Rigid Personality to OCD: Break the Cycle
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the importance of self-discipline and its connection to self-efficacy, which is the ability to secure positive outcomes from one’s environment. A lack of self-discipline can lead to impaired self-efficacy, resulting in generalized anxiety. To overcome this, Vaknin suggests a five-step program: 1) identify constricting rigidity and magical thinking, 2) exit your comfort zone, 3) shift the locus of control and develop self-efficacy, 4) focus on one priority at a time, and 5) alternate between your pathologies and addictions.
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.
Narcissism Sucks? Fix It! (with Assc Direct)
Sam Vaknin discusses the impact of social media on individuals and society, including the intentional design of addiction and conditioning in social media platforms. He also talks about the failure of the social experiment of humanity and how institutions were not built to support such a weight. Additionally, he discusses the phenomenon of the “masculinization” of women and the myth of grade A supply in narcissistic relationships. Sam advises people to reconnect with reality by establishing meaningful connections with living, breathing, sweating human beings and to discard all the layers that are not theirs and remain with the essence of themselves.
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.
Is Depression Healthy? (2nd Webinar on Depression Management, May 2021)
Depression is a positively adaptive, appropriate response to stressful or dystopian environments, and questioning whether it is wise to quell, intervene, suppress, or eliminate depression is a positive thing. Depression has arisen through an evolutionary process and fulfills critical functions. Depression is context-dependent, and the approach to mental illnesses should be dimensional. Depression is an alarm signal, involves catastrophizing, allows for mourning and grieving, restores reality testing, provides emotional release, allows for the economization of energy, allows for the rebuilding of shattered psychological defense mechanisms, and allows for the reconstitution of the self. We should intervene in depression only when there is suicidal ideation, never before, never otherwise.
Tips: Survive Your Borderline Enchantress
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses coping with borderline personality disorder, including abandonment anxiety and object constancy. He suggests establishing rituals and procedures of presence, permanence, stability, and predictability, involving the borderline in activities that can be misinterpreted as forms of abandonment, and introducing object constancy into the relationship through mementos, programmed reminders, and shared sentences. He also discusses decompensation, acting out, and mood lability in individuals with borderline personality disorder. Finally, he offers advice on how to deal with a partner who has borderline personality disorder, including restoring reality testing, preventing suicide, and countering transient paranoid ideation.
Narcissist’s Impossible Jigsaw Puzzle
Narcissists are fascinating due to their contradictory traits and behaviors. They can be highly intelligent and creative, yet emotionally immature and self-destructive. They can appear self-sufficient but are extremely dependent on others for validation. These disconnects challenge our understanding of psychology, as narcissists seem to defy the typical integration of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of a person. Narcissism remains a perplexing and unchanging phenomenon, providing valuable insights into the human mind.
Loving the Borderline in Her Fantasy
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the love life, sexual fantasies, and relationships of borderline women, as well as the connection between borderline personality disorder and promiscuity. He delves into the origins and manifestations of the disorder, including its link to childhood trauma and heredity. Vaknin also explores the impact of these dynamics on relationships and the potential for resonance or exacerbation of pathologies in such pairings.
Why Do They Infuriate YOU? Promiscuity and Compulsive Sexting
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the reactions people have to narcissists and psychopaths, analyzing the phenomenon using concepts like life promiscuity and sexual promiscuity. He delves into the characteristics and behaviors of psychopaths, including their lack of insight, evasiveness, and lack of boundaries. He also explores the correlation between promiscuity and mental health disorders, as well as the impact of compulsive sexting. Additionally, he touches on the dynamics of intimate partner cheating and promiscuity in relation to schizoid cerebral narcissism.
Go to Your Desert, Listen to Your Inner Silence
Professor Sam Vaknin advises people to go to their mental desert, listen to their inner silence, and create a mental cave or mountain top to escape the distractions of modern civilization. He suggests that in the desert, people can face themselves and listen to the voice of God, which speaks through silence. By being passive and emptying themselves, people can become a vessel for the message of the silence to flow through them and receive the gift of healing.