Hijacked by Fantasies in Cluster B (Intl. Conference on Psychiatry and Mental Health, May 2021)
Fantasy is a powerful psychological defense mechanism that can lead to mental health issues when it becomes malignant and all-pervasive. In small doses, fantasies can be healthy and help individuals cope with frustrating or intimidating environments. However, when fantasies become entrenched and hijack an individual’s emotions, cognitions, memories, and identity, they can impair reality testing and lead to dysfunction. In extreme cases, individuals with Cluster B personality disorders, such as narcissistic and borderline personality disorders, may experience a confusion between internal and external objects, leading to a state that is close to psychosis.
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.
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.
Our World is One Big Trauma (with Symone Fairchild, EyeOnDV)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses various topics in this transcript, including cluster B personality disorders, the power of social media platforms, trauma, unsatisfactory sex and intimacy, and the concept of personality. He argues that society incentivizes abuse and narcissism, and that we need to change society to prevent the rise of personality disorders. Vaknin also criticizes social media platforms for spreading evil and poison to children. He talks about how abuse can interfere with a victim’s ability to work and how dissociation is becoming more common as a defense mechanism against environmental trauma. Finally, Vaknin goes on an anti-American rant, stating that America is a narcissistic society and that it exports toxicity all around the world.
Where Have All the Wo/Men Gone?
Professor Sam Vaknin argues that women have become increasingly narcissistic and psychopathic due to their newfound powers and liberation, leading to a collective pathology. This has resulted in a mass psychopathology that is causing terrifying numbers of suicide rates, depression, and anxiety. Vaknin suggests that we need to acknowledge the truth about casual sex and stop being politically correct to confront the issues bravely and courageously. He believes that we need to rewrite the sexual scripts and restore distinct, clear, and boundaried gender roles to save ourselves from the collapsing gender roles that brought the narcissism pandemic and now the borderline secondary psychopathy pandemic.
Collective Narcissism and Its Leaders: Case of Macedonia (with Nikola Ristevski)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses his doctoral thesis, which aimed to rewrite physics using a minimal language. He also talks about his involvement in Macedonia, where he worked as an economic advisor to the government and helped set up the stock exchange and privatization. In addition, he discusses the influence of emotional vulnerability on leaders and how it can create contagion and infect the whole nation. Finally, he discusses the political situation in Macedonia, describing political parties as networks of patronage and clientele, and advises young Macedonians to create a parallel state, opting out of existing power structures and establishing their own power structures.
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.
Narcissist in Your Mind (with Dr Maryam Tanwir, University of Cambridge)
Professor Sam Vaknin, a diagnosed narcissist, explains that narcissism is a complex mental health disorder that affects every area of functioning. Narcissism is an organizing principle, a worldview, and a theory of mind. Narcissists lack empathy and see people as commodities or units of production. Narcissism is bad for the individual and everyone around them, and when assets such as sexuality, intelligence, and empathy are leveraged at the service of narcissism, it becomes a dangerous weapon.
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.
OK, Boomer: Want to Be Young Again?
Professor Sam Vaknin argues that today’s youth are facing a dystopian world and have given up on life, intimacy, and relationships. He claims that young people today engage almost exclusively in casual, drunk sex with strangers, lack basic skills for intimacy and relationships, and are incapable of forming long-term attachments. Vaknin blames older generations for creating a world without meaning or a future for the youth, leading them to reject life and reality. He believes that hope lies in much younger generations, and that older generations must carry on until those younger generations are old enough to take the torch and continue the march of humanity.