I am the author of Cold Therapy, and I am the author of Cold Therapy, and I am the author of Cold Therapy, and I am the author of Cold Therapy, and I am the author of Cold Therapy, and I am the author of Cold Therapy.
I am the author of Cold Sore, thank you for visiting us here and we will give this forward to you now.
So, feel free to give your presentation. It will be until 9 am after that we have questions and answers.
Pardon me please.
Do you need the microphone, sir?
No, I don't know.
I don't know what Barbara said about me in Hungarian, but it's all true. I don't know what Barbara would mean to us.
Today I'm trying to, I will try to give you an insight into the narcissist mind, the kind of insight that you cannot get on YouTube or from books or even the university where I teach, I teach psychology, I'm a professor of psychology.
We don't teach these things.
Many of the things I will tell you are shocking, even to some extent outside of human experience.
That's because narcissists lack the basic equipment of being human, needed for being human.
But before we go there, let's start with the baby.
The good parent pushes the child away. The good parent allows the child to separate and become an individual with boundaries.
This process is called separation, individuation.
When the parent is immature, when the parent is narcissistic, the parent will not allow the child to separate. Will not allow the child to become an individual. Will not allow the child to develop boundaries. Will not allow the child to say, parents, you reach up to here and I start from here.
The narcissistic, immature parent invades the child, shutters the boundaries, merges with the child, uses the child as an instrument, makes the child an extension, conspires with the child against others.
The child is not allowed to become his or her own person. The child is allowed to exist only through the parent.
Narcissistic and immature parents create narcissistic and immature children.
For four reasons.
Number one, the child cannot become a separate individual.
Because the child does not become a separate individual, the child cannot become self-aware.
There is no self-awareness without self.
The second reason is that the parent's love, the love of the immature narcissistic parent, is always conditional on the child's performance.
The parent broadcasts to the child, if you behave the way I want you, if you behave the way I expect you, I will love you. If you do not behave this way, I will not love you.
So it's conditional love, which of course is not real love.
The fourth effect of such a parent is what we call object impermanence or object inconstancy.
It's very unpleasant to admit, but in psychology, the word object means human being, person. So object impermanence, object inconstancy means that the child cannot see other people as constant and permanent entities.
This was discovered by a psychologist called Jean Piaget in 1968, those of you who want to study for him.
The fourth effect of such a parent is pain. It hurts badly to be the child of such a parent. It's also very frightening, because the parent is at the same time all powerful and unpredictable.
So the parent has all the power to damage the kid and the kid cannot predict what the parent will do next.
It's a little like the foreign policy of the United States.
That was a joke.
So the parents, such a parent, provokes in the child, say the state of terror, state of pain, and together a state of trauma.
Such a parent traumatizes the child, hundreds of times, thousands of times.
When we have a situation of multiple trauma over many years, it creates a condition called CPTSD, complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
And here is the irony.
Here is the said irony.
The narcissist creates in his victims CPTSD, because the narcissist is a creature of CPTSD, because the narcissist was exposed to CPTSD as a child.
So the narcissist is the first victim of trauma, the narcissist develops CPTSD, and then he transfers it, he transmits it to his victims.
Narcissism is a transmission mechanism of trauma. Narcissism itself is a post-traumatic condition.
Narcissists are victims of trauma. And then they proceed to victimize others with exactly the same pattern of behavior, same trauma.
You remember what the parents do?
They don't allow the child to separate.
The narcissist does not allow his victim or her victim to separate.
The narcissist receives unconditional love as a child. He receives conditional love as a child. He gives conditional love to his intimate partner or victim.
And of course he causes pain and hurt and trauma.
When the child is exposed to such an immature narcissist parent, the child can fight in one several ways.
Four ways actually.
Some children rebel against the parent, reject the parent's authority and sabotage and undermine the parent.
These children become psychopaths.
This is the antisocial solution.
Some children try to please the parent, try to graphify the parent, try to make sure that the parent is not abusive.
These are people pleasers.
Some children try to disappear, to disappear as separate entities. They try to become one with the parent, to merge with the parent.
If they disappear, they cannot be hurt. If they disappear, they cannot be punished. If they disappear, they cannot be traumatized.
And if they become one with the parent, they're safe.
This is the codependent solution.
And some children, about 1% of all children, in such an environment, 1% of all children in such an abusive environment.
These children say, I will become like my parent. I will imitate my parent. I don't want to be the victim. I want to be the abuser. I don't want to be the weak. I want to be the strong. I don't want to be the powerless. I want to be the powerful. I want to be my parent.
These children become, you guessed correctly, narcissists.
So these are the four solutions of children in such an environment.
How can the child become the parent?
How to do that?
The child uses two mechanisms to become the parent.
The false self and something called imago.
I will explain.
Actually, imago was invented by Pére Nógrád, which I think had Hungarian roots, if I remember correctly.
Let's start with the false self.
At an early stage, usually between the ages of four and six, not later, the child invents an entity.
Remember, put yourselves in the place of this four-year-old child. Put yourselves in the place of this four-year-old child.
With these giants, mother, father, they're all powerful. They are never wrong, and these giants constantly cause this child pain, trauma, hurt.
They withhold love.
I can tell you from personal experience, it is worse than any horror movie you have ever seen.
The child, to survive, must be creative and must resort to extreme ecological mechanisms.
So the first act is an act of creation, creativity.
The child creates an entity.
You know that children have imaginary friends. They talk to these friends. They spend time with these friends. They don't exist.
So the child creates an imaginary friend.
This new entity is everything the child is not.
The child is small. This entity is infinite. The child is helpless. This entity is omnipotent, all powerful. The child cannot guess what his parent, his mother, will do next. This entity is omniscient, knows everything.
The child is told by the parent that he doesn't deserve love. He isn't worthy of love. That he is a bad object, that he is defective, that he is a failure.
This entity that the child creates is perfect.
Now, what do we call an entity? What's the name of an entity that is infinite, all powerful, all knowing and perfect?
Not the general secretary of the Communist Party. We call it God.
The child creates God. He invents religion. It's a private religion. In this religion, there is one God, the false self, and one worshiper, one member of the church, one adherent, the child.
Narcissism is a religious experience. It's a religion.
Where there is a God-like entity which the narcissist interacts with, where there is a God, there must be sacrifice.
Civilized nations sacrifice cows and lambs. Where there is brutality and aggression, we sacrifice humans. The outstandings sacrifice humans.
In Babylon, they sacrifice humans to the Moloch.
Similarly, the narcissist makes a human sacrifice to the God that he had invented, the false self.
What is this human sacrifice?
It's the true self.
The narcissist comes to this new God, new God-like structure, the false self, and the narcissist says, my God, I will sacrifice to you a human, me.
It is a brutal, primitive religion. Very cruel, merciless.
Narcissism is a private religion, and we are going to talk later, what happens when there are many narcissists?
You remember I told you that the child uses two mechanisms to become the parent.
One, he invents a God-like entity, that is the false self, because remember, mother, father, they are gods when the child is born. They are God-like.
When the child invents the false self, the child is saying, mother is God, father is God, I am also God.
This religious conviction doesn't leave the narcissist until he dies. The narcissist never outgrows his religion.
The false self, like the God of the Old Testament, is always there.
Gradually, the narcissist says, I have sacrificed the true self, I don't have it anymore.
Why do I need anything except the false self?
Ultimately, the narcissist vanishes, and everything that is left behind is the false self.
One of the biggest frustrations of intimate partners of narcissists is that there is nobody there. There is no one there.
If you are an intimate partner of a narcissist, a girlfriend, spouse, a child, a good friend, if you are in intimate relations with a narcissist, when you reach beyond the false self, what do you find?
You find nothing. There is nobody there.
The narcissist is a hologram. It's a form of, if you wish, artificial intelligence. It's the first fully functioning Android.
A humanoid.
It is a great simulation of a human being. But there is nothing there except symbols swirling exactly like inside a computer.
This is crucial for you to understand.
Narcissism is not a state of being, it's a state of absence. And this enormous emptiness, this void, which is the narcissist, this is the narcissist, this deep space forces the narcissist, forces, for example, the false self to ask other people to confirm its existence.
We will come to it shortly.
The other mechanism, just to remind you where we are, we are talking about how the child tries to become the parent.
So the first mechanism is a God-like false self, making the child as God, as the mother, as God, as the father, as divine, as the mother of God.
There is a second fascinating mechanism, which you will not find anywhere, not on YouTube or anywhere, and it's called imago.
The child creates a mental representation of the parent and internalizes the representation.
It's like avocado, like an avocado.
The child internalizes the parent.
Now, this is part of a healthy process in every child.
According to Freud, for example, it's part of the formation of the superego.
It's also part of the process of socialization, how we become social beings, how we learn to function in society.
But how the child, who is about to become a narcissist, internalizes this representation is in an unhealthy way.
When a healthy child internalizes the parent, he internalizes an image, that's the imago, and he internalizes the voice of the parent.
It's called introjective.
So he internalizes an introjected parent and an image of the parent.
But the child continues to interact with a real parent.
The healthy child continues to interact with a real parent and with a representation at the same time.
The healthy child continues to interact with a real parent and modifies the representation according to new information that he receives from the real parent.
But the unhealthy child, the sick child, the child who is about to become a narcissist behaves differently.
This child takes a snapshot like a camera of the parent, internalizes it, and from that moment, this child interacts only with a photograph, not with a real parent.
Why? What's the reason?
Because the real parent causes pain.
The real parent causes trauma.
The real parent is frightening and unpredictable.
The snapshot of the parent, the photo of the parent, the Imago, the avatar is sinful.
So the child interacts with the photo of the parent, with the representation, not with the parent anymore.
Now here's what happens when you fall in love with a narcissist.
He takes a photo of you, internalizes it, and from that moment you don't exist.
He continues to interact with the photo, and only with the photo.
No amount of external information will influence the photo.
This is what is so frustrating and infuriating in intimate relationships with narcissists.
Never mind what you do, never mind what you say.
The narcissist is unchanged.
Why is the narcissist unchanged?
Because you are unchanged, and you are unchanged in his mind.
The intimate partner of a narcissist exists only, only inside the narcissist's mind.
Never, never outside.
The intimate partner of a narcissist has no autonomous, independent, external existence in the eyes of the narcissist.
Of course, because of that, it's not possible to have intimacy with a narcissist. It's not possible to have real love. It's not possible to have meaningful communication.
Because the narcissist is not with you. He is with your representation in his mind.
And this representation has very little to do with you.
Because this representation inside the narcissist's mind is processed, undergoes processing.
It's like Photoshop. FaceTime.
This is not a real photo. At some stage, it's an idealized photo of you.
And at another stage, it's a devalued photo of you. It's never a real photo of you.
So the narcissist not only interacts with your representation, he interacts with the wrong representation.
That is not you.
The problem is that the narcissist is the only type of person on the planet who does not have an ego.
Now that's counterintuitive because everyone is telling you that narcissists have an inflated ego.
And of course, 200 years ago, they were called egotists.
But narcissists are the only type of person who do not possess an ego.
To understand what I'm saying, we need to talk to another Jew, Sigmund Freud.
Sigmund Freud came with a model of the human psyche. And in this model, there was a part called ego.
The role of the ego in Freud's model is to interface with reality, to mediate with reality, to provide recognition of reality.
The ego tells you, don't do that. Because if you do that, in reality you will be punished.
The ego tells you, do that because you have great talent for this. In reality, you are really talented. Do it.
The ego in Freud's model is the part that connects you to reality.
Narcissists have no connection to reality. They have what we call an impaired reality test. They do not have access to reality and they do not read reality properly.
Consider the fact that narcissists are grandiose. In other words, they evaluate themselves wrongly. Their evaluation of themselves is wrong.
To be grandiose means to overvalue yourself, to overvalue your skills, your talents and your accomplishments.
But it also means that you have no contact with reality.
The narcissist has a false self. Of course, it's false. The narcissist doesn't read social cues properly, doesn't read body language properly, misinterprets many sentences as, for example, insult.
This is a phenomenon called hypervigilance.
So narcissists misread reality.
You cannot misread reality if you have a properly functioning ego.
If you misevaluate reality, your ego either doesn't exist or is not working.
We know because of studies and so on that narcissists actually, instead of developing the ego where other healthy children develop the ego, narcissists develop the false self.
And this leads to two types of behavior.
Again, everything I'm telling you today is the newest thinking about narcissism.
You will not find it yet in books or even online.
This is absolutely the cutting edge. It's the newest thinking that at this stage academics are developing among themselves.
So you're exposed to many ideas which you're not used to.
Some of them are very counterintuitive.
So that the narcissist has a series of cognitive deficits.
Because the narcissist has cognitive deficits and emotional inaccessibility and lack of empathy, the narcissist has no access to reality.
Let's break it down.
Cognitive deficits.
The inability to process information properly and put it in the correct context.
The narcissist's interpretation of reality is totally created.
Comparable to autistic people.
Indeed, we are beginning to consider the possibility that narcissists have a strong component of autistic spectrum disorder.
Emotional deficiency.
Narcissists have no access to positive emotions.
Remember, the narcissist becomes the parent.
And what did the parent do?
The parent was aggressive, angry, violent, caused pain, caused hurt, hurtful.
So these are the only emotions that the child took and incorporated.
The narcissist has access only to negative emotions.
The half human being only negative emotions.
I want you to understand, it is not true that the narcissist has the whole spectrum of emotions but has no access to some of them.
The narcissist does not have positive emotions, period.
He has anger, he has envy, he experiences them to the fullest. He has pain, a lot of pain.
Empathic people make the mistake that when the narcissist cries or is in pain, it means he is an emotional person.
The narcissist is constitutionally incapable of loving or any other positive emotion for that matter.
And the third element is lack of empathy.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the latest edition, 2013, the fifth edition.
Still repeats the claim that narcissists don't have empathy.
The DSM-5 includes an alternative model of narcissism. Which includes many, many completely new insights about narcissism.
It is therefore recommended to not use the diagnostic criteria that appear in the fourth edition and the text revision of the fourth edition.
Instead, on page 767 of the DSM-5, you have the alternative model of narcissism.
But while the alternative model includes many new insights, for example, for many, many years everyone said that narcissism cannot be depressed.
Today, the DSM-5 says that narcissists are like bipolar. They have euphoria and depression.
Something that I've claimed more than 25 years ago.
But one mistake that remains is that narcissists have no empathy.
But not your kind of empathy.
They have something that I doubt cold empathy.
Here's the difference. Cold empathy has three layers, three components.
Reflexive, cognitive, emotional. Reflexive is when mommy smiles, baby smiles. But that's a reflexive, empathic action, mimicry, imitation.
Cognitive. If my friend cries, probably he said, analytical, databases. If someone cries, he said, that's cognitive.
And the last stage, the most advanced stage, which starts around teenage, well, among some teenagers, not a lot, the last stage is emotional empathy.
Emotional empathy means someone cries, he must be sad. And then reflexive, we do this, oh, he's crying. Yes, like the baby, it's reflexive.
So full-fledged empathy has all three components.
Narcissist has two. Reflexive and cognitive. Psychopath has one.
Cognitive. Both of them do not have an emotional resonance.
So if a narcissist sees someone crying, he could, for example, say, oh, this person is crying, he must be weak and deserves of contempt.
A psychopath would say, oh, this person is crying, maybe I could take her to the room. Or maybe I could steal his wallet.
No emotional resonance, no emotional reaction.
But if you don't have emotions, it's a serious practical problem.
Simply because of the fact that most people have emotions.
In other words, if you don't have emotions of your own, you don't know to read people properly. Or up to a certain level, but not beyond.
And you will predict wrongly how people will behave most of the time. Whole empathy, limited empathy, cognitive deficits, no emotions.
Of course, the narcissist has no access to reality. How does the narcissist solve this problem? How does he reach a level of functioning that he gives lectures? How does a narcissist function if he has no access to reality?
As usual, he invents two mechanisms.
Narcissists do everything in two. Ask any woman who was in a relationship with a narcissist.
So everything in two. So narcissist comes up with two mechanisms.
The first one is known as narcissistic supply.
Narcissistic supply is about attention. Attention can be positive, admiration, adulation, affirmation, applause, positive. But can also be negative, being hated, being feared. It's also supplied.
But this is not the main function of narcissistic supply.
The main function of narcissistic supply is to provide the narcissist with a reality test, with access to reality.
Because what does the narcissist do? He comes to people and he says, is it true that I'm a genius? Tell me that I'm a genius. Tell me that my false self is not. Tell me this is narcissistic supply.
This is admiration and adulation. In some cases it's all true.
Now, all this, the compulsive nature, the compulsive nature of seeking narcissistic supply is precisely because the narcissist needs the supply to function at all.
The narcissist doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know if his memories are real. He doesn't know if he's genius or an idiot. He doesn't know if what he had just created is a masterpiece or trash. He doesn't know anything about reality.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Think how disorienting this is. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
So he goes around to people and he holds them by the lapels.
Please, please tell me, I think I'm a genius, is this right? Am I correct? Please tell me, the movie I made, is it a great movie or is it a flop?
This is narcissistic supply. It's compulsive. It's solicitation or feedback which creates a reality test by proxy through others.
So this is the first mechanism.
After the lecture, the survivors can ask questions.
So if you have any questions, note them down. And if I'm still alive, I'll be happy to answer.
The second mechanism, second solution.
Remember, the problem is the narcissist has no empathy, cannot think straight. His thinking is screwed up and he has no access to emotions, so he cannot understand people.
How to survive like this? It's frightening.
So he is asking for help.
Narcissistic supply is a cry for help. Help me. Help me, I'm frightened, I'm disoriented, I don't know where I am, I don't know where. Help me.
I have this false self, is it false or is it real? I have this false self, is it self or is it invention, is it really me?
The false self says I'm a genius, am I a religion? Can someone tell me? The false self tells me I'm irresistible, am I really irresistible? Come to bed with me, prove to me.
This is the traumatic narcissist. This is narcissistic supply, it's a cry for help.
Remember two things about narcissism.
It is not a personality disorder, it is a post-traumatic condition.
At least I'm trying to convince my colleagues of this.
And more importantly, the narcissist is not an adult, the narcissist is a child.
Which is precisely why you all fall hopelessly in love with narcissism.
Because you interact with the child. And this child has no access to reality, it's like Plato's cave, he sees only shades. He needs you to orient him and to help him to position himself in reality.
Women who fall in love with narcissists, fall in love for these reasons exactly.
He's a child and he needs you, the neediness.
You need to be needed and there is no one on earth who needs you more than the narcissist. Never will be also.
We'll come to it.
The second mechanism, the problem is reality test, how to gauge reality problem.
The second mechanism the narcissist uses is the whole of mirrors.
There is no such thing as a narcissist. It's a great simulation of a human being.
I have the right software to talk, I have the right software to walk, I have the right software to smile, I have the right software to cry. I can imitate you very well. I come from a sci-fi movie, I come from the future, I'm a shapeshifter, I'm a hologram. I'm about his nature.
You must understand this, the alien quality of the narcissist.
As long as you insist to relate to the narcissist as a full-fledged human being and an adult, you will continuously fall in the trap and be frustrated and hurt.
There's nobody there. It's deep space. It's a dark emptiness with howling winds. It's an abandoned house.
And in this house, there's a mirror. And opposite this mirror, there's another mirror. And facing these two mirrors, there are another two mirrors. Dozens of mirrors, hundreds of mirrors, thousands of mirrors.
That is the narcissist. A reflection of a reflection of a secondhand reflection of a reflection.
Now, you enter the house.
What do you see in this mirror? Do you see the narcissist? Do you see yourself?
To fall in love with the narcissist is to enter this house of mirrors.
But who do you fall in love with? Who is in the mirror? Who?
You.
You fall in love with yourself.
The experience of falling in love with a narcissist is the ultimate experience. A technicolor experience, an irresistible experience, a memorable experience, an addictive experience for the simple reason that you actually fall in love with yourself.
For most of the victims of narcissists, it is the first experience of self-love.
And for many of them, the only way to experience self-love is in this house of mirrors.
We repeat these controversial sentences.
For most of the victims of narcissists, falling in love with a narcissist is the first ever experience they have had of self-love.
And only the narcissist can give them this experience because only he has access to the mirrors.
This creates an addiction. And we call this addiction trauma bonding.
And finally, the narcissistic personality is an addictive personality. Some people are addicted to alcohol. Some people are addicted to boring lectures and psychology. Like you guys. Some people are addicted to narcissistic supply. Some people are addicted to narcissism. So the whole environment of the narcissist is about addiction.
And it would be very useful when we treat the narcissist to take into account three new facts or new ways of looking at facts.
The reason all the existing therapies fail with narcissists is because they try to treat the narcissist as an adult.
But it is not an adult. It's a child. They need to use child psychology. It's not a personality disorder. It's a post-traumatic condition.
Second mistake, it's not a personality disorder. It's a post-traumatic condition.
Third mistake, it's an addiction. It should be treated as an addiction, like alcoholism.
And when you put these three mistakes together, working on them, working to rectify them, I came up with cold therapy, which later if you want to ask me, I will tell you what it is.
And if you don't ask me, I'll be very angry and I will start the crime.
Okay.
Narcissistic abuse, therefore, has several components.
In 1995, I coined the phrase narcissistic abuse. I invented the phrase, for those of you who don't know.
Why? Why not simply say abuse? Why this subtype of general abuse, narcissistic abuse?
Narcissistic abuse is not like any other abuse.
All other types of abuse target an aspect of you, a dimension of you, or a behavior of you.
So someone can abuse you because of certain behavior that you have. Or someone can abuse you because of the way you look. Or your age, or your sex, gender. All abuse is focused, it's like a laser beam. It's focused on some aspect or some behavior.
Narcissistic abuse is focused on your existence. The dimension that is targeted is your existence.
The narcissist needs you to disappear. Remember what he does to you? With his mental camera and interacts with the photo, not with you.
But wait a minute, what happens when you behave differently to the photo? Which happens 90% of the time.
You create something called dissonance. The narcissist has dissonance when there is a contrast or a conflict between the real you and your representation in his mind. Dissonances are very uncomfortable. They create anxiety.
So the narcissist wants to get rid of the dissonance.
But he cannot get rid of the inner representation. So he must get rid of you. Only when you are gone, there will be no dissonance, no conflict, no discomfort, no anxiety. When you are gone, not physically. When you become independent or autonomous entities. When you become extensions of the narcissist or instruments of the narcissist or reflections of the narcissist.
At this stage, when you are no longer independent, the dissonance ends.
What does it remind you? What does it remind you?
What the narcissist's mother did to him?
She did not allow the narcissist to become an independent, autonomous entity. She did not allow the narcissist to separate, to become an individual.
And now the narcissist is doing this for you.
So narcissistic abuse is not about control and not about manipulation because this is common to all abusers.
Narcissistic abuse is what we call in business, first-time take-home. Narcissistic abuse is converting you into an occupied territory. Invading your body first and your mind second. Subsuming. Dissolving you in narcissistic acid.
Until, like Salvador Dali's painting Galatea, you become molecules in the narcissist world.
The narcissist doesn't need you. Narcissist doesn't need you.
He needs your representation. His neediness is for the representation.
He wants you to stay with him because of object dominance. He needs to see you to activate the representation. He needs to physically see you, to activate the representation.
But if you talk, if you walk, if you disagree, if you criticize, if you argue, you conflict with the representation, you don't fulfill your role.
So you should be present, you should be present, so that the narcissist can activate the representation and feel calm, feel relaxed because of object permanence, object consciousness.
But you should shut up. Just shut up already. And don't move also. Freeze. Got it?
These are the two tips I'm giving you on how to survive with narcissism.
Now, last segment of the lecture, because I gave you just these.
I will mention some elements in the typical, in the psychology of the typical partner of the narcissist.
Some things are not relevant.
An intimate partner of the narcissist could be highly intelligent or a complete idiot. She could be tall, she could be short. She could be beautiful, she could be ugly. She could be old. These are irrelevant parameters.
Narcissists are not choosing, not picking. Shut up and freeze and you qualify.
But you need to have a few elements in your psychology.
Remember that we said that the narcissist is an emptiness. Nobody left.
You, as an intimate partner of a narcissist, needs to have a similar emptiness in you, a whole. This emptiness was first described by Otto Könberg in 1975.
And the term, the word emptiness, is his word, not mine. Könberg was the first, among the first, to study the interface between narcissism, borderline and sacro-neurotic.
With narcissism, even with borderline men, typical profile of such a woman includes this emptiness that I described, this whole.
You can't tell us that, or you can't tell us that.
In computers, those of you who are in computers, we have something called penetration testing. We test the computer system, where we can insert malware or take over the system.
So, this is what the narcissist does, penetration testing.
Some of this penetration is pleasurable, the rest not so much.
And he finds this chink in the armor, he finds this hole. And this is his portal. He is teleported into the victim through this hole, through this emptiness.
Where do we have a similar behavior or similar phenomena?
We are now in multiple, in plural, because...
In a branch of medicine called parazetology, parasites find holes in the skin, discontinuities in the skin, discontinuities in mucus and so on. They penetrate the body through the discontinuities and they colonize the body.
Some viruses do the same.
Not all families of viruses, but some viruses, like AIDS, HIV, do the same.
Nothing is new, nature repeats itself.
But this is a form of mental or psychological virus.
And once inside, the narcissist multiplies, like every virus of parazetolary. It takes over.
And if you don't have the proper medication, then it's not good.
The second thing that is typical of a victim, an incident partner, if you prefer, is emotional dysregulation, inability to control emotions when emotions overwhelm you. It's a condition that is typical, for example, of borderline personality disorder.
And indeed, my good friend, John Lachcar, in 1983, has written a book, groundbreaking book, the borderline narcissistic couple.
So, dysregulation, when emotions are too much for you.
Now, online you have this new word, empath. Pretty meaningless word, but I think that's what they're trying to describe.
Empotent?
It's like I went to Russia, I was introduced before the lecture. And so the host said, there is death in Russia, I know. And finally she said, idiok. I said, you may well be right, but you haven't heard the lecture. I mean, can't you wait?
So it's the same, empotent. I think that's what they're trying to describe.
The inability to control emotions, when emotions drown you, overwhelm you, when you have no skin.
So this is very typical of intimate partners of narcissists.
And there is a subclass of intimate partners of narcissists. They are highly codependent.
By the way, there is no official mental health diagnosis or dependence. No such thing.
The closest is dependent personality disorder.
What's for you to know?
And the correct term for empath is highly sensitive people. HSP.
But that's statistically one in a million people. So all the millions of victims who declare themselves empaths, it's a pretty narcissistic act. They're not.
The third element in a victim's mentality or intimate partner's mentality is vicarious existence.
Existence by proxy, existence through someone else.
It's when the intimate partner or the victim feels alive only when she is teamed up with a narcissist or a psychopath or even by extension and abuser. Her comfort zone is abuse. And she tries to control her abuser by merging with him, fusing with him, becoming one with him.
A process known as codependence. They are codependent elements in borderline.
Borderline is a very interesting case.
First of all, the term borderline was invented by Könberg in 1975 to describe people who are on the border between neurosis and psychosis, between classic, normal, common mental health problems and psychosis, which is by far the most extreme mental health problem.
Borderline personality disorder patients display simultaneously codependency and narcissism simultaneously.
Actually, a big part of the test that we use to diagnose borderline is narcissism. It has to do with narcissism.
Borderlines are narcissistic, but they're also codependent. They are like the ultimate, they are everything in one person.
And in borderline, thank you for translating, it's a tough, very tough lecture in many terms.
Borderlines, borderline narcissistic couples display a very interesting dynamic.
Because the borderline is actually a combination of narcissist and codependent.
Sometimes the borderline is narcissistic and the narcissist in the couple becomes codependent. And sometimes the borderline becomes clinging and codependent, which provokes severe narcissistic abuse from the narcissist.
So they oscillate, they change roles all the time.
In 1997, I suggested that there is no tight constancy.
That narcissist can transition between types.
They can be cerebral today somatic tomorrow. They can be narcissist today codependent tomorrow. And very often at the same time.
Narcissistic towards some people codependent with, for example, the spouse. That is pretty fascinating because we do not have any other mental health disorder, which is not tight constant.
If you have bipolar, you have bipolar. End of story. If you are schizophrenic, paranoid, you are schizophrenic paranoid. End of the story. If you have depression, you have depression, also end of the story.
But if you are narcissist, you can suddenly become the opposite of narcissism.
Only case in psychology. And that is the only case of tight inconstancy in psychology.
Narcissism is not a mental health disorder at all.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual has more than 900 pages. And a few hundred mental health disorders.
We'll take a break. And all of them are constant. Some of them are lifelong.
Only narcissism is not constant.
For example, they become codependent.
Today, asexual is a cerebral. Tomorrow, hypersexual is a somatic. Fluid, absolutely fluid. If this is the case, and there is no other mental health disorder like this, maybe it's not a mental health disorder.
So what is it? If it's not a mental health disorder.
An act. A role play.
We know from studies in other fields of psychology that when we put people in role play situations, they develop behaviors and mental health disorders that they never had before.
The very famous experiment, there was a very famous experiment where two groups of students were put in a basement. One group was told that they are prisoners. The other group was told that they are wardens. They are the prison guards.
Within three days, the prison guards beat the other students, the prisoners, so badly that several students were taken to the hospital.
And the experiment had to be stopped. It's online, you can read about it.
In another experiment, a group of volunteers was asked to administer an electric current to another subject. The vast majority of them, the overwhelming majority of them, administered an electric current, that would have killed the subject had it been written.
Role play.
This is the most exciting development in recent studies of narcissism.
Possibly, it's not a mental health disorder at all. It's a kind of role play.
But that's for the next lecture.
Now, it's 20 to 9, we have until 9.30, Babur, until 9.30 we have. We finish at 9?
Let's do the following if you all agree.
Let's continue with questions and answers until 9.
Then 9, we take a break.
And those of you with suicidal tendencies can return after that and have additional questions.
Okay, with you?
Okay, until 9, questions?
Maybe if you could present yourself in one sentence, half sentence.
My name is Alina, and I'm a really artistic relation, and I think it's possible. I think the possible solution could be called therapy, could you elaborate on that?
Call therapy is only for narcissists. It's only for narcissists and or people with major depression. It's a depression treatment and narcissism treatment.
And the reason is that major depression is very often post-traumatic condition. We have only 47, until now we had only 47 volunteers who had been treated. All of them tested five or six years later with no narcissism, they lost their narcissism.
But this is very, very small sample, not serious sample.
So we cannot make any claims about the efficacy of the treatment.
Anecdotally, it seems to be working in reducing depression, I mean eliminating actually major depression and eliminating some aspects of pathological narcissism.
For example, we can't, Cold Therapy doesn't let the narcissist develop empathy, emotional empathy. It remains without emotion.
So emotions, it doesn't allow the narcissist to develop suddenly the ability to feel positive emotions. It doesn't allow the narcissist to love. It allows the narcissist to cope with his circumstances and internal environment without narcissism.
The narcissist finds it very difficult to regulate, to stabilize his self-esteem, self-confidence and so on. His self-worth.
Because the narcissist cannot stabilize his self-confidence and self-esteem, he is grandiose. Exaggerate. Cold Therapy allows the narcissist to regulate all this from inside and therefore grandiosity disappears.
But the goals of Cold Therapy are functional to allow the narcissist to function without self-destruction and without harming others.
Not to create a healthy human being. That's not possible.
Well, not possible to Cold Therapy.
I know some of you want to ask questions, but you're ashamed. Anything you say, will you?
I guess that's a good question.
So, my name is Acheeba. I'm a good believer that's a victim. I'm just given out from an narcissistic relationship and you said that co-dependency is similar to an addiction. And just like the case for our colleagues, this addiction could be treated with rehab.
But is there any existent rehab for persons likely to be able to reactivate from this kind of addiction?
The problem is not your recent relationship. The problem is that the rate of recidivism, the rate of going back to a narcissistic partner, to another narcissistic partner, is much higher among victims of narcissistic abuse than among alcoholics.
Now, let me talk about drugs.
Over a 10 year span, and I can say because I've been maintaining databases for 35 years, over a 10 year span, like that, a drug addict would start using drugs again after rehab, 60% of the time. An alcoholic would start to drink again after rehab, 80% of the time.
A victim or intimate partner of narcissistic abuse, never mind how bad the abuse was, 90% of the time. The next partner, 9 out of 10 times, would be a narcissist.
How can you overcome this?
So, for example, 10 out of 9 cannot come out. If that's one who wants to come out, what kind of sources do you have?
Well, to be honest, there's no rehab for victims. I mean, women who constantly choose narcissistic partners, they need to treat, they need treatment, they need therapy for their own psychology.
The problem, choosing partners is a symptom, symptom of the psychology that I described. A whole emptiness, a problem with emotions, these are the problems.
Because of these problems, you are choosing narcissistic partners, narcissists, but you must get rid of the problems, not of the symptom. Getting rid of a symptom is not a problem.
Get rid of your problems and there will be no symptom.
Now, for this, we have treatments.
We have treatments for borderline, dialectical behavioral therapy, DBT. Very, very, very efficient, very efficacious. Success rate more than 80%.
That's for borderline personality disorder. We had very good treatments for trauma, including CPTC.
Most recently, there are all kinds of new things developed.
Like Richard Grannon, his own system, his own method. I think very interesting one.
There's a guy called Rosenberg. He came up with some things and so on. So we treat codependency well, we treat trauma well, very well. We don't treat personality disorders well. We don't know how to.
And treating addiction is an utter favor.
So if we focus on the addiction or the personality disorders, it's guaranteed failure.
We should focus on your issues. Solve your issues, the symptom will disappear. You will not need the narcissist. You are using the narcissist as much as it is you and you. You are using the narcissist to fulfill your whole, to regulate your emotions, to feel alive.
With the narcissist, the world is full of color. You need risk, you need thrill, you need excitement. You are addicted to this as well.
Narcissists are always unpredictable, always crazy, always risk taker. Novelty seekers.
So narcissist fulfills psychological needs of yours and psychological deficiencies and even pathologies.
You need to treat this, not the addiction to the narcissist.
Afcos the mechanism is this way in which we could not follow.
Thank you.
My question is that you said that narcissism is rather related towards the side that opposes, rather than towards the side that waits, call.
But can these be any kind of traumas or mainly just about family or parents?
Because you mentioned mainly parents and families.
The majority of narcissists, very big majority, of narcissists, the traumatic background is familiar in the family. And of these, majority is trauma with mother, not even father. Majority is trauma with mother. Not connected to gender.
Both women and men had trauma with mother. That's the majority.
There is a small group where narcissism developed because of peer abuse.
For peers, same age, friends abused her. And there is an even smaller group where narcissism developed because of role model abuse, like teachers and so on.
Depending on the country, for example, in Russia, there are many more narcissists who suffer from role model abuse, especially by teachers.
So depending on the country.
But generally speaking, that's the picture.
The focus is on the family.
It's extremely rare that peers...
No, there's another phenomenon.
I'm guessing this will go out of practice a little bit.
So do we have this...
So let me finish the answer to him and ignore that.
We have another phenomenon.
It's called acquired situational narcissism.
It was first described by Professor Millman of Harvard.
Millman studied rock stars. And he discovered that they were not narcissists before they became rock stars. And they became heavily narcissistic. They scored exactly like narcissistic personality disorder when they became rock stars.
So he discovered that environment creates narcissism very late in life. It's called late onset.
Very late in life.
Similarly, victims of narcissistic abuse develop extreme narcissistic and psychopathic traits and behaviors in reaction to the abuse.
So today, for example, we say that we cannot distinguish victims of CPTSD from borderline personality disorder. They're the same.
So actually victims of narcissistic abuse develop late onset personality disorder.
So this is the picture.
If it starts early, it's a family. If it starts late, circumstances of life.
We're going to tell what happens pretty briefly in our area.
We're going to show you what happens when we're not in the same area.
If we're not in the same area, we're going to show you what happens when we're not in the same area.
We're going to show you what happens when we're not in the same area. If we're not in the same area, we're going to show you what happens when we're not in the same area.
If we're not in the same area. If we're not in the same area, we're going to show you what happens when we're not in the same area. If we're not in the same area, we're going to show you what happens if we're not in the same area. Can we go stop here?
We still have five minutes from the streaming.
We have five easy questions.
After the streaming, we continue.
After the streaming, we continue.
Another 30 minutes.
How long we continue after the streaming?
We have up to 10.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I'm just going to have from an abusive, or who could say it's a narcissism, abusive relationship.
My wife and I have two children and there will be an official court decision because she wanted to sort of punish me that she's going to take the two children away.
Of course, I don't want to get her out of our family's life, but how can I avoid my children to be narcissists?
If the child is exposed to a parent, a narcissistic parent, with decision-making powers, there is very little you can do to protect the child.
You can do two things. Provide the child with a counterexample.
Not confront, not criticize the parent, but just provide a counterexample.
And the second thing you can do is pray.
It's children of these ages. If you told me the children are 10, 15, that's a different story, but children of these ages are very impressionable.
You must isolate the behaviors that you find unacceptable or objectionable and the things she says, which you find worrying.
And then you must do exactly the opposite. Say exactly the opposite and behave in a way that you provide a counterexample.
Ultimately, it also depends on who is more successful in life.
The growing problem with narcissism is that it is a positive adaptation. It works.
In a narcissistic society, it's good to be a narcissist.
The children, when they grow up, one of the things they will evaluate is which of the two of you has made it? Which of the two of you is more successful?
I want you to realize that there is a shift, a revolution in perception.
In July 2016, the prestigious academic journal, New Scientist, published a cover story. And the cover story was, parents, teach your children to be narcissistic.
There are scholars, professors, who say that narcissism and psychopathy are very positive things, both for the individual and for the species.
And there are new concepts like productive narcissism, high-functioning narcissism, successful psychopath. There are new concepts, academic concepts.
So when President Trump was elected to the White House, there was a huge debate on this issue precisely. And there were many voices on television. And they said that, you see, narcissism works. It's a productive, high-functioning narcissism, successful narcissism.
Why not to be narcissist? Your fight will not be easy, not only because of your wife, but because of culture and society.
It's a sad and dangerous situation.
Is there a way to get a seat?. ###