I decided to make the second part much shorter.
Trauma is what you are experiencing here. And when you leave here, you will forget everything I said. That is dissociation.
Now we can move on.
Okay, I'm shocked by how many of you return.
Okay, before we go into the second part, which is the really surrealistic science fiction part, I want to mention briefly six additional attributes of cluster B personality disorders, the psychodynamics. We didn't finish. We have to take a break. So I'll finish them and then we go into the trauma thing.
First attribute is magical thinking.
Magical thinking is a childish, infantile way of seeing the world. It's when the child believes that his thoughts, his or her wishes, become reality.
So if the child wishes something, that will become real. If the child thinks about something, it will materialize. If the child imagines something, this imagination would be perceived by the child as reality, and that is magical thinking.
So a child says, I hate my father, I wish he were dead, and the father dies the next day in a car accident, the child would feel very guilty because he killed father with his thoughts.
Now, unfortunately, we see a lot of this in the adult world manifesting, or the secret, or the law of attraction, or all this bullshit. These are forms of magical thinking.
Okay, next is cold empathy. Cold empathy is a phrase that I coin. It's a combination of cognitive and reflexive empathy.
There are three types of empathy. Reflexive empathy, we are born with reflexive empathy. There are three types of empathy. Reflexive empathy, we are born with reflexive empathy. When mommy smiles at the baby, the baby smiles back, and mommy runs away from the room. No, okay. Baby's... Mommy smiles at the baby, the baby smiles back. That is reflexive empathy. Animals have it too, even politicians.
Now, the second type of empathy is cognitive empathy, and this is also the order in which they develop. Cognitive empathy is the ability to create a structured concept or a structured sentence regarding the state of mind and the behaviors of other people.
So you see someone crying and you say, I think she's sad, that is cognitive empathy.
And then the last stage usually develops at the ages of five to six years old is affective empathy or emotional empathy. It's the ability to react with emotions to another person's state of mind or state of being.
So I would see someone crying. My face would change somewhat. There are mirror neurons in the brain that change the facial expression. My face would change somewhat. In my case, I would laugh. And so I would, my face would change. And then I would say, she's crying, she must be sad, and then I would feel sad. This is affective empathy.
People with Cluster B personality disorders have onlyreflexive and cognitive empathy. They do not have affective empathy.
We used to think, erroneously, that people with borderline personality disorder have all types, all three times. But today we know that this is probably not true. And that people with borderline personality disorder also have an empathy deficit. They are not able to exercise affective empathy.
Now, affective empathy is the main ingredient of empathy. This is what changes our behaviors.
So a psychopath would see a woman crying, for example. A woman crying, he would say, she is sad, but his immediate, the continuation would be, I can take advantage of her. She said, I can take advantage of her.
So the affective part is missing, and the affective part is inhibitory. It creates inhibitions.
And also the affective part represents socialization, represents social input.
So all this is missing in Cluster B.
And they have only cold empathy, cold like no, cold.
All people with Cluster B personality disorders suffer from attachment disorders. They have what is known as insecure attachment style.
And the most common attachment style among Cluster B is the dismissive avoidant attachment style. And the most common attachment style among Cluster B is the dismissive avoidant attachment style.
Dismissive avoidant attachment style is, I hate you, don't leave me. Kind of.
And this is known in earlier lingo, in earlier psychology, this was known as repetition compulsion. Approach avoidance, repetition compulsion.
I approach. Then there's intimacy. I'm terrified of the intimacy. I feel suffocated. I run away. I approach, I avoid. I approach and avoid.
This is a repetition compulsion. I cannot help it.
And this is known as dismissive avoidant attachment style.
Again, when we come to the second part, you will understand how all these things develop.
Next is decompensation.
Decompensation is when people with Cluster B are faced with stress, with anxiety, with a threat, with tension, or with a psychology seminar, they fall apart. They fall apart. They disintegrate. Their defenses shut down. They are no longer able to use or exercise defense mechanisms.
So they decompensate. They become totally defenseless, skinless, and indirect touch with reality.
At that point, the Cluster B person usually engages in some kind of behavior that is intended to counter the tension or counter the anxiety, anxiolytic behavior, behavior that reduces anxiety.
For example, the borderline becomes psychopathic. She becomes indistinguishable from a secondary psychopath, not primary, secondary, and she acts out, acting out. She becomes reckless, she doesn't mind the consequences of her actions, she does crazy things.
So this is her way of coping with stress, anxiety and so on.
The psychopath becomes grandiose and narcissistic. The narcissist becomes a primary psychopath.
So they all transition into self-states. We will discuss it a bit later.
But this is a way to cope with decompensation.
Next and last is Uncanny Valley reaction.
Uncanny Valley reaction is actually not about cluster B, but about how you react to cluster B.
There was a guy, a roboticist, Japanese of course, Masahiro Mori in 1970, 70. Masahiro Mori came up with the concept of Uncanny Valley. He said, when robots become indistinguishable from human beings, we will feel highly uncomfortable in their presence.
So the more a robot resembles a human being, the less comfortable we feel with the robot.
That is Masahiro Mori's uncanny rule, and today we know it's true, because we create and so on, and we measure the discomfort of people in the presence of these androids and actually the discomfort went up, not down. So Uncanny Valley.
People react to Cluster B personality disordered people.
So when you're in the presence of a narcissist or a borderline or let alone a psychopath, you will have an uncanny valley reaction.
Sorry?
Write it on the board.
Oh, yeah, sure. I don't know how to spell it, so I was hoping you will not ask, but okay.
Uncanny Valley.
So when you're in the presence of a psychopath and narcissists, you develop an uncanny valley reaction.
You feel uncomfortable. You feel something is wrong. You feel something is missing. You feel that something is off-key. You feel something is fake.
Most of us suppress this. We do not allow ourselves to actually experience it.
So if you're on a date, you're dating a psychopath, you would feel the uncanny valley, instantaneously, by the way, within seconds.
But you would suppress it because you're lonely, you know, all you have is a cat and Netflix and you want a partner.
Okay.
We said that cluster B personality disorders, people with these disorders, have in their personal history, in the anamnesis, they have record of childhood abuse and trauma.
That is almost universal. Almost universal. There are like a bazillion studies about this. It's almost universal.
Again, it does not mean that there is no genetic predisposition. It does not mean that there is no brain abnormality. It simply means that it takes a specific environment, specific set of circumstances, to trigger the genetics, to change the brain somehow.
Okay, so the environment is critical. Nature and nurturehave to collaborate.
And so in all these cases, we have what we call adverse childhood experiences, ACEs.
By the way, you can't see the board, yeah? You over there, you can't see the board, yeah? You over there, you can't see the board. Good. No, I'll put it in a minute.
I would like you to notice how strong I am. Now no one can see the board? Very good. I don't know where to put it. Wait, let me be here.
Okay, I will stand here and so trauma is...
Okay. Someone has to sacrifice something, though.
Adverse childhood experiences or ACEs was a study. Study conducted over several decades among almost 2 million people, children who became adults and so on, and they isolated ten circumstances in childhood that give rise to mental illness later in life and also physical illness, like heart problems and so, those who have a heart.
And adverse childhood experiences include things like divorce, constant fighting between the parents, poverty, and so on and so forth.
Now, it's very crucial to define what constitutes abuse and trauma.
Because we are using these words, abuse is trauma. But they're ill-defined. And very often, we don't realize that some behaviors that appear to be highly social and highly acceptable are actually very abusive. The child is abused.
So the only people who are capable of abusing the child in the vast majority of cases are the parents. Some children are orphans, so they have grandmother and grandfather and so, but like 99% of children grow up with parents, or at least one parent. And this is the locus of the abuse.
Now we have two types of abuse. We have adverse or adversity-related abuse, and we have boundary-related abuse.
Adversity-related abuse is the classical kind. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, psychological abuse. This is the classical kind and it creates adversity. It creates bad experiences.
If it is very extreme or very prolongedit can create trauma, so we have PTSD, or it can create complex trauma, if it is very long and regular and create complex trauma.
Both of them are usually lifelong. So the impacts are lifelong across the lifespan.
So this is adversity abuse, the kind we are all acquainted with, the kind we see in Hollywood movies, you know, Hallmark movies, that's okay.
But there is a class of abuse, abusive behaviors, which are under the radar. People don't realize that they're abusive, and they are actually the majority.
For example, spoiling your child, pampering the child, is abuse.
Why?
Because when you spoil the child, when you're overprotective, when you're isolating the child, when you're pedestalizing the child, when you're putting the child on a pedestal, when you are telling the child that you can do no wrong, it's everybody else's fault, the world is dangerous, you should stay at home, I'll protect you, when you're, all these behaviors isolate the child from reality. They also isolate the child from his or her peers. There's no peer experience.
So these kind of behaviors are what we call growth-retarding behaviors. These behaviors prevent personal growth and personal development.
And if you, as a parent, you're preventing the personal growth and development of your child, then you're not a good parent, may come as a surprise to you. You're not a good parent. You're being abusive.
Similarly, if you use the child as an instrument, an instrument to realize your unfulfilled dreams and wishes. You wanted to be a pianist, you failed, now your child will be a famous pianist. You wanted to be an actress, you did not become an actress, your child will be an actress.
When you use the child to realize your unfulfilled fantasies or dreams or wishes, the across is known as instrumentalization. That is of course abusive.
And there's this famous movie, The Shining, I think. It's an Australian movie where there's a father and he forces his son to be a pianist. And he's a very strict father. He's like this discipline, the child only plays piano, and the child goes crazy at him, he ends up in a mental asylum. It's a kind of abuse.
Another example is what is known as parentification. Parentification is when the parent uses the child as a parent. So the parent is a child and the child is a parent.
Similarly, when the child is used as a substitute for the spouse, you know? So a mother would confide in her son and conspire with the son against the husband that is parentification that is extremely abusive.
I described another category. I was the first to describe it.
Adultification, treating the child as an adult, not allowing the child to go through normal childhood, but from the very, very beginning, forcing the child to assume adult chores, adult responsibilities, the child is punished as an adult, rewarded as an adult, and so on, adultification.
So as you can see, there are many ways to abuse a child, many ways. And many, many children are abused, and we don't perceive it as abuse.
On the contrary, you say, what wonderful parents. They pay so much attention to him. They're so protective. They give him so much. Piano lessons, and I don't know what.
And we don't realize the child is being used. Simply used.
The distance between use and abuse is two letters. Remember this.
So children are exposed to abuse if the child is predisposed genetically and otherwise, the child may react with trauma.
Trauma is a reaction, it's a state of mind. It's not a universal objective thing.
If we take 10 people here and expose them to the same experience, only one of them would be traumatized. Nine would not.
Therefore, it's immediately evident that trauma is not an objective thing. It is actually a reaction. It's an interaction.
It's not something out there. It's not in reality. It's inside you. You're predisposed to trauma. You are available to trauma, and the clinical term is you are pre-morbid. You have a premorbidity to trauma.
So some children react with trauma, and trauma has three major reactive components.
In a minute we'll discuss trauma a bit more, but first let's discuss the reaction.
When the child is traumatized, there are three main reactive components.
One is known as dissociation, one is schizotopy, and one is neoteny.
Dissociation is a process where you somehow deny reality. You could deny reality by forgetting it, that is amnesia. You can deny reality by claiming that it is not real, by pretending that reality is not real. That is de-realization. You can deny reality by saying reality is real, but I'm not here. It's real, but I'm not here. That is depersonalization.
So many women who are raped, for example, they describe out-of-body experience. Like, it was only my body, I was not there.
So this is depersonalization. This is one class of reactions known as dissociation, and dissociation features dominantly in my work and the work of many others.
So we'll dedicate a lot to dissociation, but there are two others.
Schizotopy. Schizotopy is the tendency to react with psychotic, to have a psychotic reaction to trauma, or pseudo-psychotic. In other words, to confuse internal with external.
Narcissism is an example of schizotopy. Within narcissism, the narcissist confuses external objects with internal ones. The narcissist invents an internal object, a false self, and pretends that it is external.
So there is a confusion between external and internal, which is the child's reaction to abuse and trauma.
So that's a schizotopy reaction.
And finally, there's neoteny reaction.
The neoteny reaction simply means you refuse to grow up. Simply refuse to grow up. All generations can react with neotony.
I strongly suspect that current young people are in a state of post-trauma, however minimal, and they are reacting with neotony, possibly even schizotopy.
We see an increase in the rates of narcissism among the young, dramatic increase. We're talking about like 500%.
So it seems that schizotopy and neoteny becoming much more common in the general population as a reaction to a series of traumas.
I mean, COVID, financial crises, the wars, I mean, climate change. I mean, it's really very terrifying environment, very terrifying.
And there's no reason to assume that whole collectives, whole generations, cannot develop a collective mind, what is known as a group mind, a hive mind, and react as a single individual.
Definitely, for example, Nazi Germany was a case in point where the entire population reacted as a single individual.
So these are the three reactions.
Dissociation was described by Freud Jung and others, the old school, was described as a defense.
Freud suggested that when there is content, mental content that is unpleasant, that is threatening, mental content that doesn't sit well with other mental content, there is a discrepancy or conflict, mental content that is socially unacceptable, then we dissociated.
So when we are traumatized, for example, we dissociated. We forget about it, simply.
So this was Freud's view. He said it's a defense. We are defending against the unacceptable.
And there were others like Bolas. Bolas was a psychoanalyst. I think. Yeah, still is. He's in Washington. Bolas is a psychoanalyst and Bollos came up with the unthought known.
The unthought known is something we know, like for example a traumatic experience, but we never think of it. We don't allow it to emerge into consciousness. It's a form of dissociation, and so on.
So this is a defense.
Today we don't consider trauma, to a dissociation, I'm sorry, to be a defense. We do not consider it a defense. We consider it an integrative synthetic deficit.
A deficit, at integrating, at creating a picture of what has happened, taking elements, memories, emotions, cognitions, and putting them together in a narrative, in a story.
When we fail to do that, that is dissociation.
So we have this picture of integrative synthetic failure.
Dissociation is a key feature because, and by the way, I will not go into it right now. This, by the way, is not the seminar. That's an eight-day seminar that I give. And I gave, last one was in Romania. So that's an eight-day seminar. I'm trying to cherry-pick all kinds of things from here. But it's, of course, much bigger.
So I would give you a name, and you can read up on this guy, or you can watch a video that I made on my YouTube channel regarding the work of this person. His name is Charles Samuel Myers. Charles Samuel Myers. Myers. Myers. Myers.
Myers came up with a theory of structural dissociation. Structural dissociation. I have a video dedicated to it on my YouTube channel. I will not go into it right now. In the original seminar, it's like one hour plus. I'm not going to it right now.
But he suggested that when faced with the trauma, the personality breaks into two parts, apparently normal part and emotionally vulnerable part, emotionally what he called emotional parts.
And these two, the second part of the personality is the seat of the trauma, is where the trauma is located.
So he suggested the trauma restructures the personality, rearranges the personality.
And of course, Meyer's work is an example of integrative synthetic deficit. It's not a defense. It's a total alteration of the personality.
My work is connected to structural dissociation, as you will see. So I'm continuing his work.
Before we go into the black hole and the emptiness and the science fiction and so on, one last kind of mechanism, it's known as confabulation.
Now, if you don't have a core identity, if you change from day to day, if you keep forgetting things because you are dissociative, you're amnesia, you have memory gaps, you can't put things together. If I take away all your memories, you will not have an identity.
Go and watch Alzheimer patients. Alzheimer patients, they lost their memories, they have no identity.
Memories is just another name for identity.
But you cannot have memories if you're dissociative. Or you can have memories but they will not be continuous. They will not make sense.
In other words, you cannot have a narrative. Core identity is just another phrase to describe a story.
We all write our stories. What's a connection between your story and reality?
Very minimal, believe me. Very minimal for the simple reason that memories are created on the fly, memories are improvised.
It is not true that memories are stored in a warehouse or in a library. And when you need the memory, you go to the library and you take the book. Or you go to the warehouse and you take the...
No, it's not true. That's not how memory works.
Memories are created on the fly as you need them, as you require them, and they're created in a huge chaos and they're improvised.
So if you don't have this capacity, because you have memory gaps, and you cannot recreate the picture, recreate the narrative, then you don't have an identity.
Now this is seriously terrifying to not have an identity.
And yet, when you talk to narcissists or psychopaths, they appear to have an identity.
How come?
They use something called confabulation.
Confabulation was first described in Korsakoff syndrome patients.
You heard of Korsakoff syndrome? Yeah? Those of you who like alcohol? Beware.
Korsakoff syndrome is a disease that is brought on by the overconsumption of alcohol. Pure alcohol.
So it affects the brain, and the Korsakoff syndrome patient has a typical memory span of two minutes. Kind of a goldfish.
So if you talk to a Korsakoff patient, you'll say, hello, my name is Naum, what's your name? I'm Sam. Oh, pleased to meet you. Hello, my name is Naum, what's your name? I'm Sam. Oh, pleased to meet you. Hello, my name is Naum, what's your name? My name is Sam. Oh, pleased to meet you. And can go on like that for like, that's it. That's a memory.
Obviously, this kind of person doesn't have an identity.
But we discovered that Korsakoff patients confabulate. To try to compensate for these memory gaps, to try to create a narrative, a feeling of identity, they create a movie. They create a movie of themselves.
And they confabulate. They create stories. The stories are plausible. The stories are probable. The stories are likely. But they're stories all the same.
The thing is that the Korsakoff patient does not realize that these are inventions. The Korsakoff patient believespsychosis. Psychotic patients confabulate.
And same happens with narcissists. Narcissus confabulate.
The narcissist would find himself in point A and then kind of wake up and find himself in point C. Kind of wake up because here there is dissociation.
The amount of dissociative gaps in narcissism is mind-boggling.
A narcissist recalls from my experience, I've worked with thousands of narcissists, about 8% to 10% of his life.
It's mind-boggling. It's not very much, it's not much better than, let's say, psychotic person.
So, a narcissist is in A, then he finds himself in C. And he asks, what has happened? How did I end up in point C? I remember being in point A. How did I end up in point C?
This is that most likely I went through B. It makes sense. Stands to reason. If I were in C and now I'm in A and now I'm in C, I must have crossed point B.
And then it becomes a memory. This confabulation becomes a memory.
I was at work and here I am in the golf course. How did I get from work to the golf course? I probably took a taxi. I actually took a taxi. I remember the taxi. It was driven by a Pakistani. I spoke to the Pakistani and it told me about the flood in the Aulpindi, and I'm kidding you not.
And it becomes part, integral part of the memory.
And the narcissist would defend it. If you dare to challenge it and say, no, you did not take a taxi. I gave you a lift. So what they're talking about? I remember that I took a taxi. I even remember the Pakistani. I remember everything.
Okay. In 1972, there was a psychologist, a woman psychologist. The name was Frances Tustin.
Frances Tustinin 1972 suggested that children with autism spectrum disorders, at the time they were known as Asperger's, children with Asperger Disorder. She said the children with Asperger Disorder, they have a black hole where a human being should be, they have a black hole.
Today, if she said it, she would have lost her job, probably end up in prison. But at that time, it was a much more free period. Anyone could say what they really thought. So she suggested this.
Today we don't think this way. We realize that autism spectrum disorder is a developmental, neurodevelopmental disorder, and its impact on identity is actually minimal. There are many impacts on other things, but not on identity. So we think she was wrong.
But she was the one who introduced the simile or the metaphor of black hole. And then this metaphor metastasized. And every psychologist and his dog came up with a model how black holes are everywhere.
So the narcissist is a black hole and the psychopath is a black hole and everyone is a black hole and we created the new universe of psychopathology.
The truth is that long before Tustin, there were other scholars, and they belonged to what was known as the British object-relations schools.
Okay. Go back to Freud. Forget the British.
Go back to Freud. Freud said that the child is born and his energy. That energy initially was called libido. His energy, Freud suggested initially that the child has sexual energy. This was sex-directed, sex-oriented energy. Freud was very big on sex, at least theoretically.
So he said the child is born, he's full of sexuality, has libido, and so on so forth, and initially the sexuality is directed inwards. The child is not aware of the existence of other people. The child is aware only of its own existence.
So all this sexuality, all this libido, is directed inwards. And we have narcissistic libido.
And then Freud said, the child begins to realize the existence of other people and then the libido is redirected not inwardly, but now outwardly, other libido from narcissistic libido to other libido.
Okay, that was Freud.
Then there was a lot of fighting, you, among, don't ask, and the whole sex thing died, and instead of the sex, libido became the force of life.
There is a component of libido known as eros, and eros is sex, but all the rest is the force of life.
And then there was also the force of death, which was known as Thanatos, or later destrudo.
Long story, don't ask.
Where was I? And why was I there?
Where was I, one thing, why was I there? Where was I one thing?
Why was I there?
I need to confabulate urgently. I need to confabulate.
Yeah.
Okay. Right, right. No, no, I'm joking. Okay. I think I'm joking. You're just talking?
I was about to explain to you what is why the... joking. I was about to explain to you what is, why the object relations.
So then there was a woman, Melanie Klein.
By the way, fascinating fact. Out of 10 most prominent psychologists in up to the 1980s, the ten most prominent. Seven were not psychologists. That's a fact.
Freud was a neurologist. Winnicott was pediatrician. Melanie Klein, similarly, seven were not psychologists. And they invented psychology single-handedly.
Now, so there was this woman, Melanie Klein, she created a whole new theory, this, that, and one of the things she introduced into the discourse was objects, other people, as objects.
So there is narcissistic libido. The libido is directed outward at other people, but she said it's not only sex, it's not only its relationships. It's a relational thing.
And she invented object relations schools, relation with other people.
Now don't ask me why in psychology other people are called objects. Tells you a lot about psychology. Okay.
So in the 60s, there were British guys. Girls were not allowed. There were British guys, and they invented their own schools of object relations. Their own schools.
So we have people like Guntrip, people like Fairbairn and others.
So in the British object relation schools, they said that in case development is disrupted, in case the development of a child is disrupted, the child developed what they call empty core or empty schizoid core.
And the number one expert for this was a guy called Jeffrey Seinfeld.
No, not that Seinfeld. Jeffrey Seinfeld.
And Jeffrey Seinfeld wrote a book, actually. I think it was titled, Empty Schizoid Core.
So the concept of black hole was nothing new. Nothing new.
The British object relations schools already discussed this emptiness, this empty schizoid core.
And they said that this core is, it's a nothingness, it's an absence, it's an emptiness, but it has energy. It is what we call dynamic. It creates dynamics.
It's amazingly similar to recent discoveries in physics. I have a PhD in physics, by the way. So it's amazing, amazing to compare.
Because today in physics we believe that the vacuum in space has latent energy. Particles are created out of nothing within the vacuum of space.
This is more or less object relations approach. There is this emptiness, but the emptiness gives rise to processes and to constructs and to the emptiness is a dynamic engine only it's not an engine of growth.
Emptiness is unbearable. There was an ancient Greek who said that nature doesn't tolerate emptiness. Emptiness is unbearable.
This feeling of not being, this feeling of absence, even in a small child, let alone in adolescence or as an adult, is terrifying. It pushes people to suicidal ideation, for example, in borderline personality disorder, suicide ideation is very common, and 11% of people with borderline personality disorder diagnosis end up committing suicide successfully.
This wish to kill yourself is actually a wish to self-realize, to self-actualize.
That is the irony in borderline. Suicide is perceived as a constructive act of becoming that emptiness, merging with the emptiness.
It's like this is my essence and the only way to become my essence is to kill myself in effect.
By annihilating the external, I will have become the internal.
Similarly in narcissism, the empty schizoid core is terrifying and problematic.
And so what the narcissist does, he populates the empty schizoid core. He populates it. He brings into the empty schizoid core people from the outside in a process known as introjection.
The narcissist interjects people and then his mind is full of voices, full of internal objects, full of representations of people, full of avatars, full of imagery, but it's full.
It's all make-belief. It's all make-belief. It's all fake. Of course, it's all counterfactual, it's all a fantasy, but it's a way to cope with the emptiness.
The emptiness drives you to do something, just do something, because it's intolerable. It's intolerable and unbearable. It's a burden that you cannot live with. You either die or you become actually a hive mind.
It's a hive mind. The narcissist mind is a hive mind. You could see bits and pieces and shrapneles and fragments of thousands of people there. It's like a huge collage.
And there's no organizing principle. There's no center. There's no center there. There's no meaning. It's a meaningless thing. It's devouring all the time, like a black cloud, you know, rolling forward and devouring more and more and more people.
But not because there is any aim or purpose, it's just to sustain itself.
In other words, the main strategies to cope with this emptiness, with this void, with this black hole, these strategies are predatory.
The prey could be the individual, because when the borderline kills herself or himself, it's predatory. She's the prey, of course.
And the prey could be other people, like the narcissist or the psychopath.
But at any rate, it's all driven by this emptiness.
We distinguish between, consequently, because of what I've just said, we distinguish between anaclitic personalities, these are pathologies, anaclitic personalities and introjective personalities.
Anaclytic personality is the borderline. It's an anaclytic personality.
And the introjective personality is the narcissist.
When the borderline over-relies on external objects for regulation, when she uses her intimate partner to regulate her moods, her emotions and so on, that's anaclytic personality.
Because the borderline does not confuse external and internal in this sense. She knows that the intimate partner is external.
Actually, had the intimate partner been internal, he would not be able to regulate her. She needs the externality of the partner. She needs the partner to be separate from her so that he can regulate her.
That's why her personality is anaclytic, over reliance on external objects.
The narcissist is exactly the opposite. If you're external to the narcissist, you are useless. It can do nothing with you because you can challenge the narcissist. You can disagree, you can criticize, you can abandon, you can reject, you can injure the narcissist, you can mortify the narcissist.
The narcissist will never give you this power as external object.
So the narcissist internalizes you, digests you, subsumes you, helps you down. And that's the only way to control you, to control you so that you don't hurt the narcissists.
So the narcissists digest people, brings them into his mind internally, internalizes them, interjects them.
And this is introjective personality.
Whereas the borderline goes outward. She looks for solution outside herself.
Why?
Because there is no self. She looks for solutions outside because she doesn't trust her self because there's no self.
But these are two completely different solutions. You are beginning to see the differences between borderline and narcissism. They're not the same. These are two completely different solutions. You are beginning to see the differences between borderline and narcissism. They're not the same. These are two completely different solutions. Let's talk a bit about why and how children develop this emptiness. How they become empty. Who and what empties them?
It's like these, these, these bulldozers, you know, with a, with a hand. It's like who excavates them? It's like excavation.
And so the process involves parenting, and as I said, unfortunately, mostly the mother. Now let's talk about mothers and fathers, a fun subject. Mothers are influential until more or less the age of 36 months. Mothers are responsible for development until that age. It's not to say that father doesn't exist, but father has very minimal impact, even if father is there. Now when I say mother, just to be clear, has nothing to do with genitalia. Mother is the person who fulfills the maternal function. So if a mother is absent, but the father is the mother, then it's the father. Whoever fulfills the maternal function has undue impact, disproportionate impact, up to age 36 months. After 36 months, the roles reverse. The mother is much less influential. The father becomes more influential. The father becomes a socialization agent. So the father teaches the child how to behave in society. The father teaches the child scripts, sexual scripts, social scripts. The father teaches the child skills, all kinds of skills, and so on.
So the father is actually a long arm of society, while the mother is a long arm of nature and nurture. She is responsible for what the child becomes when the father takes over.
That's why all the major pathologies and definitely personality pathologies are the outcome of interaction between child and mother. These are all maternal afflictions.
I'm sorry to say. I know this is unpopular in today's day and age, but this is a fact. Now, John Boulby, who was the father of attachment theory, said the same. Until in the 70s and 80s, there was this political correctness starting in psychology, and he was coerced, literally forced to modify, and to say, well, maybe the father also has some impact and so on, but he never agreed to revise completely what he said.
And it was Mary Ainsworth, mother, by the way, who revised attachment theory. And Mary Ainsworth said, the father also plays the role. But I disagree completely. I think the mother is critical. We have what is known as the critical period hypothesis, C. The critical period hypothesis, C.P.H. The critical period hypothesis, there's a debate. Some people say until age six years old, some people say until five or four, some people.
But there is a consensus that it is until age 36 months, at least. From zero to 36 months months that's a critical period now we begin to go into uncharted and a bit fantastic territory and things I don't believe you've heard before because these are kind of arcane writings of scholars who talk only to scholars and so on.
Let's start. Let's start with the process of becoming. At one o'clock you'll be let go and you can limp over to the nearest restaurant and eat something. Half an hour, unfortunately. Okay? So, because we have a lot of material and we are here to learn not to eat, I hope. A child is born. A child is born. Today we know that a lot is happening in the womb. A lot. We know that a child is exposed definitely to sounds, especially repetitive sounds, rhythms, music. We know that a child is absolutely able to identify the mother's voice and reacts to the mother's voice.
We know that the child has initial thoughts. We believe so because the prefrontal cortex is beginning to operate and so. So some initial cognitions, like, wow, it's comfortable here. I like it. This kind of thing. So there's cognitions.
The child begins to develop proprioception. In other words, begins to perceive its own body. So the child is able to reposition itself.
When there are twins, they negotiate the position. They position themselves so they're both comfortable, which requires perception of the other.
Because otherwise you wouldn't do it. It's not empathy, but it's beginning to be reminiscent of reflexive empathy.
There's a lot happening in the womb.
When the child is born, the pregnancy is not over, of course. Pregnancy continues for another 36 months, actually five years. For another five years.
80% of the brain is developed by age five years, 90% by age six years.
And it is the brain that's a problem. The brain is huge, disproportionately huge in human beings, some human beings. And so that requires a big skull, skull that is ever expanding to accommodate the brain.
And mother has only limited means of delivering this skull. And so the nature has to compromise. The baby has to be born prematurely.
All babies are born prematurely, even at nine months. They're all born prematurely.
The brain continues to develop afterwards in leaps and bounds, explodes, actually. And the rest of the body follows much more slowly.
And that raises, of course, the question, what is the baby, the newborn? What is the newborn capable of perceiving when the newborn is born?
We know, for example, that babies at age six days are able to tell the difference between light and shadow. We know that.
We know that babies are able to track motion movements a few weeks old, depending on the baby, but like a few weeks old.
We know that baby reacts reflexively to mother's face and mother's smile, but no one else's, only mother.
So there are beginnings of something there.
But the indications are, and these have been studies over decades by the likes of Jean Piaget and Margaret Mahler and many, many others.
The indications are that children initially are unable to perceive external objects. They're unable to perceive the fact that there are other things, let alone people out there.
They have a view of the universe, if you wish, that is psychotic.
Newborns are therefore clinically psychotic because they're completely confused external and internal.
As far as the newborn is concerned, like the song says, I am the world. We are the world. The song wrote by, written by psychotic newborns.
So, initially, the newborn perceives possibly itself.
It's also a fascinating question. Does it perceive itself?
No answer to that.
But definitely does not perceive anything external and reacts to the environment as if it were himself or herself.
The reactions to the environment indicate that the baby perceives the world as part of himself or herself.
And this is what Freud called oceanic feeling, as if the baby is immersed in an ocean.
Margaret Mahler described a phase in the relationship between the baby and mother, a phase that she called symbiosis.
She says there's a symbiotic phase between mother and baby.
And in this symbiosis, there is no distinction between external and no boundaries. The world is mediated through mother, but mother is the baby.
There is no distinction between mother, baby and the world. They are one and the same.
And then something terrifying happens, something traumatizing in the extreme.
Of course, the first trauma is being born. Being born is a major trauma.
The environment, the external environment, especially in Zagreb in winter, is dramatically different to the internal environment.
I'm told, I don't remember, butwinter, is dramatically different to the internal environment.
I'm told, I don't remember, but I think, dramatically different, of course.
And not only is the environment different, but the demands from the baby, from the newborn, are very different.
The newborn has to breathe. The newborn has to cry. The newborn has to smile at mommy.
Why does the newborn smile at mommy? Because he likes mommy? No.
These are nurture and skews. He's queuing mommy to give it food. It's a way to condition mommy, to manipulate mommy. So crying, smiling, these are all manipulative. Babies are Machiavellian.
So there are a lot of new skills and new demands that the baby has to develop within minutes.
Because a baby that is not fed is typically a dead baby.
So you need to develop this within minutes. It's a gigantic trauma.
And yet, it is nothing compared to the next trauma that I'm about to describe to you.
Remember that the baby and mother in the world are one and the same.
And then suddenly, one day, baby realizes that mommy and the world are separate. They are not me. Mommy is not me. The world is not me.
The whole world breaks down. The whole world disintegrates. It's a terrifying, traumatizing, horrendous experience.
How does the baby realize that he or she is not mother?
It, okay, I will use the word it. How does the baby realize that it is not mother?
Mother's gaze. Mother's gaze. Mother's gaze.
Mother takes care of the baby. Mother looks at the baby. Mother frustrates the baby.
Baby wants to eat. Mother is not there. Baby wants mother to stay. Mother leaves the room.
These cumulative experiences of externality, and especially the mother's gaze, because the baby can see itself in the mother's gaze.
It's a metaphor. I'm not saying the baby can see itself in the irises of the mother, but the baby can see itself through the fact that it is being regarded by the mother.
At that point, the baby has no choice, but to admit that mother is separate. It's not him. It's not it. There's me and there's mother.
Otherwise, who is perceiving me? Who is gazing at me? Who is taking care of me? Who is making me mad and frustrating me?
It cannot be me. It cannot be me because some of these experiences are unpleasant, egodystonic.
The baby cannot assume that he is doing. It's clearly coming from the outside.
The very concept of the outside is born. The very concept of external is born. The very concept of separate is born.
Nothing ever in your whole lives could be that terrifying. Trust me. This is the most shocking revelation and the baby is traumatized.
That's the initial trauma. That schism, that emergence of the world is healthy. It's a healthy type of trauma. It's a growth-inducing trauma.
The baby begins to develop boundaries, and these boundaries coalesce with time, a lot of time. They become what we know as the self or the ego.
Let's see me for a minute. And these boundaries become gradually the self or the ego, whatever you want to call them. We'll discuss the self in a minute. I'm very skeptical about this very concept.
But okay, this feeling of I am me. I am me. Okay, this emerges from this trauma. This trauma is absolutely necessary and healthy.
And here we come to something totally counterintuitive.
A bad mother is a mother who does not traumatize her baby.
Simple. A bad mother is a mother who does not traumatize the baby.
For example, a mother who does not gaze at her baby, doesn't take care of the baby. For example, a mother who doesn't push the baby away so that the baby can experience the world, peers.
That kind of mother who does not allow the baby to separate from her because she's insecure, because this kind of mother is a bad mother.
A good mother pushes the child away. A good mother traumatizes the child, induces the child, induces growth by trauma.
And of course, we have exactly the opposite view of motherhood, which explains a lot of the mental illness in my view.
Initially, the child copes with a maternal gaze and then accepts that the mother is external and separate.
And this provokes in the child, holy terror.
The child's underlying assumption was, mother is me, so I'm in control of mother.
Let's translate it into British object relations schools.
Mother is an internal object, so mother is me, so I'm in control of mother. So I will always have food. I will always have shelters. I will always have someone to change my diapers. Because mother is me.
And when the child realizes that that is not true, this assumption is not true, this is wholly terror.
And the child is forced to develop some mechanisms to cope with this.
Fear, existential fear, that since mother is not under the child's control, she can theoretically abandon the child, neglect the child and cause the child to die. It's an existential fear.
And here we're beginning to understand why we all need to be seen.
The whole culture of social media.
What is the culture of social media?
We want to be seen. We want to be seen by 100 people. We want to be seen by 100,000 people.
But we want to be seen. We want to be noticed. We want someone to pay attention to us.
Why? Why is this compulsion? Why are we driven to be noticed?
Because it's existential. A baby that is not seen has very limited life expectancy.
To be seen is the most crucial element in survival.
And so to be seen becomes our compulsive driving force for life.
If we are not seen by our partner, if we are not seen by our family, if we are not seen by our governments, if we are not seen, we become aggressive. We demand to be seen. Demand.
Technology is an aggressive act. We are using technology to force people to see us.
So there is this issue of the need to be seen. And you're beginning to see, I hope, those of you who are still awake, are beginning to see the similarities between this and, for example, narcissism, where the need to be seen is dominant. The fear of externality is overpowering.
So the narcissist internalizes everyone the same way a baby does.
And the narcissist needs to be seen the same way a baby does.
Narcissists are babies.
We come to it when we discuss neoteny and the rest of development.
Lacan had a concept of a perception. He came up with the concept of a perception. And he said that a perception is when the child realizes that it is an object, that it is separate from the world. And the child realizes this by looking at the mirror.
So Lacan has this concept of mirror. So the child looks at the mirror and realizes that it is an object, self-objectification. And he calls it a perception.
And in my work, the child doesn't need the mirror. I think this process happens earlier than a mirror. It happens with the mother. The mother is a mirror.
And in this sense, my work is much closer to Heinz Kohut.
Heinz Kohut described narcissistic transferences. And one of the narcissistic transferences of Heinz Kohut is mirroring. The mother mirrors, or the parents, mirror the child.
So in my work as well, the mother's mirroring gives rise to individuality, gives rise to the...
And so I'm anti-Lacanian. I'm not Lacan, but I had to tell you what he said.
However, on another issue, we agree, actually.
By the way, Lacan looks like my identical twin. I am not kidding you. Go online?
You look like.
I look like it's identical twin. Who online.
You look like.
I look like it's identical twin.
Who is Lacan?
Come on. I'm serious completely. Go online. Not now. Go online. Search Lacan. And you will see identical twin. He's like...
And he was an expert on narcissism. He studied narcissism.
Exactly. Reincarnation.
What can I say?
In France.
Oh, reincarnation, yeah.
Yeah. Oh, reincarnation, yes. You there are not laughing enough. You have been warned.
Apopo, babies.
So I mentioned where I disagree with Lacan, which broke his heart. I mean, he died after it.
And I will now mention where we agree.
Lacan says that the unconscious is the gaze of other people.
He says what we call unconscious is what the way other people perceive you and their words, the language. So the external world is internalized and becomes the unconscious.
I agree with Lacan. And actually I'm saying that it is the mother that creates the unconscious.
The mother's gaze is the first gaze.
The mother's language is the first language.
The first exposure to the other, to the other, to language, is the mother.
So it is the mother that creates the portal unconscious, the basic unconscious that later develops with life.
Hitherto is a healthy child and a relatively healthy mother.
I mean, you need to be a little crazy to become a mother, but okay. A relatively healthy mother and a healthy child.
But of course, that is not the subject of this seminar.
Subject of this seminar is unhealthy mothers and consequently unhealthy children.
And now we are entering the field of psychoanalysis, especially French psychoanalysis in the 80s, and a dominant figure there by the name of André Green.
Andrei Green said that a good mother, I mean, he started from the fact that a good mother is a secure base.
A secure base is a concept in attachment theory.
A secure base is a mother who feels safe to the baby.
Think about it for a minute.
At around age, 18 months, when the baby is about 18 months, the baby starts to let go of mommy. You know, the baby until then is hugging mummy's leg and would never let go.
And then around 18 months, between 18 and 36 months, the baby starts to let go of mommy, the baby walks a few steps, looks back at mommy and runs back to mommy.
Any of you who has been a mother could confirm what I'm saying.
Babies explore the world in small steps and then they run back to mommy.
Because mommy is a secure base.
Mommy is there.
Mommy will not punish them for letting go.
Mommy will not be insecure about separation.
Mommy will encourage their grandiosity. We'll tell them, yeah, you're big enough, go. Mommy will introduce them into situations with peers and physical environment where they could explore.
So this kind of mother is sensitive, responsive. She meets the needs of the child, and the child refers to the mother to reduce anxiety. The mother is anxiolytic. She reduces anxiety.
So this kind of mother is known as secure base mother. Okay?
Andrei Green described, ah, sorry, before Andre Green, there was a guy called Winnicott, Donald Winnicott, and Donald Winnicott came with the concept of good enough mother.
And the good enough mother is essentially what Ainsworth later called the secure base mother. Okay?
And then we had Andre Green. And Andre Green was the first to describe the opposite of the secure base mother. And he called her the dead mother.
I don't think it's a very clever choice of words, but that's his choice.
He called her the dead mother, metaphorically dead mother.
That is a mother who is emotionally absent, a mother who is preoccupied, has other things to do, a mother who is physically absent, a mother who is depressive, a mother who is selfish, my mother.
So, it's a mother who is unable to provide a stable gaze, a stable presence, and a secure base.
And therefore, as far as the child is concerned, she's dead. It's a dead mother.
And of course, mentally ill mothers and mothers who are not there. Whatever reason, sometimes it's not the mother.
And of course mentally ill, mothers and mothers were not there. Whatever reason, sometimes it's not a mother's fault. Maybe often it's not a mother's fault.
But these mothers are not there for the child. They're dead.
And the child internalizes this death. The child internalizes the dead mother because children internalize the mother.
Children, all children, interject the mother. They internalize the mother.
If you internalize a mother who is alive, who is loving, who is available, then for the rest of your life, you will have with you a mother who is loving and caring and compassionate and affectionate and has your best interest in mind.
If you internalize as a child a mother who is dead, who is absent, who is depressive, who is selfish, who is insecure.
That's the kind of mother you will have with you for the rest of your life.
And this has massive implications not only when it comes to your ability to attach, to create attachments, but it has massive implications in other ways, which we will discuss.
Okay, let's do the following. It's a quote. I don't want to start because it's too long.
Okay, let's do the following. We take a break now.
Those of you want to have lunch, that's the opportunity.
Let's reconvene at 130.
That will give you 45 minutes?
Yes, great.
Okay?
1.30 here. Bon appetit.