Ever since I published my ill-fated video about the othering problem in homosexuality, I've been flooded by a torrent of beseeching messages from mostly repentant homosexuals.
They asked me, are all homosexuals narcissists?
No, they're not, of course, not by a long shot.
They ask me, are all narcissists homosexuals?
Well, that would come as a surprise to the overwhelming vast majority of narcissists who are heterosexual.
They ask me, since homosexuals, according to you, have an othering problem, possess an othering problem, does it mean that they are mentally ill?
No, it does not. Narcissists have an othering problem. Homosexuals have an othering problem, but it doesn't mean that homosexuals are narcissists or vice versa. It also doesn't mean that an othering problem is a mental illness.
The othering problem is like temperature.
You could have temperature when you have, I don't know, the flu, you could have temperature when you have tuberculosis or pneumonia. Temperature is a symptom. It's not a disease.
Similarly, the other problem is a symptom of some underlying psychodynamic, some other underlying process. And it occurs also in perfectly healthy and normal people.
My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, and a much tortured professor of clinical psychology.
Let us start with some definitions.
The word object in some schools of psychology, known as the object relations schools and in some psychodynamic schools and even in some variants of psychoanalysis, the word object simply means another person.
So we have object relations, interpersonal relationships with other people. So object equals other, another person.
Othering is a process that I've described and othering simply means that you are able to recognize the externality and separateness of an object of another person.
In other words, if you come across someone else, some other person, in your life, in an environment, you are able to recognize that that other person is not you, is external to you, is not part and parcel of your internal world, is separate from you, and this is healthy othering.
So typically all of us other external objects, all of us other external objects. All of us direct our othering at external objects.
But early on in life, we start by othering internal objects.
It's a process of dissociative estrangement. We begin to identify internal objects. It's a process of dissociative estrangement.
We begin to identify internal objects as if they were external, as if they were separate to us, not us.
This ability to estrange ourselves from ourselves, this ability to say, this is me, this is not me, even though initially, erroneously, is directed at internal objects, even though it involves dissociation and other essentially defense mechanisms.
Despite this, the ability to begin to put some distance between you and an internal object, to realize that the internal object is not you, however mistakenly, because the internal object is you but this very process of estrangement this very process of othering internal objects is a kind of training ground it's a boot camp.
By othering internal objects, children, infants actually, learn to other external objects.
They practice othering on internal objects, and then they use othering, they direct the othering process at external objects, which is normal and healthy.
An example of othering of internal objects is the othering of the mother introject.
The child or the infant has an image of the mother, an introject of the mother, an internal object that represents the mother in his or her mind.
And then the child divorces this internal object, puts distance between itself and this internal object.
The child begins to realize that mother is not me and I am not mother, the symbiosis breaks the magic, the enchantment.
And suddenly, mother is out there. Initially, mother is out there internally.
The child begins to alienate itself, to estrange itself from the internal object that represents mother.
But slowly, inexorably, gradually, incrementally, the child begins to other mother, the real mother, the external mother, the external object that is mother.
The child seamlessly transitioned from othering the internal object of mother to othering the external object of mother.
Similarly, in the development of pathological narcissism, the false self emerges and then there are two selves for a while. There's the false self and the true self.
The false self gradually takes over and when it takes over, it others the true self.
The false self begins to treat the true self as if it were not authentic, as if it were not part of the individual, as if it were external in some way.
The false self then proceeds to devalue the true self and ultimately to discard it, a dynamic that is replicated later in all interpersonal relationships of the narcissist with other people.
The narcissist creates an internal object that represents you in his mind, and then the false self, others this internal object, begins to treat this internal object as some kind of interloper or intruder or invader or enemy or persecutory object, devalues it and discards it.
But the initial process is the fight, the battle, the asymmetrical battle between the weakened and feeble, tortured, traumatized, and abused true self and the triumphantly emergent false self.
The false self uses othering in order to push the true self out of consciousness and away, and then devalue and discard it.
These are examples of othering within the internal world, within the inner landscape.
Most people, healthy, mature, adult, normal people, graduate from internal othering to external othering, from the othering of internal objects to the othering of external objects, to the othering of external objects.
Narcissists, borderlines, people with other mental illnesses remain stuck at the internal othering stage, essentially.
Although a borderline is an exception in some ways, I will not go into it right now.
Now, narcissists, homosexuals, other people, experience what I call an othering failure.
An othering failure is an inability to tell that an external object is actually external and separate to the self.
An inability to put a boundary between the self and an external object, an inability to say, I end here and the world begins here. This is where the world ends and I begin.
These boundaries are very fuzzy, very problematic, and so there's an inability to realize, to accept, to digest, and to assimilate the knowledge that someone out there, some other person, is actually external to you, is actually not you, is actually separate from you.
Of course, rationally and cognitively, you know all these things, but you're unable to experience them.
There are no emotional correlates.
You are unable to react emotionally as if that other person were really external and separate.
In your mind, external people, people out there, external objects are actually extensions, figments, elements, internal objects, representations, avatars, and so on so forth.
And this is called othering failure.
Othering failure is a complex phenomenon because it involves other types of failure, for example the failure to contextualize.
Now in psychology there are no facts. A fact depends crucially on the content of the fact, depends crucially on the context.
Take for example nudity in a hospital is not sexual. Nudity in sex is sexual. Here we have the same fact, nudity, but it is the context that provides us with the cues as to how to react, how to behave, and how to feel.
We feel aroused in the bedroom when we are confronted with nudity, but we feel maybe disgusted in the hospital when we are confronted with the very same nudity.
So context matters. Othering requires context.
If someone is unable, someone is incapacitated in the sense that he or she cannot create the appropriate context within which to embed the external object, then it would be very difficult to tell that the object is indeed external.
If you lack context, how could you tell that something is external? Maybe it's a hallucination. Maybe you're imagining things. Maybe you're dreaming.
You need context. This context is what we call reality.
So othering failure involves an impaired reality testing, an inability to generate on the fly, hermeneutic context, context which makes sense of the existence of objects as either external or internal.
Consequently, there is a failure of empathy.
People with othering failure are also lacking in empathy, they have deficient empathy, because they are unable to perceive the separateness and externality, personal autonomy, and independence and agency of an external object.
If an object is not external, then it's not independent, it's not autonomous, it's not agentic, and it doesn't deserve any consideration, it's internal, it's you, so you don't need to exert any special effort and this undermines empathy.
But having said all this, the failure of othering is not a bug. It's a feature.
It is of course not common. It is of course much better to be able to other appropriately, normally in a healthy manner. All this is true.
One might even say that it's pathological, but that's debatable.
Still it is a feature.
It tends to reason that othering failures are biologically determined. They're definitely the outcomes of early childhood trauma, abuse and other adverse circumstances.
But there must exist some genetic or hereditary predisposition to develop othering failure.
Othering failure in itself is not a problem. It's just a psychodynamic fact.
It is true that othering failure is a feature of narcissism, but it is also a feature in other mental health issues. It is also a feature in otherwise perfectly healthy people with insecure attachment styles. It is also a feature in various subclinical personality styles which do not amount to any mental illness or mental health pathology.
It is a feature, not a bug. It's a dimension, it's a descriptor.
So if you come across a perfectly normal and healthy person who is unable to commit, unable to attach, is avoidant and dismissive, is anxious fearful, that is someone in all probability who suffers from an othering failure.
But this othering failure doesn't make this kind of individual mentally ill. There's no need to cure him of anything. That's who he is.
Or you come across an a-hole, someone with a narcissistic personality style, but not a narcissistic personality disorder. This kind of person suffers or endures an attenuated form of othering failure.
This kind of person has difficulties to perceive the externality and separateness and the rights of other people around him.
And yet, a narcissistic personality style is not a mental illness. It should not be treated or cured. That's just who the person is.
In other words, the othering failureis a feature in many types of personality, most of which are very healthy and normal and common.
And when you have a pathology, a mental health illness or pathology, a mental health disorder, that includes many other issues, critical issues like a total lack of empathy, exploitativeness, virulent envy, a lack of functioning self, identity diffusion or identity disturbance.
When you have this package deal, an element in it is othering failure.
But othering failure is not the reason for pathological narcissism. It's just one manifestation of it, one aspect of it.
And exactly like a knife, you could kill with a knife, or you can spread butter with a knife.
Same with othering failure.
Othering failure at the hands of a narcissist becomes a manipulative, Machiavellian abusive tool.
Othering failure with healthy normal people could lead to some friction, some difficulties in interpersonal relationships, an insecure attachment style, but nothing much more than that.
Similarly, in homosexuality, othering failure, the othering failure of homosexuals defines their sexual style, defines their ability to derive identity from highly specific types of interactions.
It is not a pathology and homosexuality is not a mental illness in any way, shape or form.
That othering failure is common to narcissism and to homosexuality does not make the two one and the same.
Other in failure predisposes narcissists to engage people via the shared fantasy and then abuse them essentially for their own needs.
The other in failure in homosexuality predisposes homosexuals to behave in highly specific psychosexual ways with potential and actual partners in order to derive some sense of identity.
And in this sense, there is a similarity to borderline personality disorder, actually not to narcissism, because borderlines engage in external regulation. It is true that the narcissist regulates his or her sense of self-worth externally, but the borderline regulates all her internal processes externally. It's a total external regulation.
The homosexual has elements of external regulation, deriving his or her identity from the outside, especially from a sexual partner.
And so it's a highly idiosyncratic way of identity formation coupled with a highly specific sexual or psychosexual style. And all this is the outcome of othering failure.
End of story. Not pathology here. Just a style, specific style. No mental illness, just the way they are.
The vast majority of homosexuals are perfectly healthy and perfectly normal.
And like every other group in the population, like every other cohort, some of them are mentally ill, some of them have personality disorders, some of them have insecure attachment styles like other people, homosexual and heterosexual.
There's no need to pathologize homosexuality. This is a thing of the 70s, you know, we've progressed since then. We know a lot more.
Our homosexuality is biologically determined almost 100%. The biology of the homosexual predisposes the homosexual to develop othering failure in life, but that's just an identity determinant, just a dimension of who the homosexual is. It is not a psychopathology.