathexis hypo with an o hypoc cathexis that is an abnormally low level of
49. 18:15 investment of psychic energy in an object so the narcissis goes from a high a crest of emotional investment hyper cathexis he goes drama ially to hypoc cathexis which corresponds roughly to the devaluation phase so we have cathexis identification of
50. 18:39 Target hypo hyper cathexis love bombing and idealization Co idealization actually because the only object ultimately cathected is the narcissist then we have hypo cathexis which corresponds to devaluation and then we have decathexis the cathexis is the
51. 19:01 withdrawal of energy of libido from objects from other people for example from the external world the cathexis the emotional investment the energy is taken in redirected inwards and so the cathexis is more or less the equivalent of discard so we have
52. 19:25 cathexis hyper cathexis ideal coideal idealization and and love bombing we have hypoc cathexis devaluation and we have decathexis discard it’s all a form of energy management it’s an energy account it’s like think of it as a as a bank bank bank account or bank deposit a
53. 19:49 deposit in a bank The Narcissist deposits a lot of money on your name no first anaris decides that you are deserving of a bank account account that’s cathexis then the narcissist deposits millions of dollars on your name that’s hyper cathexis then the
54. 20:06 narcissis decides that you’re disloyal or stupid or what what have you devalues you and there is hypo cathexis he he withdraws most of the money and then he discards you and closes the account that’s decathexis but there’s a a Fifth Fifth stage stage number five and that
55. 20:27 is anti cathexis anti cathexis is actually connected to hovery but not only to hovery changing loyalties transitioning from one political party or persuasion to another from one religion to another Etc anticathexis psychoanalytic theory is the process in which the psychic energy
56. 20:48 is withdrawn from certain wishes and ideas and it is used in in order to strengthen alternative wishes ideas people in other words the psychic energy is withdrawn from one object in order to strengthen the emotional investment in another object but the other object is not chosen
57. 21:16 randomly in anticathexis the other object has a role and the role of the other object is to block the deected materials entrance into Consciousness let me break it down for you translate it to English The Narcissist deffects you he takes away all his investment in you
58. 21:42 he’s no longer he no longer idealizes you on the very contrary he devalues you he doesn’t want anything to do with you he walks away he discards you there’s no energy invested in you anymore he couldn’t care less what’s happening to you who you’re with and what you’re
59. 21:57 doing with that other nothing whatsoever this stage you don’t exist as far as us is concerned you don’t exist there’s only an internal object that represents you in his mind and that internal object is an enemy a persecutory object so the persecutory
60. 22:16 object tortures The Narcissist threatens The Narcissist generates paranoid ideation because it’s an enemy Within to prevent this discomfort this
61. 22:29 dissonance this growing entanglement and conflict with the internal object turned enemy the narcissis chooses another object and then redirects all his emotional energy all his libido all his psychic energy to that second other object and he chooses that other object
62. 22:52 so that the second object is the exact opposite of you or the second object can somehow block your memory block out delete erase your the internal object that represents you in the narcissist mind or at least deactivate it so the role of the second object once a narcissist has
63. 23:19 discarded you transitioned away from you broke up with you divorced you walked away in a meaningful manner at that point The Narcissist chooses another object and that other object is either the exact opposite of you so that together you neutralize each other it’s
64. 23:40 like matter and antimatter you become zero or the other object has the capacity to somehow deactivate somehow reduce the activity somehow ameliorate or mitigate or control control or somehow able to render the internal object that represents you in the narcissist mind to
65. 24:07 render it weak inert inactive inaccessible so the choice of the second object is not random actually and I will dedicate a a video to this it is not true that narcissist transition from one object to another from one intimate partner to another from one spouse to
66. 24:32 another from one uh social group to another from one friend to another from one workplace to another it’s not true that the transition has no rules it’s not true that the narcissist acts randomly that anyone would do that’s absolutely not true the choice has to be anti
67. 24:53 cathectic it has to allow the noesis to experience anticathexis to silence the persecutory internal object that now represents you in the nar’s mind is a kind of threat ambient threat the antic affected material may be similar to the original or opposite but it somehow must be
68. 25:19 related to it and that way it neutralizes it it’s a very interesting topic the rules of choice of Alternatives when the narcissist for example um breaks up with you or divorces you and finds another partner another intimate partner again the choice of that other
69. 25:41 intimate partner is not random is dictated by highly specific rules of cathexis which is a topic for another video this is the cath the cathexis cycle it represents the emotional alloc the allocation of emotional energy the distribution of psychic energy and Li libido if you wish
70. 26:07 within the sh this various stages and phases of the shared fantasy and now you understand many of the narcissist behaviors or apparent uh apparent choices and decisions it all has to do with losing interest one minute you are the narcissist because you have
71. 26:32 become an internal object narcissist identifies with you merges and fuses with you internally it’s a symbiotic relationship you are like a maternal figure so one minute you the narcissist world the next minute you’re nothing nobody narcissist couldn’t care less
72. 26:52 it’s as if you have never existed and so this transition is is very bizarre are and but it is fully explained once you understand the cathexis cycle the cycle of energy ultimately we are all finite finite beings we have a limited amount of energy and we have to allocate
73. 27:14 this energy we have to use it it’s not infinite we can generate an endless supply of energy internal internal energy psychic energy libido we can’t generate an endless amount of it so we need to use it in a way that is self-efficacious in a way that yields
74. 27:33 outcomes that we desire and so the narcissist has x amount of energy at his disposal and if he gives it to you he can’t give it to another if he wants to give it to another he has to take it away from you and he wants to give it to another because you have become an enemy
75. 27:54 a persecutory object you have conflicted with the internal object that represents you in his mind in a variety of ways watch the shared fantasy playlist also watch the two videos that I recommend they are in the description under the video one is titled victim narcissis
76. 28:13 reality or role playing and it deals with role theory in Psychology and the other one is self hovering narcissism trauma or roleplay and in addition to that if you don’t have enough time or you’re bored by me which is fully understandable then
77. 28:33 watch the video seven phases of the Shir fantasy it’s a summary of The Shed fantasy but there’s also a whole playlist with dozens of videos on various aspects of the shed fantasy so I owe you one I owe you a video on how the narcissist chooses his next next victim next Target next
78. 28:55 intimate partner next friend the next one how does an ass choose the next one again it’s not a random process although you are interchangeable you are dispensable the choice of the next next spouse next girlfriend next lover next friend the choice of the
79. 29:16 next is not random it has to to conform and to comply with highly specific requirements known as anticathexis stay tuned ministers ministers high and ministers by