Narcissist’s Celibacy as a Religious Principle (ENGLISH responses)
Narcissists create an ideology that elevates sexual celibacy or sexual abstinence into a religion, which is a private religion with one God, the false self, and one worshiper, the narcissist. Eastern religions and mystical sects use sexual abstinence as the internalization and use of a positive life force to induce a transformation that elevates the person to a higher level. In contrast, Western tradition perceives sex as dirty, prohibited, taboo, negative force, to be suppressed, ignored, and ashamed of, which leads to a cycle of shame and guilt. Narcissists are conflicted about sex, and they treat other people as objects, commodify, objectify, and dehumanize them.
Narcissist-Victim Sexual Practices (ENGLISH responses, with Nárcisz Coach)
Sam Vaknin discusses the cycle of narcissistic abuse and how victims often find themselves repeatedly attracted to narcissistic partners. He suggests that true transformation and healing can only occur when the victim hits rock bottom and has no source of energy left. Vaknin also explains the difference between consensual BDSM and sadism in narcissistic relationships, which is used as a tool for objectification and control. He notes that narcissists often have severe problems with sexual identity and sex differentiation due to disrupted development in childhood.
Anxiety, Pain, Suicide in Thanatic Societies (ENGLISH responses, with Nárcisz Coach)
In a pain-and-death-oriented society, anxiety is the ruling emotion. Our economies are constructed around growth, and our relationships are dysfunctional. The only efficient coping strategy in such a world is narcissism, which is on the rise, especially among the young. Narcissism seems to be a positive adaptation, and some people use it to get to the White House. Victims of narcissistic abuse adopt psychopathic and narcissistic behaviors and traits as a defense, and we are moving into a psychopathic world. We have lost our dreams and don’t have any believable stories left, leaving us as dead flesh.
Triggering Cascade, Trauma Imprinting, and Total Reactance
Trauma can lead to a triggering cascade, where a seemingly minor trigger results in vastly disproportionate trauma. Narcissists and psychopaths are adept at provoking triggering cascades by frustrating individual and social expectations. Trauma imprinting is at the core of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD, and it is what underlies triggering. Trauma can lead to either regression into infantile behaviors and defenses or a spurt of personal growth and maturation, depending on how it is processed. Trauma is not an objective clinical entity, but a form of reactance, and there are as many types of traumas as there are trauma victims.
Serial Killers Revisited
Narcissism and psychopathy are more about social dysfunction than mental health issues, with trauma victims developing severe narcissistic and psychopathic behaviors. Narcissism is an emerging religion, where narcissists deify themselves and consider themselves to be gods. Serial killers have a mental health dimension, but they also have a pronounced social dimension, with media involvement being a key factor in creating them. Psychological defense mechanisms are crucial to functioning, but in the case of narcissists, their defense mechanisms are compromised because they are used to support an unrealistic grandiose view of themselves.
Alcoholism, Blackouts, and Personal Responsibility
Alcoholism is a complex phenomenon with both neurological and psychological dimensions. Alcohol serves several psychological purposes, including palliative, restorative, disinhibitory, and instrumental. During an alcohol-induced blackout, the drunk person is fully aware of their actions and is accountable for any misconduct or criminal acts. Alcohol disinhibits and can lead to promiscuity, aggression, and self-destructiveness. Alcoholism is difficult to treat, with a high relapse rate even among those committed to sobriety.
Incest: Narcissism or Society? (International Conference Adolescent Medicine & Child Psychology)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the taboo of incest and its historical and cultural context. He argues that incest is not a clear-cut matter and that many types of relationships defined as incestuous are between genetically unrelated parties. Vaknin suggests that the incest taboo was and is aimed at preserving the family unit and its proper functioning, regulating the intergenerational distribution and handling of accumulated family wealth, and preventing the degeneration of the genetic stock of the clan or tribe through intra-family breeding. He concludes that incest is a culture-bound restriction, prohibition, and taboo, and that a world without incest is considerable, and a world with incest is considerable.
Narcissist No Toilet Paper: Aggressive and Brittle, Not Soft and Strong
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 obnoxious and clownish. They are not capable of true intimacy or emoting, as they are empty inside.
Why Do We Stay in Abusive Relationships? The Sunk Cost Fallacy or Bias
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 positive outcomes if we just keep going or keep doing something differently. It is a particularly pernicious brand of loss aversion, the proclivity to avoid waste. The rational thing to do is to cut your losses and abandon the dysfunctional relationship, but surprisingly few people do so in time, resulting in wrecked marriages, hateful exes, bruised children, and crumbling enterprises.
Register! May 12-14 VIENNA SEMINAR: Finally a THERAPY THAT WORKS with Narcissists!
Professor Sam Vaknin has developed a new treatment modality called “cold therapy” to treat people with personality disorders, particularly narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders. The therapy is based on the observation that these disorders are the outcome of dysfunctional attachment and problems with early childhood attachment. Cold therapy seeks to recreate the environment conducive to the replication of original childhood traumas to allow the client to resolve early childhood conflicts and cope with early childhood pain. The first-ever certification seminar for cold therapy will be held in Vienna for three days, and participants will receive certificates and a founding share in the Institute of Cold Therapy.