Good lasts forever. I gave you a three weeks vacation from Sam Vaknin. But it's over. I'm back with this video.
Today we are going to discuss what I call the system of residuals.
Can two narcissists inhabit the same body? This sounds a bit like the exorcist or demon possession or multiple personality disorder known today as dissociative identity disorder.
But actually, it's none of the above.
I'm going to discuss the loaded question. Can a narcissist be both overt and covert at the same time? And when this rare condition happens, what does it mean? How do we identify such a narcissist? And what can we do about it? Is there any way out?
To be one kind of narcissist is bad enough to be two kinds of narcissist in the same body at the same time. This simultaneity or synchronicity is a horror show. It's indeed a form of possession. It calls for exorcism sanctioned by the Catholic Church.
But I can't have this on my show. I'm a Jew. So I'm going to discuss psychology instead, a profession largely invented and propagated by Jews throughout modern history.
Okay, antisemitism aside, let's delve right into the topic of the video.
The problem starts with the concept of the unitary self.
At some point, modern psychology had taken a detour. Various scholars had come up with concepts such as self, ego, personality, individual. And these concepts had implied that we are all atons. We are kind of self-sufficient, self-contained, solipsistic universes. We do pass each other in the night honking our forgorns like two ships, but otherwise we are totally separate.
We can be studied in isolation, in laboratories. The context in which we are embedded, for example, the social context is secondary. What matters are internal processes.
This is where psychology started to become delusional or divorced from reality.
If I had to diagnose current psychology, I would say that it has an impaired reality testing.
And why would I say that?
Because there's no such thing as individual. Probably there's no such thing as a self. Definitely there's no such thing as a personality.
All these concepts are very misleading. We are formed. We become in a process which is lifelong, as Ersson had noted.
And this process involves other people all the time. We are relational outcomes. We emerge, we coalesce through interactions with other people.
We are the sum total of our object relations, starting with mummy and ending in the grave.
As we go through life, as we find ourselves and meshed with other people, we love, we hate, we fight, we withdraw.
Yes, withdrawal is also a form of reaction to people. As we interact socially, even if we are schizoid, even if we are avoidant, we are still forced to interact socially.
All these environments, phenomena, other people, they form us, they shape us, they make us who we are.
Now, this observation is not new, of course. It has been proposed by various object relation theorists in the 1960s.
But since then, psychology had taken an experimental turn.
Psychologists, when they grow up, want to be scientists. It's a form of vanity. It's a form of grandiosity.
Psychologists are not happy with being psychologists. They want to be physicists. They want to belong to medicine. They want to become a part of the sciences.
And so, what psychologists have done in the past several decades is they began to place emphasis on laboratory experiments, on studying animals as proxies for people, etc.
This was a very wrong turn.
And so, we ended up with a psychology that speaks very little to our common experiences.
We had become alienated from psychology, estranged from psychology. We feel as if psychology has nothing to offer us.
And you know what the truth is? That psychology has very little to offer us, which is why people gravitate to con artists, coaches, and other forms of low life.
So, it all started with this error, with this primordial sin of the unitary self.
Gradually, over the past few decades, there have been rebel movements, for example, the internal family system and others. And these rebels, intellectuals, high-powered intellectuals and scholars, suggested another concept, a substitute for the unitary self. It's a form of operating system, internal operating system, a CPU. And this internal operating system determines which of several self-states emerges at any given time.
Let's revert. Let's go back one step.
The new approach in psychology, these new schools, or relatively new schools, suggest that we actually don't have a self. What we have instead is a family, a congregation, a parish, a group, a collective of sub-personalities, self-states, or what I call pseudo-identities.
Now, these self-states are indeed like a family in the sense that they are internal dynamics between them. They also share a lot of information with each other, so they are only partially dissociative. The dissociation wall is permeable.
What one self-state learns, the others share mostly, not entirely, but mostly.
So, there is a common database of experiences which renders identity cohesive, coherent, and continuous.
We have these multiple sub-states. They inhabit an internal space. This internal space has a shared database of common memories.
These common memories give rise to a fluid but stable identity core. This identity core in turn arranges the memories in meaningful ways. Identity core serves as an organizing principle, an explanatory principle.
There's an operating system. There's an overriding, guiding principle, so to speak, which determines which of the self-states emerges at any given point.
And how does this determination take place? How does the operating system decide which self-state emerges at any given minute?
It evaluates internal and external information.
Now, this information is generated and provided by internal and external environments.
So, the operating system monitors external environments and internal environments all the time. And then it renders its verdict. It makes a decision.
Right now, self-state number three, the psychopathic self-state should emerge. Right now, self-state number one, the narcissistic self-state should take over. And right now, self-state number seven, the codependent self-state, the dependent self-state should kind of pervade the personality.
So, self-states alternate sometimes dizzyingly and kaleidoscopically alternate among each other.
Now, in the majority of cases, there are stable self-states, which persist for weeks, months, years, sometimes decades.
But when people are mentally ill, for example, in borderline personality disorder, in narcissistic personality disorder, the self-states change very often. And they change among themselves. They take over. They hand the baton. They hand in a relay kind of.
They do this because the internal and external stimuli, the internal and external information usually overwhelms the mentally ill person and creates dysregulation.
To cope with the threat of dysregulation, the operating system trots out, pushes out another self-state, which is better capable and better able to cope with dysregulation.
So, for example, when the borderline is faced with a threat of humiliation and abandonment and rejection, this threat, real or imaginary, overwhelmms her. She becomes dysregulated.
The operating system of the borderline becomes alarmed. The operating system notices that the borderline is about to decompensate and disintegrate then and there.
So, the operating system hurries and replaces the borderline self-state with a secondary psychopathic self-state. The secondary psychopathic self-state is better capable of handling rejection, humiliation and abandonment, even though it has its own drawbacks, for example, it's defiant and reckless.
So, this is how things work. This is how things operate within what used to be called the personality and I prefer to call the ego system, not the ecosystem but the ego system or, if you wish, the personality space.
And what determines, of course, which self-state will be selected by the operating system, is self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the overriding constraint which the system seeks to optimize when hailing forth these sub-personalities or pseudo-identities.
The operating system wants you to be self-efficacious. In other words, it wants you to secure favorable outcomes from your external environment, taking into account your internal environment, internal processes and dynamics which are operating in you at any given moment.
So now, we move into what I call system of residuals.
It's time to introduce myself.
My name is Sam Vaknin and I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited. I'm also a professor of psychology.
This was the general introduction to self-state systems, which I believe and many other scholars believe is the regular normal state of things.
Everyone has a system of self-states, not only mentally ill people, but people with mental health problems use the system much more. They deploy the system much more often. They exchange self-states. They transition or switch between self-states much more frequently because they are dysregulated and overwhelmed by external and internal stimuli.
When all the relevant or available self-states at the disposal of the system are equally self-efficacious, what does the system do?
And what about the obverse condition? What about the situation where all the self-states available to the system at the disposal of the system? All these self-states are equally inept, equally incompetent, equally lacking in self-efficacy, equally unable to operate on the external environment and to guarantee to operate on and in the external environment and with the external environment to guarantee favorable outcomes.
What happens when all these self-states are losers when they are not built, incapable of functioning when they are dysfunctional?
In this case, the system may opt, may decide to maintain two or more self-states in operation simultaneously. It's a kind of hedging. It's a kind of insurance.
Imagine the system as this old matriarchal figure, a matron, a mother. The system says to itself, I can't really use self-state number three. I should have used self-state number three. The circumstances had changed. The external environment is menacing and threatening. There is dysregulation in the internal environment, so I should have used self-state number three. But self-state number three is good for nothing. It's a loser. It's not efficacious, so I can't use self-state number three.
On the other hand, the nearest substitute, self-state number seven, is equally hopeless, equally incompetent, so I can't use self-state number seven as well.
What am I to do? Poor me, poor operating system.
So, let me use self-state number three and self-state number seven together.
Now they may compensate for each other's shortcomings. This is a kind of insurance or hedging. If I use multiple self-states, then maybe the favorable outcome, the desired result, will ultimately be obtained, however imperfectly.
So, the operating system on rare occasions may decide to use, may select two self-states, three self-states, and keep them upfront public facing, simultaneously.
In this case, we have what I call a state of residuals. A state of residuals is a mental state where two or more self-states, pseudo-identities, or subpersonalities are in charge.
It's like a ship with two captains. And so, you know, in ancient Rome, there were constellations of two or three scissors governing simultaneously the triumvirate and so on.
So, it's the same. Two or three or four self-states in charge simultaneously.
And this ineluctably leads to dissonance and to internalized aggression because most self-states are mutually exclusive.
In other words, self-state number seven has very little in common with self-state number three. And when both of them are in charge, they're likely to clash and confront exactly like two incompatible people in a couple. They're likely to fight all the time. They're likely to generate a lot of internalized aggression, and they're likely to lead the person into a state known as dissonance.
Now, I've described in previous videos and in lectures I had given, for example, the lecture I had given at McGill University in Canada, I described my model of personality disorders. I'm sorry. And I had suggested that people can transition between personality disorders via what I call a collapsed bridge or a collapsed state.
But the system of residuals is an adaptation and enhancement of my original concept.
What I'm now suggesting is that people transition between personality disorders and between subtypes of personality disorders. For example, between overt narcissism and covert narcissism, between overt borderline and covert borderline.
So people transition between subtypes of personality disorders and even between personality disorders via a bridge, a collapsed bridge. When they collapse with the original personality disorder, no longer guarantees favorable outcomes, people switch to another personality disorder or subtype of personality disorder.
I am now suggesting that sometimes, on rare occasions, when people try to affect this transition, when people try to cross the collapsed bridge from one personality disorder to another, from one subtype of personality disorder to another, when they try to cross the bridge, they get stuck in the middle. They're unable to complete the transition.
At that point, a collapsed narcissist, for example, may evolve into a binary system of two residual self-states, an overt narcissist and a covert narcissist. So we have, for example, an overt narcissist. The overt narcissist collapses, is unable to secure narcissistic supply.
At that point of collapse, many overt narcissists transition to covert narcissists. They become covert. They cross the bridge of collapse. The overt narcissist crosses the bridge of collapse into a covert state.
The system, the operating system, takes care of that. It hides, suppresses, represses, deactivates, disables, switches off one self-state, which is the overt narcissistic self-state, and it activates, switches on another self-state, which is the covert narcissistic self-state.
Having completed this transition successfully, the overt narcissist becomes a full-fledged covert narcissist. As a covert narcissist, he has a chance to succeed. As an overt narcissist, he had collapsed.
But what happens when the overt narcissist tries to cross the bridge of collapse and fails to cross the bridge of collapse because both the overt narcissistic self-state and the covert narcissistic self-state are equally inefficacious. They're equally incompetent. They're equally inefficient.
In other words, what happens when we have a narcissist who collapses both as an overt narcissist and as a covert narcissist? Someone who cannot function as an overt narcissist, but equally cannot function as a covert narcissist, someone who fails to secure favorable outcomes as an overt narcissist, but then goes on to discover that he is equally an equal failure as a covert narcissist. So he's a failure as an overt narcissist, but then he's a failure as a covert narcissist.
In this case, the transition from overt to covert will never be completed. The person, the narcissist who is trying to transform himself from overt to covert, the operating system of these narcissists will determine that such a transition is dangerous because the covert narcissistic state is as self inefficacious as the overt state. The covert state is as likely to collapse as the overt state had collapsed. The covert state is as likely to create despair, depression, self-hatred, self-loathing and self-destruction as the overt state had done.
So there's no point to fully transition between overt and covert. The same negative outcomes are guaranteed and negative affectivity.
So what to do in this case?
Well, the answer of the operating system is we maintain both conditions. We maintain the overt narcissism and we maintain the covert narcissism simultaneously.
The operating system creates a binary system of two residual self-states, an overt narcissist and a covert narcissist in the same body at the same time. Both conditions, the overt narcissism and the covert narcissism, both self-states are equally inapt and incompetent at securing narcissistic supply from outside sources.
But the operating system hopes that putting together the overt and the covert can miraculously somehow create a third entity, so to speak, which may be better able, however, residually better able to obtain supply.
Again, it's a kind of insurance, kind of hedging.
Let's take the good aspects of the overt narcissist and the good aspects of the covert narcissist, combine them together in a binary state and hope for the best.
Such a constellation is geared to generate self-supply. It does it in two very surprising ways.
The overt self-state is by definition superior to the covert state.
Now you remember, in this particular case, there has been a collapse of the overt state. Normally, there would have been a transition from overt state to covert state. There's been a collapse of the overt state and there would have been a transition from overt state to covert state via the bridge of collapse, normally.
But in this particular case, both the overt state and the covert state are hopeless. They're losers. They're incompetent, inept, unable to obtain supply.
So the operating system keeps both of them in operation, maintains both of them, doesn't switch off any single one of them.
But still, the overt narcissist is what the covert narcissist wants to be when he grows up. The covert narcissist envies the overt narcissist. The overt narcissist holds the covert narcissist in contempt.
The dynamic between these two self-states is very negative. The overt self-state superiority to the covert state leads the overt state to reject the covert state.
I repeat, the overt state in this binary system holds the covert state in contempt and rejects the covert state. The overt state regards the covert state as a good for nothing loser, as a nobody, as a non-entity, as a failure.
The covert state, on the other hand, envies the overt state, sabotages the overt state, undermines the overt state, hates the overt state. There's no love lost between the overt and the covert state.
The covert state fantasizes about being and becoming an overt state. And the overt state wants to eliminate the covert state because the overt state finds the covert state embarrassing, shameful, disgraceful, in other words, a form of constant narcissistic injury and mortification, internal mortification.
So there's a war. The minute the operating system had opted to not do anything, to not switch off any sub-state, to allow several sub-states to reign supreme simultaneously, at that moment the operating system had created a state of dissonance which is so extreme that it can only be described as internal conflict, a war.
The overt state's aggression towards the covert is recycled by the covert.
Now remember, aggression is a form of energy. And there's a law of conservation of energy. There's a law of conservation of aggression.
If one sub-state is aggressive towards another sub-state, this aggression simply passes hands. The overt state hands over aggression to the covert state, transfers aggression to the covert state.
When the overt state maligns, humiliates, berates, demeans and degrades the covert state, the overt state is being aggressive to the covert state and this aggression is transferred from the overt state to the covert state.
Now, what can the covert state do with this aggression? It has to do something with it.
Again, it's a form of energy. Think of it as a battery.
Now, the covert state's battery is charged with aggression, courtesy the overt state.
What to do with it? The covert recycles the aggression. The covert recycles the aggression in two ways.
First of all, the covert develops depression. Depression is a form of self-directed aggression. It's a form of using up the aggression in self-destructive self-defeating ways. The aggression is used in hopelessness. The aggression is used via self-loathing and the aggression is used via reckless, dangerous acts which reflect self-destructiveness and dynamics of self-defeat. This is one way the covert uses the aggression of the overt.
The covert leverages this aggression to create a state of depression, which again is self-directed aggression.
The second way, the covert incorporates the aggression into sadistic fantasies.
You remember that the covert's main state of mind is fantasy. The covert uses a fantasy defense to survive.
The covert in itself is unable to obtain supply. The covert fantasizes about obtaining supply. That's true for any covert narcissist, by the way. Covert narcissism is an extreme fantasy defense, even more extreme than overt narcissism.
Both conditions involve grandiose fantasies.
But the covert's fantasies, as distinct from the overt's fantasies, the covert's fantasies often involve aggression. Aggression, violence, sadism, the humiliation of others, the humiliation of others and worse.
So, the overt state is aggressive towards the covert state. They are both coterminous. They both inhabit the body at the same time.
One of them should have been switched off, but the operating system preferred to keep both of them operational and on.
So, they fight. They hate each other.
The overt state is attacking the covert state. This attack is a transfer of aggression, transfer of energy.
The covert state takes this energy, takes this aggression and recycles it one way by generating depression, which is self-directed aggression, and another way by engaging in sadistic fantasies, which is other-directed aggression.
In other words, the covert internalizes some of the aggression and externalizes some of the aggression.
But this externalization is fantastic. It's not in real life. It's only in his fantasies.
The overt and the covert states actually collude in creating what we call a sublimatory channel.
Again, one step back, sublimation is the socially acceptable expression of primitive urges and drives, for example, the sex drive.
So, a sublimatory channel is a very fancy way of saying a socially acceptable way of expressing primitive drives and urges.
If I have a sex drive or an urge to have sex, I would convert it into a socially acceptable way. I would sublimate it, and I would use a sublimatory channel.
If I have aggression, which is also socially unacceptable, I would try to transform the aggression into socially acceptable things, socially acceptable behaviors. As I convert my aggression into socially acceptable behavior, I am sublimating using sublimatory channels.
In the binary system, when the overt and the covert coexist, co-control, co-rain are both in charge, they collude, they collaborate in creating a sublimatory channel for the pent-up rage, envy and resentment that they had created.
When the narcissist collapses, it's a very, very harrowing and traumatic experience. It may lead to mortification. I have numerous videos on the Mortification in this channel, and I recommend that you watch them.
But what mortification does, it disables the grandiose defenses. It disables the false self in effect. It leaves the narcissist defenseless, skinless, technically a borderline.
It transitions the narcissist into a borderline state.
So any collapse generates a lot of rage, disappointment, dysphoria, resentment, envy and other negative effects.
This is a volcano. This is an eruption of negativity. The narcissist experiences it as a form of disintegration in extreme cases or minimally as an extreme narcissistic injury.
And so what to do with all this energy?
The overt and the covert collaborate. The overt takes this energy and directs it at the covert.
So the collapse had created negative energy. The overt narcissist takes this negative energy, encapsulates it, packages it and hands it over to the covert.
It attacks the covert state. It loads the covert state. It maligns and humiliates the covert state. It rejects the covert state. It berates and demeans and criticizes the covert state.
This way, the overt state hands over the negative energy of the collapse to the covert state. The covert state is better equipped to deal with aggression. The covert state had been dealing with aggression throughout his life.
So the covert state is in charge of aggression, sublimating aggression, repackaging aggression, recycling aggression, transforming aggression. Aggression is the covert's thing.
The overt narcissist is very primitive when it comes to aggression. He becomes psychopathic, defiant, reckless, contumacious. The covert narcissist is much more subtle.
So the covert state uses the aggression, transforms it into depression and into sadistic fantasies. Both of these are socially acceptable. Society accepts a state of depression. Society accepts fantasy as long as it is not translated into action.
So the covert acts in a sublimatory way. The covert transforms, the covert state, self-state transforms the aggression into socially acceptable behaviors and means.
When aggression is channeled via grandiosity, it can resolve into one or more speech acts. So when the covert takes the aggression and channels it, redistributes it, recycles it, transforms it, repackages it, the covert generates four types of voice, internal voice, kind of introject, bodiless introject. The covert's internal monologue or internal dialogue is comprised of four strands, four streams of consciousness, four types of speech acts.
First, judgmental, contemptuous, and superior, and unequal, and the best, and the first, and the most. This judgmental, contemptuous voice helps the overt express his negative energy, his aggression via the covert. So it is a kind of courtesy, courtesy channel provided by the covert to the overt. It's like the covert is telling the overt, listen, you are really a whacko, you're crazy, you're dangerous. So here I'm giving you an outlet, I'm giving you a way to express your aggression, please use it.
Be judgmental, be contemptuous to other people, or to me. So the overt self-state allows the overt self-state to abuse it. It encourages internal abuse within the system, within the binary system.
The overt abuses the covert and the covert allows it to happen because this is the only way to safely release the negative energy, aggressive, potentially violent energy of the overt having had collapsed. Collapse generates this nuclear-grade energy and the judgmental, contemptuous channel allows the overt to vent, to offload.
The second channel is the victorious channel. I'm unique for better or worse, for better or worse. I can be unique as a loser, I can be unique as a failure, I can be unique as a victim. Even then I'm unique.
The victorious voice is I'm more than you, I'm unique, you're not. And so the victorious channel is a channel which is used both by the overt and the covert. Both the overt and the covert, don't forget, are grandiose. Both overt narcissism and covert narcissism are founded on grandiose fantasy. They're both fantasy defenses.
The only difference is the covert does not succeed to translate fantasy into reality while the overt is much more self efficacious in obtaining supply. But they're both victorious, they're both grandiose.
So this is a mutual channel, a shared channel. We have one supplementary channel dedicated to the overt, judgmental contemptuous channel. We have a second channel which is a victorious channel, which is a shared channel.
The third channel is the merciful empathic channel. The merciful empathic channel is again given to the overt. It's usually an exclusively overt channel, but sometimes it is shared. It is a channel that says I pity people because they are inferior to me. I have compassion for people. I act charitably, but I do it ostentatiously so that I can garner narcissistic supply, praise for example.
The narcissist is merciful, empathic and forgiving because being merciful, empathic and forgiving renders him pro-social and communal and allows him to garner supply.
In a way, the narcissist is saying, look at me, I conform to social expectations. Don't I deserve praise for this? Don't I deserve narcissistic supply?
So the merciful empathic channel is more common, more typical of the overt, but can be used by both.
And finally, the last channel is the educational channel, which is also a shared channel. We have three shared channels and one channel dedicated to the overt because it is the overt who had undergone the collapse. It's the overt who needs a specialized channel.
The self-state, the overt self-state still harbors and reflects the wounds of the collapse. It's still a traumatized post-traumatic state. It's still a wounded state, an injured state.
So the first sublimatory channel, judgmental and contemptuous, is dedicated to the overt state, but the other three are shared between the two self-states in control, the overt and the overt.
The last channel is my favorite and also the most functional by far. It's the educational channel.
It says, I'm a guru. I'm an intellectual. I'm a thought leader. I elevate other people to my level by teaching them.
The educational sublimatory channel or educational voice has three pillars.
One, learning versus ignorance. The educational channel or educational voice encourages the overt narcissist and the covert narcissist to adopt a position of learning and teaching. So sometimes they learn, sometimes they teach.
In order to learn, these self-states have to acknowledge ignorance. In other words, they have to acknowledge inferiority.
But this is very misleading because learning makes you better. Learning makes you more.
Learning something makes you superior. Adding knowledge and erudition and information makes you prevail. So learning, even though it includes implicitly, is founded implicitly on an admission of ignorance, learning is a process of becoming superior. Teaching is about being superior.
So when you teach, you are superior. When you learn, you're becoming superior. In other words, learning and teaching fully satisfy grandiosity.
And so the educational channel is the most sublimatory of all. The educational voice is the most socially acceptable of all the four voices because it involves socially commendable, socially encouraged activities such as learning and teaching. And because it allows the covert and the overt states to acknowledge ignorance.
In other words, to humble themselves. They experience humility. Even though it's fleeting, even though it's humility at the service of superiority, even though it's humility that leads to added grandiosity, it is still humility.
It's a healing voice. It's a voice that causes transformation in the outlines, in the features of the internal binary system. It reduces grandiosity by converting it into socially acknowledged, socially sanctioned superiority.
In other words, the educational sublimatory channel, the educational voice converts grandiosity into self-esteem.
self-esteem renders narcissistic supply, which is pathological into healthy supply or self supply, which is the foundation of self-esteem. It converts grandiosity to self-esteem.
Now in the binary system, because there has been a collapse and because both self-states are inefficacious in obtaining supply, the binary system is always a system of self-supply.
So this is a very important thing to understand.
The binary system is created when the residual system, the binary system is created when the operating system decides that both the overt state and the covert state are equally inefficacious in obtaining supply.
So now they can't obtain supply, the overt state had failed, had collapsed in obtaining supply and the covert state is incapable of obtaining supply.
So now we have a binary system with two self-states, both of them very bad at obtaining supply.
So instead what they do, they create a system of self-supply.
I have a video about self-supply in this channel.
So the creator says system of self-supply.
The overt self-state generates supply by humiliating and berating and attacking the covert self-state. It endows the overt state with a sense of superiority.
So the self-supply in this system is actually an outcome of the conflict and the dissonance.
The overt's need for supply is satisfied. The covert state generates self-supply via the fantasy defense.
So the overt state feels superior, feels on top, feels gratified, feels grandiose, because the overt state has a covert state which it can humiliate, berate, attack, demean, criticize, etc. It's a kind of sadistic self-supply. It's kind of inner critic, writ large, sadistic inner critic, harsh inner critic.
So the overt state converts itself into a harsh inner critic and derives supply from what it does to the covert state. The covert state derives supply, self-supply, by engaging in sadistic fantasies.
And in these sadistic fantasies, the covert state prevails, is victorious, wins, is on top, humiliates other people, tortures them.
We have self-state in two locations. One location is overt by humiliating the covert state and one location is covert by engaging in sadistic fantasies.
And so the educational voice gradually converts the grandiosity underlying these mechanisms into self-esteem. And it accomplishes that by engaging in activities which are socially commendable and acceptable, so that the resulting supply is very healthy and can garner and yield self-esteem rather than grandiosity.
The educational voice, Educational Sublimatory Channel, is also founded on honest communication and on empathy.
In order to teach someone, in order to learn, you must engage in open communication, in honest, direct communication, otherwise no real learning and teaching can take place.
Additionally, you need to put yourself in another, in the student's shoes. In order to learn, you need to understand the needs and wishes and deficiencies of the other.
When you teach someone, you impart knowledge in ways which are favorable, which are helpful to the recipient.
So you need to get to know the recipient.
Similarly, when you seek to learn something, you need to realize what the other person has to offer.
In both these situations, you need to empathize.
So the educational voice, the Educational Sublimatory Channel, encourages humility, healthy supply, self-esteem, honest communication and empathy. It's the beginning of healing.
The binary system is a unique opportunity for healing because no single self-state is in charge, not one self-state is in control, the resistance is low, the resistance to insight, the resistance to change is lower than usual.
And because there's a lot of dissonance and conflict in the binary system, because the overt self-state is attacking the covert self-state in order to generate self-supply, and because the covert self-state engages or retreats or disappears or vanishes or withdraws into a state of fantasy.
So the covert self-state is now totally a fantastic state and derives self-supply from the fantasy.
Both these self-states become vulnerable, and they're vulnerable not only to attack from the outside, which would yield to mortification, they're vulnerable to change, they're vulnerable to healing.
So one thought, one direction is maybe to induce artificially in therapy, to induce a binary system, to induce the synchronicity of two self-states rather than one.
Maybe in some ways we can engineer the collapse so as to generate, to create, to force the operating system to create a binary residual system where two self-states reign supreme at the same time and engage in conflict in order to generate self-supply, rendering them vulnerable to intervention from the outside.
In many ways, that is what I had been doing in cold therapy intuitively.
By re-traumatizing the patient, I had created or I had induced collapse, actually mortification, and some patients were unable to replace the self-states, the self-state that had been traumatized, the self-state that had been subjected to cold therapy, the self-state that had been modified. Some patients were unable to replace this self-state with another self-state, so they remained stuck with two or three or four self-states simultaneously, which allowed me in level two and level three of cold therapy to integrate these self-states via the educational sublimatory channel to provide these self-states with a socially acceptable alternative, a sublimatory alternative to encourage these self-states not to be judgmental, not to be contemptuous, not to be victorious, but to engage in learning and to engage in teaching via empathy and via honest communication.
I've done it and it's doable, but we need to render the narcissist vulnerable, open. We need to render the narcissist humble, humbled by its own turmoil, inner turmoil, by its own indecision, by the dissonance between the two self-states that had remained the residual self-states.
And only then the narcissist is weak enough, his defenses are down enough, his firewall is disabled, you're able to enter as a therapist and create some change.