This video should go viral. Here's a narcissist eating humble pie.
In my previous video, I've mispronounced ketamine as ketamine. Why is that? For two reasons.
One, English is my fourth language out of six. And, inevitably, I mispronounce a few words here and there.
But, ironically, I've been saying ketamine all my life. Why did I say ketamine last night yesterday? Because of Microsoft. Like numerous people over the past 40 years, I chose to trust Microsoft. And there's no mistake greater than that except voting for Donald Trump. So, Microsoft has this thing called read aloud engine. And whenever I said ketamine, the read aloud engine would string to life and correct me and say ketamine. Ketamine, ketamine, ketamine, ketamine. It became a power play.
And, like the Department of Justice, I gave in to Microsoft. And I decided to continue my video saying ketamine. But, of course, the correct pronunciation is ketamine. You don't have to trust me. Go and check it out for yourself. Type the word ketamine in a Word document and ask Microsoft to pronounce it for you.
Okay.
The second comment I've received is that you shouldn't say medication or treatment regime, but you should say medication or treatment regimen. That's wrong. Both are legitimate. You can definitely say regime or regimen. Regimen is simply the Latin version of regime.
Okay. Enough linguistic for one day.
I hope the message of my video yesterday hadn't been lost in this gleeful exposition of my faux pas. And the message was simple.
I think psychedelics hold a big promise when it comes to depression and anxiety.
Regrettably, there is no science to back up this hope. So, everything online is hype, not science. End of story. I'm strongly in favor of conducting placebo-controlled clinical trials of psychedelics. I think they hold an even bigger promise than antidepressants and anxiolytics. That's where I stand.
Or, actually, that's where I sit.
And today we are going to discuss what else is sex. And I hope I don't mispronounce any of the words related to this sacred hallowed act.
Minis.
I want to clarify one thing.
Cerebral narcissists rarely have sex. The majority of cerebral narcissists are asexual or sexless, celibate, obstinate. By definition, any narcissist who is sexually active is not cerebral. He is somatic.
I coined the phrases cerebral narcissist and somatic narcissist in 1995. And I was the first to describe the differences between them.
Somatic narcissists derive narcissistic supply from their bodies and the functionalities of their bodies, anything from bodybuilding to sex. They use their bodies to obtain supply.
The cerebral narcissist, on the other hand, is bespectacled. And he uses his intelligence and intellect, he leverages them to obtain accolades and applause, attention, affirmation, adulation, and admiration. Public intellectuals are usually cerebral narcissists.
Cerebral narcissism, therefore, is very distinct from somatic narcissism, not only in the way the supply is secured, but in the locus of grandiosity. The cerebral narcissist is grandiose by virtue of his self-perception. It's a unique unprecedented genius.
The somatic narcissist is grandiose because he believes himself to be irresistible and he believes his body to be a unique work of art. Sometimes, and I've discussed this in previous videos, I encourage you to go back in the last two weeks, I've made several videos about collapse, about depression in narcissism and so on. It would be good if you watch this before you watch this one, but you know.
So, in some situations, there is an incomplete transition between cerebral and somatic. Generally, there's no type constancy.
Narcissist gravitates and cycles between cerebral phases and somatic phases, but sometimes the process gets stuck. And when it does, there is something which I call the binary system.
The binary system is when in the same body of the narcissist, in the same narcissist, you find overt and covert types, overt and covert phases or stages or states coexisting.
Similarly, a binary system could be composed of a somatic state and a cerebral state in unhappy coexistence. Of course, when you have a binary system, there are a lot of clashes.
Binary system is typical of a period of switching.
When the narcissist tries to switch from cerebral to somatic, sometimes the collapse phase is very protracted. The narcissist is getting just enough supply and maintenance dose to keep him trapped in the previous type and not fully transitioned into the other type.
So, then we have a binary system and the narcissist cycles very rapidly between abstinence and hyper sexuality.
So, let me summarize. This is very difficult material.
A narcissist is dominantly cerebral or dominantly somatic, but when he fails to obtain narcissistic supply, he switches to the other type. The cerebral switches to somatic attempts to switch to the cerebral type.
This process of switching is essentially called collapse. The collapse is the inability to obtain supply and the dysphoria and depression that accompanies this inability. The narcissist is shattered, he decompensates, his defenses crumbleand he tries desperately to transition to the other type. Sometimes this transition takes a long time. It takes years, in some cases years, because the collapse is not complete. Enough supply is coming in to maintain the previous state, but not to fully transition to the new state.
So, then we have, for example, somatic cerebral hybrids and the narcissist can't make up his mind, so to speak. Sometimes he's hypersexual and promiscuous. Sometimes he's totally dead as far as sex is concerned. He's hypo sexual or even asexual.
As far as the intimate partner is concerned, such rapid cycling between types is perceived as approach avoidance cycle.
When the narcissist is more somatic and is interested in sex, he approaches the partner, but then the cerebral, in this tug of war, the cerebral takes over and the narcissist withdraws and avoids the partner, becomes sex averse. On and off, yes sex, no sex, hypersexual, hypo sexual, over and above, nothing at all.
This is the approach avoidance cycle or approach avoidance repetition compulsion.
The intimate partner can't make head or tails of the situation. It's very, very disorienting and confusing.
This interim period of a binary system, which characterizes switching and the collapse, usually lasts a few weeks at most, but in some cases, as I said, it can last for years.
Binary systems are dissonant because the cerebral and the somatic are competing for narcissistic supply in ways which are mutually exclusive and totally incompatible.
So there's a lot of dissonance inside, a lot of conflict.
Consequently, a binary system is dysregulated. It does not allow the narcissist to regulate himself by creating or engineering a safe environment with a stable flow of narcissistic supply.
And where do we have dysregulation as a core feature in borderline personality disorder?
We can say that binary systems are dissonant and dysregulated, so they resemble very much a borderline personality structure.
Indeed, Grotstein has suggested long ago that borderlines are incomplete narcissists, narcissists who had failed, people, children who had failed to attain narcissism, and so they got stuck in the middle as borderline.
So when the narcissistic defenses collapse, when the narcissist can no longer obtain narcissistic supply, he regresses, and his fallback position is default. It's the borderline state.
Every narcissist has borderline phases, which is one of the main reasons I am strongly opposed to all these separate diagnoses. I think there should be only one diagnosis of personality disorder, because every person with any personality disorder is experiencing all the other personality disorders.
This is why we have this is why we have such high comorbidity diagnosing more than one personality disorder in the same person.
So when the narcissist switches from cerebral to somaticthere's a period of collapse, a period of transition, and it lasts for a while. It takes a while. During this period, there's a binary system, which is conflictual, conflictive, and dissonant, and resembles very much borderline behavior.
Ironically, in healthy normal people, depression leads to a reduction in libido, a reduction in the sex drive. Depressed people don't have sex. Depressed people are not looking for sex. They're not interested. They become essentially asexual. Exactly the opposite happens with the narcissist.
When the narcissist experiences a collapse, he becomes depressed, but it is his depression that pushes the narcissist to become more sexual.
How can we explain this?
How come if you're a healthy normal person and you develop, for example, major depression, you are likely to seize all sexual activities. You're likely to become totally sexless, not even interested in sex in any way, shape, or form.
This is if you're normal, if you're healthy, but if you're a narcissist and you experience the depression attendant upon deficient narcissistic supply, if you're a narcissist and you're not getting supply, and so you become dysphoric and sad and depressed, your sex drive is likely to increase, not decrease. It's likely to overpower you, to overwhelm you. Sex will become everything in your life.
This is the only case we know of where depression leads to enhanced sexuality. It's the only case we know of, only group of people, where dysphoria, depression leads to hyper sexuality, more sex, not less sex, and a much more acute and demanding sex drive.
How can this be explained?
Throw it to the rescue.
Now, people are carping and complaining, especially professionals.
Why do I keep quoting Freud? He's passive. He is not a scientist. He's disparaged. No one is teaching Freud anywhere in the world.
Well, you know, people do many stupid things. One of them is to not teach Freud.
Freud didn't get everything right, and he was more of a literary figure than a psychologist.
I fully agree. But his insights are incalculably, incalculably accurate, exactly like Dostoevsky.
So I do sometimes hark back to Freud and his ideas.
And one of the main ideas of Freud was the process of sublimation.
Freud said that we have many urges. He called it the id. Never mind. We have many urges, and these urges could be dangerous if we were to act on them without any constraints and inhibitions.
Freud said, OK, in the process of socialization, we learn to control our urges and drives. We learn to render them, express them in ways that are socially acceptable. And this is called sublimation. We're not likely, if we feel horny, we're not likely to go out and rape someone. That would be socially unacceptable. That would be non-sublimated. But we're likely to date. Dating and casual sex are forms of sublimation.
But sublimation has another manifestation, another way to express.
We can take one drive or urge and convert it into another.
For example, we have sexual urge or sex drive, which is an integral part of the libido, which is the force of life, according to Freud.
So instead of having sex, we can write a book. It's another form of sublimation. It's channeling the energy in a way that is socially acceptable.
So sublimation is crucial.
The cerebral narcissist, narcissistic supply, his narcissistic supply is a sublimation of his sex drive. The cerebral narcissist is not asexual. Asexuality is when you don't have a sex drive. About one percent of the global population are born without a sex drive. And they are asexuals.
The cerebral narcissist is fully sexual. We know this because when he transitions to the somatic phase, he becomes sexually hyperactive. So he does have a sex drive.
But instead of directing his sex drive, it targets, common targets, like the opposite sex or the same sex, doesn't matter. It's a sexual partner.
Instead of directing his sex drive at a sexual partner, the cerebral narcissist sublimates his sex drive. He converts his sex drive into intellectual activities.
Consequently, when the cerebral narcissist collapses, when he is unable to obtain narcissistic supply via his intellect and intelligence, when no one pays attention to it, when no one watches his YouTube videos, at that point, the sublimation stops. He is unable to convert his sex drive into intellectual pursuits because intellectual pursuits don't garner him narcissistic supply and attention anymore.
Are you following the sequence?
The cerebral narcissist uses his intellect to obtain narcissistic supply. He displays his intelligence, like a peacock fanning its tail, so he displays his intelligence in ways that attract attention and approbation and adulation and admiration.
When this fails, he is no longer able to obtain narcissistic supply. His sex drive comes back to life because the sex drive had been converted into intellectual pursuits in order to obtain supply.
If there is a collapse and the intellectual activities cannot guarantee supply, there is no point in the sublimation of the sex drive. The sublimation stops and the sex drive becomes sex, sex drive again.
So, a collapse and the ensuing dysphoria, the cerebral narcissist's incapacity to sublimate anymore, lack of utility in sublimation, because why sublimate?
Sublimation is a lot of effort. It takes a lot of energy. It's energy depleting. It takes a lot of energy to convert your sex drive into intellectual activities. You have to suppress the sex drive. You have to convert it. You transform it. It's a lot of work.
And if it doesn't yield any supply, why bother? Better? Just have a sex drive like everyone else.
So, the collapse and the dysphoria destroy the ability of the capacity to sublimate because a narcissist sees no point in sublimating, and then it renders the cerebral sexual again.
The sex drive remains unsublimated.
And so, this facilitates the switching from a cerebral phase to a somatic phase.
Because, as you remember from the beginning, if you are a narcissist and you have a healthy sex drive, and you're acting on it, you're sexually active, you're somatic.
So, when the cerebral can no longer sublimate his sex drive, and this renders him sexual, he becomes somatic.
Now, there are two variants of somatic. There's the shared fantasy, single partner somatic, and there is the promiscuous somatic.
This is, again, a lot of nonsense online by self-styled experts and so on and so forth.
But, since I'm the one who came up with the idea of somatic narcissists, I think I may have some priority in defining what it is.
So, there are definitely somatic narcissists who are attached to a single partner in a shared fantasy.
The test of the somatic narcissist is whether he obtains supply, narcissistic supply, via his body through the use of his body, whether he leverages his body to obtain supply. He can do that absolutely with one partner. If the partner regards him, provides him with supply, for example, when they're having sex, in other words, if the partner admires and adulates the narcissist's sexuality or his body, then he doesn't need much more than that.
Within the shared fantasy, this type of somatic narcissist, all his needs are met. Narcissistic supply is generated by the single partner in a shared fantasy.
So, this is one variant of somatic.
The other variant of somatic narcissist is indeed the classic one, promiscuous, casual sex, all over the place, a player and a predator.
So, what determines when the cerebral transitions to the somatic and when the dominant type is somatic, what determines which type of somatic will occur?
What determines for the narcissist which type of somatic is going to become?
What determines which subspecies of somatic the cerebral turns out to be is the narcissist's social sexuality.
So, some narcissists are predominantly somatic. Some narcissists are predominantly cerebral, but they switch to somatic after collapse and depression. In both cases, there are two subtypes, shared fantasy single partner somatic and promiscuous somatic.
And what determines which subtype will prevail for which narcissist?
In other words, what determines for me if I transition tomorrow, as I've done six years ago, when I transition to somatic, what determines for me whether I transition to a single partner somatic or to promiscuous somatic is my index of psychosexuality. Psychosexuality is the willingness and ability to have sex with total strangers in a low level of sexual disgust with other people's bodies. So, the higher the index of the more unrestricted the social sexuality and the lower the level of disgust, the more likely that the resulting somatic phase will be promiscuous.
The more restricted the social sexuality and the higher the level of disgust, the more likely the somatic period or somatic type will be single partner shared fantasy somatic.
This is how the trajectory is determined. Subtypes can also collapse. For example, a somatic can start off as a single partner shared fantasy somatic and then experience a collapse. In other words, relationship failure, rejection, abandonment and so on.
When the subtype collapses, when the shared fantasy collapses, this somatic narcissist can then transition to the other subtype, to a promiscuous subtype.
So, we can see a sequence such as this, a cerebral narcissist, predominantly cerebral narcissist. Then there is a collapse and depression. Then there is switching to a somatic phase and within the somatic phase, because of restricted social sexuality, the transition is to a single partner somatic, a shared fantasy somatic.
But then when the single partner shared fantasy subtype collapses, there is another transition to a promiscuous somatic. So, we can see two transitions, cerebral to shared fantasy single partner somatic and single partner shared fantasy somatic to promiscuous somatic.
And then a third transition from promiscuous somatic back to cerebral. All these transitions are totally possible because a collapse can occur between subtypes. A somatic can switch from one subtype, the shared fantasy single partner, to another subtype, the promiscuous. This happens to narcissists who are predominantly somatic. And this also happens to cerebral who had switched their allegiance to the somatic type. All these transitions can be perceived as confusing and confounding by everyone around the narcissist.
And indeed, it's an integral part of what we call identity disturbance. I've made a video about shapeshifting borderlines and morphing narcissists.
Narcissism is not a stable phenomenon. It's not a single clinical entity. It's a family. It's a family of variants. And every single narcissist transitions between all these subtypes and all these types. Every single narcissist alive is sometimes overt, sometimes covert, sometimes cerebral, sometimes somatic, sometimes shared fantasy, single partner somatic, and sometimes promiscuous somatic.
And back again to some somatic, and back again to cerebral, and back again to somatic, etc. There's a total flux, this constant cycling between the types. This cycling is mediated by the mechanism of collapse and the attendant dysphoria, the attendant depression.
So next time you watch a video by a surf style expert about the narcissist, that's someone who has no idea what he's talking about.
Well, there's no such thing as the narcissist, which narcissist in which phase of his life did he recently experience collapse?
And as you see, the affinities between narcissism and borderline are very, very close. That's not some acne. That's Otto Könberg, the father of the modern understanding of borderline personality and narcissism. Otto Könberg said that borderline and narcissism are essentially the same thing, and both are on the verge of psychosis. And I agree. Under duress, under stress, in extremis, when taken to the extreme, in conditions which are not conducive to obtaining narcissistic supply, the narcissist switches the same way the borderline switches. And he switches to types which are mutually exclusive, the same way the borderline has not fixed core identity.
Both types, both diagnoses, narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder, actually involve very, very profound identity disturbance. The narcissist has no identity because he has a false self, which is not he.
And before you say anything, when I say he, I mean also she. Of course, there are women narcissists. But this false self is not the narcissist. So he can't have an identity by definition. There's nobody there. To use Könberg's words, there's only emptiness. To use Kleckli's words, the narcissist rejects life. To use Seinfeld's words, the narcissist abhors life, gives up on life. To use Gantrip's words, there's an empty schizoid core.
All these scholars throughout the generations, zoomed in, honed in on the same observation where a core identity should have been, where a person, a personality should have been. There's nothing. There's just void.
So switching is easily accomplished, not easily in time, but easily in the sense that it's ineluctable. It's inevitable.
So, narcissist transition from type to type.
Now the transition could be prolonged, could be protracted and difficult. The transition could generate mutations such as binary systems, a lot of conflict, a lot of mayhem and dissonance. Yes, it's not a smooth operation or a smooth flow, but it's inevitable.
Every narcissist goes through all this. When all the subtypes have failed, the newfangled somatic narcissist switches back to cerebral narcissist. So the cerebral becomes somatic. The somatic tries one variant. For example, the somatic tries the new somatic. The somatic who used to be cerebral tries to be promiscuous. It doesn't work. It tries a shared fantasy with a single partner. It doesn't work. He becomes cerebral again. Or vice versa. He starts with a shared fantasy with a single partner. There's heartbreak and breakup. He becomes promiscuous. It doesn't work. He reverts to the cerebral phase.
And the same goes the other way. There are also subtypes of the cerebral narcissist. And when the somatic switches to cerebral, he attempts to capture these subtypes. He goes through these subtypes. So for example, there's a subtype of cerebral narcissist who is focused on self supply. It's an introverted cerebral narcissist who derives a sense of accomplishment from realizing that he had just achieved a great intellectual feat somehow. He doesn't need to advertise it. He doesn't need to publish it. He is his own audience.
So this is a form of self supply. That's one type of cerebral.
The other type of cerebral is a public intellectual who needs an audience, chases an audience at all costs and so on.
So when the somatic switches to cerebral, he also goes through subtypes. And when the subtypes collapse, he reverts to somatic. That's the cycle from major type to another major type.
And within each major type, there is a cycling between the subtypes. Each of these phases and subphases is mediated through collapse. In other words, the transition, the trigger that causes switching from one type to another type and from one subtype to another subtype, this trigger is collapse. And collapse simply means inability to obtain supply.
I want to talk about another thing, which is somehow reminiscent of the first part of this video. And it's, I kept saying that when narcissists transition and when they switch and so on, they become very reminiscent of borderline personality disorder. And in borderline, especially in borderline women, that's not gender bias, that's simply a fact.
Because each gender, each sex actually expresses its mental problems in accordance with strict social and cultural mores.
There is another video of me about a few days ago, about the gender element in personality disorders. The personality disorders as clinical entities are the same in men and women. No difference whatsoever.
But the way the personality disorder manifests is different for women than it is for men.
Because of society and culture, women still express themselves in highly specific ways as do men. Women, for example, are much more likely to become promiscuous, and men are much more likely to become antisocial and criminalized when they're subjected to collapse.
So I want to explore one type of collapse when it comes to borderline women.
Borderline women are secondary psychopaths, at the very least, or maybe subclinical psychopaths.
There's a close affinity, we now know, there's a close affinity between borderline and psychopathy.
Many scholars have gone to the extent of saying or suggesting that borderline is psychopathy for women.
Mind you, it's not the same type of psychopathy as in men. In men, we have something called factor one psychopathy. And in women, it's factor two psychopathy.
So these are different types of psychopathy.
In factor two, there's an emphasis on impulsivity, and so on. Factor one, there's an emphasis on grandiosity, etc.
But still, it's psychopathy.
So borderline women are psychopaths, secondary psychopaths.
And this is very clear when they're subjected to stress and abandonment and humiliation and so on, they begin to act psychopathically and they become emotionally dysregulated.
Some borderline women have a history of promiscuity. Other borderline women are chased and have never slept around with strangers or with friends or whatever.
So there's a whole panoply of possible sexual behaviors among borderline women.
It's a myth that all borderline women are promiscuous and all borderline women cheat. It's absolutely wrong, it's a stereotype.
But some are and some are not, some do and some do not.
Some in other words, some borderline women are socially sexually unrestricted. They're willing, perfectly willing to sleep with strangers, and they have a low level of sexual disgust. And some borderline women are social sexually restricted. They sleep only with intimate partners and in intimate settings, and they have a high level of sexual disgust.
So one cannot generalize.
But many borderline women, regardless of whether their background is a background of promiscuity or a background of inhibition and restraint, many borderline women, regardless of background, embark on a spree of sexual self-trashing after they have been discarded abruptly and cruelly by a long term intimate partner to whom they had been strapingly faithful. An intimate partner who was the center and the pivot of the world.
I'm going to repeat this because it happens a lot.
Many borderline women, regardless of their sexual background, promiscuous or not, resort to sexual self-trashing after an intimate partner had discarded them abruptly, brutally, even sadistically, a long term intimate partner. An intimate partner that they had been faithful to, never cheated on. An intimate partner who used to be the center of the world, the pivot around which they had revolved. An intimate partner with whom they shared every minute of the day and everything they had, every emotion.
So when such an intimate partner just walks away and he does it abruptly and cruelly, it breaks these borderline women apart and it's a form of collapse.
This is a private case of collapse and these women begin to sexually serve trash in horrendous ways.
I've witnessed and treated the most horrible cases. These women just don't care anymore. They don't care anymore and such self-harming can last for years, in some cases decades, and in some cases it degenerates and deteriorates into full-fledged sex work.
Now, of course, not all sex workers are borderline and not all sex workers had experienced heartbreak and breakup. Not all sex workers are helpless. Many sex workers are agentic. It's a choice.
But I'm talking about these kind of borderline women, they are pushed to sex work as a form of self-harming.
By letting men, individual men or groups of men do with their bodies and do to her body as they please, the brutally abandoned borderline is attempting to accomplish three goals.
We are still describing a collapse and the depression attendant on the collapse and anxiety pushed this kind of borderline woman to sexually serve trash and there are three goals she has in mind.
Number one, to secure male attention and acceptance, compassion, affection, however fake and even if it is only for a few minutes or one night.
Number two, to reaffirm her self-perception is bad, worthless, unworthy, whorish and incorrigible. In a way, she's trying to justify her intimate partner. She says to herself unconsciously, by abandoning me so so so so so cruelly, by dumping me so sadistically, by devastating me so absentmindedly and thoughtlessly, you are actually telling me that I'm no good, that I'm worthless. So I'm going to prove this. I'm going to prove to you that you're right. She's still trying to affirm the way he sees her or saw her.
And every borderline has a bad object inside. Every borderline believes herself to be essentially bad. That's why many borderlines push people away. They're afraid that if people come to know them better, they're going to be abandoned.
So sexual self-trashing is a way of affirming to herself and to her erstwhile partner that she's indeed bad, bad, worthless, unworthy, whorish, incorrigible, sluttish and hopeless.
And the third reason to do that for this kind of behavior is to punish actually her previous partner, her ex-partner, by cheapening and prostituting his property. Like, if I'm going to sexually self-trash, it's going to hurt you.
She's telling her former partner, I'm going to hurt you by hurting myself. I know you used to love me or at the very least, I know you used to regard me as your property and now I'm going to give your property to any passing man. See how you like it.
Sexual self-trashing is not the same as promiscuity. It is non-autonomous, non-ogetic and it is self-objectifying. It involves copious, ubiquitous dissociation, as well as self-incapacitating and disinhibiting substance abuse, intended to help legitimize the self-harm.
So this kind of borderline way we will say, I was drunk, I didn't know what I was doing.
The idea is to resolve cognitive and other dissonances by attributing the sexual self-trashing to the influence of a substance. I was under the influence.
Self-trashing borderlines, especially those who end up in sex work, create a counterfactual narrative of choice and empowerment.
But in reality, such behaviors are lifelong addictions.
Studies show that such women are unable to commit in relationships and they break up and they cheat and they cheat much more often than the average.
For our purposes, the transition of the borderline woman from a faithful, loyal, stable, intimate partner to a self-trashing, self-objectifying kind of slut in her eyes, the transition from the first type to the second type, is a private case of collapse and how collapse facilitates a total change in personality because there's no identity there. There's no identity core. The borderline is subject to an identity disturbance. So she can have a relationship of five years or seven years or eight years or even fifteen years in which she will be utterly faithful, never look at another man, be a good wife, an excellent mother, stable, predictable, reliable, the best spouse anyone could or girlfriend anyone could hope for. And then she's dumped, abandoned, humiliated. And the next thing you know, she sleeps with hundreds of strangers. She subjects herself to group sex. She gets drunk to the point of blackouts and then sleeps with every passing man. She's suddenly the exact opposite, the antonym of what she used to be.
And this is mediated through a collapse.
She actively transitions from one type of borderline to another type of borderline. The collapse makes this happen.
And so we, the mechanism of collapse and transition between types is common to every mental illness and every mental health disorder, which involves identity disturbance.
Whenever there is identity disturbance, a collapse leads to a switching, a transition between mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed types of personality.
And a collapse could be anything.
In the case of the narcissist, the collapse is owing to a lack of narcissistic supply. In the case of the borderline, the collapse is because she had been abandoned and humiliated and rejected. In the case of the psychopath, psychopath can collapse because he had failed, has failed to obtain his goals.
The histrionic collapses when no one pays attention to her and so on and so forth. The paranoid collapses when the extent of stress self-induced most of the time is too much for him and he's overwhelmed.
So collapse is a standard mechanism in personality disorders and it allows the personality disordered patient to transition into a more egosyntonic type, a type that provides comfort and reduces anxiety and eliminates depression.
In the case of the narcissist, a failed cerebral, a cerebral who fails to obtain narcissistic supply would feel much better, much more comfortable, much happier, much more content and much more functional as a somatic.
So he switches to a somatic and then when this doesn't work, he switches back to a cerebral.
The only glitch in this perfect mechanism is a binary system.
The fact that some of these transitions take a long time and during this lengthened, prolonged period of time, there could be a competition between equal efficacious or self-efficacious self-states, which creates a lot of dissonance and inexplicable behavior, including acting out in the case of the borderline, for example, or narcissistic rage in case of the narcissist, approach avoidance in all these cases.
This is the general overview. This is the picture of transitional mechanisms in the personality disorder.
I hope I haven't mispronounced any word. I've disabled Microsoft to read it out, so I'm actually much better and more self-confident. Apologies for the ketamine, which should have been ketamine, and I hope to see you all in my next video.
My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, and a professor of psychology. And I know many of you have waited through this video just to get to this final statement. You can't live without it. I know it's an addiction. And if you don't hear this statement from me, my name is Sam Vaknin, etc.
You experience a collapse.