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 clingingMasked Narcissist: Private vs. Public PersonasProf. Sam Vaknin2023-08-15 | The narcissist is comprised ONLY of a series of masks or personas. There is no “real” narcissist. Prosocial/communal or antisocial are both masks. The reason (etiology) is the failure of separation-individuation.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Autists Lack Empathy, Empaths Deceive, ManipulateProf. Sam Vaknin2023-08-14 | Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) fail to develop empathy via mentalization (a Theory of Mind). They feel no guilt or embarrassment (they have no conscience). They avoid being shamed after they have transgressed.
"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
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
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.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Narcissists 10 Body Postures, Psychopaths PhysiqueProf. Sam Vaknin2023-08-11 | Narcissist's Body Postures: Hypervigilant-paranoid, Pleading-expectant, Dismissive-contemptuous, Superior-boastful, Impatient-scornful, Impatient-entitled, Membership-gravitas, Converting-empathic, Observer-detached
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").
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
How To Analyze People With Dark Psychology by Jason Gale
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3How Dark Tetrads Confuse Your Therapist, CoachProf. Sam Vaknin2023-08-10 | BPD and NPD are real but reconceived as emotionally dysregulated post-traumatic conditions. CPTSD is transient, BPD is not, though it ameliorates and often spontaneously vanishes after age 45.
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
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Harmony: How Narcissist Experiences Partners InfidelityProf. Sam Vaknin2023-08-09 | On the phone, hushed voices, in our bedroom, late afternoon, Noa declines an offer to meet with her lover. I stand in the corridor, book in hand, listening intently, refusing to believe.
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.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Two Inner Children Parentified in Narcissist’s Shared FantasyProf. Sam Vaknin2023-08-08 | The shared fantasy is a space for interactions between two children: the narcissist and YOU. But infantilism is narcissist’s natural state while the partner is enticed or coerced to regress to an infantile state. This asymmetry leads to fascinating consequences.
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.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Study: Narcissists Cheat MORE? Only Partly True! (And Why They Cheat)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-08-07 | Overt, grandiose narcissists and their partners are less likely to cheat on each other. Covert narcissist females are most likely to cheat and covert narcissist men? It depends.
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
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
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Narcissist Needs You to Fail Him, Let Go (with Azam Ali)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-08-05 | The narcissist enters a shared fantasy with a maternal figure (his intimate partner) only in order to separate from her (which he failed to accomplish with his biological mother). The intimate partner is expected to help the narcissist by acting the part of a rejecting, betraying mother. If she refuses, he tries to coerce her into this role and then devalues and discards her.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Narcissist’s Real Mother and YOU (Mahler’s Separation-Individuation)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-08-04 | Mother of origin is source of frustration, hurt, shame, and rage, often unconsciously. She mortifies the narcissist.
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.
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.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Taker, User Narcissist Feels Loved, VindicatedProf. Sam Vaknin2023-08-01 | Both narcissists and psychopaths are users and takers. Akin to their mothers, to the environment they grew in, their giving is minimal and conditional.
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.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B312 Reasons to DivorceProf. Sam Vaknin2023-07-31 | Entitlement and instant gratification 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
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Toxic positivity, Toxic Gratitude, Malignant Optimism: Self-gaslightingProf. Sam Vaknin2023-07-29 | Toxic positivity, toxic gratitude, and malignant optimism are all instances of self-gaslighting.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Competitive Victimhood: Dark Triad ADHD Activists (Literature Review)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-28 | Two dozen studies prove that social justice and political movements have been hijacked by profit-maximizing narcissists, psychopaths, vindictive members, and grandiose ADHD patients.
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.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Why Narcissist Must Win, Be Right (Psychopath, too!)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-27 | Narcissist/psychopath interact with the game, not with other players. There is no intimacy, trust, or the honing of social skills.
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)
With Macy Nelson, The Phoenix Rising Podcast (thephoenixrisingpodcast.com) on multiple platforms, starting August 1.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3BEWARE! Toxic Self-help Myths, Predatory Coaches, Gurus, and “Healers” (Compilation)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-25 | The self-help industry is toxic, riddled with con artists, and with mentally ill gurus, "healers", coaches, self-styled "experts", and self-appointed rescuers and saviors.
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
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.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3What’s Wrong with Our Dystopian World (Starts at 05:56)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-20 | (Rant starts 05:56) Sado-masochism applies to non-romantic relationships as well: same dynamic of using sadism to provoke reactive abuse for masochistic supply.
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.Why Narcissist Hates Good Partners: Sado-maso Love (plus Mood Disorders)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-19 | WATCH Narcissist’s Betrayal Fantasy: Painful Mommy Separation youtube.com/watch?v=pF7mvEbaNEA
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.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3New Take on Depression (Compilation)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-18 | Narcissists suffer from 3 types of depression. Depression may be better conceived as a cognitive distortion rather than a mood disorder. It involves catastrophizing and a host of infantile psychological defense mechanisms. But sometimes it is a positive adaptation.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3MAIDness of Assisted Suicide and Lonely HappinessProf. Sam Vaknin2023-07-17 | Depression is not a mood disorder. It is a cognitive distortion. It impairs reality testing via catastrophising. Cognitive distortions could be positive adaptation (e.g., infant’s grandiosity).
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.
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
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Emotional Flashbacks of Gaslighting Empaths and Other Ignorant Nonsense (Compilation)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-16 | Many online YouTubers have corrupted the meanings of words and phrases borrowed from clinical psychology (examples: gaslighting or flashbacks). Additionally, with zero credentials in the field of cluster B personality disorders, they came up with nonsense "diagnoses" like empath or neglectful narcissist.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3How to Think Like a NarcissistProf. Sam Vaknin2023-07-15 | The narcissist entertains simultaneously contradictory thoughts, beliefs, values, emotions, motivations, and other psychological processes ("dissonant thinking"). He therapeutically resolves the resulting dissonances by using several techniques and by self-imputing godlike perfection.
Use the playlists to search the channel by theme and vaknin-talks.com to search the transcripts of my videos.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Recover from Narcissistic Abuse: Accept Your Role in It (with Brian Barnes)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-14 | Narcissistic abuse involves multiple parties, not least of whom is the victim. Here is how to cope with it in various settings and circumstances.
Spotify open.spotify.com/show/17W98ShxKjc0sd3UVRZRrmAre You Narcissist’s MOTHER or TOY? (Read description!)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-13 | The narcissist first converts you into his mommy, a maternal figure. He then tries to transform you into a transitional object. But this is mission impossible: the role of the transitional object is to allow the child to safely separate from mother. Disappointed and frustrated, the narcissist devalues and discards you.
NEW PLAYLIST Shared Fantasy, Dual Mothership, Snapshotting
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
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3WHY Narcissist LOVES YOU To (YOUR) DEATH!Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-07-08 | Narcissist loves through the death instinct, kills the love object by removing its ontological attributes: internalizing it and then disabling (“freezing”) it. Coercive snapshotting completes the process of entraining.
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)
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
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3How Narcissist Makes YOU His Love Object: Narcissistic Transferences, in Shared Fantasy, AnaclisisProf. Sam Vaknin2023-07-03 | To the narcissist, you are a mere object, not a love object (narcissists have both narcissistic and anaclitic objects). Narcissist uses narcissistic transferences (idealization, mirror, and twinship) in the lovebombing/grooming phase of the shared fantasy. He coerces you to accept the idealized snapshot (introject) of you as the only reality.
Last 1:29 overview of narcissist's schizoid empty core by @shadowdeangelis (Instagram)
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
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3How Narcissist Uses Technology to Enslave You: Narcissist Takeover, Phase 2Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-06-30 | Last 1:30 The Narcissist’s Schizoid Core by @shadowdeangelis on Instagram (Cyberviking on TikTok).
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
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Psychopathic Narcissists Fantasy: Mr. Ripley in Truman ShowProf. Sam Vaknin2023-06-27 | The Talented Mr. Ripley provides a blood-curdling blow by blow description of a war unto death between a covert narcissist and a psychopath. The Truman Show teaches us everything about the narcissist's shared fantasy.
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).
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3Covert Narcissist’s Sadistic Envy Fantasy (conference presentation)Prof. Sam Vaknin2023-06-25 | Video presentation at the 40th Global Psychiatry and Mental Health Conference, July 17-18, 2023 London, UK
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
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.
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3How Narcissist Conditions YOUProf. Sam Vaknin2023-06-23 | How Narcissist Breaks Your Spirit: conditioning (both classical and operant), entraining, shared fantasy, coercive control, snapshotting.