How to be Good (enough) Mother: Your 3 Gifts
A good enough mother exposes her child to risks, pushes her child away from her, and mediates reality for the child. A good enough mother frustrates her child by not granting them everything they wish for, which is crucial to the child’s emerging perception of an external world. A narcissistic mother is never a good enough mother, as she is a control freak who does not let her children develop boundaries, become autonomous, or self-efficacious. The relationship between a narcissistic mother and her child is typically symbiotic and emotionally turbulent, with trauma bonding setting in via intermittent reinforcement and emotional blackmail.
Serial idealizers, Anxious People-pleasers, Addicts: NOT Narcissists
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses four groups of people who exhibit behaviors similar to pathological narcissism but are not narcissists: serial idealizers, anxious people pleasers, addicts, and those with borderline personality disorder. Serial idealizers create fantasies to legitimize their actions and feel loved, while anxious people pleasers seek acceptance and belonging to alleviate their anxiety. Addicts share traits with narcissists and psychopaths, such as grandiosity and defiance, but use addiction to maintain an illusion of control. Lastly, those with borderline personality disorder fear both abandonment and engulfment, leading to compulsive cheating and dysregulated behavior.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Never Both: Either Healing OR Behavior Modification in Cluster B Personality Disorders (Conference)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the conundrum of personality disorders, particularly Cluster B disorders, and their relationship to behavior and internal psychodynamics. He explores the disconnect between internal healing and persistent dysfunctional behaviors, attributing it to factors such as dissociative self-states, anxiety, and identity disturbance. Vaknin emphasizes the challenges in treating these disorders and the need for innovative approaches. He recommends literature on the topic and concludes by highlighting the difficulty in achieving behavior modification in these patients.