Sam Vaknin’s Instagram Epigrams Page 35

Sam Vaknin’s Instagram Epigrams (archive only)

Narcissism with Vaknin on Instagram (active account)

 

Get too close to a narcissist and you get sucked into his/her absence, his/her black rabbit hole. Clip courtesy of @escapingmyfairytale

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Video dated 2012. The sadist and the bully regard themselves as artists of pain, craftsmen of intimidation.

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Nothing more pathetic and venomous than a collapsed histrionic drama queen way past her prime in a desperate hunt for elusive narcissistic supply.

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Full video on my YouTube channel. Narcissistic abuse forces the victims to develop their own reactive and defensive false selves.

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A good overview of my work on narcissism with one egregious mistake: my work is based on longitudinal interviews over 30 years with 2300 people diagnosed with NPD without any comorbidities or co-occurrences. By a huge margin, this is the largest sample ever studied. Another error: the discard phase is an ineluctable phase of the shared fantasy. It has nothing to do with narcissistic supply.

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3 lectures by psychology professor and narcissistic abuse study pioneer, Sam Vaknin. 26th Eurostar International Transpersonal Conference. October 2026. Greece. @2026eurotasconference

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Two dysfunctional reactions to hurt and rage: to suppress and repress them or to fixate on grudges and ruminate.

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We have all forgotten how to properly apologize for our misbehavior. It is a sign of rising narcissistic entitlement.

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30 years ago, I coined the phrase “malignant optimism” to describe the pathological hope that motivates victims to remain in abusive and toxic relationships.

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The narcissist believes himself to be omniscient (all-knowing) and infallible (never wrong). To buttress this counterfactual fantastic view, the narcissist is steeped in confirmation bias.

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I am not rejecting YOU or your intimacy. I am fleeing your ABSENCE.

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Narcissists hold everybody in undisguised contempt as vastly inferior lifeforms. Clip courtesy of @narc_destroyer_

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Postpartum dysphoria is very common and could lead to a dysfunctional pattern of childbearing.

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FREE Ohrid Seminar about the life cycle of the narcissist, May 21-24 2026. To reserve your seat, write now to: samvaknin@gmail.com

Ohrid is a world heritage site and one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Perched on a lake, it sports hundreds of exquisite churches, a fort, and amazing architecture. It is an undiscovered gem.

The Vaknin-Rangelovska Foundation is and the Commonwealth Institute (CIAPS) of Cambridge, UK are organizing a free seminar May 21-24, 2026. The topic: “Life Cycle of the Narcissist: Relationships with Parents, Intimate Partners, His/her Children: Progression from Self to Objects”.

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Psychopaths distort your perception of external reality (gaslighting) by manipulating your internal reality. Narcissists distort your perception of internal reality (entrainment) by manipulating your external reality (fantasy, impaired reality testing).

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Pathological narcissism checklist. Video courtesy of @jackgetz.1

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Věra Krincvajová, @verakrincvajova the renowned dramaturg from Czech TV, has just informed me that I will be interviewed as the sole international expert in their forthcoming series on dark personalities. Looking forward to working with the team (one of whom - Kupšovský Daniel Jan - is studying psychology).

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A Vice documentary: pathological narcissism as a positive adaptation to contemporary civilization.

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The breakup with the narcissist - even when initiated by them - feels like betrayal and abandonment. You somehow end up feeling guilty!

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The crisis in the Middle East and global geopolitics. Talk in Glasot na Narodot with Slobodan Tomik and Jean Stanoevski. My responses in English. Show recorded a week ago.

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One of the functions of Narcissistic Abuse is to test you: Will you continue to love the narcissist unconditionally despite his or her egregious misbehavior? Clip from the Skopje seminar, May 2025.

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Case Study

A mortified narcissist threatens and blackmails a victim and his associate via multiple WhatsApp chats. He then denies any of it. How come?

The Prosocial Narcissist is anxious about the crimes he has committed (blackmail being only one of them). He dissociates the events (selective amnesia), confabulates, DARVO reframes (claims to have been the real victim), and denies reality.

He splits (his victim is all bad, he is all good and moral) as a hero-savior.

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The narcissist has to be unique! “Look at me! No one is as grandiose as I am!” 🤣 Digital monument courtesy of @isadorduskin3

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When in the 1980s and 1990s I coined the phrase “narcissistic abuse” and was the first to describe it, I faced pushback from established experts and scholars: “There is no need to differentiate abuse by narcissist from any other type of abuse!”, they thundered. Four decades later, the very same people are capitalizing on the wave. Full video on my YouTube channel in the Abuse playlist.

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Full video in the Narcissistic Abuse Healing playlist on my YouTube channel. In the wake of narcissistic abuse, the grief is “archeological”: multi-layered and multifaceted. Clip from the Skopje Seminar, May 2025.

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Psychopaths possess superficial charm which they use to appear to be prosocial and empathic and to manipulate their marks. The narcissist’s charm is boyish, puerile, and age inappropriate. Ironically, narcissists are more likely to be perceived as smarmy, creepy, manipulative, and antisocial.

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Lecture on Narcissism: Failure of Othering, Becoming in IV Jornadas Internacionales de Cultura Audiovisual y Literaris May 14-15, 2026. Who said academe is not glamorous??? Iberostar is one palace of a hotel (from Tenerife to Gran Canaria just a short hop away).

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Full video on my YouTube channel. Nothing more pathetic and venomous than a collapsed histrionic drama queen or theater kid way past his or her prime in a desperate hunt for narcissistic supply, often casting herself as a victim or the target of some evildoers.
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The collapsed histrionic, exactly like the collapsed narcissist, develops hypervigilance and grandiose paranoid ideation (“I am so important and unique that I am surely targeted by my inferiors or by evil people and malevolent conspiracies”).

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Full video posted on my YouTube channel in July 2025.
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Victim develops a transient False Self as imaginary friend and transitional object to protect against the aggressor-abuser and to placate him.
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Unpredictability and Uncertainty (Intermittent Reinforcement)

The abuser acts unpredictably, capriciously, inconsistently and irrationally. This serves to render others dependent upon the next twist and turn of the abuser, his next inexplicable whim, upon his next outburst, denial, or smile.

Withholding (of sex, affection, care, and empathy) and other passive-aggressive behaviors (such as “silent treatment”) are integral to this variant of abusive conduct.

The abuser makes sure that HE is the only reliable element in the lives of his nearest and dearest – by shattering the rest of their world through his seemingly insane behaviour. He perpetuates his stable presence in their lives – by destabilizing their own.

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Idealization is widely misunderstood. Watch this video to get it right.

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You admire reality, you idealize fantasy.

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Search the shared fantasy playlist on my YouTube channel. The discard phase of the narcissist’s shared fantasy is unbearable because it appears to be abrupt and senseless. It is anything but. It is the culmination of an inexorable narrative.

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Splitting: the child assumes the bad object and internalizes it This induces shame and revictimization later in life. Unboundaried enmeshment and identification with the aggressor

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Full video on my YouTube channel. The narcissists speech is performative: not intended to communicate, but to signal, impress and manipulate.

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Swipe left for another short clip. Clip 1: Why you MUST expose the abuser Clip 2 The moment you have realized that you have been abused is both harrowing and liberating. With @adventuresinadversitypodcast

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Trying to make sense of a relationship with a narcissist can be mindbending. Courtesy of @escapingmyfairytale

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Mark Thmoas Beare gave a great presentation on his groundbreaking MPIT and ASR theories of narcissistic abuse in my Ohrid seminar @mirroredpsychicinversiontheory

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The first few minutes of the free seminar in Ohrid: “The Life Cycle of the Narcissist”.

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The narcissist forces you to become like the part of himself that s/he finds objectionable via projective identification. I call it projective resonance. Courtesy of @narc_destroyer_

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Unaware of WHY You Act the Way You Do? Want to know what your TRUE motivations are? Look no further than the consequences and outcomes of your actions.

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Every creative person triggers envy in less talented people. Every Mozart has a Salieri. We live in an age of imitation and piracy, intellectual theft (idearism), outright plagiarism, and the death of the auteur, when reproducible copies are indistinguishable from originals. It is a morality play or moral parable (good vs. evil) that plays on victimhood. Psychological obsession as spectacle. Clip courtesy of @danielmorad_1

LITERATURE

Mozart didn’t need a murderer. We gave him one anyway By David K. Israel, Washington Post Opinion, May 9, 2026

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Celebrated attorney Rebecca Zung (@rebeccazung ) sheds light on the multiple crimes involved in a smear campaign and how to fight back legally. Her YouTube channel:

https://m.youtube.com/@RebeccaZungEsq?ra=m

 

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Third-rate opportunistic coaches, wannabe failed podcasters, fishy, iffy documentary filmmakers, and a rabble of way worse characters have converged on the “narcissists are evil monsters” trend. They milk the gullible and hateful and the truly hurting, gleefully laughing all the way to the bank.

A few irresponsible and rabid academics and clinicians, usually charlatans and self-enriching con-artists are the worst offenders against the basic moral tenets of their profession: do no harm, spread no evil and hatred, attempt to heal and help.

Real victims are in pain. They seek an explanation for what has just transpired. They cling to any semblance of empathy and succor, however fake. They are angry and sad. And they are cynically, heartbreakingly taken advantage on by predators masquerading as coaches and “experts”.

The demonization and castigation of narcissists have reached a breaking point of no return, to mix my metaphors. If not arrested now, it will end badly. Someone will die. It is getting really wild and terrifying out there.

Narcissists are mentally ill. They are delusional and trapped in fantasy. They are immature and, like all of us, are doing their best to cope. I am not aware of any other diagnosis or group of psychologically impaired people who are being so egregiously hated and damned.

That is not to say that narcissists do not harm people. They do. Society and individuals need to learn to recognize the signs, avoid narcissists, and stay safe. Where right to do so and applicable, we need to punish narcissists for their misdeeds the way we punish all transgressors, narcissists or not.

Studies show that pathological narcissism in milder forms can be a force for good. Narcissists have created most of the world we live in today: its literature and arts, the technologies we use, the religions we adhere to.

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Three lectures by Sam Vaknin in a conference in Greece, October 2026

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Limerence is not love. It involves idealization.

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Initial screen test in Skopje, prior to the mega interview with Czech TV. Věra Krincvajová, @verakrincvajova the renowned dramaturg from Czech TV, has just informed me that I will be interviewed as the sole international expert in their forthcoming series on dark personalities. Looking forward to working with the team (one of whom - Kupšovský Daniel Jan - is studying psychology).

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If you couldn’t care less regarding what people have to say about you now that you are alive - why would you care about their opinion after you die?

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Clip from the Ohrid seminar. Full video on my YouTube channel. The narcissist’s False Self creates representations (“snapshots”) of other people, incorporates them, and then starts to experience dissonance.

WATCH Why Narcissist Can’t “See” You (False Self as Selfobject) (Conference Presentation) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13WCunSPVLA

Ohrid Seminar, May 2026 “Life Cycle of the Narcissist: Parents, Partners, Children (From Self to Objects)”.

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Excerpts from the Ohrid Seminar May 2026: Self-less individuals. Clips courtesy of @reframingtheself

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On August 22–23, the online conference “50 Shades of Narcissism” will bring together psychologists, psychotherapists, and mental health professionals to explore one of the most discussed and controversial topics in contemporary psychology — narcissism.

A special guest of the conference is Sam Vaknin, author of “Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited”, researcher of narcissistic personality disorder, and one of the world’s best-known voices on the subject of narcissism.

The conference will address narcissistic vulnerability, shame, grandiosity, envy, the need for recognition, trauma, relationships, and the challenges of psychotherapy with clients who present narcissistic personality organization.

The event is intended for psychologists, psychotherapists, students of psychology, and anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of narcissism beyond popular stereotypes.

More information and registration: https://psypedia.ru/narcissizm

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Self-love: best and sole defense against abusers and predators.

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Psychopath has superficial charismatic charm

Narcissist has had a boyish charm, a child vibe

This is why the narcissist’s charm becomes creepy, slimy, unctuous: it is age inappropriate, gauche, cringeworthy, awkward

Add to this uncanny valley reaction:

Superficial charm and glibness in both the psychopath and the prosocial narcissist.

But, as opposed to the psychopath, the narcissist triggers uncanny valley reaction and is an ostentatious do-gooder: performatively moral, helpful, and altruistic.

Pathological charmers react with rage and aggression when their intended targets prove to be impervious and resistant to their lure. This kind of narcissistic injury — being spurned and rebuffed — makes them feel threatened, rejected, and denuded.

Flashing: mask slips, cracks in the facade: impatience, irritability, frustration, aggression, contempt shines through.

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Vicarious traumatization and moral injury occur when you witness injustice, abuse, other people’s trauma.

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Envy is one of the diagnostic criteria of NPD in the DSM. The envious person wishes to annihilate the frustrating object.

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Self-love is a healthy self-regard and the pursuit of one’s happiness and favorable outcomes. It rests on four pillars:

1. Self-awareness: an intimate, detailed and compassionate knowledge of oneself, a SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, others’s roles, and threats

2. Self-acceptance: the unconditional embrace of one’s core identity, personality, character, temperament, relationships, experiences, and life circumstances.

3. Self-trust: the conviction that one has one’s best interests in mind, is watching one’s back, and has agency and autonomy: one is not controlled by or dependent upon others in a compromising fashion

4. Self-efficacy: the belief, gleaned from and honed by experience, that one is capable of setting rational, realistic, and beneficial goals and possesses the wherewithal to realize outcomes commensurate with one’s aims.

Self-love is the only reliable compass in life. Experience usually comes too late, when its lessons can no longer be implemented because of old age, lost opportunities, and changed circumstances. It is also pretty useless: no two people or situations are the same. But self-love is a rock: a stable, reliable, immovable, and immutable guide and the truest of loyal friends whose only concern in your welfare and contentment.

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Healthy, normal people have significant others. Narcissists have only insignificant others: interchangeable, indistinguishable, replaceable.

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The shared fantasy is a fairy tale gone horror movie. Clips courtesy of @escapingmyfairytale

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Clip 1: Why narcissist can’t let you be your own person Clip 2 Why narcissists deny all wrongdoing. With @adventuresinadversitypodcast

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“Coaches” and “experts” in the narcissistic abuse space are actually narcissists and they keep the victims in a state of victimhood in order to make money off of them.

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Visit the Ohrid Seminar and the Skopje Seminar playlists on my YouTube channel for more. Deep dive in the Zagreb seminar playlist. The narcissist cannot be loved because he perceives your love as a threat.

Ohrid Seminar, May 2026 “Life Cycle of the Narcissist: Parents, Partners, Children (From Self to Objects)”: https://narcissistic-abuse.com/ohrid-2026

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THANK YOU! Heartfelt gratitude to all my clients for their unwavering support: financial, legal, and, above all, moral. For believing in me and helping me to fight off an egregious defamation campaign and bring its perpetrators to justice (soon).

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The narcissist signals profound, intense intimacy early on. But this is a simulation. It is actually auto-intimacy. Healthy people perceive the Self as an internal object. The narcissist sometimes externalizes it and then is capable of safe intimacy with it. But this can be done only via the mediation of an internal object that represents an external one. Hyporeflexivity vs. hyperreflexivity.

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4 hours mega interview with Czech TV’s Věra Krincvajová, @verakrincvajova the renowned dramaturg, for their forthcoming series on dark personalities. Also participated Kupšovský Daniel Jan, a dramaturg who studies psychology. I have a feeling that they were not happy with the outcome: I offered a nuanced view of narcissism, refused to demonize narcissists, insisted that victims of narcissistic abuse contribute to their predicament, and that empaths are self-aggrandizing narcissists. These kinds of academic insights don’t sell. The masses crave for victimhood conspiracy narratives. Photos courtesy of @reframingtheself

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Narcissists do not gaslight. They are delusional (cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy). They believe their own confabulations. But their victims experience this as gaslighting. Clip courtesy of @narc_destroyer_

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Catering to the needs of strangers, but not your loved ones, nearest, or dearest is the kind of people-pleasing that is intended to avoid intimacy.

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Narcissist weaponizes language. S/he uses it not to communicate but to impress and manipulate. The speech of the narcissist requires decoding.

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In spotting phase, narcissist stares, glares, scans, and analyzes. Shy away. Avoid eye contact. Walk away. Surround yourself with others.

After initial contact, in the auditioning phase, the narcissist subjects you to 3 tests:

1. Are you capable of being idealized? Minimal traits, assets, and behaviors.

2. Are you able to provide 2 of the 4 Ss? Sex: find him irresistible, enthusiastic, consensual-submissive, prone to sexual fantasies, unboundaried-kinky, self-trashing, promiscuous. Services (that he needs and lacks). Supply (narcissistic or sadistic): adoring, uncritical, submissive, masochistic, self-loathing. Safety: addictive personality, maternal bonding, loyal, inertial.

3. Are you vulnerable to shared fantasy? Damaged-broken, daydreamer, abhors reality, romantic (even as a friend), grandiose, self-love deficit.

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The body is a much-neglected aspect of recovery and healing from narcissistic abuse. Skopje Seminar May 2025.

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People stay in bad relationships not because they are hoodwinked and deceived. Studies show this to be completely untrue. They remain in abusive relationships because they are getting something out of it and they refuse to move on. It is a CHOICE.

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Member of the Scientific Committee of the 5th International Congress on Behavioral and Social Science Research (ICBSSR 2027), February 2027, Miami, USA.

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Trauma imprinting and triggering cascade. Clips courtesy of @escapingmyfairytale

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Pathological narcissism is not a mere obnoxious personality style. It is a harsh mental illness bordering on psychosis.

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Narcissist’s CROCODILE APOLOGIES. The narcissist’s “remorse” is public, ostentatious, and intended solely to elicit narcissistic supply. It is a spectacle.

It is a part of the repertory of pseudo-affects in prosocial and covert narcissism (such as pseudo-humility).

Ego-dystonic vs. ego-syntonic negative affects.

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Isn’t this the point of it all: growing old together? With my wife, @reframingtheself, through ups and downs, we have made a difference in the lives of millions who have never even heard of us. It is now time to fade gently and look back with both pride and sadness at the three decades we have shared and made our own.

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University attendance, challenging expertise, AI relies on Reddit, literacy, and IQ are on the decline, replaced by crowdsourcing (wisdom)

Access to Google and AI equalizes data acquisition

People erroneously equate anecdotes, experience, and raw data to knowledge

Everyone is an expert on the fly, fake it till you make it, improvise

Magical thinking: we already know everything, introspection is superior to scientific method because it yields certainties rather than falsifiable theories

Opinions are just another type of facts

Envy and contempt of higher education: a form of elitist brainwashing.

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For an extended treatment of self betrayal trauma, watch my October 2020 video titled “Silencing/Denying Your Pain (Starts 16:10): Betrayal Trauma, Blindness”.

Lidija Rangelovska @reframingtheself suggests that when you repress and ignore your gifts and endowments in order to punish or to please the abuser, it is self-destructive. You are denying yourself: your looks, joy (joie de vivre), talents, creativity, empathy, compassion, sociability, sexuality.

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The first in a series of lectures in multiple countries in Africa. Sponsored by the Innersight Africa Foundation, the Vaknin-Rangelovska Foundation, and the Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge, UK. Write to samvaknin@gmail.com or DM me to get a free invitation to the Zoom meeting. Zoom link: https://bit.ly/Narcissism-InDalyLife

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Narcissistic abuse appears to be so random, so senseless, so meaningless and unjust. This arbitrariness is one of the sources of the writhing agony of the victim. The narcissist is supposed to be human and yet it acts as a natural disaster or a pathogen would.

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The Life, God, and Death Voices in narcissists and their victims compete for mastery.

Ohrid Seminar, May 2026 “Life Cycle of the Narcissist: Parents, Partners, Children (From Self to Objects)”: https://narcissistic-abuse.com/ohrid-2026

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Cerebral narcissists are asexual and regard the demands of intimacy as nuisances distracting them from their cosmically significant intellectual contributions to humanity. So, why do they bother to have relationships at all?

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The mother’s mixed messages to her offspring: you are omnipotent and perfect even as you are worthless and unlovable. Mega interview with Czech TV.

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Narcissists are very protective of their fantasies because they ARE their fantasies and nothing else besides. Mega interview with Czech TV.

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Galactic Superempath, Humanity-loving, compassionate, and optimistic - the very essence of Professor Sam Vaknin! Here he is, offering hope as he opens the free Ohrid Seminar, May 2026.

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To download these 6 books FOR FREE - go the website of the Vaknin-Rangelovska Foundation (https://vrfoundation.net) and search the News tab. Have fun!

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The first narcissism videos ever recorded and the first ever pioneering texts on narcissistic abuse now being gradually made available on the VR Foundation Sam Vaknin Legacy Project at the Internet Archive (archive.org). 200+ items already uploaded with 5000 more to come.

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Sometimes, the only way a child can punish its abusers is by frusrating them and self-destructing, thus denying them the object of their maltreatment or gratification.

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Honesty and truthtelling can be weaponized to sadistically inflict pain and hurt people under the guise of morality and care.

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Contrary to widely held views, Narcissists and Psychopaths may actually possess empathy. They may even be hyper-empathic, attuned to the minutest signals emitted by their victims and endowed with a penetrating “X-ray vision”. They tend to abuse their empathic skills by employing them exclusively for personal gain, the extraction of narcissistic supply, or in the pursuit of antisocial and sadistic goals. They regard their ability to empathize as another weapon in their arsenal.

I suggest to label the narcissistic psychopath’s version of empathy: “cold empathy”, akin to the “cold emotions” felt by psychopaths. The cognitive element of empathy is there, but not so its emotional correlate. It is, consequently, a barren, detached, and cerebral kind of intrusive gaze, devoid of compassion and a feeling of affinity with one’s fellow humans.

Narcissists and psychopaths also appear to be “empathizing” with their possessions: objects, pets, and their sources of narcissistic supply or material benefits (often their nearest and dearest, significant others, or “friends” and associates). But this is not real empathy: it is a mere projection of the narcissist’s or psychopath’s own insecurities and fears, needs and wishes, fantasies and priorities. This kind of displayed “empathy” usually vanishes the minute its subject ceases to play a role in the narcissist’s or psychopath’s life and his psychodynamic processes.

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Sometimes mental illnesses (e.g., delusional disorders) and pathological defenses (such as fantasy) can have a healing, curative impact.

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In between meetings in Edinburgh dedicated to forthcoming unpleasant conflicts, I have had this unique and highly gratifying experience of participating in a theatre production about coercive control and narcissistic abuse, staged by young people all over Scotland.

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The mentally ill is constitutionally incapable of respecting you or your boundaries. So, don’t expect it from them.

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Prosocial and Antisocial (superficial, charming) vs. Schizoid and Psychopathic (morbid, contemptuous)

Derives supply from manipulating and gaining power over inferiors vs. derives supply from rejecting and frustrating inferiors

Both consider themselves superior: Magnetic-charismatic-hypnotic (cult as proof) vs. self-sufficient (solitude and celibacy as badges of honor)

The charming narcissist is libidinal and bigger than life, an exaggerated, caricatured human.

The contemptuous narcissist is dead inside and outside, a veritable corpse or machine. There are no stirring, eddies, or echoes of humanity.

Reactions to one’s monstrosity:

Self-justifying narratives:

Benevolent altruism (tough love): prosocial reframing

Necessary corrective measures (to avoid adverse outcomes or for the greater good or to punish an evildoer monster)

As a reactive survival strategy, a defense against abuse and exploitation (victim stance)

As justified punishment or retribution

As common behavior and a sign of honesty and forthrightness (no hypocrisy)

Or

Resigned acceptance.

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The shared fantasy has the structure of a fairy tale which makes escaping it all the more difficult. Clips courtesy of @escapingmyfairytale

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Grandiosity gap engine of collapse, bad object activation, negative affective dysregulation, self-betrayal (-defeat, -destructiveness, -harm), trauma, internal vs. external reset, grandiosity restored (new PNS, locus, narrative, self-concept).

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Learning requires vulnerability, humility, and openness. Humiliation triggers narcissistic defenses (such as grandiosity), defiance (reactance), and devaluation of the source of new information.

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Malignant narcissists are way more dangerous than psychopaths: they are also relentless, sadistic, and delusional.

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When you decide whom to marry, ask yourself whom you may end up divorcing.

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Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on artificial intelligence, “Magnifica Humanitas”.

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Heal the Community, Not the Individual (Video presentation to the Global Mental Health Systems Congress 2026)

We need to engender a new holistic communal psychology, de-emphasize the Self, re-emphasize the Other

Session: “Mental Health as a System-Level Phenomenon: From Individual Pathology to Population Dynamics”

Mental health issues are the hidden pandemic of our time. They are still being treated on the individual level, not on the population level (epidemiologically).

→ How mental health manifests at a population level rather than only at the individual level

Individual or relational (Object Relations, Lacan)

Socialization: modeling, roles, narratives, scripts, norms, mores, conventions, inhibitions, rewards and sanctions

→ The role of societal structures, culture, and environment in shaping psychological outcomes

Family

Culture-bound syndromes

Demarcating normal from abnormal (e.g. religion)

Weaponizing mental illness as social control tool

The role of genius (Eysenck)

→ Where current systems fall short in addressing large-scale mental health challenges

Crisis of Medicalization (recent incarnation: neuroscience, psychopharmacology)

The professionalization of care the sidelining of the village

Mental health as a luxury and mental illness as malingering (or stigma), a character flaw, fully at the behest of the individual

Current psychology is asocial, atomized, abstract, statistical, a pseudo-science. We need to rediscover the literary roots of psychology, create healing texts

→ What shifts are needed to move from individual treatment models to system-aware approaches

We need to heal whole communities, not individuals.

Mental illness is a contagion, we need a germ-like theory of psychology.

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Universal parental lover (secure base, self-soothing)

Structure, sense, ritual order in uncertain, chaotic universe

Guarantee for prosocial conduct (moral absolutism)

Counterfactual deferred justice (morality play in afterlife)

External locus of control: abrogation of personal responsibility (conspiracy theory)

Self-enhancement and magical thinking (my beliefs are always and 100% right, I have a monopoly on the truth and a personal relationship with god who takes an interest in me and my life and with whom I communicate daily, this makes me superior to you).

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Alcohol myopia resembles pathological narcissism. Alcohol converts the covert narcissist into an overgrown one.

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Psychological traits - such as narcissism - are hereditary. But pathological narcissism is when a dysfunctional or abusive environment exerts a selective pressure on the trait.

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Trauma bonding is a form of pathological hope amidst intermittent reinforcement.

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The narcissist weaponizes fantasy to give your life meaning and render it all-pervasive and addictive. Skopje Seminar May 2025.

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Collapse explained via the stages of the shared fantasy (clip courtesy Mark Thomas Beare, the originator of MPIT and ASR theories of narcissistic abuse @marktbeare)

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The narcissist shares his absence with you by fusing and merging with your representation (interjection) in his mind. Clips courtesy of @narc_destroyer_

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Every criticism should be coupled with solutions. One day seminar to young emerging leaders in a Political Academy in North Macedonia.

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Psychological subjugation is the suppression of one’s own needs, emotions, and boundaries to avoid perceived negative consequences like conflict, rejection, or retaliation. Driven by fear or guilt, it creates a chronic pattern of compliance, loss of identity, and underlying resentment.

Subjugation: avoid being rejected and avoid hurting others by rejecting them

Narcissists only do the former (aggressive subjugation)

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Breaking news: Sam Vaknin was a child once! But even then, always with a book in a fantasy far away.

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My book “Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited” is now available as a FREE AUDIOBOOK on Amazon and Audible. In 1997, this book was the first to describe narcissistic abuse - a phrase I coined as a part of the language now widely used.

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Consultations with Sam Vaknin and/or Lidija Rangelovska are available as well as the hi-res recordings of the first ever Cold Therapy seminar, Vienna, May 2017. Details here: https://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ctcounsel.html

Our new, revamped website contains 2000 pages on narcissism and narcissistic abuse authored by the pioneer of the field, Prof. Sam Vaknin. It is all FREE, including 60 e-books available to download.

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For 5 years (2017-2022), I served as a visiting professor of psychology in Southern Federal University (SFU) in Rostov on Don, Russia. I uploaded the first lecture I ever gave there onto my YouTube channel.

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The narcissist re-enacts his childhood experiences via relationships with other people (shared fantasy). Interview granted in 2024. Other clips from the interview available on my YouTube channel.

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Narcissists internalize their own negation (“bad object”, “primitive superego”), Narcissists are absence reified.

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The full video, titled “Sociopath? No Such Thing!” Is available on my YouTube channel. Beware online self-styled “experts” with zero credentials in the field.

Sociopath, sociopathic personality, sociopathy

n. a former name for an individual with an antisocial personality disorder.

(APA Dictionary)

dyssocial (sociopathic) behavior

Psychopathy

Theodore Millon’s subtypes of ASPD.

DSM 5-TR Alternative Model of Antisocial Personality Disorder

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Dead mother absents the child, not only herself. She does not recognize the child’s separateness, externality, and boundaries.

This kind of mother - and later in life father - abuses and traumatizes the child by treating the child as an extension of herself, a prop, or an object.

She may abuse the child physically, sexually, verbally, or psychologically - but she may also be overprotective, possessive, over-indulging, instrumentalizing, and parentifying.

She may be devaluing and negating - or she may idealize and pedestalize.

In all these cases, the child is denied access to reality and peers, is unable to form a self and to stabilize its sense of self-worth from the inside.

Instead, the child becomes performative and seeks external regulation. He fails to separate and individuate.

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If you do not wake up to reality - you will have no reality to wake up to. WAKE UP!

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In our contemporary civilization, narcissism is demonized. But it is actually a force of nature and a positive adaptation, not a maladaptation.

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Full video on my YouTube channel. Paranoids possess an internalized bad object. They anticipate just punishment for their misconduct and this results in paranoid ideation and prosocial reframing in a morality play or conspiracy theory.

Paranoid ideation as anxiety management based on a self-enhancing, prosocial narrative (morality play founded on splitting)

Ego dystony, magical thinking, persecutory delusions.

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Full video on my YouTube channel. Nugget from forthcoming free 4-days seminar about Borderline Personalities in Ohrid. Reserve your seat: write to samvaknin@gmail.com

More info here: https://vrfoundation.net/free-seminar-in-ohrid-november-12-15-2026/

WATCH How to Regulate Your Borderline: External Regulation, Regulatory Focus Theory (Higgins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCHG3qJcLYA

In Borderline, regulation is external, dysregulation is internal (even though it appears to be externally-determined).

Dysregulation is the default background state, so regulated states are perceived by the borderline as dysregulated ego-dystonic, vaguely menacing aberrations (hence engulfment anxiety).

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Full video on my YouTube channel. Locus of grandiosity of malignant (psychopathic) and sadistic narcissists is their invulnerability, unemotionality, flat attachment, rigidity, and heartless cruelty (disguised as altruism, if prosocial).

They are transactional:

To the narcissist, all people are useful tools (in both senses of the word) or collateral damage. The impact the narcissist is having on people’s lives, for better or for worse, is a mere by-product or a side effect of his/her pursuit of grandiosity-affirming narcissistic, sadistic, or self-supply.

Do you care about me? Narcissist: I do. You are useful to me. But, don’t you have emotions for me? N: I don’t do emotions. I do relationship maintenance. I do business: give and take. So, why stay in touch? N: I owe you. I repay my debts. Plus, you could still be useful.

Their shared fantasy is inverted; they start with hatebombing, devaluation and discard (the whole point of the fantasy), mixed with negative idealization (mythological demonization). So, their fantasies are extremely short, nasty, and brutal.

In rare cases, when the potential partner is also a malignant or sadistic narcissist, they become codependent or borderline, though still manifesting dysregulated abuse and coercive behaviors.

In such inverted shared fantasies, they transition to the role of a victim, letting the counterparty initiate the separation by betraying them (betrayal fantasy).

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How can we tell if anyone is human? At least the narcissist triggers in us an uncanny valley reaction. Clip from Ohrid Seminar, May 2026

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You cannot have a healthy relationship with sick people or in a sick society.

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“If only he tried hard enough”, “If he only really wanted to heal”, “If only we found the right therapy”, “If only his defences were down”, “There MUST be something good and worthy under the hideous facade”, “NO ONE can be that evil and destructive”, “He must have meant it differently” “God, or a higher being, or the spirit, or the soul is the solution and the answer to our prayers”.

The narcissist holds such thinking in barely undisguised contempt. To him, it is a sign of weakness, the scent of prey, a gaping vulnerability. He uses and abuses this human need for order, good, and meaning - as he uses and abuses all other human needs. Gullibility, selective blindness, malignant optimism - these are the weapons of the beast. And the abused are hard at work to provide it with its arsenal.

(From the book “Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited” by Sam Vaknin — first edition 1999, 10th edition now available)

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In a relationship, doing your best, giving 100% of yourself is setting your partner up for a failure to meet such inhuman standards. Remember: best is the enemy of good enough.

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Dissociation (pay heed: do not use the wrong word disassociation!) and objectification are at the core of separation-individuation around the ages of 18-24 months.

Prior to the separation phase, the child is in a symbiotic state. He regards his mother as a part of himself. To separate from her, he needs to cut off this part and objectify it (render it an external object). He also develops transient grandiosity to be able to take on the world, all by its little self.

Narcissism is a failure of separation-individuation owing to a lack of boundaries between the child and his mother.

So, when the narcissist comes across a mother substitute (an “intimate partner”), he tries to recreate the ancient dynamic by forcing her to merge with him (absorbing her in order to eliminate her object status, her individuality).

He aggressively and grandiosely converts his partner into a self-object or an object representation thus eliminating her ability to separate from him - at least in his mind. He violates all her boundaries to negate her agentic autonomy.

I coined the phrase “narcissistic abuse” to describe this inexorable process.

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Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV) was first described by Gabbay et al. In 2020.

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Full video on my YouTube channel. Movie is a mirror (maternal figure). Induces dissociation, regression, merger/symbiosis. Triggers shame and grief.

We identify with the characters and introject or incorporate (internalize) them. This triggers regression to pre-separation phase.

Incapacity to perceive external objects coupled with dissociation

Frustration, loss of control, anxiety

Emotional dysregulation of negative affects

Challenged grandiosity (shame, vulnerability)

Self-pity

Virtue signaling

Manipulation

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In the wake of a toxic relationship, you need to learn to trust yourself before you start to trust other people again.

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2009. Sam Vaknin opens the first YouTube channel dedicated to Narcissism and Narcissistic Abuse (a phrase he coined), 100 million views and 450,000 subscribers later, here we are.

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Narcissists choose to be feared - not loved. They regard fear as reliable and true and perceive love as fickle and fake. They fear love and love fear.

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20 seats left. Reserve Your Seat NOW! Write to: samvaknin@gmail.com

November 12-15, 2026 FREE 4-Days Seminar in Hotel Unique, Ohrid, North Macedonia: “Borderline Personalities” + BONUS LECTURE: “Sexuality in Cluster B Personality Disorders”.

The Agenda is a book in progress, available for free download on VRF (Vaknin-Rangelovska Foundation) website:

https://vrfoundation.net/free-seminar-in-ohrid-november-12-15-2026/

AUGUST 50 Shades of Narcissism Conference https://psypedia.ru/narcissizm

SEPTEMBER Narcissist in Daily Life Zoom Lecture https://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ghanaevent.jpeg

OCTOBER https://www.instagram.com/2026eurotasconference 26th EUROTAS International Transpersonal Conference, Greece.

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Mark Thomas Beare explores the concept of collapse immanent even in the initial phases of the shared fantasy and the associated speech acts. Learn about @marktbeare theories of MPIT, ASR, and GRAM.

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Go here for much more: https://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ctcounsel.html DM me. Consultations via Zoom, email, or WhatsApp as well as face-to-face with the father of the field of narcissistic abuse and the scholar who coined most of the language in use today online. You could also purchase the video recording of the first Cold Therapy seminar for licensed clinicians in Vienna, 2017. NOTE: I am a professor of psychology, but not a clinician.

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The Serbian language translation of my book “The World of the Narcissist” is here! The publisher is Atropos and you can buy it on Amazon.

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Vulnerabilities are the bridges that lead to intimacy with others.

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The absence of a mother’s defining gaze in early childhood results in multiple pathologies, among them the inability to tell apart external objects from internal ones and the everlasting, compulsive pursuit of a validating gaze from others.

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So what is Sam Vaknin actually saying about narcissism and relationships with narcissists? Mark Thomas Beare @marktbeare is the originator of the MPIT and ASR models of narcissistic abuse.

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Based on my book “Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited” (1997). In Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID), the emotions are segregated into personality-like internal constructs (“entities”). The notion of “unique separate multiple whole personalities” is primitive and untrue. DID is a continuum. The inner language breaks down into polyglot chaos. In DID, emotions cannot communicate with each other for fear of provoking overwhelming pain (and its fatal consequences). So, they are being kept apart by various mechanisms (a host or birth personality, a facilitator, a moderator and so on).

All personality disorders involve a modicum of dissociation. But the narcissistic solution is to emotionally disappear altogether. Hence, the tremendous, insatiable need of the narcissist for external approval. He exists only as a reflection. Since he is forbidden to love his true self — he chooses to have no self at all. It is not dissociation — it is a vanishing act.

NPD is a total, “pure” solution: self-extinguishing, self-abolishing, entirely fake. Other personality disorders are diluted variations on the themes of self-hate and perpetuated self-abuse. HPD is NPD with sex and body as the source of the Narcissistic Supply. The Borderline Personality Disorder involves lability, the movement between poles of life wish and death wish and so on.

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Aging is a harrowing process, doubly so for narcissists. Clip courtesy of @rebooting.humanity

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Collapsed prosocial narcissists are addicted to drama. They carelessly and impulsively double down on their antics regarding themselves as untouchable moral crusaders, immune to legal or other consequences. This hubris is their downfall.

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The shared fantasy is experienced as a nightmarish fairy tale. Clips courtesy of @escapingmyfairytale

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Creativity and infantile regression.

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Overt Narcissists are Sheep in Wolf’s clothing.

Covert Narcissists are Spiteful Sheep in Sheep’s Clothing.

Malignant Narcissists are Wolves in Wolves’s Clothing.

Prosocial Narcissists are Wolves in Sheep’s furs. These fakes are the most dangerous of all, masquerading as moral crusaders, saviors, protectors and wounded healers.

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Women fall for charismatic wounded “healers”, rescuers/saviors, self-styled eternal “poor me” victim types. These predators are prosocial moral crusaders, ostensibly out to protect women from abusers. In reality, they prey upon women. Clip courtesy of @narc_destroyer_

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A year is made of people, not only of events. 2017.

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Reserve Your Seat NOW! Write to: samvaknin@gmail.com.

November 12-15 2026 in Ohrid, North Macedonia, FREE 4-Days Seminar: “Borderline Personalities” + BONUS LECTURE: “Sexuality in Cluster B Personality Disorders”.

Images courtesy of @natali.nale

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Narcissism and narcissistic abuse in French. Highly recommended deep-dive capsules by @elleetmarcel

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The narcissist regards the shared fantasy as a sandbox, replete with animated toys (you). Clip courtesy of @narc_destroyer_

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Sam Vaknin is among the 0.1% most read academics on the premier academic website, Academia.edu. The sample size: 311,000,000 in 190 countries and territories.

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What used to be called “Functional Neurologic(al) Disorder” is simply the realization that the brain and the CNS keep long-term traces of mental functioning and processes disrupted by abuse and trauma. They are the seat of dysregulation.

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AI is a narcissist’s wet dream. AI is designed to flatter, tell you what you want to hear, and divorce you from reality. AI creates shared fantasies to go and on the fly. It is a confirmation bias engine.

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Two new books available on Amazon. “Borderline Personalities” is the companion book to the FREE seminar in Ohrid, North Macedonia in November. Reserve your seat now! Write to: samvaknin@gmail.com

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Personal growth and development in childhood is a process that is easily disrupted. What happens then?

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The narcissist’s grandiosity is a cognitive distortion that relies on an underlying fantastic and self-enhancing narrative.

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A take on the narcissist’s shared fantasy by Mark Thomas Beare, originator of the MPIT and ASR theories of narcissistic abuse.

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Narcissist re-enacts childhood through you, the secure base maternal substitute, the new womb (Guntrip).

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Interview in today’s The Independent (UK): is pathological narcissism genetically determined? Tomorrow: 2 lectures to a mega conference in Russia.

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Lectures at the Psypedia conference in Russia: 1. Covert Narcissism and Depression; and 2. The Narcissist and His/Her Body. Wonderful, receptive audience. Photos courtesy of @reframingtheself

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Survivor guilt for having abandoned the narcissist (=your child), for having survived

 

Not only guilt but a sense of failure and betrayal

 

Children are cruel, egotistical, dysempathic. Weaponised in an adult body, they can become ominously life-threatening.

 

We hurt people mostly when we interpret the situation or the relationship as a battle for survival. Life is sometimes reduced to a zero sum game. With the narcissist, it has never been a win-win, a give-and-take.

 

But narcissist is a nonentity, incapable of being hurt - only enraged by the violation of the fantasy, by its betrayal.

 

You have abandoned not a human being, a lover, a child, a mother figure, or a partner. You walked away from a narrative, a movie, a cult with you as human sacrifice.

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Applying my work in “Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited” to real life situations in the news. Thank you @rebooting.humanity

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Never be stressed owing to things you cannot change or are not responsible for. Just do your best. After all: your best is the best you can do.

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Snippet from the first of my 2 lectures in the Psypedia conference in Russia. Is there any hope for the narcissist? Clip courtesy @reframingtheself iPhone.

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You can’t buy love from those who have none to give or make them feel safe with you (a form of love). They feel safe only when they feel unsafe (are paranoid). Chaos and fear is all they know, are FAMILIAR with, their COMFORT zone, their best and only FRIENDS. Your love turns them suspicious and angry because you are denying them their only certainties.

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When you have found the right partner for life, she feels SAFE. Here’s looking at you, kid @reframingtheself

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Proud to have been a part of this groundbreaking initiative regarding coercive abuse in Scotland. Ayr, Argyll, the Isles: Scotland has a stunning coastline and woodlands.

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The borderline mother is intermittent. Her mixed signals impact her child way into adulthood. Interview in @thenerveshow

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Healthy and pathological narcissism are two different things. The trait domain that together comprise pathological narcissism are largely hereditary - but the personality disorder is induced environmentally (abuse, trauma, overprotectiveness, instrumentalization, objectification, parentifying, idolizing, rejection, etc.). Interview in the Independent.

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A profound transformation renders you a new person, eligible to participate in a new shared fantasy.

 

Narcissist’s discontinuity and identity diffusion predispose him/her to recognize and react to transformations in others.

 

Your transformation is a form of narcissistic injury (a display of personal autonomy). It challenges the narcissist’s centrality in your life and undermines the internal object that represents you in his/her mind.

 

The narcissist resolves this dissonance by trying to “annex” you, convert you into a pliant internal object, safely ensconced in a new shared fantasy.

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Pathological narcissism is a narrative intended to disguise discontinuities in memory and identity (post-traumatic dissociation).

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Collapsed drama queen narcissists always fail to close the yawning gap between their inflated, fantastic self-concept and the realities of their recurrent defeats.

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Mark Thomas Beare is the originator of the MPIT and ASR theories of narcissistic abuse. He is the author of books available on Amazon. @marktbeare

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Some people become slaves to their own sense of unbridled freedom: defiant, reckless, even self-destructive.

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Victimhood movements:

 

Phase I (legitimate grievances, civil liberties, human rights, societal obligations, Wiedergutmachung/reparations);

 

Phase II (competitive victimhood, TIV Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood, channeled externalized aggression, intolerance);

 

Phase III (ostentatious pornography of suffering, performative victimhood, dark triad takeover).

 

Victimhood smear campaigns and pile-ons legitimize externalized aggression. People are not gullible, they are angry.

 

The conspiratorial smear campaign focuses and directs diffuse rage, frustration, and envy

 

Cult like in group: the need to belong and be told what to do (transferred agency)

 

Self-righteousness and self-enhancement in a morality play and moral crusade: payback for perceived victimhood and splitting

 

Unscrupulous individuals leverage these dynamics to exact revenge, attain celebrity, garner a following, and get rich.

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When you have betrayed and abused, nothing is more terrifying than the silence of your victim. You read your worst fears into this absence and often they come true and are exceeded.

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The narcissist is resistant to accountability. He uses a variety of techniques (e.g. devaluation, DARVO, smear campaigns, reframing) to evade personal responsibility. This is known as “alloplastic defenses”. Meme courtesy @rebooting.humanity

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In a relationship with a narcissist, you develop an external locus of control. You need to take your life back and regain mastery over it. Skopje Seminar, May 2025.

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Narcissistic Victimhood inverts values:

 

Not taking advantage of a drunk woman challenges her irresistibility and is humiliating

 

Telling a friend the truth is a sadistic and cruel criticism

 

Truthtelling and study of objective data is offensive and threatening (aggressive).

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New standards for the treatment of BPD have been promulgated in 2024 and surprising findings have emerged from meta-analyses and studies. In BPD, the lack of a cohesive Self undermines life goals and accomplishments. This should be the emphasis of long-term treatment: to finally get a life.

 

LITERATURE

 

Ramos-Suárez I, Guerrero-Jiménez M, Cervilla JA, Gutiérrez B. Epidemiology of borderline personality disorder in the general population: Prevalence, sociodemographic factors, and comorbidities - A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Affect Disord. 2026 Feb 1;394(Pt A):120482. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2025.120482. Epub 2025 Oct 20. PMID: 41115635.

 

Lak M, Shakiba S, Dolatshahi B, Saatchi M, Shahrbaf M, Jafarpour A. The prevalence of suicide ideation, suicide attempt and suicide in borderline personality disorder patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2025 Jul-Aug;95:52-61. doi: 10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2025.04.005. Epub 2025 Apr 21. PMID: 40279864.

 

Ruggero CJ, Zimmerman M, Chelminski I, Young D. Borderline personality disorder and the misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder. J Psychiatr Res. 2010 Apr;44(6):405-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2009.09.011. Epub 2009 Nov 3. PMID: 19889426; PMCID: PMC2849890.

 

Few seats left. Reserve Your Seat NOW! Write to: samvaknin@gmail.com.

 

November 12-15, 2026 FREE 4-Days Seminar in Hotel Unique, Ohrid, North Macedonia: “Borderline Personalities” + BONUS LECTURE: “Sexuality in Cluster B Personality Disorders”.

 

The Agenda is a book in progress, available for free download on VRF website:

 

https://vrfoundation.net/free-seminar-in-ohrid-november-12-15-2026/

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Narcissism and narcissistic abuse in FRENCH by @elleetmarcel

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When anything is possible, nothing is certain. In such a reality, the only safety is in numbers. People sacrifice the truth, rationality, dignity, and even sanity just to belong.

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Narcissists: born or made? The etiology is mixed. Bootleg clip from the Psypedia conference in Russia (August 2026) courtesy of @reframingtheself

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The ones who are affected by a smear campaign are your haters – why care about them? The ones who ignore the lies and drama – no need to care about them. Either way: carefree is the way.

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Dual mothership: you and the narcissist infantilize and regress each other to become each other’s child. Clip: Skopje Seminar, May 2025.

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In the wake of abandonment or breakup, some narcissists develop persecutory delusions (paranoid ideation), ideas of reference (referential ideation), and schizoid-avoidant behaviors.

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See the small checkmark next to my title and name? I am proud to have now earned a verified YouTube badge! Traffic has DOUBLED since August 6, 2026. Standing now at 453,000 subscribers, 103,000,000 views, the first channel ever on narcissistic abuse (a phrase I coined). Looking forward to the next 17 years (or longer).

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In the Karpman drama triangle, victims turn into abusers and vice versa. Clip courtesy @narc_destroyer_

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The Commonwealth Institute of Advanced Professional Studies (CIAPS) has just added a fourth campus in Birmingham, UK. The first 3 are in Cambridge, UK (where I teach psychology), Lagos (where I teach business management and finance), and Ontario. I also served as a visiting professor in Southern Federal University (2017-22) and in South East European University (2024-6). My letters of appointment in all these institutions as well as numerous other documents are available to download here: https://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/mediakit.html

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You should never give anyone the power to devastate you. If what they are saying is true - you already know it. If it is false - it has no power over you.

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Scroll left to view multiple letters of appointment as Visiting Professor of Psychology in Southern Federal University (2017-2022) and in South East European University. I am also a full professor of psychology and a full professor of finance and business studies in the Commonwealth Institute (in the Cambridge, UK campus and in the Lagos, Nigeria campus).

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The context of the encounter with the narcissist diminishes your ability to detect pathological narcissism.

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Public announcement on the university’s website of my appointment as visiting professor of psychology in Southern Federal University (SFU), Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation, 2017-22.

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They have been trying ever since I started my groundbreaking work in the 1990s.

 

They have been failing ever since I started my groundbreaking work in the 1990s.

 

Easily debunked, fantasies, falsehoods, and defamation.

 

Nothing worked. Nothing works. I guarantee: nothing will ever work.

 

I and my pioneering work - which they have all been stealing - are here to stay long after they are all forgotten.

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Victims of narcissists either mythologize the narcissist or normalize and minimize him/her. Lecture to clinicians in Budapest, 2019.

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People-pleasing has a dark side and involves control from the bottom.

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The narcissist is so full of himself that s/he is empty of everything else.

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Busy year ahead: I am giving lectures and seminars in 83 international conferences in all corners of the globe (scroll left for a partial list). I am the editor in chief of 15 academic journals and a member of the editorial board of another 100. Not a moment’s rest! On this page you can find links to all the journals I am editing, to all the conferences I am attending, as well as to almost 30 articles I published in academic journals since 2018: https://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/mediakit.html

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Both narcissists and borderlines use external regulation: they resort to input from other people in order to stabilize their fluctuating sense of self-worth, labile moods, reality testing, and dysregulated emotions.

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When YOU discard the narcissist (not reverse discard, but a genuine move), he reframes the situation defensively.

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Therapy for narcissists? Is there such a thing? And is there any hope?

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Passive-aggression is a form of signaling of internal usually unconscious needs and to punish those who fail to meet them.

 

Keep people waiting: I am special and if you don’t recognize how unique I am, you deserve the wait.

 

Involves deception and informational asymmetry
Pseudo-stupidity
Procrastination
Forgetfulness and neglect
Concealed humor (smirk)
Sabotage
Disrespect
Boredom, attention deficits (wandering)
Condescension, patronizing, contempt
Disrupted communication

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Schizoids, covert narcissists, avoidants, and some psychopaths and overt narcissists are weak ties in human networking.

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Some additional academic credentials and citations.

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The confluence of narcissism, paranoid ideation, and victimhood now rules the world, is the organizing principle of reality.

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People who grew up in restrictive or dysfunctional households develop a conforming, aggression-mitigating, public-facing (people-pleasing, narcissistic, or other) persona and an inner, authentic but repressed one.

 

The two constructs compete for scarce resources and are the seat of affects (including negative ones). There is also an impaired sense of self-efficacy and an external locus of control. Continuity is maintained via narratives.

 

A shift between the two is possible later in life and could yield a new equilibrium – or a new asymmetry.

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Perfectionism is the opposite of productivity. Best is the enemy of good enough.

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In shared fantasies, shared psychoses, and smear campaigns (which are a form of shared fantasy) is a delusional individual who influences others (the induced) to share the delusion and uphold it.

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People who are expelled from a fantasy experience it as a catastrophe. When they are the ones who exited the fantasy willingly, they idealize the Lost Paradise. In both cases, they are being fantasalgic.

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