Good after morning, capso-nim and capsonot.
Look it up.
The huge industrial ventilator, fan, behind me, is because I'm a very hot narcissist.
40 degrees Celsius, 105 degrees Fahrenheit, a globe in heat.
Okay, Shoshanim, so what could be better than discuss schizoid phenomena?
In 1997, when all of us were much younger and some of us were not yet born, I introduced the concept of empty schizoid core to the online public.
I'm not the one who came up with it. Seinfeld is. I'll discuss it in a minute. But I'm the one who introduced it to the online public.
Fast forward 27 years, everyone and his dog and his mother-in-law is an expert on narcissism. And they all get something like 99% of everything completely wrong.
The schizoid empty core is no exception. And this forces me to come out with one of my educational disambiguation videos.
And I'm doing this because I'm altruistic and charitable and compassionate and generally a cutie pie.
Okay, let's get down to writing.
Sentence number one and the only one you need to hear actually.
The empty schizoid core is not the same as schizoid personality disorder. It is not the same as having a schizoid personality. It's not the same as displaying schizoid behaviors.
Get it?
The empty schizoid core has very little to do with what is known as schizoid personality disorder and its attendant behaviors.
The empty schizoid core is, as the name implies, a core. It is at the core of disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder, characterized by what Kerleberg called the emptiness. I call the void and others called the black hole.
Okay, and what I'm going to do today, I'm going to introduce it to each of these three concepts.
In turn, we start with the empty schizoid core.
The book that brought this concept into wide circulation is titled The Empty Core: An Object Relations Approach to Psychotherapy of the Schizoid Personality. It was written by Jeffrey Seinfeld, published by Jason Aronson in 1991. So that's a long time away.
It is an amazing book. I'm going to read to you an excerpt about the empty core.
So, Jeffrey Seinfeld.
The empty core is the endless, shapeless space that arises as a minus or lack of boundedness and threatens the dissolution of being, of boundedness.
In existential phenomenology, the empty core is referred to as nothingness.
Fairbairn in 1944 contends that libido is the signpost to the object, that instinctual drives are object related.
I understand him to mean, says Seinfeld, that instinctual drives are not complete in themselves, but they create in the individual a need for something external.
In other words, that instincts are directional. They embody instinctual drives, embody a sense of incompletion, a sense of lack.
In existential phenomenology, it is a sense of incompletion or lack that is described as nothingness, a whole in the plenitude of being, Satois, 1943.
The term schizoid, says Seinfeld, refers to the splitting of the self.
You know, that's why we have the word schizophrenia.
The schizoid individual complains of feeling isolated, disengaged, shut out, unconnected and apathetic.
There is a consuming need for object dependence, but attachment threatens the schizoid with the loss of self.
The individual protects an insecure sense of self by emotional withdrawal and affective isolation.
Unable to make emotionally meaningful commitments, the person often feels that life is futile and without purpose. Meisner, 1988.
Existential phenomenology describes a schizoid sense of identity as suffering ontological insecurity. It's a phrase coined by Ling in 1959.
The schizoid frequently withdraws from community or society in general and may appear shy and eccentric when he does or she does.
There may be paranoid features, sensitivity, guardedness, suspiciousness, said Meisner in 1988.
The schizoid may also seem to be sociable and involved in relationships. However, he is frequently playing a role and not fully involved, unconsciously disowning this role, suggested Fairbairn in 1940.
Winnicott described the false self-system in 1960. The schizoid personality maintains a compliant and protective facade to shield a fragile sense of inner autonomy and individuation from intimate contact with the object. The false self protects the true self from losing its subjectivity and vitality, suggested Eugen in 1986.
The schizoid may also develop a variant of the false self system, an as-if personality. The individual relates to the object world on the basis of child-like imitation, expressing a superficial identification with the environment, but with a lack of genuine warmth, said Meissner in 88.
The as-if structure serves to defend against the underlying schizoid emptiness and sense of futility. The values and convictions of the as-if personality tend toward identification with whatever individual or group the person finds at the time.
The schizoid person presents as superficial, concrete, overly related to facticity, in reality, Giovanni in 1986.
Despite the constriction and repression of fantasy life, the schizoid may on occasion reveal strange and fantastic dream fragments or flitting segments of fantasy, suggesting a rich and complex inner world.
British object relations analysts have been inclined to use fantasy in referring to unconscious fantasy, fantasy with pH when they refer to unconscious fantasy and fantasy with F to refer to the conscious level of such psychic activity.
The affect in the schizoid personality is constricted. The schizoid withdraws from the external world in favor of a preoccupation with internal life. As long as one can successfully repress intense dependence, the schizoid functions well in the real world.
The character structure and defenses remain stable, but rigid.
Narcissists, borderlines, paranoids, they have phases of schizoid behavior.
So this was Sinefeld.
And now, Vaknin.
This is the schizoid core. And wrapped around the schizoid core, there's the schizoid personality.
Now, some people might say, but the borderline, for example, is highly emotional. There's no way she could be schizoid or possess an empty schizoid core.
It's important to understand that people with an empty schizoid core have a very conflicted relationship with their emotions, with their cognitions, and in short, with all internal processes.
The personality, such as it is, is kaleidoscopic and fragmented. There's no internal organizing principle known as the self or the ego. The narcissist is devoid of a self or has no ego, while the borderline has a very fragmented diffuse and disrupted and disturbed sense of identity, core identity, ego, and self. So there's nobody there. There's no master of the house. There's no one in charge, there's no boss to kind of direct the internal processes to cohere and to produce a reasonably consistent picture of identity across time.
There are also enormous problems with memory in borderline personality disorder definitely, but also in narcissism.
Dissociation is a prevalent very crucial feature.
And so what happens is in the case of the borderline for example, she feels alien, alienated, estranged from her own emotions.
Yes, she experiences emotions, but they are perceived as enemies. They are perceived as hostile.
Her emotions are perceived as tsunamis, avalanches, hurricanes that threaten to devour her, drown her, consume her, and overwhelm her. She has a very bad relationship with her emotions.
The narcissist is incapable of experiencing positive emotions because he associates positive emotions with hurt and pain and shame.
So in both cases, the narcissist and the borderline, the emotions are superficial in the sense that they are surface emotions. There's no integration of the emotions into anything cohesive, any core.
And this is also a great description or a great elucidation of the dynamics of the empty schizoid core.
It is empty because it is not integrated with other internal psychological processes and psychodynamics. The empty schizoid core has no integration with memories, with emotions, with cognitions.
The narcissist's cognition is distorted, this is known as grandiosity, the borderlines cognition is distorted because she's pseudo-psychotic.
The emotions overwhelm the borderline, so she rejects them. She rejects them. She distances herself. She's estranged. Emotions don't exist except negative emotions in narcissism.
So there's no complete picture, there's no individual. That's why Kernberg suggested that there is emptiness there. There's a void. And Seinfeld agrees.
So this is the empty schizoid core.
Now, wrapped around the empty schizoid core, we have the schizoid personality.
Narcissists and borderlines do not have a schizoid personality. These things are mutually exclusive. You can't be a borderline and have a schizoid personality. You can't be a narcissist and have a schizoid personality.
Because in both cases, there is external regulation. There is dependence on outsiders, on the other for self-regulation.
The narcissist regulates his sense of self-worth using feedback from other people, feedback known as an external supply, while the borderline regulates her labile moods and her dysregulated emotions by outsourcing her psychodynamics, outsourcing her mind, so to speak, allowing another person, usually an intimate partner to take over and regulate her.
The dependency on other people is so extreme that one could even say that both borderlines and narcissists are pro-social. They are not antisocial because they rely crucially on the performance of ego functions on other people. Ego functions on other people. They rely on other people. Otherwise, they cannot regulate themselves in a meaningful way.
So they cannot have a schizoid personality.
However, they do have a schizoid empty core, a core that is dissociated, that is, has broken off from the rest of the psyche.
In the case of the borderline, the psyche is externalized. In the case of the narcissists, the psyche is fantasized, but never is the psyche integrated with any meaningful construct or process within the personality.
And that's the empty schizoid core.
Schizoid simply means split, broken. That's why we have schizophrenia. That's why we have schizoaffective disorder. That's why we have schizotypal disorder. These are all manifestations of internal brokenness.
And the narcissist, borderline, and paranoid and others, by other mental health issues, they are no exception.
Narcissists, borderlines and paranoids have phases of schizoid behaviors.
Again, we should make a clear distinction between schizoid personality and schizoid behaviors. You could engage in schizoid behaviors and not have a schizoid personality. You could engage in schizoid behaviors and not be possessed by an empty schizoid core.
Definitely, schizoid personality disorder is a separate clinical entity, a separate diagnosis, which should not be confused with a schizoid empty core or with schizoid behaviors.
The schizoid behaviors in narcissism, in borderline, paranoid personality disorder, in other mental health issues, these schizoid behaviors are reactive.
In the case of the narcissist, when the narcissist experiences deficient narcissistic supply, irregular narcissistic supply, or a state of collapse, failure, the narcissist withdraws inwards, avoids the world, isolates himself, licks his wounds. These are schizoid behaviors, have to do with avoidance and withdrawal.
Similarly, when the borderline experiences abandonment or when she experiences the opposite, engulfment, whether real or anticipated or imaginary, she reacts with schizoid behaviors. She vanishes, she goes, she disappears, she isolates herself for a while. She refrains from having sex. She becomes schizoid in the behavioral sense.
And when it comes to the paranoid, when the paranoid is overwhelmed with paranoid ideation, the paranoid becomes terrified, craven, and isolates himself in order to protect himself. The paranoid perceives schizoid behaviors as protective.
Now there's nothing new in trying to link narcissism to schizophrenia. Freud did as much in his own narcissism essay in 1914.
Melanie Klein's contribution was the introduction of immediately post-natal internal objects. Schizophrenia, she proposed, was a narcissistic, an intense relationship with internal objects, such as fantasies or images, including fantasies of grandeur, which the baby has.
Melanie Klein proposed a totally new language. She was a revolutionary.
Freud suggested a transition from primary objectless narcissism, self-directed libido, a transition from this to object-reliant relations, object-directed libido.
Melanie Klein suggested a transition from internal objects to external ones.
This is where there is a disruption in the formation of the pathological narcissist.
The narcissist fails to transition from internal objects to external ones.
One of the main reasons is that separation, individuation is disrupted.
The child who is about to become narcissist cannot separate from mother and become an individual and also has no self or ego to work with in the transition from internal to external objects.
While Freud thought that the denominator common to narcissism and schizoid phenomena is a withdrawal of libido from the world, Klein suggested it was a fixation on an early phase of relating only to internal objects and not to external ones.
But is the difference real? Is it substantial or is it merely semantic?
I'm going to read to you something written by Greenberg and Mitchell in the book Object Relations and Psychoanalytic Theory, published in 1983 by Harvard University Press.
They wrote, the term narcissism tends to be employed diagnostically by those proclaiming loyalty to the drive model, such as Otto Kernberg and Edith Jacobson, for instance.
Mixed model theories, such as code, who are interested in preserving a tie to drive theory, also use the word narcissism.
The word schizoid tends to be employed diagnostically by adherence of relational model, such as Fairbairn, Guntrip, who are interested in articulating their break with drive theory.
These two differing diagnosis and accompanying formulations are applied to patients who are essentially similar by theorists who start with very different conceptual premises and ideological affiliations. I would add models.
So if you use one model, the model of drives, which are essentially internal, you would say the person is a narcissist.
If you use other models such as object relations models, you would say the person is a schizoid because the emphasis is on relationships with external objects. If you're unable to relate to external object you're by definition schizoid.
There is good grounds to assume that narcissism and schizoid core are one and the same and that applies of course as rigorously to borderline personality disorder.
Look at the work of Gunderson, Kernberg, and others.
Fred Olford in Narcissism, Socrates, the Frankfurt School, and Psychoanalytic Theory published by Yale University Press in 1988.
Fred Olford wrote the following.
Fairbairn and Guntrip represent the purest expression of object relations theory, which is characterized by the insight that real relationships with real people build psychic structure.
Although they rarely mention narcissism, they use a schizoid split in the self as characteristic of virtually all emotional disorders.
It is Greenberg and Mitchell in object relations and psychoanalytic theory who established the relevance of Fairbairn and Guntrip by pointing out that what American analysts label narcissism, British analysts tend to call schizoid personality disorder.
This insight allows us to connect the symptomatology of narcissism, feelings of emptiness, unreality, alienation and emotional withdrawal with a theory that sees such symptoms as an accurate reflection of the experience of being split off from a part of oneself.
That narcissism is such a confusing category is in large part because its dry theoretic definition, the libidinal cathexis of the self, in a word self-love, seems far removed from the experience of narcissism, as characterized by a loss of or split in the self.
Fairbairns and Guntrip's view of narcissism as an excessive attachment of the ego to internal objects, roughly analogous to Freud's narcissistic as opposed to object love, resulting in various splits in the ego necessary to maintain these attachments, allows us to penetrate these confusion.
Now, as I said, do not confuse, as this text has just done, by the way, do not confuse narcissism and borderline with schizoid personality disorder.
Narcissists and borderlines have an empty schizoid core. There's a break, there's a split in the self, which gives them the experience of emptiness.
Because the self is broken, because the self is shattered, because sometimes there's no self, or at least not an integrated and constellated self, the inner experience is that of a void, an emptiness, a black hole.
This is the schizoid empty core.
Also, borderlines and narcissists from time to time engage in schizoid behaviors.
When they are under stress, tension, rejected, humiliated, abandoned, lacking in supply, etc., then of course they withdraw and avoid people and reality, and they become schizoid for a while. It's a temporary, transient phase, always.
Schizoid personality disorder is something completely different. Should not be conflated with narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder.
And at least in principle in my view can never be comorbid with borderline or narcissism.
What is Schizoid personality disorder?
People with Schizoid personality disorders, schizoids for short, enjoy nothing. They're anhedonic, and they seemingly never experienced pleasure. Even their nearest and dearest often describe such people as automata, robots, machines.
But the schizoid is not depressed. The schizoid is not dysphoric. It's merely apathetic, merely indifferent to the external environment and to other people.
Schizoids are uninterested in social relationships. They are bored or puzzled by interpersonal interactions. They are incapable of intimacy. They have a very limited range of emotions and affect. Sometimes flat affect. Rarely does the schizoid express feelings, either negative, for example, anger, or positive, for example, happiness.
Schizoids never pursue an opportunity to develop a close relationship. Schizoids in many cases are asexual or hyposexual, not very interested in sex.
Consequently, they appear to be called aloof, detached, bland, stunted, flat, and zombie-like. They derive no satisfaction from belonging to a close-knit group, family, church, friends, workplace, neighborhood, or even nation. They rarely get married. They rarely have children. Schizoid is a loner. Given the option, they invariably pursue solitary activities or hobbies.
Inevitably, they prefer mechanical or abstract tasks and jobs that require such skills.
Many computer hackers, crackers and programmers, for example, are schizoids. They are the ones who came up with social media, ironically. And some mathematicians and theoretical physicists are also schizoids.
Schizoids are inflexible in their reactions to changing life circumstances and developments. They're nerdy.
When the circumstances are adverse, when the circumstances are opportune, they react the same way, which is to say not at all.
Faced with stress, schizoids may disintegrate, decompensate and experience brief psychotic episodes or even depressive illness, but that's pretty rare.
Schizoids have few friends or confidence. They trust only first-degree relatives, if at all.
But even so, they maintain not close bonds or associations, not even with their immediate family.
Schizoids pretend to be indifferent to praise, criticism, disagreement and corrective advice. Deep inside, they're not, and it is sensed they're very reminiscent of avoidance, people with avoidant personalities.
Schizoids are creatures of habit, frequently succumbing to rigid, predictable, and narrowly restricted routines. Their lives are constricted.
From the outside, the schizoid's life looks rudderless, adrift, no ambition, no direction, no purpose, no goal, no meaning.
Like people with Asperger's syndrome, more precisely level one autism spectrum disorder, schizoids failed to respond appropriately to social cues and they rarely reciprocate gestures or facial expressions such as smiles.
As the DSM puts it, they seem socially inept or superficial and self-absorbed.
So, as you can see immediately, this is definitely not the borderline. Borderline is overexpressive, hyper-emotional.
This is definitely not the narcissist. The narcissist seeks gratification from the outside, either directly, which is the overt, grandiose narcissist, or indirectly, which is a covert narcissist.
But other people are essentially in the psychological and mental economy of the narcissist.
Schizoid personality disorder is the opposite. The antithesis of narcissism and borderline. Not to be confused with a schizoid empty core.
Now, the literature section in the description, you find four books, including my own Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited, which has a chapter on schizoid disorders in narcissism. And you're encouraged to buy them and read them. Nothing has been published since. If you have to choose one of the four, choose The Empty Core by Jeffrey Seinfeld.