Narcissism is SHOCKING, Never Mind How Educated You Are! (with Sundy Carter)

Summary

In a captivating interview, Prof. Sam Vaknin delves into the complex world of narcissism with Sundy Carter, explaining the intricate dynamics and mental landscape of narcissists. Narcissists perceive others as extensions of their own mind and live within a fantasy that supports their grandiose self-image. Despite being aware of their actions, they do not understand their motivations, and are unlikely to change due to a lack of self-perception of wrongdoing. Vaknin also discusses the challenging concept of 'shared fantasy,' where victims are drawn into the narcissist's world, often seeing themselves as caregivers. It's a detailed exploration of an often misunderstood mental disorder.

Highlights

• Prof. Sam Vaknin explains narcissism as a severe mental disorder akin to psychosis.⚠️
• Narcissists view others as internal objects, not real people, focusing on self-maintenance.👥
• A 'shared fantasy' traps victims, making them unknowingly play into the narcissist's world.🎥
• Narcissists toggle between seeing themselves as godlike and regressing to childhood neediness.🌈
• Driven by childhood experiences, they repeat dysfunctional dynamics seeking 'motherly' care.👶
• In crises, narcissists may temporarily become more self-aware, but usually revert back.🔁
• Prison environment curtails narcissistic behaviors, proving they are choices.🏗️
• Relationship with a narcissist feels like grappling with one's annihilation and manipulation.🌌

Key Takeaways

• Narcissists perceive others as mere extensions of themselves, not as separate individuals.🤔
• Their actions are fueled by fantasies, maintaining a godlike self-concept, disregarding reality.🌟
• Emotional empathy is absent in narcissists, who analyze but do not emotionally 'get' others.🧠
• Victims often fall into a 'shared fantasy,' enabling the narcissist's ideology.🎭
• Narcissists know their actions but lack understanding of their motivations.🌀
• Breaking away from a narcissist is challenging due to emotional manipulation and dependency.🚪
• Narcissists rarely change as they don't see themselves as needing to.🔄

Overview

In the intriguing interview, Sundy Carter talks with Prof. Sam Vaknin about the enigmatic world of narcissism. Prof. Vaknin elucidates that narcissists live in a self-created fantasy that supports their inflated self-image. These individuals see others as mere extensions of themselves, lacking any real empathy or understanding of how others feel. This skewed perception leads to them manipulating others to fit into their version of reality.

Prof. Vaknin further discusses the concept of 'shared fantasy,' where victims get entrapped in the narcissist's alternate reality. Through subtle manipulations, narcissists lure their partners into this world by creating an idealized version of them, which becomes irresistible. These interactions often mimic parental relationships, with partners unknowingly stepping into a 'motherly' role, nurturing the narcissist's neediness and illusions.

The discussion sheds light on why narcissists rarely change. They are generally aware of their actions, yet they do not comprehend the underlying motivations due to a lack of self-awareness. Moreover, because they see themselves as perfect, there's no incentive to change. Breaking free from such relationships is tough as it involves disentangling from layers of emotional manipulation and perceived dependency, leaving the victims grappling with their sense of identity.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Definition of Narcissism This chapter introduces the concept of narcissism, beginning with a definition. A narcissist is described as someone who cannot perceive other people as separate individuals. Instead, they see others as extensions or figments of their own mind. The discussion sets the stage for a deeper exploration of narcissism.
• 03:00 - 09:00: Characteristics of Narcissists This chapter explores the characteristics of narcissists, focusing on their perception of others as internal objects rather than external entities. Narcissists view people as extensions of themselves, using them as tools or instruments to manipulate and control according to their desires, as if in a fantasy world where others do not truly exist outside their own mind.
• 09:00 - 18:00: Shared Fantasy Concept The chapter "Shared Fantasy Concept" delves into the narcissistic behavior of losing touch with reality and living in a fantasy world. Narcissists often prefer fantasies as they reinforce their inflated self-image, which is grandiose, unrealistic, and not grounded in reality. This fantasy plays a crucial role in supporting their distorted self-concept.
• 18:00 - 27:00: Pathological Nature and Impact of Narcissism The chapter delves into the pathological nature of narcissism, highlighting how the narcissist's outlandish and inane self-view forces a detachment from reality to maintain such delusions. It emphasizes the interchangeability of gender among narcissists, with half being women. Another key characteristic discussed is the narcissist's inability to perceive others, further dissecting how these traits impact their interactions and worldview.
• 27:00 - 39:00: Narcissist’s Awareness and Changeability The chapter titled 'Narcissist’s Awareness and Changeability' discusses the narcissist's lack of emotional empathy towards others. Although a narcissist can analyze and understand people's vulnerabilities and weaknesses, they are incapable of emotionally responding to this information. This underscores the complexity of narcissistic behavior in interpersonal interactions.
• 39:00 - 39:30: Closing Remarks on Narcissism The chapter titled 'Closing Remarks on Narcissism' elaborates on the emotional limitations of narcissists. It discusses the concept of negative affectivity, highlighting that narcissists are predominantly governed by negative emotions such as rage, envy, and hatred, while lacking the capacity for positive emotions like love. The chapter suggests that these emotional deficiencies are central characteristics of narcissism, despite the existence of other clinical features.

Narcissism is SHOCKING, Never Mind How Educated You Are! (with Sundy Carter) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 okay here we go i have a few questions for you okay we're we're going to start with this one for those who don't know what a narcissist is could you please describe that in its entirety a narcissist is someone who is incapable of perceiving other people as separate as external he perceives other people as some kind of a figment of his own mind um an
• 00:30 - 01:00 internal object right right because he perceives other people as internal not external the narcissist feels that he can safely regard them as extensions tools instruments manipulate them do anything he wants to them because they don't really exist they're in in his mind it's all cosplay or a fantasy or it's it's
• 01:00 - 01:30 not real none of it is real and this is one of the major features of of a logical narcissism the inability to interact with reality the narcissist has a preference for fantasy and the fantasy of the narcissist upholds butresses supports a view of the narcissist the view of himself which is inflated and grandiose and fantastic and unrealistic and not grounded this the self-concept
• 01:30 - 02:00 of the narcissist is so outlandish so inane that the narcissist has to divorce reality in order to support this view of himself now when I say himself half of all narcissists are women so the gender pronouns are interchangeable next thing I think that characterizes a narcissist is because again because the narcissist is unable to perceive other
• 02:00 - 02:30 people as external or separate the narcissist cannot empathize with them so there's no emotional empathy there the narcissist is able to analyze other people make sense of them create a theory on what makes them tick map out the vulnerabilities and weaknesses and frailties of other people but the narcissist is unable to react emotionally to any of this information
• 02:30 - 03:00 and finally the narcissist is unable to access positive emotions narcissists have only negative emotions we call this condition negative affectivity so the narcissist is capable of rage envy or hatred but the narcissist is not capable of love or similar positive emotions there are other features other clinical features but I think these are these are the key the key features in
• 03:00 - 03:30 narcissism that's interesting and so you say that they're not capable of love and then you had also mentioned um the shared fantasy not in the description but you mentioned the shared fantasy could we discuss a little bit about the shared fantasy yes the shared fantasy is very simple it's when the narcissist takes his own
• 03:30 - 04:00 fantasy and imposes imposes it on someone else and by imposing it he renders it a shared fantasy now the imposition doesn't have to be coercive it doesn't mean that the narcissist violently and aggressively intimidates other people into the fantasy but the narcissist has a multiplicity of manipulative techniques which affect the minds of the
• 04:00 - 04:30 targets of targets and renders them more vulnerable more susceptible to the alleged attractions of the fantasy so the narcissist penetrates the target's mind he entrains her in other words he synchronizes his mind with her mind this is not a conspiracy theory this is a fact it's called entrainment it's was
• 04:30 - 05:00 discovered about 12 years ago okay so using verbal cues verbal abuse especially the narcissist synchronizes his brain with your with the target's brain then he's able to penetrate the target's brain and install an introject an introject is a voice so then you have the narcissist's voice inside your head and what the narcissist then proceeds to do he baits you he bribes you into the
• 05:00 - 05:30 fantasy and he does that in two major ways the first he grants you access to his ostensible inner child so he lets you he lets you see him or perceive him as a child in need a crying tormented hurt child who is in need of protection
• 05:30 - 06:00 in need of love in need of compassion and that's irresistible it's an irresistible proposition when you see the narcissist as a child you are drawn to the narcissist you want to protect him you want to hold him you want to contain him you want to wipe away his his pain and his sorrow and make it right again and heal him and fix him and save him and and complete him and so on so this be his mother sorry be his mother be his mother yes i just I've
• 06:00 - 06:30 just described the mother actually right in clinical terms this is called secure base you want to become like a secure base which is a mother essentially okay and the second bait the I mentioned that there are two ways two to two to two to two to two to two to two to two to two to two to two to two two lures so the second bait is to idealize you to create a version of you which is perfect in this fairy tale version of you you are
• 06:30 - 07:00 hyper intelligent you're drop deadad gorgeous you can do no wrong you're irresistible everything and then the narcissist grants you access to this image of yourself now this image of yourself is false but it's also irresistible and you are you are you get addicted to it you want to see yourself this way time and again and the only person who can grant you access to this idealized
• 07:00 - 07:30 image of you is the narcissist so it's like the relationship between a pusher and a junkie right you become addicted to this version of you these two baits lure you into the shared fantasy and then the shared fantasy is a narrative it's a story it's a movie like a movie script and within this movie the narcissist is the director and and the superstar of course and within this movie the narcissist is also
• 07:30 - 08:00 idealized he's perfect he's brilliant he is omniscient all knowing he is omnipotent is all powerful in short the narcissist is godlike and within the shared fantasy you are supposed to provide the narcissist with several functions i call them the four S's the four S's are sex safety your presence as a mother figure as a maternal figure safety
• 08:00 - 08:30 uh services all kinds of services you're his driver you're his personal assistant you're his cleaning lady i mean you name it and and finally supply narcissistic supply or if he's a sadist sadistic supply that means you have to be his willing victim so these are the four S's and you're supposed to provide the narcissist with two of the four S's if you provide him with two of the four S's you qualify and you pass the job interview
• 08:30 - 09:00 you're in right and then there is the shared fantasy the shed fantasy unfolds and unfurs and within the shared fantasy your job is to tell the narcissist to inform the narcissist and to confirm the to the narcissist that his godlike self-concept his god-like perception of himself is actually real it's true he is not hallucinating it's not an illusion he's not selfdeceiving
• 09:00 - 09:30 it's all absolutely true so if he thinks if he considers himself to be a genius your role is to tell him what a genius he is repetitively and and uh you are supposed to inform him you're you're supposed to be the living proof that his false self is not false all this grandiosity all this inflated fantastic crazy self-concept is what we
• 09:30 - 10:00 call the false self because it's a substitute for a real self whereas normal people healthy people they have a functional self from early on in life the narcissist was unable to develop a true functional real self as a child because of the environment he grew up in so instead he invents an imaginary friend which later become a divinity a
• 10:00 - 10:30 deity and then he merges with his divinity with his deity becomes one with it and that's his that's his epiphany it becomes and it's a religion a kind of religion and you could look at it as a cult or it sounds like a mental illness though that's what it sounds like it it doesn't narcissism is a very severe mental illness otto Kernberg who is one of the fathers of the field suggested that pathological narcissism is as bad
• 10:30 - 11:00 or almost as bad as schizophrenia or psychosis and um the very word borderline borderline means on the border of psychosis almost psychosis and Karnburg suggested that borderline and narcissism are highly related conditions that narcissism is a defense against borderline so we are talking about seriously mentally ill people this is not functioning but they
• 11:00 - 11:30 function functioning they are very they're we have to distinguish between what um episodic memory and semantic memory episodic memory is your sense of continuity what we call ontological security your sense that you are the same person from minute to minute from day to day from year to year you're the same person you're continuous there no breaks there no chasms there's no there
• 11:30 - 12:00 no gaps the narcissist doesn't have this he's dissociative in other words he's broken to pieces like a kaleidoscope is he's is made up of shards all over the place smitherings he's he's a distributed entity he's not a unitary he's a distributed entity like a network and um and so the narcissist needs to invent some kind of glue to hold himself together and to give him the
• 12:00 - 12:30 illusion of a core identity the illusion of continuity and this is the narrative and the narrative is an episodic narrative in other words it's a narrative that deals with core identity personal history autobiography relationships with other people but we have another another facet of human existence and it's known as semantic memory semantic memory is when
• 12:30 - 13:00 you remember how to do things skills basically you know how to drive a car that's a semantic memory you know how to be a chief executive officer or the president of the United States that is semantic memory it has nothing to do with episodic memory you could be highly dissociative you can be infantile the vast majority of narcissists are two three years old emotionally speaking and yet you could
• 13:00 - 13:30 be very successful as a businessman or as a president or as whatever because semantic and episodic have nothing to do with each other you learn skills you could learn skills even if you're mentally ill even mentally ill people can learn skills you know okay let's see um so we talked about that i have a few questions from a couple of different people so just bear with me uh Malikica from Philadelphia
• 13:30 - 14:00 wants to know if the relationship was ever real with the narcissist depends how you define real it was real to the narcissist the narcissist confuses reality and fantasy as far as a narcissist is concerned his fantasy is reality that's why narcissist never gaslight gaslighting means that you can tell the difference between reality and fantasy and then you're misleading someone else mhm but you cannot mislead someone if you're a true believer if you
• 14:00 - 14:30 believe that your lies are the truth if you believe that your confabulations are are real if you believe that your deception is veritable that you're not deceiving anything anyone then you cannot gaslight anyone because you're in it as much as the victim you're you believe it as much as the victim does right right addition similarly the narcissist never future fakes he never future fakes because he fully believes his own promises when he
• 14:30 - 15:00 gives you a promise he is utterly 1,000% committed to fulfilling it it so happens that narcissists never keep their promises it so happens that they do gaslight you but it is unintentional it's unconscious it's it's not like the psychopath the psychopath does it on purpose because he wants to have sex with you or he wants your money he wants something from you that's a psychopath the narcissist is simply deluded he's
• 15:00 - 15:30 delusional he's sick and so he drags you into his sickness as far as a narcissist is concerned whatever it is that he feels within the shared fantasy is real so he would insist that he does love you he would insist that he does want to share a life with you he would insist that you are going to get married and have three children within the next week or two he he would insist all of this however it's real in a delusional
• 15:30 - 16:00 sense it's it's like um take for example a psychotic person someone with psychosis mhm someone with psychosis has hallucinations so there's this psychotic person he walks the street and he says "Oh my god here's Jesus Christ i see him now this kind of person believes in it he believes that he is witnessing Jesus Christ crossing the street mhm you
• 16:00 - 16:30 know and when you if you were to confront a psychotic person he would utterly utterly refute your reputation he would say you're wrong how come you can't see him he's there he's standing or floating or he's there same with the narcissist same with the narcissist if you tell the narcissist your love is not love it's something else but it's not love he would he would dispute this if you tell
• 16:30 - 17:00 him that the fantasy is is a fantasy it's not reality he would tell you that you're crazy so it's real to the narcissist but it's not real in any healthy normal meaningful sense it's it should should have never been real to you so when they when the narcissist comes in they already know from the beginning that it's going to be the same exact cycle like they come in they do the whole love so they don't know no okay
• 17:00 - 17:30 the narcissist keeps hoping against hope that this time this time the resolution would be different you see the narcissist reenacts early childhood dynamics time and again he's looking for a mother it's a baby it's a toddler most narcissists are 2 three years old psychologically speaking most some of them are six like the very mature ones are 9 years old and they are they're looking for a mother a mother substitute because their original mother has failed
• 17:30 - 18:00 them one way or another and so they're looking for a mother and then they find a mother and they say with I'm going to have I'm going to have the right childhood with this mother it's going to be good it's going to be good this time it's going to end well I'm going to resolve this as it should have been resolved originally I'm not going to fail this time so there is this hope against hope this desperation the narcissist is a child in grief it's a child who's been denied its
• 18:00 - 18:30 basic needs very early on in a variety of ways each each mother in in its own dysfunctional way right so it's a child that's been denied and it's a child it's a child in grief narcissism is is a prolonged grief disorder the narcissist grieavves narcissist grieavves the fantasy narcissist grieavves the lost mother the narcissist grieavves what he could have become and would never be the narcissist wants desperately to become
• 18:30 - 19:00 an adult it's a child and the the normal propensity the normal drive of a child is to grow up that's what all children do so he's a child and he wants to grow up he doesn't know or he doesn't accept that he will never grow up that it's a doomed quest and that no one can help him and so he expects you to help him in the shed fantasy then you fail inevitably then he's angry at you as a child would be angry at a mother who
• 19:00 - 19:30 fails him so it's very much the victims of narcissistic abuse and people who have shared a fantasy with the narcissist they insist that the experience is the equivalence of motherhood the equivalent of motherhood they insist that they saw the narcissist as a child that there were interactions with the narcissist which are much more common between a mother and a child this
• 19:30 - 20:00 infantilization is an integral part of the shared fantasy because the narcissist does this to you as well while the narcissist becomes a child infantilizes regresses and forces you to become the maternal figure forces you to be the mother at the same time the narcissist regresses you forces you to become a child so that he can become your your mother or your parental figure you become each other's mothers each
• 20:00 - 20:30 other's parental figures and this is why it is incredibly difficult to terminate the relationship with a narcissist because you are not only breaking up romantically you're also giving up on your child right and you are giving up on your mother all of this is simultaneous it's almost impossible it's very difficult the grief is enormous the heartbreak is unbelievable because there are multiple
• 20:30 - 21:00 layers of breakup involved when you break up with a narcissist so the shell fantasy is very powerful because it provides a sanctuary a refuge from reality and who likes reality nowadays it sucks no one wants to be in reality so some people watch watch the movies some people play video games some people do drugs and alcohol everyone is escaping nowadays i mean like everyone is escaping one way or another so professor
• 21:00 - 21:30 does a narcissist know that they're a narcissist like do they know that something is wrong with them or do they think that this is all just everything is just normal first of all you can call me Sam it's shorter than than professor okay second thing um in answer to your question narcissists are fully aware of their actions they're fully aware of their choices and decisions they know exactly what they're doing wow moreover in the
• 21:30 - 22:00 vast majority of cases a narcissist would realize the impacts and the outcomes and consequences of his or her actions so a narcissist would know that what he's doing is going to hurt you he just wouldn't care because he comes first the priority is the maintenance of the self-concept we call this self-enhancement so the priority is
• 22:00 - 22:30 self-enhancement and the preservation of the shared fantasy and you are just a sacrificial lamb you need if if he needs to sacrifice you to maintain his self-concept to resolve his early childhood conflicts to preserve the shared fantasy he will sacrifice you no second thought and he he he is aware of what he's doing and he knows exactly what he's doing to people i will prove it to you easily okay when a narcissist goes
• 22:30 - 23:00 to prison all narcissistic behaviors disappear vanish he's no longer a narcissist in prison because a narcissist is in prison is a dead narcissist if you behave that way in prison you're dead right like you have a life expectancy of two weeks oh my goodness so when they go to prison or jail or whatever they instantly drop all the narcissistic
• 23:00 - 23:30 behaviors suddenly they're normal healthy or even nice people kind people whatever they are no longer narcissist so you can see that is a choice it's a decisions yes okay and this is the behavior but this is not to be confused with self-awareness the narcissist is aware of what he's doing he is not aware of why he's doing what he's doing so there's no awareness of motivation
• 23:30 - 24:00 psychological dynamics attitudes none of this there's no access to the internal world the narcissist is in this sense totally unself-aware but he doesn't know what he's doing he's not in other words he's not legally insane we have we have the insanity defense insanity defense is I couldn't control my actions or I didn't know what I was doing i could tell the difference between right and wrong that's not the case with narcissism he
• 24:00 - 24:30 knows the difference between right and wrong he knows exactly what he's doing he knows it's wrong he knows it's going to hurt people he knows everything he just doesn't know why he's doing this it's compulsive it's stronger than him and he is mired in in a delusion that justifies all this the delusion is self-justifying it tells the narcissist this delusion informs the narcissist that he it's okay to do what he's doing that he is a good person in doing what
• 24:30 - 25:00 he's doing or if not good efficient that it's a positive thing the delusion is is restores what we call egoony in other words the narcissist feels good with himself he feels comfortable with himself he doesn't feel that something's wrong with him ever by the way he never feels remorse or regret or shame or guilt narcissism is a strong defense against shame only when narcissism crumbles in a
• 25:00 - 25:30 highly rare and unique situation known as narcissistic motification only then does the narcissist experience briefly shame so can they change in that moment it's a window of opportunity okay but unfortunately well you need the presence of a professional to take advantage of it but there is something else that
• 25:30 - 26:00 prevents prevents the narcissist from real transformation narcissism motification is a very very interesting situation condition it's when the narcissist is abruptly unexpectedly humiliated shamed debased and exposed typically in public in front of people that he cares about like peers
• 26:00 - 26:30 mhm typically doesn't have to be but typically so then all the defenses crumble all the lies all the delusions all the proarications all the confabulations all the narratives and stories and movies it all falls apart crumbles to dust because the onslaught of the criticism shaming humiliation disagreement rejection abandonment the
• 26:30 - 27:00 onslaught betrayal the onslaught of this is so powerful that it vaporizes the narcissist's defenses and this process is called decompensation the narcissist decompens at that point the narcissist has no defenses from reality he is skinless he has no skin and then reality charges in intrudes and converts the narcissist into a borderline someone with emotional
• 27:00 - 27:30 dysregulation someone who who is volatile someone who is super fragile some a borderline so they can can they vacasillate between the two like borderline and then the narcissist embarks embarks on on the task of recreating his self-concept and grandiosity and everything from scratch and succeeds in 100% of the cases the narcissist succeeds but there is an interim period where the narcissist has
• 27:30 - 28:00 suicidal ideiation and emotional dysregulation which are the two critical hallmarks of borderline personality disorder so he becomes a borderline for a while right right but because he's a borderline he's not aminable to treatment so treatment won't help he's just transitioned from one mental illness to another mhm there's no situation where he's open to healing or because he just replaced one
• 28:00 - 28:30 mental illness with a much worse one maybe okay wow okay this is a lot okay um let's see what else did I want to ask you um you if you spend time with the narcissist I have you have peered you you have looked the outer darkness in the eye yes you've been exposed to the outer
• 28:30 - 29:00 darkness you've been exposed to the oblivion of deep space of you have been you have visited a black hole you've been consumed and spat out and and this is an experience and so some religious people they would use the word evil and say you you've been exposed to evil the raification and manifestation and embodiment and personalization of evil and evil is not a psychological
• 29:00 - 29:30 term it's moralistic religious term and so on but at least it captures the experience because this is what the feeling is that you have been contaminated somehow you've been you've been tainted you've been dirtied you're dirty now you need you need to you need to wash yourself like a thousand times and there something rubs off on you when you're expos when you're when you spend time with a narcissist it's contagious in a
• 29:30 - 30:00 way and it is an experience that defies the language of clinical psychology i created most of the language in use today many of the words you are using even unbeknownst to you i invented them and yet and yet I consider to I consider myself to have failed i think I failed i don't think any language can capture this experience i don't think this experience can be captured with language i coined the phrase narcissistic abuse
• 30:00 - 30:30 in the late 80s and I thought maybe I succeeded to capture the essence but there's no way to capture the essence because the experience is not confined to psychology is mortifi it's mortifying yes the experience in itself is mortifying I think you face you come face to face with your own possible annihilation the narcissist needs to negate hate you he needs to convert you into an ancient Egyptian mummy he needs
• 30:30 - 31:00 to he needs to take away your vitality your independence your agency your personal autonomy because they all threaten him but why because he has created an internal object he has created an image of you in his mind and this is the process that I call snapshotting and it is known in psychology as introjection so he's created an avatar in his mind that
• 31:00 - 31:30 represents you but then he continues to interact with this internal object not with you and the more you deviate from this inter internal object the more you diverge from this internal object the more threatening you become you're threatening his inner balance because if a narcissist has an in image of you an avatar of you a snapshot of you as you are right now this very second let's say and then the next thing I don't know you
• 31:30 - 32:00 change your hairstyle you change your your eyelasses you you have a new friend you have a new friend you that m or you you travel or you find a new job or whatever that moment you have you you drifted away from the internal object the internal object is fixated mhm and as you drifted away as you drift away from the internal object you're threatening it you're threatening the cohesion and the functionality of the
• 32:00 - 32:30 internal object you're threatening the narcissist peace of mind so you become the enemy become a persary object and he has to to he has to kill you metaphorically of course not not physically right right majority of cases but he has to kill you metaphorically he has to deanimate you take away your animation so that you're no longer threatened there's a famous movie by Hitchcock Alfred Hitchco mhm uh the
• 32:30 - 33:00 movie Psycho in in the movie it's a 1960 I think in the movie Psycho there's this guy his name is Norman Bates and there's a motel he runs a motel somewhere and there's his mother he killed his mother he literally killed her mhm so he's killed her and then he mummified her he embombed her and then every every morning he comes to her bedroom where the where the mommy is
• 33:00 - 33:30 not mommy with a oh mommy with a with a u like the ancient Egyptian mommy right where the corpse is where the body is and he takes her out of bed and he washes her and he puts her in a chair facing the outer the landscape the outer court every evening he comes back he takes her out of her chair he washes her puts her to bed kisses her forehead and that's it this is the ideal partner of the narcissist an ancient Egyptian
• 33:30 - 34:00 mommy sitting on a chair all day in bed all night unlikely to challenge him disagree with him criticize him have a life of her own have friends have a job be independent have agency all these are no nos in narcissism they're not good for the narcissist mental health so that's why the narcissist ends up devaluing and discarding all all his partners basically because as a as a
• 34:00 - 34:30 maternal figure um if you deviate from the internal object you betray the narcissist you are a mother that betrays him and initially you know there's this concept of narcissistic abuse which as I said I was the first to describe and very long time for a very long time I couldn't figure out why would the narcissist abuse his intimate partner chosen intimate partner so soon like why
• 34:30 - 35:00 so soon why not like after four years or seven years or whatever and then then it occurred to me if the narcissist sees you as a mother he has to test you he has to make sure that you love him no matter what that you would love him unconditionally so he pushes your buttons he abuses you right he misbehaves and he he's is testing you he's monitoring you all the time if I do this if I cheat on you would you still
• 35:00 - 35:30 love me if I slap you would you still love me if I verbally abu humiliate you would you still love me is there anything I can do so that you stop loving me if you if you stick around no matter what then you're a good enough mother you've passed the test narcyic abuse is a functional way of testing your maternal quality how much of a good mother are you essentially
• 35:30 - 36:00 wow so nothing you can do will be good enough for the narcissist basically so they just want you to just be dead just a m just mummified just Yes adorement yeah that's a common delusion or illusion among among victims mhm victims have what we call autoplastic defenses in other words victims blame blame themselves so they say "Had I only done this or had I only not done this or if I only loved him
• 36:00 - 36:30 more had I only loved him more if I could have done this." I mean they they keep retro retro analyzing everything and you know this is there's nothing but I mean absolutely nothing you could have done the shared fantasy is an automaton it's an automatic mechanism set in motion the minute you agree to share the fantasy at that second the mechanism is set in motion it's inexurable it's
• 36:30 - 37:00 automatic it's unstoppable it's stronger than the narcissist stronger than you and both of you cannot stop it never mind what you do so I mean just get stop analyzing and cross and blaming yourself and feeling guilty and and what if you know counterfactual history what what if I I've done this or I haven't done this it's nonsense a waste of time it would have ended exactly the same you would have you found yourself exactly where
• 37:00 - 37:30 you are never mind how much you loved him how much you serviced him how much great sex you had you had I mean none of his how much submissive how submissive you were how subordinate and subjugated how self-denying and self-negating forget all this none of this works none of this works well professor I guess that is pretty much it okay I think that you
• 37:30 - 38:00 pretty much answered everything so what I got from this whole conversation is that the narcissist will never change and I think that's important for anybody that will see this to know the narcissist just never change i'm so grateful for your time i really am ju just to respond to this last point because it's a great point and then we'll say goodbye okay um there are two engines of change either you realize something's wrong
• 38:00 - 38:30 with you and you change or you have an incentive to change you know some great offer or whatever and you you change you want someone someone very badly or you want a job very badly or something and you change both both of these don't exist in narcissism the narcissist never perceive never thinks that something is wrong with him mhm here goes the first engine of growth and transformation personal transformation and the narcissist considers himself to
• 38:30 - 39:00 be godlike already godlike no one can make him an irresistible offer he he already is everything he cannot learn anything he cannot improve he cannot experience positive emotions like love and joy and so narcissist in narcissism there are zero incentives to change and all the incentives to keep keep going as you are because you're gone you know okay well thank you for your time
• 39:00 - 39:30 professor thank you i hope I haven't overwhelmed you no I'm so over I'm traumatized yes you are you look traumatized okay okay take care thank you for Byebye thank you thank you for having me