Narcissist’s Manipulative Weapon: Projective Identification
Narcissists and psychopaths use mind control techniques, such as entraining and projective identification. Entraining involves synchronizing the victim’s brainwaves with the abuser’s through repetition of phrases and criticisms. Projective identification involves the narcissist projecting rejected traits onto the victim, who then identifies with and adopts these traits. In a world of conflict and uncertainty, it is important to prioritize self-awareness, authenticity, and self-sufficiency, and carefully consider the risks of engaging with others.
Borderline Seeks Fantasy but Flees to Reality
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses borderline personality disorder, which is diagnosed among men and women almost equally nowadays. Borderlines vacillate between two anxieties, separation insecurity and engulfment or enmeshment anxiety. These twin anxieties create an approach avoidance repetition compulsion. During the avoidance phase, the borderline seeks to become more grounded in reality, but she again tries to do this through the agency of someone. During the approach phase, the borderline merges with her significant other, becomes a single organism, outsources her mind to him, and then feels engulfed and enmeshed.
20 Steps to Fix This Horrible Mess We Are All In (Shot Magazine)
In the transcript, Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the current state of society and proposes a series of steps to reverse the negative trends. These steps include encouraging a transition from cities back to nature, suppressing certain types of speech and ideologies, regulating technology and social media, reforming education, and promoting mental health and life skills. Vaknin believes that implementing these measures can lead to a better future, but it requires individual and collective will, political will, and social capital.
YOU=Your Relationships+Self-states (Turnu Severin Intl. Conference on Psychology)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the controversies in modern psychology, the concept of self, and the formation of self-states through dissociation in infancy. He explains that healthy individuals have adaptive self-states that change in reaction to the environment, while those with personality disorders have dysregulated self-states that are protected and complete. He also discusses the connection between internal and external objects in psychology and emphasizes the importance of defense mechanisms for the proper functioning of self-states. Finally, he mentions the importance of early intervention in diagnosing and treating mental illness in children and adolescents.