Prof. Sam Vaknin
Time-less, Frozen Narcissist is Discontinuous
updated
Narcissist
Recreation of symbiotic phase in dual mothership
Instrumentalized (leads to separation-individuation)
Temporary but stable
Object inconstancy, separation insecurity (abandonment anxiety) resolved via introjection
Borderline
Separation insecurity (abandonment anxiety) leads to clinging
Engulfment anxiety leads to approach-avoidance repetition compulsion
Instrumentalized (leads to external regulation)
Introject inconstancy
Codependent
Control from the Bottom to allay separation insecurity (abandonment anxiety)
Instrumentalized (renders life meaningful)
Object inconstancy, separation insecurity (abandonment anxiety) lead to clinging
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"Emapths" signal victimhood to manipulate others. Many are narcissists and psychopaths.
LITERATURE
van Trigt, S., Colonnesi, C., Brummelman, E., Jorgensen, T. D., & Nikolić, M. (2023). Autistic traits and self-conscious emotions in early childhood. Child Development, 94, e181–e196. doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13921
Kajdzik, M., & Moroń, M. (2023). Signaling High Sensitivity to Influence Others: Initial Evidence for the Roles of Reinforcement Sensitivity, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, and the Dark Triad. Psychological Reports, 0(0). doi.org/10.1177/00332941231152387
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The recessive type and its traits manifests obliquely (hidden text) via narcissistic tunneling. It crosses the dominant type barrier, disguised.
Examples, Private cases of a larger phenomenon which I dubbed "narcissistic tunneling":
Some covert narcissists are people pleasers. YouTubers who are self-styled moral crusaders, heroes, rescuers, savers.
Other covert narcissists are perennial and competitive victims, never do wrong - always wronged. Empaths. YouTubers who self-identify as victims and codependents.
YouTubers who out as narcissists but claim to be “healing”, “recovering”, or to be “in treatment” (manipulative codependency, control from the bottom).
Cerebral would enjoy food or have a somatoform disorder or an eating disorder or would masturbate compulsively
Somatic would philosophize about and create an ideology around his sexual conquests, dating, gender issues, relationships, martial arts, body building, exercise, become a health nut or an amateur MD, therapist.
Covert will volunteer on high visibility projects or campaigns, initiate personal heroic morality crusades, join narcissistic institutions or collectives
Overt will act shy or insecure, passive-aggressive, pseudo-humble in certain situations and is always envious.
LITERATURE
Kajdzik, M., & Moroń, M. (2023). Signaling High Sensitivity to Influence Others: Initial Evidence for the Roles of Reinforcement Sensitivity, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, and the Dark Triad. Psychological Reports, 0(0). doi.org/10.1177/00332941231152387
Study suggests ‘high sensitivity’ label is used by narcissists and psychopaths as a manipulative tactic
psypost.org/2023/08/study-suggests-high-sensitivity-label-is-used-by-narcissists-and-psychopaths-as-a-manipulative-tactic-167391
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Idiosyncrasies (e.g. autism, obesity, gender dysphoria, gifted) lead to peer rejection.
Stunted separation-individuation leads to peer rejection and life-threatening shame.
Cognitive dissonance resolved: I am rejecting them because I am superior to them. I am a sage, a hero, a victim.
Peers provide reality testing and scripts. They serve as a modeling reference group. Mutual rejection results in cluelessness, pseudo-stupidity, automatism, and compensatory fantasy (including imaginary peers, for example on social media or VR).
Splitting defense (peers are all bad, I am perfect)
Fantasy defense
Dissociation
Displaced passive-aggression
In short: covert narcissism
Conflicting parental messaging and modeling: the world is not safe, we need you, you owe us (conformity) vs. you are abnormal, what is wrong with you, start to act your age and make friends (normalcy).
This leads to recurrent failure and an impaired sense of self-efficacy.
Narcissists misperceive their intimate partners as maternal figures and rejecting and retraumatizing peers (reenactment, akin to living history).
This yields age-inappropriate behavior and triggers all the defenses. It helps the narcissist to devalue and separate.
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Psychopath’s body language is geared at concealment, so he appears to be lying all the time.
Body language environmentally determined: in prison submissive.
Invasion of personal space signals power hierarchy and ritualized pain as a form of extreme intimacy.
Narcissist’s eyes go blank when he dissociates or when his aggression (contempt, disdain) is provoked. He withdraws inwards and decompensates: both the false and true selves are deactivated.
The narcissist adopts a physical posture which implies and exudes an air of superiority, seniority, hidden powers, mysteriousness, amused indifference, etc. Though the narcissist usually maintains sustained and piercing eye contact, he often refrains from physical proximity (he is "territorial").
Narcissist's Body Postures: Hypervigilant-paranoid, Pleading-expectant, Dismissive-contemptuous, Superior-boastful, Impatient-scornful, Impatient-entitled, Membership-gravitas, Converting-empathic, Observer-detached
Somatoform disorders (Somatization, conversion disorder, illness anxiety disorder or hypochondria)
Body dysmorphia (shame and anxiety) and body image problems.
LITERATURE
WATCH Narcissist, His Body, Other Bodies (35th Psychosomatic Medicine Conference 2018 Video Presentation) youtube.com/watch?v=aBzotc3nonU
WATCH Narcissist and His Body in Health, Illness, and Disability youtube.com/watch?v=L23a2EQHzLI
WATCH Body Language of the Personality Disordered youtube.com/watch?v=omxNWsy3FMI
WATCH Body Language of Narcissistic and Psychopathic Abuser youtube.com/watch?v=iFUuaw8Pf1M
Body Language in David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Nieminen, Jani (2020)
https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/120237
Cambridge Guide to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
By Adam Polnay, Rhiannon Pugh, Victoria Barker, David Bell, Allan Beveridge, Adam Burley, Allyson Lumsden, C. Susan Mizen, Lauren Wilson
Chapter 14: Narcissistic Difficulties
81 FBI L. Enforcement Bull. 28 (2012)
The Language of Psychopaths: New Findings and Implications for Law Enforcement
heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/fbileb81&div=73&id=&page=
How To Analyze People With Dark Psychology by Jason Gale
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Not all psychopaths are the same. F1 and F2 are very different. F2 has emotions and is dysregulated, similar to borderlines.
Self-awareness is not the same as transformative insight.
Dark triad personalities are subclinical.
Chaotic life does not mean BPD. Emotional dysregulation and mood lability are crucial differential diagnoses. Many narcissists and especially psychopaths lead highly disorganized lives.
Grandiosity does not mean NPD. Psychopaths, borderlines, paranoids, and bipolar patients are grandiose.
Sadism manifests in all areas of life, not only in sex.
Cruelty, callousness, ruthlessness, and mercilessness do not signify psychopathy only. Depending on the circumstances, BPDs behave this way when they act out, narcissists when they are mortified, paranoids when they are in panic (heightened anxiety).
Lack of introspection and self-awareness does not mean NPD. Many narcissists are aware of their abrasiveness, grandiosity, entitlement, and antisocial misconduct. They correctly self-identify as narcissists. They are also aware of the fact that they dissociate (though they are never cognizant of their confabulations and their fantasies, including the shared fantasies).
External regulation is not unique to borderlines. Narcissists also regulate externally (via narcissistic supply) and, to some extent, so do paranoids.
My work cited in more than 1750 academic papers uploaded to academia.edu and I am ranked among the top 0.5% of 231,000,000 academics world wide https://calmu.academia.edu/SamVaknin instagram.com/p/CvrrwoLMrdp/?img_index=1
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Her side of the conversation consists of a half-hearted demurral balanced by a lot of hopeful incredulity. How do you know the key will be under the rug - she questions her interlocutor - and how can you be sure they won't be at home?
This is how this phone conversation proceeds and Noa can see a penumbral Sam projected by the hallway lighting and then she can see me entering the room and looking at her, dumbfounded. She casts a glance my way and ignores me, continues the exchange as though nothing entered her field of vision.
Continued here: samvak.tripod.com/harmony-en.html
Short Fiction About Narcissists and Psychopaths:
youtube.com/watch?v=wtLdPsCsQPc&list=PLsh_y_ett4o3haxsa62BXUwz8mB6eXWur
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The intimate partner's inner child is parentified (because she sheds her adulthood) and it can then parent (mother) the narcissist.
The shared fantasy is doomed to fail because the narcissist expects his partner to act as both parent and infant. He is setting her up for failure.
Narcissist cannot tell the difference between adult and child, so he sees no contradiction in demanding the impossible and in expecting his mate to be both simultaneously.
Yet, he anticipates and precipitates the partner’s failure in order to bring on separation (devaluation-discard) and individuation.
LITERATURE
Essential Secrets of Psychotherapy: The Inner Child psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evil-deeds/200806/essential-secrets-psychotherapy-the-inner-child
In Defense of the Inner Child empowermentsystems.com/inner.html
Why Is Everyone Working on Their Inner Child? time.com/6268636/inner-child-work-healing
What Is An Inner Child & What Does It Know? integrativepsych.co/new-blog/what-is-an-inner-child
Inner Child Work: What Is It And How Can Therapy Help? betterhelp.com/advice/therapy/inner-child-what-is-it-what-happened-to-it-and-how-can-i-fix-it
WATCH How Wounded Inner Child Undermines Adult youtube.com/watch?v=QMd4HstyCBs
WATCH Inner Child Second Chance: Using Psychosis to Heal NPD, BPD (Annual Congress on Applied Psychology) youtube.com/watch?v=Tgd7zgJ9CjA
WATCH Narcissist as Eternal Child youtube.com/watch?v=n8A0kzNqY5s
WATCH Narcissist's Internal Family System: Parts in Conflict youtube.com/watch?v=ezJbdxuNrw4
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LITERATURE
Gewirtz-Meydan, A., Estlein, R., & Finzi-Dottan, R. (2023). The relationship between narcissistic traits and attitudes toward infidelity: A dyadic analysis. Journal of Family Psychology. Advance online publication. doi.org/10.1037/fam0001126
Sexual Intelligence Newsletter, Marty Klein PhD youtube.com/watch?v=SCXB4oO8hmQ
Smith, J., & Wolfinger, N. H. (2023). Re-Examining the Link Between Premarital Sex and Divorce. Journal of Family Issues, 0(0). doi.org/10.1177/0192513X231155673
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Azam Ali en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azam_Ali
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Mother is illegitimate target of aggression, so he redirect it at mother substitutes. Tries to accomplish separation by proxy and thus become (individuate).
Individuation is not about becoming an adult, but about becoming an individual with boundaries, self, and ego (one of whose functions is reality testing).
Reframes primary object by splitting: she is either all good (martyr) or all bad (evil). Correspondingly, he is either all bad (grandiose monster) or all good (grandiose victim).
Margret Mahler's theory of separation-individuation explored in depth.
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Diana and Mari are the hosts of Sannheten om Narcissisten (in Norway).
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WATCH Narcissist’s 3 Depressions youtube.com/watch?v=XjZkrLE9mes&feature=youtu.be
WATCH Bipolar Disorder Misdiagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) youtube.com/watch?v=1-i7Y7atsqk&feature=youtu.be
Narcissism is fantasy defense gone awry and writ large.
Mediated via cognitive distortions such as grandiosity, internalization, and hyperreflexivity lead to impaired reality testing (examples)
Fantasy can be euphoric or dysphoric
Euphoric fantasy indistinguishable from manic phase in Bipolar Disorder and involves grandiosity via inflation and incorporation.
Involves internal locus of control and autoplastic defenses.
Separation-individuation is a case of euphoric fantasy.
Dysphoric fantasy indistinguishable from depression and involves grandiosity via paranoia and referential ideation.
Involves external locus of control and alloplastic defenses.
Devaluation of a persecutory object, narcissistic injury, and narcissistic mortification are all cases of dysphoric fantasy.
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When emotional exchange is excluded, only material ones survive: services, functions, goods.
Taking=love=justice=grandiosity (being chosen, omnipotent, and omniscient)
Extraction mindset: not “I am attracted to her because of who she is” but “I can get sex from her”; not “We love each other”, but “I can leverage her love to secure my goals”; not “We can be friends” but “He can introduce me to the right kind of people”.
Taking and using create power asymmetry, restores control, and assuage anxieties.
Cathexis: When you are of any use to them, they are charming, into you, solicitous, and helpful. The narcissist idealizes you.
Decathexis: When you have nothing left to offer, they become cold, contemptuous, dismissive, and impatient. The narcissist devalues you.
Both types use a shared fantasy to mind control. But the narcissist is delusional (believes that the fantasy is real and coerces you to accept its reality) while the psychopath is merely being scheming and manipulative.
The narcissist’s shared fantasy can revolve around giving. He harvests narcissistic supply by giving or making himself available, accessible, and prey.
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Unrealistic expectations
Intimacy cloud
Wealth transfer (transactionalism in late onset marriages)
Communication issues
No love
No intimacy
No partnership
Premature commitment
Addictions
Domestic violence
Infidelity
No succor
Exhaustion
Financial problems
Loss of sense of self
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Download a few of my lectures in Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation 2017-9 (5.5 Gb file): onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AgoJMDv%5F9%2Dy8EUU&cid=45B93562F3B433FB&id=45B93562F3B433FB%2110610&parId=45B93562F3B433FB%21646&o=OneUp
Search my YouTube channel for other lectures I gave during the pandemic. Use keywords “Rostov” and “university”.
Photos on Instagram instagram.com/p/CvM5Wu8sBzP/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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LITERATURE
WATCH Narcissists, Eternal Victims, Trauma, Psychosis: Splitting the Inner Dialog youtube.com/watch?v=DmhOPnWN4-0
WATCH Victimhood Movements Hijacked by Narcissists and Psychopaths youtube.com/watch?v=lBpxFxMAztA
Ok, E., Qian, Y., Strejcek, B., & Aquino, K. (2020, July 2). Signaling Virtuous Victimhood as Indicators of Dark Triad Personalities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000329
Waismel-Manor I, Kaplan YR, Shenhav SR, Zlotnik Y, Dvir Gvirsman S, Ifergane G (2023) ADHD and political participation: An observational study. PLoS ONE 18(2): e0280445. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280445
Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 165, 15 October 2020, 110134
The tendency for interpersonal victimhood: The personality construct and its consequences
Rahav Gabay, Boaz Hameiri, Tammy Rubel-Lifschitz, Arie Nadler
doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110134
Gollwitzer, Mario. (2021). Matters arising from Gabay, R., Hameiri, B., Rubel-Lifschitz, R., & Nadler, A. (2020). The tendency for interpersonal victimhood: The personality construct and its consequences. Personality and Individual Differences, 165, 110134. Personality and Individual Differences. 168. 110294. 10.1016/j.paid.2020.110294.
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Narcissists must win by eradicating the competitor, so not competitive
Will use any means, including underhanded or even criminal
Preemptive winning to avoid being dominated or shamed
Narcissists must be right (not argumentative or opinionated, but eristic: lecturing, hectoring, and censoring)
Will lie, confabulate, invent: like AI hallucinations
Regardless of costs, benefits, alternatives
Dirty fighting: betrayal dynamic
Fragility of inflated, fantastic, counterfactual self-image: defense of the fantasy
Bounded rationality (satisfice, not optimize, minimum investment for minimally accepted outcomes)
Impaired reality testing
Catastrophizing and false dichotomous view of the power matrix (from exploiting superior to forever exploited inferior)
Reframing: self-supply via self-deception (I had won, been proven right or vindicated)
Download a few of my lectures in Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation 2017-9 (5.5 Gb file):
onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AgoJMDv%5F9%2Dy8EUU&cid=45B93562F3B433FB&id=45B93562F3B433FB%2110610&parId=45B93562F3B433FB%21646&o=OneUp
Search my YouTube channel for other lectures I gave during the pandemic. Use keywords “Rostov” and “university”.
Photos on Instagram instagram.com/p/CvM5Wu8sBzP/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Watch New Light on Victims of Narcissistic Abuse (With Macy Nelson) youtube.com/watch?v=N6WXNfZW4YQ
Subscribe to my Nothingness channel, watch my new video on Field Theory of Consciousness youtube.com/@UCTg79xJ1-pDFkg-aBe9KXLw
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With Macy Nelson, The Phoenix Rising Podcast (thephoenixrisingpodcast.com) on multiple platforms, starting August 1.
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WATCH Why Psychology Will Never Be a Science (University Lecture) youtube.com/watch?v=_RlnoPxBMwU
Psychology reflects our contemporary values, mores, and beliefs. It is culture-bound and period-specific, not a science by any extension of the word.
Presentism (a type of anachronism) is the imposition of current ideas, values, knowledge, and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past.
Example of Cyrus
author: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
title: Persians: The Age of the Great Kings
publisher: Basic Books
Example of Picasso
author: Kate Bryan
title: The Art of Love: The Romantic and Explosive Stories Behind Art's Greatest Couples
publisher: White Lion Publishing
Semantic change (diachronic linguistics): pejoration and melioration
Examples of nice, silly
Nice meaning a person was foolish to meaning that a person is pleasant
Silly from meaning that a person was happy and fortunate to meaning that they are foolish and unsophisticated.
author: Michael Barone
title: Our First Revolution
publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Example of whigs and tories
Narcissist and psychopath being glamorized (“high-functioning” “positive adaptations”)
Persistent misinformation, myths, and legends
Example of freshwater sharks
author: David Shiffman
title: Why Sharks Matter: A Deep Dive with the World's Most Misunderstood Predator
publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
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No one can truly understand the desperate doomed attempt to make sense of the world, of others, of ourselves - to no avail.
Cancer of the soul for life, our constant companion
Learn to forgive yourself - you are doing the best you can but you are disabled
Forgive them for they know not what they are doing and they are afraid of you and infuriated at your shortcomings which deny them their dreams.
Aspire to do better, to succeed, to surmount your handicap - but welcome defeat and embrace failure as the fixtures of your life
Grieve not for who and what you could have been and rejoice that you are despite all odds
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My work in psychology narcissistic-abuse.com/mediakit.html
In 1995, I was the FIRST person to OUT himself as a narcissist. I am NARCISSIST ZERO (like "patient zero").
To be able to communicate my experiences, I has to coin a whole new corpus of language, still widely in use today.
"No, you did not! My grandma used no contact!" No, she didn’t: no contact is a set of 27 strategies.
If creators - authors, artists - are not credited, there is no incentive to create.
Listen to this short interview excerpt to the end.
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WATCH Narcissism/ Coercive Control Documentary youtube.com/watch?v=hA56MBj4m5Y
COVERT ABUSE
Passive-aggressive (obstructive)
Hidden (occult): fakes empathy, rescuer-savior-healer, helpfulness, altruism, compassion
Manipulative
Nonverbal
Punitive avoidance and withdrawal (to play on abandonment anxiety)
Creates secret coalitions against you, smear campaigns (hiding behind others)
Controlling
COERCIVE CONTROL
Another much misused term, like gaslighting or narcissist
Victims intimidated into altering routines, modifying behaviors
Social isolation
Life constriction
Invasive monitoring and supervision
Deprivation of needs, including basic needs
Control and micromanagement of choices, decisions, behaviors, and actions
Denial of access to communication, money, friends, family, help, succor
Terrorizing, degradation, humiliation
Multiple modalities of abuse: verbal, physical, financial, sexual
Conditioning (compliance rewarded) leads to automatism and impaired reality testing
Premeditated
Not outcome of mental illness
Some victims misperceive coercive control as love, interest, attention, insecurity.
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The narcissist is the cause of the reactive abuse, he makes it happen. So, it enhances his sense of omnipotence (grandiosity) - the opposite of narcissistic injury.
Source of cognitive distortions such as grandiosity or catastrophizing (both predispose to depression) could be: compensatory to early childhood abuse and trauma; brain abnormalities; societal anomie; technology; peer pressure and conformity; fatalistic, defeatist, or deterministic culture; or expectations (esp. of significant others).
RANT
If you give flowers to a woman on a first date you may end up in prison as a sexist lovebomber.
But if you recommend suicide to a patient, you get paid for a therapy session.
If you befriend people IRL, you are a mentally ill codependent people pleaser.
But if you befriend them online, you are cool and hip.
If you read books, you are an incel nerd.
But if you play video games, you fit in and fun to be with.
If you speak the truth, you can be sued.
If you flatter and cajole and fake and bullshit, you are a global guru.
Sex is meaningless and casual, promiscuity is an accomplishment, virginity a repellent liability, adultery is universal and fun;
Divorce and reciprocal abuse are the norms in all manner of so called "relationships", intimacy is threatening, courting is harassment;
Expertise is suspect, mocked, and rejected;
Charitable acts are vile conspiracies, technology is slavery, erudition is derided, truthism and malignant grandiose egalitarianism abound;
Entitlement pervades; career criminals are martyrs, law enforcement monsters, con artists and actors rule and rock;
Social interactions and sexuality are vanishing, loneliness is in vogue;
The occult, the paranoid, and the irrational are considered superior to science and rationality, books and learning are niche pursuits;
Birthrates tumbled under the replacement rate, marriage and parenthood are widely shunned and frowned upon;
Only the virtual is real, censorship is praised, rabid and escalated self-promotion touted;
Plutodemocracies and authoritarian psychopaths govern, poverty, hardship, and sickness the norm worldwide.
And this was before Nature declared war on us.
I count my blessings: I don't have much longer to live. This is one planet I would be delighted to check out of. It is not mine and I have no idea how I ended up here. I want to go home.
I hate this brave, new world where:
Illiteracy is 140 characters long and has a face-book;
Everyone has a thousand virtual "friends", but virtually no real friend;
Every child has a mother and multiple fathers, but no parents;
Knowledge is a matter of opinion and opinions a matter of fads;
Our idols sport muscles and vocal cords, but little else besides;
The right to vote is universal, but the will to vote is not;
Everyone has a right to free speech, but little of value to say;
Extramarital sex is considered recreation and monogamy a throwback;
The only ideology is self-gratification and collectives are mere dim memories;
The only certainty is uncertainty and the only permanent fixture is change (for change's sake);
Obsolescence is the driver of innovation, but science, art, and literature are obsolete;
As men and women lose their traditional roles, confusion and inter-gender enmity reign. In a unisex world, homosexuality, or sexual abstinence are rational choices. As malignant, narcissistic individualism is on the rise, the species is dying out. In many countries - including major ones such as Japan, Russia, and Germany - the population is declining precipitously.
More than one third of the youth of these places opt for celibacy and singlehood. Sperm counts have plummeted by a whopping 70%.
We are in the throes of vanishing.
WATCH Narcissist Pays Heavy Price for Betrayal Fantasy youtube.com/watch?v=mq1NA3WGRZ0
WATCH Masochistic Covert Antinarcissist youtube.com/watch?v=cXK2Latm6Is
Narcissist's "love" is sado-masochistic because of early childhood conditioning to associate love with betrayal, withdrawal, avoidance, hurt, and frustration-aggression.
In childhood, the aggression is internalized. Hence the masochism.
The narcissist needs to coerce the partner to hurt him within the fantasy framework role of her maternal reenactment. Hence the abuse (projective identification and reaction formation).
The narcissist's sadism is self-punitive and anticipatory: it engenders the very masochistic pleasure of being punished and agonized. This is sadistic supply.
The partner's compliant submissiveness or refusal to engage in her assigned role is perceived as a passive-aggressive denial of gratification and leads to the escalation of abusive sadism.
Submissiveness also leads to escalation owing to growing tolerance and desensitization.
A reactively abusive (or plain abusive or predatory) partner is perceived as maternally loving and caring. This ameliorates the narcissist's abuse but creates abandonment anxiety and infantile (regressive) dependency on masochistic supply.
So, the narcissist is in one of two states in the shared fantasy: sado-masochistically gratified by a punitive mother figure - or sado-masochistically frustrated by a truly loving mature partner.
The former leads to attachment, cathexis, and dependency and then to attempted separation-individuation from the maternal figure via devaluation and discard.
The latter leads to sadistic and coercive narcissistic abuse and a power play. The narcissist must have his way or annihilate the frustrating object.
MOOD DISORDERS
Mood disorders exist when the changes in mood are not secondary, not mediated via a cognitive distortion, such as grandiosity or catastrophizing.
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Two wrong pieces of advice:
1. If you feel hopeless – suicide is an option. It never is a legitimate course of action when it comes to mental health.
2. Socializing is the key to happiness. Maybe, but not always and not for everyone.
LITERATURE
WATCH Euthanasia and the Right to Die (Global Conference on Nursing and Healthcare) youtube.com/watch?v=tcXVxkF_YOI
Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 31, 129-139 (2000)
What Would You Say to the Person on the Roof?
A Suicide Prevention Text
Haim Omer, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, 69978 Tel-Aviv, Israel
Avshalom C. Elitzur, Ph.D., Interdisciplinary Department for Hermeneutics and Culture, Bar-Ilan University, 52900 Ramat-Gan, Israel
As Psychiatrists, Do We Offer Hope or Do We Offer Death?
Dinah Miller, MD
Lessons From the Longest Study on Happiness
Mauricio Wajngarten, MD
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How to recognize gaslighting and respond to it washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/04/15/gaslighting-definition-relationship-abuse-response
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Use the playlists to search the channel by theme and vaknin-talks.com to search the transcripts of my videos.
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Brian Barnes Wellbeing, BSc HDip RGN RPN DipHyp
brianbarneswellbeing.com, 0879270045
mindyou podcast anchor.fm/mindyou1
Apple podcasts podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/mindyou-podcast/id1552410164
Spotify open.spotify.com/show/17W98ShxKjc0sd3UVRZRrm
NEW PLAYLIST Shared Fantasy, Dual Mothership, Snapshotting
youtube.com/watch?v=csukYBQpyHE&list=PLsh_y_ett4o0Few_pweXhdCigXrXubWNx
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Dissociating the external, threatening object.
Autonomy, agency force recall and lead to triggering, frustration, resentment, and aggression.
This happens multiple times a day.
So, narcissist must eliminate you.
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The narcissist is incapable of social learning or relationships.
Social learning theory
Social-cognitive theory
Self-efficacy
emulation, imitation, mimicry
Social motive,
Social breakdown syndrome
Social age and social clock
Social maturity and social competence
Social deficit
Social imperception disorder
Social role
Mental age
anchor and social anchoring
Social comparison theory: contrast effect assimilation effect
Reference group: membership group, aspirational group, dissociative group
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Read this: instagram.com/p/CuWiQLQMpF4
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Mental healing, psychic healing
Empirical self, nominative self
Geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie
Naturwissenschaftliche Psychologie
Verstehende Psychologie
Existentialism, existential psychology
Being-in-the-world and world design
Dasein, authenticity, and essence
Humanistic psychology and human-potential movement
Fulfillment model
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In the 1990s, I coined the phrase “narcissistic abuse” to describe a subtype of abusive behavior that was all-pervasive (across multiple areas of life) and involved a plethora of behaviors and manipulative or coercive techniques. Narcissistic abuse differed from all other types of abuse in its range, sophistication, duration, versatility, and express and premeditated intention to negate and vitiate the victim’s personal autonomy, agency, self-efficacy, and wellbeing.
Sadistic abuse (dark tetrad)
NARCISSISTIC
All-pervasive
Driven by phases of shared fantasy
Aims to negate the victim, convert her into the idealized internal object (coercive snapshotting)
Recovery via separation-individuation
PSYCHOPATHIC
Domain-specific and criminal
Driven by power and control
Aims to accomplish goals
Recovery via the legal system
BORDERLINE
Coercive (external regulation)
Driven by anxieties
Part of the repetition compulsion
Recovery by mirroring (rendering oneself unfit and unsafe to act as external regulator)
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Stockholm syndrome
Identification, defensive identification, and anaclitic identification
Incorporation
Introjection
Mental representation and symbols
Ego-ideal and superego
Part objects: good and bad (splitting)
Faibairn and antilibidinal ego
Object loss
Separation anxiety and separation distress
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WATCH 20 Signs that Narcissist Infected YOU (Zombie Narcissism) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WqokA5nXVfU
No disparaging introjects traceable back to him (incl. flying monkeys)
No ego dystony or hesitancy in decision-making
Ability to trust restored
No doubting your judgment
Independent reality testing restored (no cognitive distortions)
Sense of agency and self-efficacy restored
Autonomous motivation
No catastrophizing (imminent doom)
No anticipatory anxiety
No addictive cravings or sentimental nostalgia coupled with separation insecurity (abandonment anxiety)
No seeking of same type partner (from narcissistic to anaclitic mate selection)
No maternal or parental impulses (no narcissistic transferences)
No “us”, only “you” (no merger or fusion in a shared fantasy as well as intact boundaries, no enmeshment or engulfment)
No attempts to mind read
No self-sacrificial, people pleasing impulses (no emotional blackmail)
No infantile defenses
No self-idealization or self-devaluation, just realistic introspection and self-awareness
Restored functioning: social, workplace, as a parent, empathy
No emoting by proxy (crying in a movie)
No trust aversion or dread of intimacy
No victimhood stance – assuming personal responsibility
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Last 1:29 overview of narcissist's schizoid empty core by @shadowdeangelis (Instagram)
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youtube.com/watch?v=1U-MJtEMCCA
Coercive, synchronized, or mirror snapshotting (introjection): narcissist entrains you to introject his expectations (your idealized introject in his mind), to share the internal object (=merger, fusion)
Only if departure from previous identity, not including bodily signs of trauma and abuse:
Decline in empathy (post traumatic)
Irritability
Impulsivity
Mood lability
Emotional dysregulation
Suicidal or self-destructive ideation
Self-defeating and self-handicapping (e.g., perfectionism or procrastination)
Cognitive distortions (e.g., grandiosity or Dunning-Kruger)
Aggression or Passive-agression
Recklessness
Identity disturbance (“this is not me!”)
Defiance and contumaciousness
Thrill, novelty, and risk seeking
Projection
Splitting or dichotomous thinking
Denial
Exploitativeness
Repetition compulsions
Automatic negative thoughts
Dissociation
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AI (Artificial Intelligence) follows social media as the second wave of the narcissistic takeover of the world.
Grandiosity precludes cognitive miser (fear of making a mistake).
Hyperreflexivity: narcissist ventriloquist with susceptible dummies
Mimesis or real intelligence? Beyond Turing test to a qualitative version with qualified professionals (What makes intelligence human? Sentience?)
General headline intelligence, deep learning, expert systems
How to safely interact with both AI and narcissists
AI Hallucinations vs. narcissist’s fantasies
Omniscience
Can AI help victims of narcissistic abuse cope with narcissists
Legislation: beyond criminal code into social engineering
Sam Vaknin column archive in Brussels Morning: brusselsmorning.com/author/sam-vaknin
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Mental health dictionary http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/mentalhealthdictionary.html
Blocking
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Borderline Personality Organization Scale (BPO)
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WATCH an honest person in the last 6 minutes of this video (@.shadowdeangelis on Instagram).
My new concepts are now being shamelessly plagiarized and stolen - and not for the first time: “snapshotting” (confusing external and internal or introjected objects), the dual mothership (regression to infancy in intimate relationships), and the shared fantasy space, among others.
I found one exception, a breath of fresh air: this guy @shadowdeangelis on Instagram (Cyberviking on TikTok).
The covert narcissist steals from you habitually: your ideas, your life’s work, your girlfriends and wives, your job, your money, anything he can.
He acts this way for 3 reasons:
Self-aggrandisement
Oneupmanship
Passive-aggression (symbolic hyperreflexive consuming of the frustrating object of narcissistic rivalry and malicious envy)
To be able to face himself in the mirror and to allay his justified fear of retribution, the covert narcissist deploys a host of good object infantile primitive defenses:
denial (the things I am stealing do not really belong to him and actually what I am doing is for the greater good);
repression (I don’t recall the stolen ideas or goods being someone else’s);
splitting (he is a bad person and deserves what I am doing to him, so my acts of pure theft are punitive and morally upright); and
projection (he stole these things from me or I paid for them, so I am just reclaiming them).
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Is malicious envy a form of sadism? Wish to destroy your betters is. Covert narcissist’s pseudo-humility and victimhood stance masks sadistic malicious envy. He compensates with fantasies (good person, superhero against supervillains, behind the scenes power, rescuer/savior/healer, etc.)
Our wellbeing depends on connectivity and narcissists are hurtful because they deny this possibility.
Sadistic component in narcissistic pathological related to power, not only to pain. More precisely: to the power to inflict pain, even if it is not used. Sadism is mediated via sadistic rivalry and malicious envy.
Sadism can be externalized-aggressive (inflicting pain) or passive-aggressive (frustrating, withholding, avoiding).
Wary of possible retribution, narcissists withdraw into a world of fantasy where they are adulated, loved, and shielded from the consequences of their actions (because they are preciously unique or childlike).
LITERATURE
Pathological narcissism and sadistic personality: The role of rivalry and malicious envy by Guyonne Rogier, Alessandro Amo, Beatrice Simmi, Patrizia Velotti, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 205, April 2023, 112097, doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112097
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Grandiosity is a cathected cognitive distortion intended to fend off life-threatening shame and hurt, depression, and suicidal ideation.
Inward Listening to internal objects (internal speech) overrides external stimuli (psychosis) whenever there is a cognitive dissonance (reciprocal inhibition via brain’s corollary discharge).
Gradually schizoid isolation, withdrawal, avoidance. The risk of being victimized is too large: solipsism breeds gullibility and vulnerability.
Selective auditory attention (selective hearing via bottlenecking): filtering, enhancing, selective perception, sensory contrast (background noise), prioritizing.
Selective retention
Selective perception
Frames of reference (framing)
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