Narcissism, Brain Injury, Personality, Computers (10th Conf. Psychiatry, Psychology & Brain Studies)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the connection between trauma, brain, personality disorders, and cerebral models. He uses the example of Phineas Gage, whose brain injury turned him into a psychopathic narcissist, to illustrate how brain trauma can have massive systemic effects on personality. Vaknin also explores the software metaphor of the mind, suggesting that if the brain is like software, it must contain features such as parity checks, multiple levels of excitation, redundancy, comparison of representational elements to models of the world, recursive functions, and self-organization. However, he acknowledges that understanding the brain and the connection between mind and personality is still a long way off.
Mental Illness: Myth or Real? (7th International Conference on Brain Disorders and Therapeutics)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the debate surrounding mental illness, questioning whether it is a myth or a clinical entity. He highlights the medicalization of behaviors previously considered sinful or wrong, and the impact of cultural and societal norms on the classification of mental disorders. Vaknin also addresses the limitations and controversies in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on psychiatry.
Narcissism, the New Faith – Part 1: Distributed God and Human Sacrifice
Narcissism can be described as a form of private religion, where the false self is the divinity and the child who has developed the false self becomes the worshipper. When narcissism becomes a societal phenomenon, it remains the same, but it becomes the first distributed religion in human history. Narcissism is a faith of entitlement, where the narcissist subsumes everything and becomes one with everything because the narcissist is everything and everything is the narcissist. The current new religion that is emerging, the religion of narcissism, is similarly embedded in the computer metaphor or more precisely in the network metaphor.
Psychopathic Narcissism is Our Destiny and Destination (Obsidian Radio)
Dr. Sam Vaknin, an expert on narcissism, discusses various aspects of narcissistic behavior and its impact on society. He explains that narcissism has both healthy and pathological manifestations, with pathological narcissism being an addiction to attention and validation from others. Vaknin suggests that narcissism may be a post-traumatic condition linked to childhood abuse and trauma. He also discusses the role of narcissism in technology, politics, and relationships, proposing that it is a pervasive force shaping modern life. Additionally, Vaknin touches on the historical and social dynamics of African Americans, victimhood as an industry, and the future of gender roles, predicting an increase in female dominance due to societal and economic changes.
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.
Love as Addiction (Global Conference on Addiction and Behavioural Health, London)
Love is an addiction that is similar to substance abuse, with changes in behavior that are reminiscent of psychosis. Passionate love closely imitates substance abuse biochemically. The same areas of the brain are active when abusing drugs and when in love. Falling in love is an exercise in proxy incest and a vindication of Freud’s much maligned early puss and electro complexes.
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.
Attention Whores, Impulse Control, and Munchausen by Narcissist
Attention-bores, mostly women with histrionic and borderline personality disorders, use male attention to regulate their sense of self-worth. They become flirtatious, seductive, and trade sex for even the most inconsequential signs of attention from a man. Male attention serves a few important psychodynamic functions with these women, including reassuring them of their irresistibility and attractiveness, reasserting control and power of a man via her sex, and adrenaline junkies. Impulsive behaviors are addictive, and recurrences and recidivism are very common. As these women grow older, most of the signs and symptoms of borderline and histrionic personality disorder recede, unfortunately only to be replaced with dysthymia, background depression.
No Identity Without Memory (Lecture for Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the complexities of modern psychology, particularly the challenges in defining concepts such as personality and memory. He explores the cultural and perceptual influences on psychological constructs, the dichotomy between observer and observed reality, and the limitations of accessing and defining memory. Vaknin also delves into the fluid nature of memory and its impact on personal identity, challenging traditional views and proposing a new understanding of identity as a flexible algorithm that processes and adapts to changing memories. He emphasizes the evolutionary advantage of human adaptability and the role of storytelling in shaping identity.
Incest: Narcissism or Society? (International Conference Adolescent Medicine & Child Psychology)
Professor Sam Vaknin discusses the taboo of incest and its historical and cultural context. He argues that incest is not a clear-cut matter and that many types of relationships defined as incestuous are between genetically unrelated parties. Vaknin suggests that the incest taboo was and is aimed at preserving the family unit and its proper functioning, regulating the intergenerational distribution and handling of accumulated family wealth, and preventing the degeneration of the genetic stock of the clan or tribe through intra-family breeding. He concludes that incest is a culture-bound restriction, prohibition, and taboo, and that a world without incest is considerable, and a world with incest is considerable.