Road to Riches: Behavioral Sales, Irrationality, and Choice
Sam Vaknin discusses the intersection of psychology and economics in sales, marketing, and advertising, emphasizing that human behavior is not always rational and is influenced by various psychological factors. He highlights the importance of understanding behavioral economics to improve sales strategies, mentioning experiments that demonstrate how context, presentation, and emotional responses significantly impact decision-making. Vaknin also touches on gender and age demographics in sales and the cognitive biases that affect how we perceive ourselves versus others.
Consumption as a Narcissistic Religion
Professor Sam Vaknin argues that narcissism is a reaction to an abusive or traumatizing environment, and that consumerism is a form of secular religion that has replaced classic, God-centered religion. He believes that consumerism is addictive and leads to a rat race that is nightmarish and unrealistic, ultimately leading to an overdose. The pursuit of money as the foundation of happiness in consumerism leads to a morally neutral world that prioritizes selfishness and egotism over empathy and altruism.
Insanity of Insanity Defense (2nd International Conference and Expo on Clinical Psychology)
Professor Sam Vaknin argues that mental illness is a culturally dependent concept and questions the validity of the insanity defense in legal cases. He highlights the lack of universally agreed-upon definitions of insanity and the discrepancies between psychiatric and legal insanity. Vaknin also discusses the limitations of current mental health diagnoses, which are often based on value judgments and cultural context rather than objective scientific criteria. He concludes that mental illness is a complex and evolving concept that requires further study before making definitive claims in courts or other settings.
Issues and Goals in the Treatment of Dependent Personality Disorder (Codependence, or Codependency)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses codependency, its various forms, and its impact on individuals. He explains the different categories of codependency, such as those related to abandonment anxiety, fear of losing control, vicarious codependents, and counter-dependence. He also delves into the psychological and emotional aspects of codependency, its roots in childhood experiences, and the potential for overcoming it through therapy and self-help.
Narcissist, His Body, Other Bodies (35th Psychosomatic Medicine Conference 2018 Video Presentation)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the relationship between narcissists and their bodies, focusing on somatic narcissists who derive attention using their body and sexuality. Somatic narcissists often misjudge their bodies and dedicate significant time and effort to reshaping and improving them. The cerebral narcissist, on the other hand, devalues their body and focuses on their intellect. Vaknin also explores how narcissists react to their own illnesses and accidents, as well as the illnesses and disabilities of their children.
Fear of Intimacy, Cheating, and Preemptive Abandonment
People who fear intimacy will choose partners who are also afraid of intimacy, and they will both make sure there is no intimacy in the relationship. Abusive relationships are mutually exclusive to intimacy, and people with fear of intimacy choose abusers as their partners because being abused is their comfort zone. Narcissists are terrified of losing their source of secondary narcissistic supply, usually their spouse or intimate partner, and they push their intimate partner away to allay their anxiety over the impending and ineluctable loss of the relationship.
Sexual Arousal? Only When Cheating on the Spouse
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 the role of a promiscuous and treacherous prostitute. Ironically, they are inordinately attached to their emotionally thwarted, co-dependent, and enabling spouses and need them to remain married to fully enjoy sex.
Fear of Intimacy Rationalized
People who fear intimacy have a phobia of exposing their vulnerabilities and committing to a long-term relationship. This fear is rooted in a deep distrust of the world and other people. They tend to devalue their intimate partner and imagine negative scenarios for the future. Fear of intimacy is a form of diffuse anxiety that causes people to withdraw and avoid intimate relationships. It is a cycle that can never be broken or interrupted, leading to a never-ending chase that never culminates in a happy ending.
Self-destruction as Narcissistic Supply: Narcissist’s Self-denial and Self-defeat
Narcissists frustrate others to satisfy their masochistic tendencies and sadistic urges. By withholding love, sex, and intimacy, they torment those around them while obstructing their own gratification. Self-denial, self-destruction, and self-defeat buttress the narcissist’s sense of superiority and uniqueness, as they prove to themselves that they are the strongest and can overcome powerful desires and emotions. These behaviors and choices engender narcissistic supply, as they demonstrate the narcissist’s independence from society, nature, and even themselves.
Narcissist’s Projection, Projective Identification and Victim’s Introjective Identification
In this video, Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the concept of projective identification in narcissism. He explains that the narcissist’s false self is grandiose and to maintain this self-image, the narcissist must ignore or deny certain emotions, thoughts, traits, impulses, behaviors, and qualities that contradict this self-perception. The narcissist then projects these onto other people, attributing positive or negative traits to them. Projective identification involves forcing the target of the projection to conform to the contents of the projection, forcing someone to actually become someone else, forcing someone to behave in ways prescribed by the narcissist. The narcissist uses projection and projective identification to manipulate inner objects, to force inner constructs, inner representations, inner avatars to behave in certain ways.