Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the idea of recasting narcissistic disorders of the self as addictions. He explains that pathological narcissism is a form of addiction to narcissistic supply, which is the narcissist’s drug of choice. The pursuit of narcissistic supply
Victims of abusive relationships often stay in them due to negative automatic thoughts that they have adopted from their abuser. These thoughts include “I am lucky to be with my abuser,” “life doesn’t get much better than this,” “my partner
Some people only enjoy sex when they cheat on their spouses. These individuals were conditioned in their formative years to associate intimacy with risk, deception, and adrenaline. They require a narrative or script to become sexually aroused and often assume
Psychopathic narcissists and histrionic and borderline women are driven by primitive urges, raw negative impulses, and psychological defense mechanisms. They are not sadists, but they will not hesitate to hurt you fatally if it gratifies the triflest of their wishes.
Narcissists are often anxious about their performance and feel like frauds, which leads them to be comfortable in their failures. They become experts at floundering and are adept at the art of blundering. They use projective identification to coerce people
Narcissists have restricted access to positive emotions and rampant negative emotions, leading them to compensate with dominance and abuse. They often call themselves alpha males but are actually bullies. Their mistreatment of others does not make them strong, but rather
Mentally ill individuals often form couples or dyads, which can lead to fused relationships and trauma bonding. Coping strategies include active denial, enabling, and avoidance. Avoidance can lead to extreme estrangement and cruel disengagement, causing the mentally ill partner to
The sunk-cost bias or sunk-cost fallacy or the concord fallacy is the tendency to remain in bad relationships, even if they are abusive, sexless, loveless, or doomed. This bias is motivated by malignant optimism, an over-estimation of the probabilities of
The persecutory object is a tormenting, devaluing, and sadistic inner voice that informs patients with certain personality disorders that they are bad, worthless, weak, immoral, and generally a disappointment. Patients project this voice onto their intimate partners, who become the
Intermittent reinforcement is a tool used by bullies, which is rarely conscious and often unintentional. Most bullies are not self-aware and deny that they are bullies, instead claiming to be victims. Withholding sex is a strategy used by bullies, who