Hello.
Hello. Hi.
How are you?
Okay.
Good to see.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay. We start with the most important subject in the world.
Maybe before we start of the subject, you can tell us a bit about yourself and so on.
Oh, okay. I'm Malka. I'm Marca Spector. I'm a sex therapist and mainly actually family therapist. I graduated Tel Aviv University, my first degree at UNC. And mainly I deal with sexuality, not only sex, but sexuality. And I live near Jerusalem and I also work online. But the main thing is that I deal with sexuality, but I'm all confused because nobody can answer the real, real burning questions about making love, having sex nowadays, not only the pandemic, not only the war. The last 20 years since I started, the last 15 years, I see no sex among married people and even less among non-married people. And I'm really confused. So I turned to you and I asked what do you think about the whole thing. Is there any future to sexuality among married people? What's going on, Sam?
Sex is a mode of communication. It's a language. And it is therefore predicated. It is the outcome or the derivative of the need to communicate, the need to communicate, the need to talk to each other.
You can talk to each other using words. You can talk to each other using your body.
But we live in an age of atomization, an age where people prefer loneliness and singlehood to intimacy and couplehood, people regard any interpersonal relationship with someone else as a burden, a problem, a difficulty, or even a threat.
So there are declining incentives to be in touch with each other. Declining incentives to talk to each other or to listen to each other, declining incentives to socialize with each other.
And of course, consequently, declining incentives to have sex.
Sex has two components, as you well know. It has the bodily component, the physiological component.
And in this sense, sex is just the gratification of an arousal.
But in the case of human beings, at least, it has another component, which is possibly much more relevant and much more weighty than the physiological one.
And that's a psychological component. That's why we use the term psychosexuality rather than sex.
And when the psychology of people changes, when people withdraw from each other, avoid each other, when people put boundaries and distances and isolate themselves, when 42% of the adult population in industrialized nations choose to be lifelong single, when among the young under age 25, the frequency of sex has been declining dramatically because they are incapable of having intimacy.
And they are incapable of having intimacy because they've never been brought up to be intimate with each other and because of economic considerations. They can't, for example, rent an apartment and have a private space.
That's right.
So there are no incentives not only on the individual level, but also on the socio-economic level, and on the environmental level.
And so the physiological part can be easily gratified via pornography.
Pornography provides arousal. The cost of pornography is infinitely small, zero in effect.
And the risks attendant upon pornography are much, much less, much more reduced compared to the risks of interacting with another human being nowadays.
It's a risky proposition today to be in contact with another person. A risky proposition. It's dangerous territory.
And so people have been avoiding each other on multiple levels and sex is no exception.
Now, physiologically speaking, our brains, and especially male brains, by the way, this is true mostly when it comes to male brains.
Male brains cannot tell the difference between visuals and actual experience.
The male brain reacts to pornography, identically, to having real sex. That has been established in functional magnetic resonanceimaging studies, and so on and so forth.
Men are not able to tell the difference on the primitive level, on the brain level. They are not able to tell the difference between pornography and a real-life partner.
So the arousal physiological part is 100% gratified with men. They don't need women for this.
And women have never been focused on the sexual aspect, on the physiological aspect. Women have always regarded the whole thing as a package deal.
Even in a one-night stand, a woman expected some kind of connection.
That's right.
Some kind of emotional resonance or gratification, however minimum. However minimal.
And so both genders or both sexes, a big difference between sex and gender, but both sexes and both genders today are self-sufficient.
The men are self-sufficient because they have access, unlimited, unmitigated access to pornography of the highest quality, in order. And so they are aroused and they orgasm without any need for a real-life partner.
And women are disincentivized and they don't need men because men are not offering the complete package.
That's right.
Men are highly focused on physiological bodily gratification. Men are not offering today emotions or intimacy or connectivity. It's all very mechanical. It's all very genitalia oriented. It's all very kinky in the best case.
Yes.
And that's it. And this is not something women are interested in.
So men are offering what women are not interested in.
I need some hope. I need some words of hope. I'm serious because the last thing that I really, I was shocked and I want to tell you, maybe someone will benefit from it, a couple came to me and they have four kids, beautiful kids.
And I talked to them about their sexuality. And it turns out they did it not by penetration and I'm married. He couldn't penetrate to her, in her, because he just couldn't. He had to ejaculate into a mavachina, and then he, I mean, isn't that shocking?
I'm talking to you about real life stories, and I'm 67, and it still shocks me to see how far pornography influences our brain.
I mean, he loves her. He loves her so much, the Madonna, which Madonna horror complex, he loves her so much that he cannot penetrate into her. Four kids.
And now, now I have to, I really am on a journey to find out what's going on. How can we a little bit reverse it, just a little bit?
Well, we have definitely transitioned from, in the operational sense, we have definitely transitioned from sex or full-fledged sex, or partner sex, to masturbation.
Exactly.
Masturbation is the main mode of sexual activity nowadays.
Yes, it is.
Even when you are with a sexual partner, you're masturbating with a sexual partner's body.
Yes.
It is still masturbation.
So self- gratification is known in psychology as autoerotism. Autoerotism is when you consider your own body or yourself as the main and sometimes the only, the sole, the exclusive sexual object.
You're attracted to yourself, actually.
Exactly.
And you're attracted to yourself either alone, when you're alone, face with pornography or fantasy or imagination or whatever, but you could also be attracted to yourself via the agency of a partner.
Her gaze, the very fact that she's attracted to you, the very fact she finds you irresistible, very fact she wants to have sex with you, is enough to arouse you and to make you your own sexual object, because you see yourself through another person's eyes.
And what you see in that other person's eyes is how attractive you are. And so you're attracted to yourself.
And so there is a tidal wave, a tsunami of autoerotism, masturbatory activities, and so on and so forth.
And even when there is some form of interaction between partners, sexual partners, the partner is objectified and commodified.
So for example, the two most prevalent sexual practices nowadays are choking and anal sex. Vaginal sex is in the third place.
If not more than that even.
Yes.
Even more.
Less.
Vaginal sex almost disappeared and today it's anal.
Yes.
Today it's anal and choking. Both anal and choking involve the objectification of the partner. treating the partner as a dildo, animated sex doll, and objectifying the partner in the sense that the partner is treated as an object.
Now in an age of rising narcissism, what is narcissism?
Narcissism is when we are sexually attracted to ourselves.
By the way, this is the original definition of narcissism. The first person to describe narcissism was Sigmund Freud.
Yes. And Sigmund Freud in 1914, when he discussed narcissism, he was talking about sexual self-attraction. That was the original definition of narcissism. Today it's not, but at the time it was.
So in an age of narcissism, we make love to ourselves. Sometimes through the mediation and agency of another person, but still, we make love to ourselves and to no one else.
And the second thing is we treat everyone as a tool of gratification, an object, a device, a gadget, everyone. We ignore, we dehumanize the partner. We no longer see the human dimension.
And so there's no need for any ulterior communication. The only need is actually two bodies and using the partner's body to masturbate.
Now this is of course, as you said repeatedly, this is definitely a reflection of pornography. This is exactly what happens in pornography.
You don't know the names of the people, you don't have any background, they don't have a personal history, they come out of nowhere, there's no context, it's just bodies clashing.
And usually everyone in pornography is actually masturbating with other people's bodies. It's a masturbatory industry. It's not about sex. There's no sex in pornography. That is a myth. There's masturbation, sometimes using instruments, sometimes using people, but it's masturbation.
The thing is this.
Exactly.
The thing is this, pornography is well suited to the age of narcissism.
In other words, it's not an accident that pornography has exploded exactly now.
There's always been pornography. You can find pornography in Pompeii, in the ruins of Pompeii on the walls, you see, phonographic paintings. Pornography has always been with us.
Yes.
But it was nowhere near as prevalent, ubiquitous and all important as it is today.
Because today pornography is the dominant form of sexual education. Studies in the United States and other countries have shown that young people under the age of 25 acquire most of their knowledge about sex from pornography and from peers and the peers got their knowledge from pornography.
From pornography, yes. So pornography is the number one sex educator in the world.
It is true.
But it is so successful because it teaches people to function in a highly narcissistic dehumanizing society.
So pornography is the right kind of sex in the postmodern world.
This is the big mistake of sex educators and no offense, sexology.
No problem.
Talk pornography.
They say pornography is bad. It teaches young people bad sexual practices.
That's not true. Pornography teaches young people exactly what they need to know in a world that is called hostile, narcissistic, selfish, dehumanizing, and objectifying.
I understand.
I understand. I agree with you.
When you need to learn as a young person how to conduct sex in such a world, you are much better off learning from pornography than from anything else.
So this is the role of pornography.
And we all have sexual scripts. Sexual scripts teach us how to behave in a variety of sexual settings and circumstances.
But how do you apply sexual scripts when, for example, sex is fluid? I mean, male, female, binary, non-binary, how do you apply sexual scripts to this?
I don't know.
How do you apply sexual scripts when behaviors are fluid, when morality is fluid, when everything is in flux?
Sexual scripts are useless.
You have to learn on the fly. You have to improvise all the time. You have to negotiate each meeting and each transaction from zero, from the beginning.
There's no guidance. There are no rules.
You meet a person. You both want to have sex. You have to talk about it. You have to analyze it. You have to agree on brown rules, consent, enthusiastic, not enthusiastic, it becomes a lawyer leave. It becomes legal, and it's like a court, you know, going to court.
So, unfortunately it's true. Sex is becoming repulsive also.
It's becoming repulsive because the period preceding the sex sounds like two lawyers negotiating.
And if you get it wrong, if you get it wrong, that's sexual assault.
That's right.
I know.
I know all about it. You may end up destroying your life.
So.
I know. It's true. It's true.
And women really, I have to say, no, I'm not shy to say it. I'm not ashamed. Women use this very much.
Even here in Israel, they use it. They use it to get money, to get fame, to be carbonot, to be victims.
No problem. I mean, people use it, and women use it. And I'm a woman, and I can say it's true.
I need some hope, but not only that I need hope, I think there is hope.
The hope is, as you say in many of your lectures, first of all, to accept life and reality as is.
First, we accept that that's 2024, 2025 almost, and that's life, that's reality. So fighting with reality is, it's not good for us, right?
But some of the hope I see is that I have to say, I have to confess that my son is religious. I know your friends about religion. My son is religious. He has eight kids. No one of his kids has smartphone.
And I'm completely sure, completely sure that even when they get to see pornography, they won't be 12 years old. They will be maybe 25 years old, which is also the age that you say, and it's true that our brain is adult finally.
But I feel that there's hope in that we can, we don't have to give kids, all of them, including religious kids like my grandchildren, smartphones, we really don't have to. It's not in the Bible. It's not in the law. We don't, I think we start, it's okay. We are okay.
But if you are 10 years old now here in Israel or in America or in Macedonia, whatever, you don't have to give children smartphones. I think it's possible.
Let's say if you're really poor, no smartphone. If you are really religious like my son is, no smartphone for the kids. For him, it's okay.
So I think the hope is maybe we can learn from people who are innocent in that they discover that they can be innocent.
And until that, what, 22, 23, when they still, you know, the religious people are getting married when they're 22, 23.
I think it's a trick. It's a solution. It's a small solution.
But I really need more hopebecause I think there is hope and we'll talk about it in a few minutes.
There is some hope, some hope. Because I think, I mean, I'm happily married, but I feel that I almost feel pity for people who are getting married now.
Because within one year, that's it.
No excitement, nothing.
Fewer and forth.
Back to pornography, and they do.
Fewer and fewer people are.
It's months after the marriage and three months after the marriage ceremony, they go to Pornhub.
Pornhub, right? It's amazing.
So to tell the truth between this and being poor or very religious, I take the religious.
Why not?
Because they're pure in their thinking and they think about good things. They don't have to be exposed to pornography in the age of eight.
What are your thoughts about it?
I don't believe in curing one problem by introducing another.
I see.
I regard religion as delusional disorders.
I asked the wrong person about religion.
I agree that we are not completely helpless.
Okay.
For example, the reason pornography has become the number one sex education venue is that we do not provide sex education.
We do not provide sex education, definitely in countries like the United States, where sexual education is prescribed.
And when we do provide sex education, we focus on anatomy, mostly.
Mostly anatomy.
That's right. That's right.
And so we refuse. I think adults are afraid to tackle the topic.
They are afraid to talk to children.
That's right. That's right.
That's right.
So I think if we were to provide sex education, that would be a very important step, at least to counter the misinformation coming out of pornography.
That's right. That's right.
The second thing is we don't have good role models.
That's right.
For example, masculinity.
It's very difficult for a young boy to learn how to become a man.
That's why.
Because there are no good role models of masculinity, so you end up with the likes of Andrew Tate or worse, who teach young boys, and even Jordan Peterson, who teach young boys to be toxic men.
He does. I don't know enough about him. He does.
In his own subtle way.
Andrew Tate is much more open about it.
Okay. When you don't have role models, okay.
People like Andrew Tate and even Jordan Peterson will become your role models because you're at a loss.
When you look around you, the adults are failing. They're failing in their relationships. They're failing in their sex. They're failing in their sexuality. Who would you emulate? Who would you imitate?
That's right. That is very true.
Today there's a huge vacuum.
Today there's a huge, let's establish a protocol when I finish.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay?
It's very disruptive.
It's very hard for me, but thank you.
Thank you.
So, in the absence of role models and in the absence of proper education, not only about sex, but about intimacy, about relationships, about growing up, about becoming an adult, about adult chores and responsibilities, about social functioning, sexual scrapes, all this is missing.
There's not one country in the world, and that includes countries like Sweden. There's not one country in the world, and that includes countries like Sweden. There's not one country in the world, which gives children what they need in order to become functioning happy adults.
So I blame the education system.
Not only Holland, Netherlands?
The Netherlands?
No.
No?
Because in the Netherlands, what you get is you get 10% of the equation.
You get the hyper-liberal, progressive vision or version of sex, which doesn't reflect, absolutely does not reflect the overwhelming vast majority of a population.
So...
What do you mean, wait, I didn't understand. What do you mean 10%?
In the Netherlands, you get a kind of sex education that is woke, sex education that is liberal, hyper-progressive.
Okay, okay.
And 90% of a population on Earth don't agree with these values. These are not the values of 90% of the population onof 90% of population on Earth.
And so imposing this agenda on people is not sex education, as far as I'm concerned. It does not prepare them for life.
Knowing learning about transgender and about homosexuality is very important, of course. But when this becomes the core syllabus, when this becomes the only thing you teach, then it's a problem.
And that's the case in Poland.
I'm sorry.
Wow. Wow.
There's nothing balanced. There's no introduction of children into adulthood.
Induction. Process called induction.
There's no induction.
So children go where they can. They go to peers. They go to pornography. They go to Jordan Peterson. They go wherever they can.
You're so entertaining.
I have to say.
I have to say.
So, Sam, is there any future for marriage?
Between me and you, nobody listens.
I mean, marriage, come on. What's for?
I mean, children we can do with other ways. Women, you know, found out about it. What's marriage for? Really?
Marriage is mostly about companionship and the allocation of economic resources, wealth, accumulated wealth and so on, and passing it on to the next generation.
Now, technically marriage is indeed not needed, as you said. You can have children outside marriage, you can have companionship outside marriage. You can have friendship outside. We can have sex outside.
I mean, marriage today is not a framework that provides on the face of it, any value added.
What's the value added in marriage? It's just burdensome and so on.
But that's exactly the value added of marriage. Marriage makes it more difficult to break up.
The only indispensable function of marriage, the only function you cannot find outside marriage is that marriage makes it difficult to break up. Forces you to consider, forces you to think, forces you to try again.
Marriage forces you to not act. To grow up.
So to grow up, exactly. To not act impulsively and petulantly.
Because the penalties, if you act stupidly and immaturally the penalties are huge so you can find sex outside marriage companionship you name it you can find everything outside marriage even children even when you're alone with no partner you can have children. You can find everything outside marriage.
Even children, even when you're alone with no partner, you can have children. Everything you couldn't find outside marriage.
The only thing you cannot find outside marriage is commitment. True commitment.
Because true commitment goes not only with rewards and benefits. True commitment goes with punishments, with sanctions.
When I want you to be truly committed to someone, I will tell you what good things you will get if you're committed, what good outcomes you will have if you remain committed.
But I will also tell you what will happen if you break your word, if you break your promise, if you walk away, if you're immature, if you're not serious, if you're narcissistic, you're not narcissistic.
Yes.
So marriage is a mature non-narcissistic institution, which is exactly why it is in decline.
Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second.
So you say something amazing. Marriage is sort of the medicine for narcissistic age, for the narcissistic age or the narcissistic person because it's gulot, it's borders, it's limitations.
And we need limitations. We need borders. We need stop signs.
Wow. Wow. That's new.
And we need punishments.
When you establish a boundary, when I establish a boundary, when I told you a few minutes ago, for example, I told you, please don't talk when I talk. That's a boundary.
But when I establish a boundary, it's clear that if you break this boundary, there will be consequences.
And so this is a minor boundary, not very important, and the consequences will not be very important. Maybe I will be again impolite and unpleasant.
But if the boundary is, we should have children together, we should have a future together, we should not betray each other, then of course the punishment is also very big, commensurately big, and this is a great description of marriage.
Marriage is a list of boundaries coupled with expectations and planning and penalties if you betray, if you break promises. Penalties, definitely. That's why people avoid marriage.
These people today are children, they're immature, and they're narcissistic, and they don't want to be penalized. They don't want to bear the consequences of their actions and choices and decisions.
And it's not only marriage. All structures are falling apart, not only marriage. Whole countries are falling apart. Nations. You see it in nations.
Israel is a great example.
You see these dynamics not only in families, but in all institutions, in higher education, in nations, in church, in wherever you go, you see this loosening of commitment, this disinvestment, this refusal to pay the price for wrong choices, mistaken decisions and misbehavior.
So, of course, if you get married.
Well, I always say to women, do not live without marriage. You know why.
Because legally, a woman in Israel, in other places too, but specifically in Israel, if she's getting married, if she's married, she's better off economically when she's not met, when she divorces.
So that's good patent. That's a good thing. It's better to be married for a woman in Israel in other places because it protects her rights economically and also socially.
So you cannot say to women, just go and go to the river.
Now, I'm getting a little hopeful. What is saying?
Just to comment on what you said.
Please.
In the majority of Western countries, it doesn't matter if you're married or not. You have the same rights after five years together. I know. Three to five years together. So it doesn't matter if you're married them.
Actually, studies have shown that men benefit from marriage. Men who are married live longer and they're much healthier.
However, women are vulnerable during the period of raising children.
Yes.
There's a vulnerability, economic vulnerability, physical vulnerability and so, so forth.
So the protector and provider function of the men is still there. Never mind how much nonsense liberals and progressive would tell you that it's not true. Women are totally independent and autonomous and can do whatever they want. They don't need men. They hate men. They are against men. Patriarchy and hegemony and all these beautiful words.
The truth is that during the lifespan, there are periods where the woman is vulnerable and needs the men. And there are periods where the woman is vulnerable and needs the men, and there are periods where the men is vulnerable and needs the woman.
For example, after age 65 or 70, men usually rely on women for medical care and companionship and so on.
And then the power matrix is reversed. The woman is in control.
The woman is in charge.
The lifespan is a...
No, no, I don't like the word control. What do you say? Please, is there another one, because we are not controlling each other. It's really a question of power and economics. It's not control anymore.
In theory, yes.
In theory, it's a balance of needs and expectations and so and so forth.
But within couples, there is always a dynamic of power within couples. So there's always a, they always contest. There's a power play.
Power, you're right, you're right. I agree, I agree.
So there is a little hope and I feel, I feel there's hope coming from your words because if people will know that boundaries are good for you, actually it's good for you.
As you say, men are benefiting from marriage.
Psychology, emotionally, medically, whatever.
But it is 70% of divorces are initiated by women.
That's right.
That's right. I agree. All over the world, all over the world, especially in the Western world, of course.
So there is a little hope about marriage.
And I wanted to talk to you about something that's new, I think, in your life. And it's very important and I'm very curious about it.
Finally, you came out with therapy. I want to hear all about it, don't be shy, because I think it's about time that you, after 25 years that you're in the business, more than 25 years, you should help in you and your wife's way, because we need you in that way, not only theoretically, but also as a therapist or influencing therapist or influencing counselors.
Because, by the way, what's the difference between counselor and therapist? For other people who don't know, I know it, you know it. What's the difference?
A counselor is someone who provides mental health advice and support without license and without having a formal training or education in the field. So anyone essentially could be a counselor in some countries. There are very few countries now where you need to have a license even to be a counselor. But the majority not. You can be a counselor or coach. It's exactly like a coach. In many countries, you could be a coach without any formal training and licensing, with one or two exceptions. I think in United Kingdom, you already need to have a license.
A therapist, which I'm not, I'm not a therapist.
I know.
A therapist or a clinician, clinician is a wider definition. It includes therapists, license, social worker, and something.
A therapist is someone who provides treatment, not advice, but provides treatment. Treatment is a fancy word for manipulation. A therapist manipulates your mind.
I like it.
And for good reason, he wants to help you. But he does manipulate your mind. He knows the ins and outs of your mind. He knows which buttons to push when. He knows to provide you with outcomes such as insight.
So, and then to do this, he needs to have formal education. He needs to have supervision. In other words, therapists go to other therapists, and on a regular basis. And he needs to conform to certain legal demands, including licensing.
So therapy is much more rigorous. It's much more. Even a clinical psychologist is not as regulated as a therapist. And a professor of psychology like me is not regulated at all.
That's right. Thank God. Thank God. Because you can help. It's okay. It's okay with me.
But you took many years, at least seven, sometimes you say seven, sometimes you say ten. I believe that you thought about how to help people, leave the word therapy aside. How to help those narcissists, how to help people who are really, they don't really know who to go to.
Actually, people come to me and they just don't know who to go to. They just don't know what are the words to look at Google.
Really? As you know, Dan Ariely talked about it.
People believe anything. They don't really know who to turn to.
So there are people you can turn to and at least ask them who to turn to. They can ask me, they can ask you, because not everybody's suited to therapy or to counseling.
But how do you describe your work in that matter?
Before I...
The cold therapy. They call therapy.
Yes.
Before I describe my work, there is a major problem because there are many people, especially online, who present themselves as experts on narcissism, for example.
And they're not.
That someone has a doctorate in psychology doesn't make them an expert on narcissism.
That's right.
Psychology is a giant field.
Actually, psychology is the biggest field in the...
Oh. Yeah?
I'm a physicist by training. I have a PhD.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
You are physicists by training.
Physics is nothing compared to psychology. Psychology is hundreds of times bigger.
Wow.
So if you are an expert on something in psychology, it doesn't mean that you're an expert on everything in psychology.
Yes, you're right.
There are many, many charlatans, con artists, nochlim in Hebrew who present themselves as experts on narcissism, spew nonsense and misinformation in contradiction of everything we learn and know and unfortunately they're very, very popular.
Popular.
That's a major, major problem.
Major problem.
Major problem.
Because people, when they go online, the first people they come across are these con artists and dilettantes, the first.
And usually they're lost also.
So they get wrong information and they end up spending a fortune.
These people of course charge a lot of money and so on. They end up spending a fortune.
It's a whole industry because it's not regulated that is essentially a crime syndicate.
It's become a crime syndicate. There's no other way to describe it. And they collaborate with each other as well.
They do.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, they do.
There are networks of them, yeah.
Okay.
So this is general observation.
Regarding my work, my work has two facets.
There is a series of techniques and so on and so forth that are developed to help victims of narcissistic abuse. These techniques are fully available, free of charge on my YouTube channel. There is a playlist titled narcissistic abuse, Healing and recovery.
And you can find there are more than 100 techniques, how to help yourself when you have been, or you think you have been, the victim of narcissistic abuse.
Some of these techniques are good in any case.
Some of these techniques are developed, some of them are my proprietary, but most of them are common knowledge.
And then the second thing I've done, I came up with a suggested treatment modality for people with narcissistic personality.
Now again, I'm not a therapist, And so I've had to train therapists in order to administer.
The treatment modality consists of two, three important insights.
Number one, narcissists are not adults, they are children, so we need to use techniques from child psychology.
Number two, narcissism is not only a personality disorder. It's a post-traumatic condition.
So we need to use trauma therapies.
Number three, narcissistic defenses are so powerful that the only way to break through is by re-traumatizing the narcissists, forcing the narcissists to experience trauma yet again.
By the way, that's not something.
That's not some bad name that is Zygmunt Freud, that is Noah, that is, there are numerous scholars that came up with the same insight.
It's nothing new.
It's just that I put it together with techniques from trauma and techniques from child psychology.
This is really in a nutshell, because give two-week-long seminar.
Two weeks long.
This is really in a nutshell.
But these insights are very unusual in the field.
Because all the other treatment modalities, all the other therapies, they relate to the narcissists as if this is some kind of adult.
They negotiate with the narcissist, they bargain with the narcissists, as if it's an adult when the narcissist is actually a child.
All other treatment modalities ignore the traumatic element in pathological narcissism.
It's a catastrophic mistake.
This narcissism is 80% trauma.
And all the other treatment modalities tiptoe around the trauma.
They don't dare to challenge the narcissist, to confront the narcissists because they're afraid of the narcissist, honestly. You know, so they don't, they kind of hands off, you know, they talk, pucci-mucci, as we say. You know, that's not the way.
Interesting.
That's not the way. You have to confront the narcissist head-on, traumatizing.
That's the big thing that scares our ears, even my ears, even though I looked into it and it's okay.
But it scares our ears to hear re-traumatized. So maybe you can, I know it's hard, but maybe you can give a little example.
It's all verbal, you said, it's all verbal, no talk, no more.
Yeah, re-traumatization is a series of techniques.
And again, many of these techniques, I always like to give credit where it's due. Many of these techniques were developed very early on by Breuer and Freud and so on. And most notably by Foa and Rothbaum.
Dr.
Edna Foa, you know, it's your transcript I read and her word, her name is not spelled right. I have to say, I looked into it, ah, Edna Foa, okay, she's an expert, a world known expert.
Dr. Edna Foa, it's not good in your transcript.
Whoever wants to read your transcript is generated by artificial intelligence.
I know. Okay.
So.
It's for F-O-A.
F-O-A.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So re-traumatization is a set of verbal techniques.
Verbal.
No physical contact of any kind, shape or form, directly or indirectly.
Actually, in cold therapy, all physical contact is forbidden.
It's forbidden.
Because physical contact provides comfort, soothing.
Ah, okay, okay.
It's the opposite of humanistic psychology. In humanistic psychology, we encourage physical contact.
In cold therapy, the therapist is not the friend of the narcissist.
Good to say it. You should say even handshake is forbidden.
Even handshake is forbidden because when you shake hands with the narcissists, it's like your friend.
No borders, no limitations.
Yes, no boundaries. No boundaries.
Physical contact is absolutely forbidden and it's totally verbal.
The verbal techniques, when you put them together, force the narcissists to re-experience not the trauma itself, because the trauma is usually physical. There's beating, incest, rape, I don't know. Of course, you cannot re-experience this.
But forces the narcissists to re-experience his or her reaction to the trauma.
Okay.
So this is known as vividness or reviviveness. It's essentially artificial flashback. It's like inducing artificial flashback, triggering the narcissists, if you wish.
Triggering the narcissist to re-experience the trauma internally, not externally.
Internally.
People who are not therapists or who are not Sam Vaknin do not understand that. That's why I wanted you to me, to say plainly, simply.
If you had a mother who used to abuse you and verbally put you down and criticize you all the time and so on so forth, and you became a narcissist. It's a typical defense against childhood, early childhood abuse.
It's a very traumatic experience, could be a very traumatic experience, depending on the intensity.
And then you come to cold therapy.
And in cold therapy, what the therapist would do, not me, I'm not a therapist, but the therapist would do.
The therapist would find out what your mother used to say to you and recreate the verbal abuse.
Recreate the verbal abuse, not externally. It's not that the therapist will abuse you. The therapist will not become your mother and abuse you again, but the therapist would force you to remember this abuse, would trigger you.
The internal experience of facing your mother, who is now abusing you, will be recreated. A flashback, simply.
So if you want to boil down cold therapy, it's artificial flashback therapy.
Now, this is not recommended to anyone, definitely not to any trauma victim, absolutely to no kind of patient, except patients diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and no comorbidity.
In other words, if there is someone with narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder, this kind of person should never have cold therapy.
Definitely borderline should never have cold therapy. Bipolar, I mean, only pure, unadulterated narcissists should have cold therapy.
And cold therapy is very limited in its effects. What cold therapy does, it gets rid of the need for narcissistic supply, for attention.
Okay.
Because it creates internal regulation of the sense of self-worth. So you don't need supply anymore. And because you don't need supply anymore, there's no need for the false self and the false self disappears.
And so this is what cold therapy does. It doesn't change the narcissism. It's not that the narcissists becomes a nice person, kind person, empathic person, not empathy. Everything else remains the same. He's obnoxious. He's unpleasant. I mean, you name it. There's not change in the narcissist except the narcissist no longer has a false self, and he doesn't need narcissistic supply anymore.
Wait a second. You say yourself that it's known, it's known all, you know, for the last eight years that you said it yourself very interestingly, that narcissists were not the pay, they don't come to therapy, they just don't come, unless they are in jail, or Chevy, war hostage and they changed their, you said that they changed their personality once they are in contract, right?
Like what?
So how do you, how do you, how do you think they should, why should they come?
Why should they come to?
We should not confuse the two issues.
Narcissists do do come to therapy.
They do?
If they hit rock bottom.
Ah, okay.
If they've lost everything, family, money, position, freedom, they've lost everything. They're likely to come to therapy, but they come to therapy because they want to restore.
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
But still, they are there. Once outside the therapist office in the clinic, you can begin to work with it.
However, when a narcissist finds himself in an environment that is highly boundary, rule-based environment, dangerous, life-threatening.
Yes.
And so on. The narcissistic behaviors disappear. The narcissistic behavior changes so dramatically that it would be difficult to diagnose that person with narcissistic personality.
Exactly.
This is exactly the insight of cold therapy. Cold therapy creates this condition. Cold therapy is exactly like putting the narcissist in prison or in a life-threatening situation, you know, because this kind of environment is traumatizing. And because pathological narcissism is the outcome of trauma, invariably, there's not a single case. In all the backgrounds of narcissists, there is adverse childhood experiences.
So because it's a post-traumatic condition, when you put a narcissist in prison, that is trauma. That is re-traumatization. That is cold therapy.
It is. It is cold therapy.
It is.
That is cold therapy. Exactly.
Wait a second. But why should a man come to you and pay you for this experience?
He doesn't want, and as you said, as if he hits a rock bottom, he does.
Okay.
But I know it from therapy in sex therapy and family therapy. People just don't come back. They come, they come twice, and that's it.
Why?
Because they don't want to change.
Why should they change?
It's a very good question.
There is a paradox in narcissism. The paradox is this. The narcissist is an addict. It's an addictive personality. He's addicted to narcissistic supply. He's addicted to attention. On the one hand, he's addicted to attention. On the other hand, it's very humiliating. It's very shameful to be dependent on other people. The narcissist resents, he's very angry, that he's so helpless that he needs narcissistic supply.
Ah, okay.
So when the narcissist hits rock bottom, he wants to become self-sufficient.
Ironically, it is the narcissist's grandiosity that is the main ally of the therapist.
Oh, right. Okay.
Because the therapist says to the narcissist, listen, I have a therapy for you and after this therapy you're not going to need anyone for narcissistic supply. You're going to be really, really autonomous and independent and strong.
Because now you're dependent. Now you're an addict, you're a junkie. You need narcissistic supply. So you are dependent on people. It's humiliating. It's shameful.
I'm going to take away this shame from you. I'm going to render you poorly self-sufficient because after the therapy, you're not going to need supply anymore.
So it's like a junkie. Why do junkies come to rehab?
Yeah, that's the question.
I used to work in rehab.
They come to rehab because of the humiliation.
If you talk to junkies in rehab and I worked in rehabs for 10 years, if you talk to them, the main motivation is shame. The main is shame.
The things they were forced to do in order to obtain drugs. The boundaries they broke. The betrayal, how they betrayed people they loved, you know, the things they did, which were criminal and violated their own values.
So they're terribly ashamed.
Shame is the core of narcissism as well.
As I heard from you.
Wait a second. So if they're so ashamed, how can they trust you that you will deliver?
Because they're paranoid, as you said, you know, they have paranoid ideas and all this.
Why should they trust someone to help him even?
Because the court therapist does not pretend to be the narcissist friend.
Okay, okay.
In other treatment modalities, the therapist says, I'm on your side. I'm your ally. I'm your friend.
And this provokes paranoid ideation. The narcissist says, why? What's in it for him? Why is he doing this? This is manipulation. He wants something for me. Narcissists are paranoid.
That's right.
But if I come to the narcissist and says this is transactional, give and take, I'm not your friend, I don't care about it, I couldn't care less if you die as tomorrow, the narcissist trust me, he believes the boundary.
I couldn't care less if you die as tomorrow.
The narcissist trust me, he believes.
The boundaries create the good thing, trust. They trust, the trust, the boundaries.
Narcissists trust people who are like them. The narcissist is like that. The narcissist is nobody's friend, nobody's ally, not a good person.
So when he comes across a therapist who is the same, not his friend, not his ally, not pretending.
Okay, all right.
That's the point I missed.
Then the narcissist trust someone like that because he can understand someone like that.
He said, I'm like that.
So I understand this guy.
There won't be nasty surprises down the road because I know how to work with this guy.
This guy is interested only in results. He doesn't care about me. He's not my friend. He's not my ally. He's not my family member.
But in all other therapies, all other therapies, even if you go to CBT, CPT, cognitive behavior, positive therapy, transactional analysis, EMDR, in all other types of therapies, the therapist strikes with you a therapeutic alliance.
There is a contract, an agreement between the two of you. You're partners, you're working together.
That's right, right.
Narcissus don't have partners.
That's why it failed.
Wait, now I understand why they don't come back.
I'm too important. I'm too for them. I'm helping. I'm for them. I want to improve.
Okay, wrong message.
Wrong.
Wait a second. Wait a second. There's another thing.
If you come and say to me, listen, I'll be a therapist. We need to make a therapeutic alliance. We need to make an agreement, a contract on how to proceed. And I want tolisten, I'll be a therapist. We need to make a therapeutic alliance. We need to make an agreement, a contract on how to proceed. And I want to help you. And we are partners. It's a partnership.
I'm saying to myself, who are you to be my partner?
We don't say it in words, but we feel like it.
In many cases you're saying in words, therapeutic alliance, verbalized.
I don't. I don't.
I like the tough love, and you mentioned tough love yourself.
So it is a sort of like a tough love from the 70s.
No love, no love.
Forget the word love. It's tough. Tough. Tough. It's goal oriented. It's psychopathic.
It's exactly.
It's a narcissist language.
It's exactly the narcissist language.
Focus on goals. Forget emotions. Focus on goals.
Okay, I like it. I like it very much.
So, a little bit hope, a little bit hope. Some hope.
You are very fixated on hope.
Yeah, because I don't have hope right now.
No, the clients are gone to the war.
You know, Sam is the only hope right now.
But what I'm saying, because, you know, we live in a tough world, but it's interesting.
I have to ask you two questions. I don't want to embarrass you, but I'm sure that you will not be embarrassed because you know how to deal with...
If it's about my private life, I'd rather...
No, no. Hachma Khalila.
What does your take about 12 steps? I don't know if you wrote about it or talked about it because I'm new to this.
What about 12 steps?
No money.
It's like the question you asked me about brief therapy.
Okay.
Depends. You can't generalize. It fits some patients and so on. It has great results with some patients and doesn't others. There's not one size fits all. That's for sure.
That's for sure.
Some addicts are well built, are exactly built for a 12-step program because they lack discipline, they lack boundaries. They're grandiose, they don't have an internal regulation that is regulated and so on.
So there is this prison-like imposition of a framework with steps, with structure, with order, with goals, which are very clear, well-defined, and it fits perfectly this kind of patient.
And other kinds of patients, it doesn't feel.
So dialectical behavior therapy, for example, also has techniques that are very reminiscent of 12 steps.
That's right.
And DBT also fits one type of patient, the borderline.
But if you try DBT with narcissists, it would be a disaster. If you try DBT with psychopaths, if you try DBT with, you know, you need to tailor, you need to customize the treatment to the patient.
Luckily, I have to mention her name. Her name is the Dr. Daniel Knafo. She's in New York. She's a psychoanalyst. I'm not a psychoanalyst, but what I like about her and maybe people should know about her, she has a book and she believes that we are all in an age of perversion, which is okay. We are all in this world of perversion, making love to Japanese dolls, you name it. And she's okay with it when I'm shocked, because what else? What's next? It's okay to make love to Japanese dolls.
And she, of course, Jewish, like both of us. And she believes that you, like you said, you have to talk to a person where he is with boundaries.
The boundaries, I don't know, but she does believe to talk to every person, and I believe it too, wherever he is. If he's in 12 steps and he likes God, fine, he likes dolls, fine.
And I like it. It's very optimistic, and I recommend that weabout Dr. Daniel Knafo.
And I want to thank you. I don't know. I don't know if we talk. What else did we want to come about?
You asked me two additional questions. If you want, I will answer them.
Yes. No, I'd like to.
I'd like to.
You ask me, what can we expect from therapy?
Oh, Ranga, Rakshnia, I have to have some drink.
Wait a second drink, some juice. What is the...
You asked me two questions, that we didn't tackle.
So I can answer these questions if you wish.
I like it. I'm sure. I love it. I love it.
So ask me what can we expect from therapy?
I think all therapies, regardless of the modality, all therapies should focus on four things.
To provide the patient with insight, new way of looking at himself or herself, their lives, history, personal history and so on, insight. The aha moment, the light bulb moment.
The second thing is problem solving. I think therapy should be focused on solving problems. It should not be an intellectual exercise.
That is why I'm seriously against psychoanalysis. It's too intellectual. It's not problem oriented.
That's right.
Number three, therapy should be transformative. It should induce change.
And number four, therapy should include self-acceptance or even self-love.
So this is where Knafo, I don't know Knafo's work, but this is where we agree that if you want the patient to accept themselves and to love themselves, then you must meet the patient. You must go to the patient, not bring the patient to you.
Because if you bring the patient to your point of view, to your values, to your beliefs, then the patient is no longer the same person and they cannot love themselves. They cannot accept themselves.
This is bad practice. You should induce transformation, but this transformation should be controlled and managed by the patient, not imposed by the therapist, never.
The patient is not your raw material. It's not raw material. You're not making a sculpture. It's not pygmalion. The patient is there, and you are supposed to help the patient, not to create the patient or generate the patient.
So the godlike attitude of some therapists and in some treatment modalities.
And, for example, psychoanalysis, this godlike attitude, I know much better than you, I know more about you than you do, and I'm going to tell you how you should be.
I don't like that. It's counterproductive, even destructive, I would say.
So this is my view of therapy.
I agree, of course. I'm quite amazed that psychoanalysis is still in... But what she did, it's okay, she did, she injected it with a lot of your work in that people are people.
We should help them with boundaries and without them being too intellectual by the way you don't have to laugh at intellectuals you are very much an intellectual and I think in this hour I wanted you to be what fun that you are and it's funny and it's fun and it's great because less less intellectual so and the last question you ask me is about can narcissists traits subside with maturity?
That's right. And you said, I know your answer, but I know your answer also is very interesting because it has two parts, some parts, not all of them.
There are nine clinical features of narcissism, nine what we call trait domains of narcissism.
Number one is lack of empathy. Lack of empathy is not unique to narcissism. We have it in psychopathy, for example. We have it even in borderline, to some extent. Lack of empathy.
Number two is fear of intimacy and insecure attachment style.
Number three, disturbed identity, diffuse identity. There's no self. Narcissism is a disturbance or disruption in the formation of the self inin early childhood.
Number four, attention-seeking behaviors.
Number five, grandiosity. It's a cognitive distortion. It's a misperception of reality. Grandiosity is, again, not common only to narcissism, but it's typical of psychopaths and borderlines and bipolar and paranoids and many others.
The next thing is Anankastia. Anankistia is a fancy name for obsessive-compulsive behavior.
Negative affectivity. Negative affectivity means negative emotions, not positive emotions, only negative emotions, like envy, anger, hatred, and so on. And because the narcissist is full with negativity, he's very fragile.
Number eight is desociality, anti-social behavior, sometimes even criminal.
And the last point is antagonism, seeking conflict, being obnoxious, all the time fighting, all the time arguing, never pleasant. So, antagonism.
Now, of all these nine, only two change with age, and that is desociality and antagonism.
Narcissists mellow only in these two.
It is not true that narcissists become more empathic.
That's interesting. Can you say more about it?
Sorry?
Can you say more about the empathy thing? Because it's hard to believe like a person who has grandchildren in the age of 70.
Whereas, you know, how can it not be more empathic when I, you know.
Empathy is not a function of who you are surrounded.
I know, I know.
Empathy is pretty determined by the time you're 18.
It's again nonsense to say that you can learn empathy or develop empathy.
This is self-interested, self-enriching nonsense.
I understand.
But...
I wanted you to repeat it because it's important.
Just a second. Empathy is really developed on the age of 18 in your...
Even much earlier.
There are three types of empathy. You have reflexive empathy. You have cognitive empathy and you have emotional empathy.
The reflexive part you are born with. That's why babies smile when mommy smiles. That's a reflexive empathy.
The reflexive part you are born with. That's why babies smile when mommy smiles. That's a reflexive empathy.
Then you gradually until age four, you develop cognitive empathy. You see someone crying and you say, she is crying. That's kind of cognitive empathy. She's crying. She's sad. That's cognitive empathy.
And then you have emotional empathy. She's crying. She said, this makes me sad.
So, cognitive empathy is finished by age four. Emotional empathy, usually by age 12, definitely by age 18, there's no possibility to make any difference in terms of the status of empathy. Either you have it or you don't.
Now, narcissists and psychopaths and so on, they have what I call cold empathy. I love cold things, cold therapy.
Cold empathy is simply reflexive and cognitive empathy without emotional empathy.
But narcissists do change.
For example, they become less antagonistic. They become less conflict prone, less conflictive. They become much more social, pro-social. Pro-social. So they become less antisocial.
And because the exact same process happens with psychopaths, psychopaths also become less antagonistic and more prosocial.
And because we know that psychopathy is a brain disorder with a very pronounced genetic hereditary component, we are beginning to think that narcissism is also some kind of brain abnormality with a genetic component, although we have not proof of this. It's just speculation.
And the speculation is because both psychopaths and narcissists go through the same trajectory. They change in the same way across the lifespan, until at the very end of life, they are indistinguishable from each other. They become more or less the same.
And so if one of them is genetic and medical and biological, probably the other one also.
And we know that borderline is definitely hereditary and definitely biological. We know this. And they're all in the same family, cluster B, personality disorders.
So while we have no proof at this stage, no rigorous proof, no serious proof of brain abnormalities in narcissists, there are studies hereproof, no serious proof of brain abnormalities in narcissists, there are studies here, there, nothing serious. And definitely we have no proof of any genetic component or predisposition.
I think it's very, very likely that narcissism involves damage to the brain. Maybe the brain is normal at the beginning, but the abuse and the trauma damage the brain some way. Neuroplasticity.
And I also believe that there is a genetic predisposition because you take 10 children, they're all abused. Only one of them becomes narcissists.
Exactly.
It must be something there, some templates, some predisposition, which will be genetic.
I think you gave me some optimism to deal with tonight because it was very interesting. Thank you.
I think we talked so little about your work, and I like to maybe in the future talk to you again when there's results that you can talk about and I wish you, wow, health, and I thank you so much.
And I wish you safety.
It was really amazing. Thank you so much. Keep safe. I will see you on YouTube.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye.