Transient Narcissist: Substances, Circumstances
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses various topics related to narcissism, including transient and acquired situational narcissism, the effects of cocaine and alcohol on individuals, and how victims of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) can develop narcissistic and psychopathic traits. He explains how alcohol can fuel grandiosity and lead to reckless behavior, and how covert narcissists can become addicted to alcohol and other reckless behaviors. Vaknin suggests that treating the underlying personality disorder is necessary to address the narcissist’s addictions, and that techniques such as 12 Steps may be more effective in treating the narcissist’s grandiosity, rigidity, sense of entitlement, exploitativeness, and lack of empathy.
Take These 4 Steps BEFORE Therapy for Narcissistic Abuse (with Daria Zukowska Clinical Psychologist)
Professor Sam Vaknin explains that narcissistic abuse is a unique and total form of abuse that aims to destroy the victim mentally and take over their mind. He outlines four steps to take before seeking therapy: 1) stop considering oneself a victim, 2) recognize one’s contribution to the abuse, 3) identify and separate authentic and inauthentic internal voices, and 4) silence the inauthentic voices. Vaknin emphasizes that narcissistic abuse requires reconstruction, not just recovery, as it causes massive damage to the victim’s body, mind, and ability to function.
Was Your Ex a Narcissist or a Psychopath?
Narcissists and psychopaths differ in their emotional investment in others and their goals. Narcissists are emotionally invested in shared fantasies, while psychopaths and malignant narcissists are not emotionally invested in anything or anyone. Psychopaths are goal-oriented and do not care about their careers, intellectual property, spouses, children, parents, community, public opinion, court system, law enforcement, or anything else. Narcissists love-ball, while psychopaths groom, and narcissists are liable to stalking and hoovering, while psychopaths just vanish.
Is S/he a Narcissist? Use These TESTS! (Compilation)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses various personality assessment tests in this section. He talks about the three R’s test, which helps determine whether someone is a full-fledged narcissist or merely narcissistic. He also discusses the characteristics that attract narcissists to potential partners and briefly touches on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality assessment test. He then discusses the weaknesses and criticisms of the MBTI and Jungian theory. Finally, he talks about the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2), the Psychopathy Checklist Revised Test (PCLR), and the Rorschach ink blots test, and notes that personality assessment is more of an art form than a science.
FIREWALL YOUR Relationships, Yourself: Boundaries vs. Borders
In relationships, borders are like membranes that allow in only selective types of communication and are policed by cultural and social mores. Borders are interpersonal and are forms of selectivity that regulate structure and introduce order into relationships. Boundaries are individual and are rules of conduct, red lines in the sand. Personal boundaries need to be communicated to people around you, including your intimate partner, and each boundary has to come with a cost, with a price tag. The ability to thrive in intimacy is inextricably linked to the capacity to maintain and enforce personal boundaries and negotiate and compromise interdichoic, intradiadic inside the couple, borders.
Mental Illness: No Excuse for Abuse
Psychopaths and narcissists often use alloplastic and autoplastic defenses to mask their immoral and antisocial behavior. Autoplastic defenses involve blaming oneself for the consequences of one’s own choices and decisions, while alloplastic defenses involve blaming others for the outcomes of one’s own choices and decisions. These defenses often coexist and interact with each other, and individuals may use them to preserve cognitive distortions and reframe reality in a way that does not cause them undue trauma. The need to deny victimhood and maintain a sense of control can also contribute to the use of these defenses.
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.
Doubling and Role Reversal in Therapies
Psychodrama techniques, such as doubling, role playing, role reversal, soliloquy, and mirroring, are useful in cognitive behavior therapy and in treating cluster B personality disorders. Doubling involves the therapist emulating the client’s emotions, cognitions, and behaviors, while role playing involves the client assuming the role of a particular person in their life. Role reversal is similar to doubling, but the therapist and client switch roles. Soliloquy involves the client describing their inner thoughts and feelings to the therapist, while mirroring involves the client observing other people’s behaviors and emotions. These techniques are intended to penetrate the resistances and defenses of rigid personalities not open to change or intervention.
6 Cluster B Personality Disorders Misconceptions (Conference Presentation)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses six misconceptions about personality disorders in a YouTube video. He explains the differences between codependents and borderlines, the role of abuse in relationships, the distinction between mental illness and mental health, and the characteristics of approach avoidance repetition compulsion and intermittent reinforcement. Additionally, he delves into the emptiness at the core of borderline and narcissistic conditions and how it becomes a choice for individuals with these disorders.
Interpellation: People-pleasers, Narcissists Are Not Masochists
Interpolation is a process where someone reacts to other people’s wishes, desires, urges, and expectations as if they were their own. It is a form of mind control and a subtle state of hypnosis or trance. Interpolation appears in many mental health disorders, such as dependent personality disorders, borderline personality disorder, psychotic disorders, and anxiety disorders. Masochists, self-destructive types, psychopathic narcissists, and people pleasers all interpolate other people and are interpolated by other people, but for different reasons. Mentally ill people have no boundaries, and their mental illness is a get-out-of-jail card that excuses every misbehavior.