My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.
My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.
My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.
I did all of this work to help my body have the employers to feel healthy and physically healthy.
With those who have been concerned about the needs of CE, some who have possibly men on a Well, as I said in response to other questions, there is a substantial, essential difference between relatively healthy people who seek spanking, and spanking is healthy. It's not associated with any mental health illness. It was never even considered as a mental problem or a paraphilia. It's perfectly healthy. So many totally healthy people seek it, and the narcissist would seek it.
But again, there's a gulf. It's essentially different phenomena. They look the same. They're not the same.
I will focus on the narcissist because that's the aim of the interview.
The narcissist at a very early age associated love with pain.
The problem the narcissist has is that a lot of this pain is ambient, is implied. It's subtle. It's not expressed. It's not manifest. It's not visible. It's not clear even.
The narcissist is in a state of thought, complete uncertainty. Am I being abused, or is it my imagination, or as a child, yes? Am I wrong?
And of course, as a child, he still has autoplastic defenses. In other words, as a child, he still blames himself.
If mother is punishing me means I'm a bad, unworthy object of a bad child. I deserve the punishment. Something bad happened to mother. I did it. It's my responsibility. My parents are divorcing it because of me.
So child assumes responsibility via magical thinking to everything that happens in his environment.
And so he would perceive the abuse as coming from him because he is the reason for everything that's happening – divorce, whatever.
Then of course, if he is responsible for divorce, then he is responsible for abuse.
So the abuse that's given to him by his mother, let's say, he realizes it's coming from the outside, but he thinks he made it happen. He think he caused it.
And so there is a powerful internal component in abusive behavior. The child perceives the abuses coming partly from outside and partly from inside.
And in many respects, the child is abusing himself – self-punishing self.
And so the child learns that love, pain, intimacy, self-regulation, control of the world, they're all somehow connected – discipline, control of the world.
So gradually, when this child becomes older, he feels very uncomfortable with the fact that the abuse is unclear, uncertain, ambient.
We don't tolerate – none of us, healthy people – we don't tolerate uncertainty very well. It provokes anxiety.
And in order to reduce anxiety, very often we take drastic measures.
We are waiting for the other shoe to fall. We're waiting for the guillotine to fall.
So instead of waiting, we will do something.
For example, I'm waiting for my wife to abandon me. Instead of waiting for her to abandon me, I will abandon her first – preemptive abandon.
This is very classic behavior of healthy people, and especially the narcissist, who is primitive, not healthy, is disorganized, is very chaotic personality.
So spanking, and not only spanking, discipline in general, whipping, spanking, many others, and all these manifestations, they introduce certainty to the abuse. They make the abuse unequivocal, clear, certain, cannot be argued with.
In other words, it reduces anxiety. Discipline introduces certainty. Certainty reduces anxiety. That's why the narcissist feel much better after such a session.
This anxiety is gone.
Now, is anxiety gone in spanking, for example, in ways which are like multitasking, because not only the anxiety is gone, but he has a great feeling of intimacy.
Remember that in the narcissist's mind, pain is connected to love, connected to intimacy. Actually, because he caused a lot of it in his child's mind, it's all the same thing. It's all his inside, he's the outside. The outside is his inside. Pain is love. Love, not connected, is love. Love is pain. You know, everything is everything.
So spanking has multiple purposes.
First of all, it clarifies the situation. It's clear that I'm going to abuse you. It's clear you will have discipline. It's not in the air. It's not, when will mommy attack me? Now, in one hour, in two hours, tomorrow, the next day. And I will live in tension. I will live in anxiety waiting for mommy to attack me.
No, mommy will now take the paddle and attack me. It makes the situation clear. Clear, less anxiety, good feeling.
Second thing, it's intimate. There's intimacy involved. First of all, my ass is naked. There's intimacy involved.
And intimacy is intimately connected with abuse, with the pain, and intimately connected with love. So it's a loving act of intimacy involving unequivocal, clear pain. Not speculated pain, clear pain.
The clarity is crucial. Because it introduces intimacy, introduces love, introduces...
Following the session, the narcissist would feel wonderful. Because he had received a dose of intimacy, a dose of love, a dose of clear abuse. So he doesn't have to be anxious. It has happened already. So he doesn't have to anticipate.
And so he would feel wonderful. And he would feel even doubly wonderful. Because his view of the world, his Weltanschau, his theory of the world, had been proven right.
His theory of the world is, there's no love without pain. There's no intimacy without pain. And here it is. He received the spanking, and it was like an experiment in physics. He tested the theory, and it proved right.
It's always gratifying when our theory of the world proves right. We call it comfort zone. When the world doesn't fit our theory, we never change the theory. We change the world.
So if I have a theory that all women will abuse me, and I find a woman who doesn't abuse me, I will not change my theory. I will force her to abuse me. This process is called projective identification.
So spanking is a form of projective identification. The narcissist forces you to abuse him, because it makes him feel good. Abuse makes him feel good. It's his comfort zone. There he feels love and intimacy, and only there.
But he doesn't want you to abuse him by silent treatment, or by passive aggression. No, he wants you to abuse him in ways that there would be no question that you're abusing him. Totally clear, unequivocal, unambiguous, because he needs this clarity.
And he leaves the session totally gratified. What's missing? Love? Yes. Intimacy? Yes. Discipline? Yes. Control? I mean, everything. It's a total package.
And that's the source of the power of discipline for narcissists.
Healthy people come for different reasons, but narcissists come for this.
Not often, because narcissists, it's like, how often do you have to test a theory in physics? You test it once every 10 years. You don't test a theory in physics every day.
So he has a theory about the world, and he has to test it from time to time, once a year, twice a year. He has to test it. He gets confirmation, and he moves on.
It's exactly like in his relationship. Narcissist relationships have nothing to do with relationships. They are experiments to test the theory.
The only reason narcissist teams up with a woman, for example, is to test his theory that all women suck. All women are horrible. All women are abusers. All women are whores.
So he teams up with a new woman. He teams up with a new woman to prove the theory. That's all.
The minute he proves the theory, by the way, he loses interest in that woman. The theory proved.
So if he has a theory, for example, all women cheat on me, theory, because all women are abusers, and this is their way to abuse me. They cheat on me because, you know, this is the worst abuse for me. So they cheat on me. All women.
And then you come across a woman, and she doesn't cheat. He feels bad. He feels anxious. His theory is negated, and he will do anything in his power to push her to cheat on him.
He would introduce her to men. He would bring men home and live. He would do anything in his power.
And finally, he would engage in threesomes as a way to watch her. I mean, it's death strong, the need for validation. It's called validation.
Victims have the same. Victims of abuse have a theory of victimhood, and they force everyone around them to conform to the theory, to prove, to validate the theory.
And in future relationships, as I said yesterday, trust and empathy are ruined forever. Future relationships, victims are so emotionally invested in victimhood that they will force the partner to abuse them, to be victim again. This is the comfort zone. It's a very powerful concept.
And when a narcissist has no supply or collapse, does he go more often, have these type of decisions, or no?
He would tend, when he's collapsed or has no supply, his main focus would not be on abuse, he would be able to feel alive. So he would push the discipline to dangerous areas, to severe bodily harm, to inflicting real damage.
So some of them would resort to cutting, or they would go very far. They would push the dominatrix or to go very far.
To feel alive. To feel alive.
So then the motivation is different. Not to confirm the theory that all women are abusers, and abuse is connected to love and intimacy, but different. The need to feel alive.
So discipline alone, spanking, for example, will not be enough.
So he would, I don't know, for example, he would begin to spank, and you inspect the area.
But he would not let you. He would say, continue, continue, continue, don't stop. Continue, I mean, until there is really severe damage to the body.
Because he would need to mutilate, he would need you to really cut him, to mutilate him, to draw blood, to destroy the flesh. And he would push you.
And if the dominatrix has no boundaries, and is not strong, and the client is a dominant person, or with dominant personality, actually what would be created there is a dom-sub relationship where the dominatrix is a sub. And she will obey the so-called client, I mean, the sub. She will obey him, and she will inflict severe damage on the client. I've seen such cases.