Borderline’s Mating Strategies, Mismanaged Aggression
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the role of aggression in Cluster B personality disorders, particularly in borderline personality disorder. He explains that healthy aggression is externalized and sublimated, while unhealthy aggression is both externalized inappropriately and internalized self-destructively. This ambivalent duality leads to approach-avoidant behaviors and decompensatory acting out in individuals with borderline personality disorder. Vaknin suggests that Cluster B patients need to learn how to externalize aggression safely and sublimate it in socially acceptable ways to improve their mental health and relationships.
When We Lose the Plot, Fall Apart: Narrative Failure
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the role of narratives in mental health and mental illness. Healthy individuals have multiple narratives for different situations, while mentally unhealthy individuals have one rigid narrative at a time. In mental illness, the individual creates multiple selves, each with its own narrative, to cope with various situations. Vaknin uses the examples of virtue signaling and depression to illustrate how narratives can impact mental states and mental illness. Narratives can override and camouflage mental illnesses, demonstrating their powerful influence on individuals.
(Psychological) Resistance Not Futile, Just Bad FOR YOU
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the concept of resistance in psychology, which is the use of psychological defense mechanisms to cope with uncomfortable information about oneself. There are four groups of resistances: comfort zone preservation, resistance to dread and panic-inducing insights and interpretations, cognitive distortions, and resistances intended to cement and defend a narrative. Resistances can be both externalized and internalized, and are linked to negative affectivity, aggression, and mood. To better understand and change the way resistances shape our world, it is important to focus on understanding people and the deep processes behind these psychological phenomena, rather than just observing their externalized manifestations.
Healing Narcissism: Cold Therapy Seminar (Part 1 of 11 – Link in Description), Vienna, May 2017
Professor Sam Vaknin introduces Cold Therapy, a new form of psychotherapy based on trauma-related techniques that has had beneficial results in the treatment of certain mood disorders, especially with narcissists. He proposes that pathological narcissism is not a personality disorder, but a post-traumatic condition, and suggests that narcissists are mentally children who should be treated with tools from child psychology. Vaknin also discusses cognitive distortions, attachment theories, and the magical thinking of narcissists.
Adolescent Narcissist: Personal Fable, Imaginary Audience
Healthy narcissism underlines personal development and growth well into one’s teenage years, and is beneficial for adolescents to mature and become adults. Adolescents go through a phase of separation individuation, where they develop object relations or relationships with objects. All adolescents develop a personal fable, have an imaginary audience, have narcissism, have depression, and have pessimism, but grow out of all these. However, if these reactions persist, they can become pathological and predispose the adolescent to develop paranoia later on in life.
Toxic Sex: When “Love” Is Bad For You
Sex can be bad for mental health, just like cigarettes. Some forms of sex, such as those intended to regulate emotions or moods, or those without meaningful informed consent, are toxic and should be avoided. Sex used as a form of self-mutilation or self-harm, or as a way to self-objectify, is also bad for mental health. Non-autonomous sex, where sex is used to make a partner like or love you, is possibly the sickest form of sex. The psychosexuality of those who engage in bad, toxic, and wrong sex is part psychopathic and part people-pleasing.
Four Steps: Change Yourself to Change the World (with Assc Direct)
The guest advises people to reestablish meaningful connections with real people to combat the depersonalization and derealization caused by social media. He suggests starting small with five interactions a day and gradually building up. He also advises trusting judiciously and creating a distributed network of trust. Lastly, he recommends discarding beliefs and behaviors that are not truly one’s own and focusing on the essence of oneself.
When You Are Their Sex Prop: Exhibitionism, Autoeroticism, Masochism
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses auto-eroticism, exhibitionism, and submissiveness in sex, particularly in relation to narcissism and psychopathy. Auto-eroticism is when someone regards themselves as their own sex object, and it is often found in narcissists and psychopaths. Exhibitionism is becoming sexually aroused by being observed, which is also a form of narcissism. Self-trashing is a behavior found in narcissists and psychopaths, where they engage in degrading sexual acts as a form of self-punishment. There is a difference between self-trashing and being submissive in BDSM, as self-trashing individuals maintain control and defiance, while submissives relinquish control to their dominant partner.
How Narcissist Is Mortified
Narcissistic behavior can be modified through treatment, but pathological narcissism is unchangeable. Narcissists have empathic aphantasia, meaning they cannot visualize other people in an empathic way. The misinformation effect is a bigger problem for narcissists than for normal people because they have severe problems with their memory and are dissociative. The longer the delay between the presentation of the original event and the post-event information, the more likely it is that individuals will incorporate the misinformation into the new memory.
Self-states, Unmet Needs in Narcissists, Borderlines
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the concept of the self, internal objects, and self-states. He explains how the self is a privileged internal object that communicates with all other internal objects, introducing order and structure. He delves into the formation and function of self-states, emphasizing their responsiveness to unmet needs and their permeability. Additionally, he touches on coping strategies in individuals with personality disorders, such as narcissistic and schizoid solutions, and the dialogues between internal objects and self-states.