Personality Disorders: Not What They Seem! (ENGLISH): BOOTLEG Lecture, Corvinus University, Budapest

Hello everyone. Thank you for choosing me for my next race.

I hope you won't regret it by the time I finish.

Today we are going to discuss seriously disturbed people.

People with personality disorders.

And within personality disorders, we are going to discuss a subgroup known as cluster B.

Cluster B has another name, it's also known as the erratic personality disorders. It even has another name, it's known as the dramatic personality disorder.

And the reason it has all these names is because people with cluster B personality disorders are, shockingly, erratic and dramatic.

So, there are four personality disorders in this cluster.

But before we go there, what is a personality disorder?

The very phrase personality disorder makes two underlying assumptions.

One, that there is such a thing as personality.

And second thing is that this thing, personality, can somehow be disordered. As if all personalities are ordered and structured.

And some people are disordered and chaotic and probably in politics.

So, the personality disorders are patterns, patterns of dysfunction across the life span that are rigid. They cannot be modifiedor they are not amenable to modification or intervention.

There are two books, two books that help us diagnose people and make a lot of money.

The first one is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, published by the American Psychiatric Association.

The second one is the International Classification of Diseases, published by WHO, the World Health Organization, an arm of the United Nations and the Illuminati.

I'm joking, it's not even a matter of truth.

So, I'll take this seriously. I'm joking a lot, but I'm going to throw out my lectures.

So, you need to be really on your toes to see whether I'm serious or whether I'm not. Sometimes even I don't know.

Okay.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual was first written in 1952 at the request of the insurance industry in the United States. Some of the medical companies in the insurance industryinsisted on classifying mental health disorders, creating lists of criteria so that they can reimburse therapists, psychologists and other gists. So, that was the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manualand it was a hefty 100 pages.

Today's edition, a mere 70 years later, today's edition has well over 1,000 pages.

Either we all became 10 times more mentally sickor there's a game going on.

Now, the Diagnostic and Statistical ManualEdition 5, text revision, which was published a few weeks ago, actually, is a curious hybrid. It copies verbatim the fourth editionand yet, at the very, very end, where no one is likely to ever go, it says, actually, the DSM-4, the fourth edition, is wrong.

We should think, we should reconsider personality disorders as something on a spectrumor a dimension, not categorical, not according to lists, but something that can go from zero to heroon some kind of a line. So, this is called the alternative model.

And here's the problem.

The alternative model of personality disorders has nothing to do with the diagnostic criteria in Edition 4, which are copied into Edition 5.

Consequently, for many personality disorders, we have two ways to diagnoseaccording to the DSM. We have two ways to diagnose, which have nothing to do with each other, absolutely nothing.

The ICD is much more advancedbecause it is not subject to special interests and to money.

And so, the ICD, actually, Edition 11, which theoretically should be published next year, but actually has been already published in 2019, Edition 11 actually unifies all personality disorders, something that I've been advocating for well over 30 years, unifies all personality disorders into essentially a single clinical entity with emphasis.

So, you'll be diagnosed with a personality disorder with narcissistic emphasis or antisocial emphasis. That is exactly the reality in therapy.

I treat people.

When you're in clinical settings, that's exactly what's happening.

No one is pure. There's not pure peace.

And people switch between various personality disorders in the same volume.

So, you don't have a pure narcissist.

Usually, you have a narcissist who is also antisocial, a psychopathic narcissist or a regnal narcissist.

Or you would have a narcissist who is a bit dysregulated, so there will be a comorbidity of narcissism and borderline.

It's always a mixture of something. It's always great salary.

And there's transitions, there are transitions between the various personalities.

You could start off working with a narcissist and then under stress or pressure, next time you meet him, he is literally a borderline.

It's extremely common, any practitioner would tell you.

So, there are four personality disorders in class to be, but remember, these differential diagnoses, these distinctions are very artificial. They're counterfactual. They're useless to a large extent.

Even I would say extremely misleading.

Now, the four personality disorders in class to be are, according to order of grandiosity in middle of money, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder.

The extreme form of antisocial personality disorder is colloquially known, colloquially known, not professionally, as a psychopath.

A psychopath is not a clinical term, despite what you were led to believe. It's not accepted by the committee of the diagnostic and statistical level, let alone a social one, which is totally tight.

Okay, but there are extreme antisocial, and we would call them from now on, psychopaths, because it's easy, everyone knows the word, and because it sounds very frightening, but not too much. And because I promise you the equivalent of Netflix.

I would like to focus on two of these, and I'll explain to you in a minute why.

The reason I'm going to focus on narcissistic and borderline personality disorders is because I don't think the other two are actually disorders.

I don't think antisocial personality disorder is a mental illness at all. I think it's a tendency.

To define society, contumaciousness, resentment, or rejection of authority, defiance, reactance, in your face, my way or the highway, you know?

But that's character, what used to be called character, before psychology attempted to become science.

Psychology is pseudoscience, don't tell anyone.

So before psychology attempted to pose as a science, we have words like character and temperament that you can find in all textbooks.

Character, temperament, yeah, it's a character. It's just a guy, usually, usually it's a guy, who doesn't like the way things are.

He is a law unto himself. He doesn't listen to anyone. He disobeys, he's reactant, otherwise he defies, he's reckless.

All this is very bad, especially for the psychopath, but it's not a mental illness. It's what we would want, perhaps, a culture-bound syndrome, a syndrome that society rejects.

We can even think of settings where psychology is advantageous.

For example, the military, or maybe policing, not to mention politics, of course, or surgeons, there's an overall representation of psychopaths among medical surgeons.

Among chief executive officers of Forbes 500, 5% are psychopaths. That's the famous study by Herr and Babiak, 5%.

That's five times the incidence in the general population.

So it seems that psychopathy is an adaptation, often negative adaptation.

These people end up in prison, or positive adaptation in certain settings, but it is an adaptation, in my view, not a mental illness.

Similarly, histrionic personality disorder.

Histrionic personality disorder, I think, was invented by a group of Victorian males, Victorian white males, who really dislike it when a woman flirts and is a bit pro-catate-ish and seeks attention and so on and so forth.

They really don't like thatbecause they feel it's threatening.

So they created the diagnosis of histrionic personality disorder.

Give me a histrionicany time of the day.

So I'm excluding these two so-called "bissourers" because I think they should be hotly contested.

They do not remind me of a constitutional mental illness or a clinical entity with any sense of the word that I know.

That leads us to a narcissistic and borderline personality disorder.

Now, you want to go online and find a million videos and two million pages about it.

When I started, I was at the On-Diverse, 1995, when I was seeing Diversor's in Budapest. I had the first website on NASA's system, and for 10 years I had the only website.

But now, an explosion, everyone in this dog is an expert on that too. And especially the dog.

So it's not a big problem to go online and find all the information that you want, and that's not what I'm going to do today. I'm not going to give you a list of criteria. I'm just going to introduce you to some new thinking about this disorder.

So NASA's is, I don't know if it's acceptable in good companyin Budapest, but NASA's is a glorified way of saying asshole. It's a joke.

A borderline is essentially emotionally dysregulated, and we are thinking of replacing the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder with emotional dysregulation disorder.

The key feature of a borderline is emotional dysregulation. She is unable, she, because in a few reasons, the majority of people diagnose the borderline personality disorder, where women diagnose themselves by men.

So I'm not going to give you a sheet, but today it's 50/50. 50% of diagnosis, they are male and 50% female.

Maybe because majority of psychotherapists are female.

So the borderline is often well-made by her emotions. Her emotions are like a tsunami. She's carried away by these emotions.

Consequently, she can't control her behavior. She has no impulse control. She acts recklessly. Her process number is acting out. She decompensates her defenses for life, including internal defenses, against this wave that she can't surf. She can't surf this wave. She drowns in the wave.

So this is emotional dysregulation. It's a key feature of borderline.

We'll discuss borderline a bit later.

And in your questions, you can ask about borderline. It's my favorite topic.

Now, I'm going to introduce you some new ways of looking at it.

And a lot of it is my work, but a lot of it became mainstream over the decades because I talk a lot, and people get so bored that they say, "Okay, you're right. And it goes mainstream.

So, with our specific personality disorder and borderline personality disorder, are the outcomes of early childhood trauma.

Early childhood trauma is abuse. We know this because we have correlation studies.

For example, the famous case, "At First Childhood Experiences" study, which is the biggest in history. So we know that there's a strong correlation between early childhood abuse and trauma and later in life development of narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder.

But BPD for short, otherwise it will actually be six hours, BPD for short can develop as early as age 12 and can be diagnosed as early as age 12.

NPD should not be diagnosed prior to age 18, and that's because there is a phase in adolescence which involves very marked randyosity and a decline in empathy.

In other words, adolescence very often resembles racism.

So we should never diagnose someone before the age of 18.

And the new revision would say that we should never diagnose someone with NPD before the age of 21.

So it's okay, I qualify.

No.

The...

If we have a common etiology, etiology is a co-osation, yes, a cause, if we have a common etiology and it is so overwhelming, because we can find nothing else by the way, it's the soul factor that appears in all the cases, almost all the cases, the soul factor.

We do have a genetic component in borderline.

There is a genetic component in borderline.

If you have a borderline relative of the first or second degree, the chances of developing borderline are five times higher.

So there seems to be a genetic component.

There is brain abnormality in borderline, brain abnormalities.

They have been well documented.

So it seems that there are other factors that influence borderline, but the only factor that is common to all borderline without exception is childhood abuse, and especially actually sexual abuse in childhood, about 40% of the days.

So, if this is a case, why insist that these are personality disorders?

They resemble, to my mind, a lot, post-traumatic conditions.

So I'm beginning...

I started about 25 years ago, I started to look at these disorders as the outcomes of trauma, post-traumatic conditions.

And then there was a woman, Judith Berman, and she came up with the concept of CPTSD.

Complex trauma is a trauma that is the outcome of repeated exposure. PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, is when you're exposed to a single event, an airplane crashing, a lecture by Sam Vaknin, you know, these are traumatic events, and very capable recovery.

So, this is PTSD.

But complex trauma is, if I were a professor, and you would have heard many lectures, that would have been complex trauma.

So, Judith Berman, the mother of the field of complex trauma, is now advocating openly to eliminate the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and to replace it with complex trauma.

I've been saying it long before Judith Berman, but it doesn't matter. All good ends of death.

So, yes, I agree.

I think these are post-traumatic conditions.

Why is this important for these semantics, speaking here?

What is the matter, how we call it?

Personality disorder.

The reason is very simple. We don't know how to treat personality disorders. That's a dirty secret of psychology.

Weare actually extremely bad at treating personality disorders. There are very few exceptions.

Now, ironically, one of the exceptions is borderline personality disorders, where we have DBT, dialectical behavior therapy, which is very efficacious. But otherwise, we suck at treating personality disorders.

Not so with trauma. We are very good at treating trauma.

Prognosis for treatments of trauma, therapies of trauma. Prognosis is excellent, actually.

So if we just reframe, if we change the way we think about narcissism and borderline, and we begin to pay attention to the trauma aspects, maybe we can help these people.

It's not semantic. It's not a semantic argument. It's a very crucial argument.

And should we make this switch, I think we'll be able to handle a lot more people than we're doing nowadays.

When I say that these conditions are post-traumatic, I'm talking in effect about three aspects of trauma.

I am a respondent. I'm talking about three aspects of trauma.

The first one is known as dissociation. The second one is known as attachment style problems with attachment. And the third one is known as dysregulation.

These are the three aspects, I mean, there are many other aspects.

But within the context of NPD and BPD, these are the three critical aspects.

I don't know if you each and every one of them, even if you don't want to.

And then we move forward.

Let's start with dysregulation.

Dysregulation is the most visible aspect.

When you come across a borderline, she is likely to display dysregulation even in daily interactions.

You may misspecere as anxiety, and very often people with borderline personality disorders are also diagnosed with anxiety disorders.

But a lot of the so-called anxiety in the borderline shows.

In day-to-day interactions, do you want coffee?

A lot of this is actually not anxiety. It's kind of emotional dysregulation.

Bortles, for example, are triggered by words, locations, smells, very much like Marcel Bouss' Remembrance of Things Past.

You know, on the Bouss-Past?

He walks across a houseand there's a wafting smell of cookies, mandelan cookies, and the gates of memory open.

This is borderline.

By the way, it was a very interesting case. It was fizzling. It stayed at home on his life. It was thinand so on and so forth.

But if you read his work, he strikes me a lot like a borderline.

Anyhow, so, borderline is attributed on the fact. It doesn't take much to trigger a borderline.

Dysregulation is a permanent feature of borderline.

Now, dysregulation pushes the borderline.

And when I say the borderline, it's also the narcissist, but in a bit of a different way.

The narcissist is also dysregulation.

The difference between the narcissist and the borderline is the coping strategy.

How the borderline copes with emotional dysregulationand how the narcissist copes with emotional dysregulation is different.

The difference in coping strategy defines the disorder.

Another reason to think that these are not actually personality disorders, but different reactance modes to trauma.

Okay, we come to it in a minute.

So, when you're at a stranger's age of only time, you have two options.

One option is to harm yourself.

And I'm kidding, I'm not kidding. One option is to harm yourself.

So, in borderline, for example, with a phenomenon like self-mutilation, suicide like the Asian, suicidal actions, 11% of people with borderline personality disorder successfully commit suicide. 11%, soI'll rub it.

What is the reason to self-harm or self-mutiny?

Several reasons.

One of the most important of which is to drown out the dysregulation.

It's like the famous torture method in the Turkish Ottoman police.

Those of you who have never been to the Turkish Ottoman police.

So, what's the way to cure a headache is...

So, the borderline, self-mutilation, self-harm, in a variety of ways, whether it's sexual, self-trashing, for example, which is very common in borderline, is a form of self-harm.

EvenI would say, teaming up with a narcissist is a form of self-harm.

EvenI would say, an extremely common type of couple, first described by my good late friend John Muscarra.

So, there's a lot of self-harm.

The self-harm drowns the dysregulation.

You know, if you have a headache and you beat your head with a hammer, for a minute you'll forget the headache.

Try it at home.

So, that's function number one.

Function of the twist of inner life.

The borderline feels dead.

Narcissist also feels dead. There's an emptiness inside, first described by Otto Köhnberg and others.

Later, because normally in the object relations school in the United Kingdom, they called it the "epiphoria" or "country" and others. So, there's an emptiness.

There's a black hole. There's a void here in narcissist and borderline.

And so, when the borderline self-harm, the self-mutiny, she comes alive, suddenly feels alive.

And there are other reasons.

So, this is one option, how to open this regulation.

The second option is to outsource the regulation. We call it external regulation.

The borderline says, "You're my internet partner. You will stabilize my moods. You will regulate my emotions. You are my stable rock. You will never abandon me." So, this is externalizing the regulation, outsourcing it.

In a minute we will see that it leads not only to favorable outcomes, but this is a solution.

So, we have internal regulation and external regulation.

External regulation by a sub-parp, external regulation by outsourcing of inner functions and inner processes to, for example, an internet partner.

Thenumber of...

Sorry. What's an example?

It's a number of these regulations.

Don't sound lucky. You must be lucky. Sorry.

Your apologies. You're temporarily accepted. We shall see about later.

So, the narcissists also...

Truth is the same for solutions.

Narcissists are very self-destructive. They are positivist in many instances. They self-destructive.

It's one moment you give a country to a narcissist, it will end up with a pandemic and an attack on the capital.

So, narcissistic stories end badly, and they end badly because narcissists are self-defeating. It's a form of...

It's a form.

Similarly, the narcissist outsources regulation.

The narcissist wants or seeks attention from other people. He wants narcissistic supply. This attention is used to regulate the internal environment of the narcissist, especially his sense of self-worth.

So, both the borderline and the narcissist are doing exactly the same. They internally regulate via self-harmand they externally regulate by outsourcing regulatory functions.

The narcissist, by seeking attention, the borderline by seeking a stable presence in life, who will never abandon it.

However, this produces anxiety.

Why?

Whenever you are dependent on something or someone, you are anxious, even if you don't feel it.

If you are dependent on the government, you are anxious. If you are dependent on your spouse, you are anxious. If you are dependent...

Any dependency creates anxiety.

End of story.

Now, the twin mechanisms of regulation create twin anxieties.

One of them is known as separation insecurity.

Separation insecurity is commonly known by self-starved experts on YouTube as abandonment anxiety. That's not the clinical term. The clinical term is separation insecurity.

But it's also known as abandonment anxiety or separation anxiety.

Second anxiety is known as engulfment anxiety.

So, we have twin anxieties, which correspond to the twin ways of regulating the internal environment.

What is abandonment anxiety?

The fear of being abandoned. What is engulfment anxiety?

The fear of not being abandoned. Engulfment anxiety is when the borderline, for example, feels that she is merging with her partner. Her partner is digesting her, assimilating her, consuming her, subsuming her, and that she is gradually vanishing into her partner without a trace. This is engulfment anxiety.

So, the borderline constantly pendulates, she's like a pendulum, constantly pendulates between approach and, because the approach, when she approaches the intimate partner, her abandonment anxiety goes down. But then, the partner reacts. He's loving, he's caring, he's all over her, and she feels engulfed. She feels enmeshed. And she wants to run away. And this is avoidance, approach avoidance. We'll talk about it a bit later.

Twin anxieties exist also in narcissism, of course.

Everything I'm saying, everything I'm saying in this lecture, lies through narcissism and borderline, but in different forms, in different forms. It's like zebra and horse or mannose.

Yes, but one of them describes what's going on.

So, the twin anxieties reflect a reality, and nowreallyit's a different part, sotry to focus.

I will give you a key with the internship.

The twin anxieties produce, they reflect a very interesting reality, which I take credit for, as if I were to describe.

And this reality is this, object constancy versus introject constancy.

I'll try to explain.

Object is you.

It says a lot about psychology, but people in psychology are called objects.

Object relations.

Yes.

Okay, because they're nice people, psychology.

So, object constancy is the ability to maintain a stable representation of someone in your mind when they are awake, when they are absent.

We develop object constancy as babiesif mother is a good enough mother in the language of when you call her.

Yes?

So, if mother is good enough, we would tend to trust that mother would be there even when she leaves the room.

At the beginning, we want, and we cry a lot, as babies, those of you who remember.

And then, gradually, we learn that mother leaves the room, but she also re-enters the room, unfortunately for me, in my case.

So, we develop object constancy.

We learn to create a representation of other people in our minds, and when they are awake, we interact with this representation.

We feel safe.

This concept is called a secure base.

We have a secure base in our mind.

This representation of another person in your mind is known as an internal object.

Now, we have various types of internal objects, the most important of which is the introject.

The introject is the outcome of a twin process known as internalization, introjection, or together identification.

So, an introject is simply, how to put it, a voice.

The voice of mother, voice of father, important peers, role models, teachers, gurus, etc., etc.

These voices are in your mind.

They speak to you all the time, and they stand in for these people, even when these people are not dead, for example.

So, many of you still carry arguments with your dead mother.

It's very common.

Now, object constancy is a true condition for appropriate attention.

We come to it in a minute.

My contribution was to suggest that while there is object constancy and object inconstancy, object inconstancy is when the mother is not good.

She is what Andrei Green called dead mother.

Not really dead, but emotionally dead.

So, she is depressive, she is absent, she is selfish, she is narcissistic, she is withholding, she is avoidant, she is this kind of mother.

The baby cannot develop object constancybecause mother is unpredictable, mother is nutritious, mother is arbitrary, sothe baby doesn't develop object.

This is known as object inconstancy.

So, we have object constancy in wealthy people and object inconstancy.

My contribution was to suggest that the exact same thing happens with introject.

We have introject constancy and introject inconstancy.

And I proposed that what happens in borderline is that they are unable to maintain introject constancy.

When the other person is away, the introject of that person inside the borderline's mind fades, disappears.

That's why borderlines are very hysterical when it comes to the physical presence of the intimate partner.

The borderline insists on the physical presence of the intimate partner.

And when the partner is away, on a different street, stalking on the phone, shows interest in another person, made-off image, doesn't matter.

The borderline falls apart because she cannot maintain a stable representation of the intimate partner inside her mind.

Her introjects are unstable, not constant, sothey fade.

Every therapist will tell you that when you work with borderlines, you tell them, "Take something of your husband if she's married. Take something of your husband. Take a kerchief. Take, I don't know, his eye-glass case. Take something of him when you go out."

And when his introject begins to fade, touch it. Just touch it as a stand-in for the partner.

Because we've come across cases, I'm sorry to say, where borderlines ended up having sex with strangersbecause they could not maintain a stable introject of the husband. Theysaid he could not remember the husband at that moment. They struggled to recall the face, and I'm not talking after two years of separation. I'm talking after two hours of separation.

Is that better?

So, in borderlines, there's introject in consensus. In narcissists, there is object in consensus, and there are nearer images in this sense.

I mentioned approach avoidance.

Borderlines approaches, then she avoids. I hate you, don't leave me. That is a borderline sentence.

And I mentioned that this is the outcome between anxieties.

Abidement is an indictment. This is known in psychology as a repetition compulsion. It's repeating a part of the behavior that is dysfunctional, leads to better outcomes, but you can't stop yourself from doing it again and again.

So approach avoidance is a repetition compulsion, which is very common in the borderline.

And in both borderlines and narcissists, finally acknowledged by the DSM after decades of debate, there is a deficit of empathy.

We used to think erroneously that borderlines have a lot of empathy, and narcissists have not empathy. We now know better.

I was the first to describe empathy in narcissists. I call it the phrase cold empathy.

Narcissists do have empathy, but they have no emotional resonance with empathy. They have no emotional correlation. Narcissists and psychopaths must have empathy, because otherwise how will they abuse people? How will they calm people? How will they cheat people and deceive them if you don't have empathy?

You need to really read people well to do this, but at the same time you need to have zero emotional reaction to it.

So that's narcissists and psychopaths.

Others have been claiming, not before a change, have been claiming that borderlines are the same. They don't have empathy. They've reduced empathy.

And for many decades there was a raging debate, and now the DSM accepted this, that there is a reduction in empathyin borderlines.

And another reason to think that all these disorders are actually one and the same, only with different coping strategies.

That's all.

Now, when you put everything together, approach avoidance, introjecting constancy, objecting constancy, etc., lack of empathy, when you put all this together, it's clear that in inter-met relationships, there will be massive problems with attachment.

Borderlines and narcissists have insecure attachment style.

We distinguish between secure attachment and insecure attachment.

Secure attachment, I think there are three people in the world that have it, and they all live in Kathmandu. The rest of the population has insecure attachment, my practice at least. And they are not statistically, actually, strangely. Insecure attachment is fear of intimacy, another name for fear of intimacy.

So you could be fearful, you could have a fearful attachment style. You could have an avoidant attachment style. You could have a dismissal attachment style, which is to be rude and reject people and so on.

There are numerous types of insecure attachment styles. There are actually four basic ones, but you can combine them.

So permutations are about 16 or 20.

Insecure attachment styles.

And borderlines and narcissists have insecure attachment styles, because they don't have the first argument of attachment. They don't have what it takes. They don't even have one out of four or one out of six elements. They have nothing like zero, so they cannot attach.

Now, the narcissist compensates for a lack of attachment with a fantasy defense.

Narcissism, pathological narcissism, is a fantasy defense.

The diagnostic criteria are open with the word, the pattern of fantasy. It's a fantasy defense. Fantasy is a defense mechanism, first described by Froude, for words. Fantasy is a defense mechanism.

And what the narcissist does, he uses fantasy in everything, and especially in his intimate relationships. He creates a shared fantasy, and he invites the department into the shared fantasy. You are very wise to leave now, and for inviting you to buy your own.

So, the narcissist compensates for insecure attachment by offering the intimate partner a fantasy, inviting her into the fantasy, and then inhabiting the fantasy together.

And within the fantasy, the intimate partner is being transformed dramatically. Very dramatically, actually.

The borderline solution is also shared fantasy.

But while the narcissist shared fantasy is a type of cult, we are against the world, right?

The borderline fantasy is, we are one. I'm one with my intimate partner. There's no daylight between us. We're a single organism with two heads.

And the narcissist fantasy is, it's just you and me, because we are so special, both of us. We are so special. So, it's just you and me, against the world, that is hostile, doesn't understand us, and so on.

That's the essence of the narcissist shared fantasy.

I mentioned dissociation. Dissociation, and you see that I don't have time to touch on these topics at length.

But each and every one of these topics, if you go on my YouTube channel, and make me even richer, on this channel, each and every single thing I've mentioned is like two or three or four videos. A total of anywhere between four and ten hours.

And now this is a song. And the reason the video is a song is that I'd love to hear my voice. I've been totally honest with you. I'm going to appreciate that.

Dissociation is three forms.

One is called a measure.

Okay, I think one is called depersonalization. The feeling that whoever is performing actions or acts is not you. autopilot. observing yourself from outside. So you're an observer. Movie. There's a movie with you as an actress. Dear realization, which is the third form of dissociation, is when the whole environment is perceived as unreal. Whatever is happening is perceived as unreal. Dreamlike. Like marriage. Fantasy like. And so on and so forth. Dissociation is a classic outcome of trauma.

And so if I'm right and others are right, and narcissism and borderline are post-traumatic states. We should find a lot of dissociation. And indeed, one of the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder is dissociation.

Similarly, narcissists dissociate a lot. They cover up for the dissociation with something called confabulation.

Confabulation looks a lot like lying, but it's not like it.

Because the narcissist believes in it. It's just the narcissist trying to make sense of the memory gaps.

And says, well, I must have done this. It stands to reason that I've done this. It probably happened this way.

And then he repeats the storyand then he begins to believe the story.

And then he would fight you with tooth-nailing law if you try to challenge the story. And then I would be able to say the narcissist is a liar. It's not a liar. It's a desperate attempt to paper over the memory gaps.

Both these disorders are highly, highly discontinuous.

Now I've developed a model called the self-state model. It's based on the work of Philip Humber. And I'm not going to it right now.

Thank you. I love that you've done it.

I similarly developed a second model called IPAM, introcycling activation model. Those of you who want to learn more about the self-state model and the IPAM, introcycling activation model, just go on my channel, 5D Hemorrhs, and you'll receive an advertisement for code. That's it. If you're lucky. I'm already not going to it right now, but it's critical for the understanding of it.

I will finish and let you ask questions by describing the three models.

I developed three models.

Two I've just mentioned.

The third model that I've developed combines all the knowledge we have about personality disorders and allows us to predict new personality disordersor states that resemble personalities.

So in my model, I distinguish between overt, covert, and collapsed states.

We have an overt narcissist that's known for it. We have a covert narcissist who should remain on me, and we have a collapsed narcissist.

There's a narcissist who fails two things of life. He can multiple things of life.

So he collapses. He falls apart.

So there are these three states. There are two effects in my model.

One is shame and one is envy. There are two reality principles, people who confuse internal objects with external objects and people who confuse external objects with internal.

This I will explain a bit.

I will dwell on it because it's very important.

A psychotic state involves a principle of action, a mechanic of the soulknown as hyperreflexivity or hyperreflection.

Hyperreflexivity is that the psychotic mind expands outwards and becomes the world.

Because the psychotic has no boundaries, not in its, the psychotic doesn't know where he ends and the world begins. He doesn't know actually that he ends and the world begins. It doesn't make these distinctions.

So as the psychotic expands outwards, a little like a deep end creates a universe. In that moment, psychotic is unable to tell the difference between objects inside his mind, internal objects, and objects out there, external objects.

Because the distinction is meaningless if, as the song says, we are the world. If you are the world, what's the meaning of internal, external? There's no such thing. Right?

Right. Right. Right? Because I said so.

From that moment on, the psychotic confuses internal and external.

So he has a voice in his head, it's coming from the ceiling. He sees something in his mind, it's standing in the corner, in the corner. He doesn't make this.

So this is an extreme case.

The narcissist is not very far from it, shockingly. That's not some button, that's autocarnable. The narcissist is not very far from it.

The narcissist confuses external objects with internal objects. It's like mirror psychosis, reverse psychosis.

I remind you, the psychotic confuses internal objects and thinks that they are external. The narcissist thinks that external objects are actually internal. - From where? - No, it's upper. So for example, when the narcissist comes across a potential internet button. Let's say he would look at that. He would take a snapshot of that. Take a photo of that. Literally, snapshot. And then he would internalize the snapshot. It would become an internal object. That means the snapshot becomes an internal object. From that, from the moment the internal object is created, the narcissist continues to interact only with the internal object, not with the external object. All interactions, henceforth, are with the internal object. But he is confused. He thinks the internal object actually stands in for the external object. He believes, in other words, that the external object is actually internal. So when the external object begins to behave independently, challenge the narcissist, disagree with him, travelstarts to study.

Covino's University. Have new friends.

When this happens, there's a gap opening between the snapshot and the problem.

She becomes independent and she changes.

But this is naturally stable.

So there's a gap opening.

This creates huge anxiety in the narcissist.

A normal anxiety.

And then he has to devalue the problem in order to regain on the narcissist.

But it's important to understand that narcissism is a form of psychosis. It'sa reverse psychosis.

Simply. It's psychosis is internal.

Externalnarcissism is externalinternal.

With a borderline, the situation is even more complicated.

Again, that's not somebody. That's what I'm going to do. That's why it's called borderline.

Border.

On the border between psychosis and neurosis.

So with a borderline situation is even more complex.

Remember that the narcissist can create a snapshot and internalize you. And then you are at least forever. For you.

But the borderline is incapable of doing this. You'll never when you are much younger.

I told you about introjecting constancy. You find introjecting constancy funny.

No, I find that like half an hour ago I was much younger. You don't remember.

So. While the narcissist has refuge, confined refuge in a stable, a stable pattern.

If you wisha stable representation of internal objects. If he's safe among these internal objects, he knows how to manipulate them. He can interact with them. They can give him solace and presence as well.

The borderline can't do even this. She can't do even this.

The only way for the borderline to feel safe, regulated and so on, with a secure base.

Is to literally maintain the physical presence of her internal body.

She needs him captive, absolute prisoner. 24/7. Every second, dead or alive, asleep or awake. She needs him by his side.

So her dependency on the internal department is total. Totalbecause if he's gone, not only is he gone, but her mind is gone. He's taking her mind with him.

She doesn't have a representation of him in her life. Soshe is terrible. She's absolutely terrible about this presence. And she reacts even to imaginary abandonment, even to anticipated abandonment. Even to, she interprets many things, misinterprets many things, many behaviors as abandonment.

Because for her abandonment means dying. Dying literally. Becoming mindless without a mind.

You could say that the borderline outsources her mind to her internal power. And he can obscure with it. He can just walk away with it.

Imagine how terrifying this is.

What the narcissist does, he internalizes you. He converts you into an avatar.

Character action figure in his mind.

And then he doesn't care about you anymore. He plays video games with you in his mind. He shoots a cure.

So the narcissist has it more easily than the borderline.

And these are gradations, of course.

Because the borderline, then the narcissist, these are gradations. And the psychotic idolizes them all.

That is why Bec said, these are pseudo-psychotic things. They are nearpsychotic.

He was absolutely right about it.

Sothese are the two reality principles, confusing external with internal, internal with external.

I have two traumatic bridges in my mind. This is my third book. The two I didn't discuss. The two traumatic bridges are collapse and multiplication.

Collapse, I mentioned, is when the narcissist cannot obtain supplyor when the borderline cannot ensure the continued presence of her internet partner. This is a collapse case.

When there is a collapse, there is a transition from one type to another.

Sowhen the narcissist collapse, he switches from overt to covert. Whenand back, from covert to overt. He can also switch from somatic to cerebral. When the borderline collapses, she will also switch between states of borderline, which I was the first to describe, covertborderline, and so on. Sothis switching between types.

Mortification is much, much more significant.

In the case of the narcissist, mortification is public humiliation in front of peersor significant othersthat is sudden, unexpected, and that involves the destruction of a shared fantasy. Sothe destruction of a shared fantasy in public, in front of men from others, and which involves shame and humiliation.

Now, mortification, now, the system of mortification was first described. My memory doesn't fit me in 1957.

And it is, the narcissist is like lying. As close as I can describe it. It feels like lying. And it is very life-threatening.

The borderline goes through mortification, but the borderline's mortification is private. It is the outcome of abandonment that is final, intentional, with intention, malicious, final, and abandonment that kind of takes away our ability to find another intimate body.

Sothis would be mortification in the borderline.

Mortification states lead to paralysis. Collapse states lead to transition from type to type. Mortification states paralyze completely.

Why?

Because all the defenses are disabled. The narcissist's false self and the borderline's false self, they both have false self. The false self of the narcissist and the borderline are disabled by mortification.

He has no defenses left.

Both of them, then, the narcissist becomes actually borderline.

Mortification renders the narcissist borderlinebecause he has no defenses, a process called "decompensation." The narcissist's decompensates. He has no defenses, and he begins to disrebuke heavily.

There comes borderline.

When the borderline is subject to mortification, she becomes a secondary psychopath. That's the most recent for the cutting-edge research. She becomes a secondary psychopath, a factor two psychopath. That's a psychopath with a logical momentum in the model of motion.

Soin both cases, there is a massive transformation.

Now, there was a guy called Georgetown, a psychoanalyst, who said that "bordernines are failed narcissists."

The child, exposure, abuse, and trauma, the child attempts to become a narcissist.

But when the child fails, the child remains a borderline.

Life on borderline.

Soobviously, if the narcissist is regressed by mortification, he will regress to the previous stage, which is borderline.

Soit's like abuse, borderline, narcissist, and bear, narcissist, borderlinebecause of abuse, the mortification.

This constant back-and-forth regression between the developmental stages, it happens to the narcissist and the borderline dozens of times in a lifetime.

Dozens of times.

Sothese bridges are very importantbecause they facilitate change and transformation and so on.

And finally, in my model, there are three cognitive distortions.

Cognitive distortions are not cognitive deficiencies.

Cognitive deficit is a problem with cognition, usually organic problemwith condition.

And cognition, I'm sorry, problem with thinking, a systemic problem.

Cognitive distortion is not-- there's no problem with your cognition, but there's a filter that changes the information that's coming inin a highly specific way.

So grandiosity is a cognitive distortion.

The narcissist will take all the information and then fit it into a grandiose, fantastic narrative.

Sothis is-- you will distort it, fit it, or not fit. It's a kind of refraining.

Grandiosity and then dissociation is a cognitive distortion.

And paranoia, someone else about paranoia? Who is the paranoia?

You? Right.

Paranoia is a cognitive distortion.

And why do I mention paranoia in the context of narcissism and borderline?

First of all, you should know that borderline is a grandiose, exactly like narcissism. They both are grandiose.

I'm mentioning paranoia because paranoia is narcissism.

What does the paranoia say?

Paranoid say?

It says, "I'm the center of conspiracy." The how to get me. I'm sufficiently important to warrant the attention of the CIA." You know?

Soit is a self-aggrandizing narrative. Otherwise, how can you be a paranoid?

Paranoid means the how to get me. Knee.

Because I am substantial and consequential. Soit's a form of narcissism, actually.

That's why I'm mentioning paranoia as a cognitive distortion.

I try to give youreally-- because the field is vast, and I could talk for several days.

I do actually talk for several days. People, you know, they have tents and camper vans. And catering services go by, not called, at least I think.

I have seminars that last eight hours-- eight days, up to 16 hours a day.

SoI warn you, I can talk about it.

But having said-- can you frighten me this way?

I try to give you affordance, to have something.

But what's my want to do in the field?

The debates we're having, the arguments, what we agree on, what we don't agree on. Of course, I've over-emphasized my contributions, because without saying, and so on.

But the field is infernent.

There is a lot going on today. We are even disputing the very concept of personality, the very concept of identity, or identity.

And that is my moment, the IPA moment, the inter-cyclic activation moment, actually disputes this concept.

They're counterfactual.

Sothere's a lot going on.

Psychology is a very-- you don't try to try.

It starts with chairs, you know, then-- I don't know if you can--

Psychology is a very exciting field now, I think moreever, actually.

I've been with this field for three decades. And I know the field intimately from the beginning.

I've read a lot, and so on.

I think this is possibly the most exciting period that's ever been in psychology.

I regret that psychologists are trying to be physicists. I'm a physicist also.

SoI can compare. I regret that they're trying to be physicists. It's past them, not in a good way.

And the more they're trying to be physicists, the more student scientists will be coming. And that's very regrettable.

But there's always a hardcore, likes of me, who try to get rid of the pretensions of science and just focus on human beings and how they operate and what can we learn from them and how we can observe them without effecting, and so on and so forth.

Sopsychology is a bunch of literature. Dostoevsky was a great psychologist, possibly the greatest ever. He had as great as Freud there. Freud was a literary genius, not exactly a rigorous scientist, despite his training as a neurologist.

Seven of the ten most important psychologists until the end of the 1960s were not psychologists at all.

Melanie Klein did not have any degree in psychology.

Winnicott was a pediatrician.

Freud was a neurologist.

Sopsychology was a much more open field because he did not pretend to be a scientist.

And consequently, until the 1960s, there was a flourishing of psychology, the likes of which has never happened since.

What we have been doing since then is narrowing psychology, narrowing the statistics and laboratories and white coats.

Money has a lot to do with it, because if you look like a physicist, you pretend to be a physicist and you use mathematics that no congressman can understand, you get money.

You don't take money for crimes, research, you see.

But that's not psychology. That's not psychology. It's unconscionable that in many universities, including in Europe recently, statistics is about 40% of the curriculum.

It's extremely rare.

I happen to be a physicist with specific training in mathematics.

I can tell you statistics is what you want it to be.

SoI wouldn't have chosen statistics as the tool.

If I were forced to choose any branch of mathematics, I'm not sure I would have chosen statistics.

It's a mess. It's simply a mess.

And those of us who are trying to reintroduce a human dimension and aspect, a literary aspiration into the field, we are rebuffed.

We are considered clowns, because we don't count the statistics or numbers or whatever.

And that is bad news for somebody.

They discovered the baby with bath water, with a bathtub, with a bathroom, the department, with the entire building, and with two cities to go.

Sonothing much is left.

Today, it's forbidden to pee.

Anything before my thesis.

You can't teach, for example, object relations theory.

Anyway, simply forget.

Of course you can't mention Freud.

Mention Freud, Ralph.

Just come mention.

And that's the matter.

I teach him because I know statistics and mathematics.

I teach him the outreach program of Princeton, Yale, Sohokie.

I survive.

But I survive against my will.

I am so disheartened by this that I'm seriously thinking of doing the field.

This is really--

On the other hand, there's a lot of creative thinking going on.

Somaybe it's my fighting for those of you who's age is not traditional, like me.

OK, ladies and some gentlemen, if you have any questions, if there are any answers, I'll be ready to question.

Someone sent me a list of questions. Where are you? Who asked this question? You asked all these questions? No, I asked some. Did any of you have questions that she replicated, she copied? No. I got it from other ladies. From other? Those who were clever enoughnot to-- I have one question.

Yes.

Sometimes when I have confused silent treatment and silent treatment, what is the reason-- I think there is a question.

There's also part of the process known as intermittent reinforcement.

Intimidant reinforcement is hot and cold, not big.

Intimidant reinforcement creates dependency of the source of the reason.

So if someone is hot and cold with you, if it is cold, you would wait for the hope of the hot.

It becomes the sole source for the whole.

So, silent treatment is part of this cycle.

And it's a form of aggression.

It is intended to communicate via silence.

Don't ask messages. It's supposed to modify your behavior. It's supposed to question-- it calls you to question your reality.

So it's an integral part of the guess-line, questioning reality, supposed to affect you, regulate your moods and emotions in a way that will create dependency via intermittent reinforcement.

So it has multiple functions.

It's a very cruel thing.

I think it's one of the most cruel forms of your use because your imagination is doing your use.

There's nothing out there. It's your imagination that is trying to-- what is it doing? What did I do wrong? What could I do differently?

So it's self-torture.

It provokes self-torture.

That's very cruel.

Thank you.

Are they aware of this?

When you say it, like it's publicly-- I mean-- Masterses are aware of their behaviors, mostly.

They just don't see it as a pathology. They don't think it's a pathology.

And most of them are proud. They're proud that they're with them. They're whispering their behaviors as something to be proud of.

So they say, for example, I'm tough. I'm the next stage in evolution. People are inferior. If everyone was like me, it would be much better.

And so also, they affect-- they invest emotional energy in their disorder. They fall in love with their disorder. They get attached to it. And they're realizing because Masterses are realizing it. Masterses are realizing themselves. It's an apartment. It's work. It's government. It's football club. So he realized-- he saw the quote.

"Ad legalization is a natural reaction to the narcissist, because a narcissist is a fantasy defense. And to be able to have a fantasy, you need first to idealize, the participants of the fantasy."

As you come to the fantasy, people who are imperfect, flawed, stupid, ugly, you need to-- the fantasy can be perfect. It's a fantasy about perfection.

So the narcissist idealizes everyone and everything. For a while.

Sorry?

For a while.

Because after a while, they do this idealized thing.

Yes, there are other dynamics.

In romantic relationships, in intimate relationships, the narcissist's partner is a mother figure. So he needs to get rid of his mother.

He didn't complete the separation that his original mother-- he wants to completely quit the mother- substitute. And then he needs to devalue her. And he needs to discount her.

This is symbolic separation.

So he is doing it to symbolize his everything. But he utilizes everything.

And yes, he tends to devalue and restart the things that he's idealized. He moves on.

But it's always a fantasy. Always this fantasy.

Nasties don't give a reality to him. They're not a reality.

And very often, narcissist fantasies appeal to so many people.

They take out for example, leaders, political leaders. Because they are able to create a shared fantasy for millions. Fantasy is very appealing because reality sucks.

I don't know how many of you know this, but reality seems to be very used for so many of us.

So fantasy is very attractive, very appealing proposition.

Narcissists are masters of fantasy. Who can resist it? We don't have it.

So we are living in an increasingly more narcissist desynchronization.

Society, because reality is becoming less and less variable.

And what ultimately do we have?

We can commit suicide. Suicide rates are there now, alongside the age groups. We can kill ourselves while being alive.

So substance abuse is stylology. We can kill ourselves mentally. So depression is up five times. And anxiety is always up three times. Then 40 years old. We can isolate ourselves. So we are as good as dead because we don't see anyone and no one sees us.

In 1980, a typical person in the United States had 10.1 good friends. I don't know what is the zero one. 10.1 good friends.

I don't want to speculate. If it's a nameI know. So...

I have a good name for you. So I know you want to.

I can see you.

So in 1980, a typical person in the United States had 10.1 friends.

In 2018, 0.9.

It's a full of time. You isolate yourself from two kids in one bedroom, so two nephews in one bedroom. And you essentially live. That's all intensive purposes.

If at the same time you also abuse substances, and so on and so forth. And of course, it's more suicide.

Not everyone has a willpower to encourage to go into suicide on track.

But in numerous ways. And becoming more and more and more prevalent in the basic society.

The society, reality is such that fantasies become irresistible and reified in technology.

So we have fantasy-based technologies today. They're all fantasy-based.

We are bound to have the metaverse. The metaverse is 100% fantasy. It's like you're going to disappear into a computer screen and never exit. Literally never exit.

Because you could order food, you could work, you couldexcuse the expression of sex, you could do anything within the metaverse. And you would never exit.

So that's top-up fantasy. And of courseit's reminiscent of the matrix.

Matrix is a fantasy system.

Is it bad?

There are people like, for example, the philosopher David Chalmers who says that, no, it's not bad.

If we can survive in fantasy or in simulation, what is the distinction between this and reality? Why does reality have a primitive status?

He says, why should it have a primitive status?

If you spend all your life attached to a computer screen or in a matrix, then you die. You won't even know that it's not real. You attain it's real. Simulation will be convincing. Fantasy will be overwhelming for power.

So what's the big deal?

What you have to be based in reality asks David Chalmers.

The answer is, first of all, if you're not in reality, you're not suffocation.

Some of the outcomes you go against will not succeed to obtain results.

Sorry, not all, but much more importantly, a fantasy defense always leads to narcissism.

When a fantasy defense becomes exaggerated, it always invariably results in narcissism.

End of story does not have outcome. That's why studies by Twiggy and Campbell show that the incidence of narcissism, pathological narcissism, among college students is up by almost 500%.

In other words, pathological narcissism among college students has quit coupled in less than four decades.

Why?

Because there's much more that's going to factor.

Because parents.

The parents' sake doesn't often actually result in narcissism.

But narcissism, when you react to parents, when you react to such parents, the fantasy defense, then you become narcissism.

And we are creating a narcissism to civilization because we are placing new genocides and a lot of money on fantasy.

That's where we are going to end.

In a narcissist's show, that is.

Believe me, it's the worst place imaginable to be. It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible.

So, yes. I'm somewhat familiar with your work and really resonates with me for a reason.

But I wanted to ask, so you talked a lot about what leads to narcissism.

Do you personally know anyone? Or maybe not personally.

I'm not going to go this time with you. Who has ever overcome narcissism in a way that is not just that they are functional or they act kinder, but that they genuinely feel different? Or maybe have you overcome your own narcissism ever?

Because it's normal fact that you've always been too talented.

I'm very tempted to say yes.

But I promise to be fruitful.

You see, this leads to a problem known as the intersubjective problem.

Do we really have access to another person's mind? Of course we don't.

We have to rely 100% on self-reporting.

If you cry, I ask you why do you cry?

The obvious answer is you've been listening to me for two hours. Verygood reason to cry.

But it could be that you're sad or something.

I have to rely on your self-report. I have to rely on what you tell me. There is no other way to do it.

So if you are a truthful person, and even there I have to rely on you, I mean, how do I know if you're truthful?

And ultimately it all relies on self-reporting because if I ask your friend, is she truthful, they also rely on herself reporting.

There's no interest.

This is called intersubjective problem.

We cannot access another person's mind.

So what we do, we lie.

We create a big lie.

We pretend.

We pretend that because we share the same physiology, we also share the same structure of mind and processes of mind and so on and so forth.

There is no way to prove it.

Consequently, there's no way for me to answer your question.

I don't know what is happening inside the narcissist.

I have to rely on his self-reporting, which is a practice I strongly discourage in the case of narcissism.

One of the-- my biggest criticism-- there's a test for psychopathy. It's called PCLR. The main test for psychopathy. It's called PCLR.

The PCLR has two parts.

One of them is asking the psychopathy questions. The second part is asking the psychopathy's wife and children questions.

How it goes.

The psychopathy, we all know, is one of the most truthful people on earth. He would never lie. He would never misrepresent himself.

Psychopathy is very truthful.

So the first part of the test is to ask the psychopathy, "Did you ever torture animals?"

Me? No.

"I never-- did you ever steal something from another person?"

No.

I'm very moral. I never do.

And then you ask his wife, who is probably terrified of him, "Is he a good man?" Of course he's a good man. He's great. He's the best man ever.

And you ask his children, who he dates twice a day, if, you know-- This is the test. I'm kidding you not.

That's the main test for psychopathy.

So we have to rely on psychopathy.

So the answer to the first part of the question is, there's no way of going to be.

If there's been any real transformation, anyone let alone the narcissist.

Who puts on the narcissist?

So why?

However--

Narcissist is weak, therapy, I mean. There is no way.

Because they modify their behaviors. They want to be more self-efficacious.

The only reason narcissist announces psychotherapy is because he thinks he can maximize the out-life.

He is not doing it well enough. He actually comes to therapy to learn how to be a more efficient narcissist.

He wants the therapist to take away the things that affect his function and performance.

So, yes, we do know how to modify the behaviors of narcissism.

Not modify the behaviors. We know how to render narcissism less antisocial, less abrasive, less unpleasant, easier to live with. We know how to teach narcissists to do this. Sometimes we use the grandiose thing. We challenge them. Let's see if we can do it.

And so on. We are of good and this part works successfully.

But the core issues absolutely are untouched.

Shared family security. I'm a 6'2" professor of psychology at the State of the University. I contributed to the field community.

And I repeat the same pattern with everyone I meet.

Shared family.

And then she abandons me, she cheats on me, and I'm motivated. I want to die. It takes six months. I recover.

Having learned all my lessons, I repeat it again.

It's not learning, for narcissists.

Sothis is the thing we face.

We can modify the behaviors. I've invented a new treatment model, Cold Therapy.

Cold Therapy allows me to destroy some parts of the apparatus, some parts of the machinery of narcissists.

Mainly the force said. To destroy the force said, there's no need for narcissistic supplyand the grandiose king's gun.

But these are not the core issues of narcissists. These are issues that bother society.

But the emptiness, it doesn't go away.

Emptiness doesn't go away.

The need for fantasy, the fantasy defense doesn't go away.

The lack of empathy doesn't go away.

The damage done to each other's partners doesn't go away.

None of these problems.

So, who more even achieves narcissists or borderline?

The borderline is more prone to acting out and from security, reckless behavior.

It's not under responsibility, drinking and so on.

Sothere are no statistics.

But the borderline, overall, is more likely than the narcissists achieve.

Narcissists also, as opposed to what you watch online, narcissists have an island of stability.

Sousually you have a narcissist who has been married for 40 years and has kids and grandkids and so on.

But he has changed 20 jobs. Or you have a guy who is working in the same company since he was 16and he is now the chief executive officer 57 years later.

But in the meantime, he got married, remarried and divorced nine times.

Soit's an island of stability surrounded by emotion of chaos.

This is a simple description of the openness.

Maybe you could read the questions.

Yes.

I have another question.

It was on the list that some of those people have very shallow affect and emotions, or most of them.

And is it connected to the lack of consciousness they have? Or conscious or remorse they feel?

Sohow remorse is connected to feelings?

Because maybe we think it's a moral issue.

But these people cannot really feel deep and cannot attach to people.

Sothat's why it's hard for them to feel remorse.

Is it connected or it's just...

I don't know.

So morality and feelings are connected or not?

Shallow affect is much more typical of psychopaths.

And even I suggested that psychopaths have flat affect.

Shallow affect is also linked to something called reduced affect display.

Reduced affect display is not showing emotions, or affect, not reacting emotionally to any changes in their world.

This is typical of psychopaths, not narcissists.

Narcissists can and often are very animated. They imitate or mimic emotions very much.

They don't experience positive emotions.

Narcissists have no access to positive emotions of any kind.

Sothey cannot love, for example. Narcissists cannot love.

But they do have access to negative affect, affectivity.

Negative affectivity or negative emotionslike envy, anger, rage. They have access to it and they experience these emotions very powerfully.

Soit's not true to say that narcissists have shallow affect.

They have what we call negative affectivity.

Negative affectivity is half the spectrum of emotions. It's felt very powerfully, very strongly, overwhelmingly.

Soin this sense, they are like negative border lines.

They are like border lines, but they are overwhelmed only by negative emotions.

A border line can be overwhelmed by love, for example.

What she thinks is wrong.

But a narcissist will never be overwhelmed by love because he does not experience love.

But he will be overwhelmed by anger. And he will do crazy things. He will do stupid, fast control. He will be reckless. He will destroy himself and everyone around him.

Soin this sense, he is like a negative border line.

Remorse and regret their link to undermine emotions, shame and guilt.

I refer you to the words of Master's or the pen of the book. Narcissism: A Shame Reaction.

Many scholars believe that narcissism is a shame reaction. The child was shamed by the parent. The child felt ashamed. He is unable to cope with the parent.

And soto compensate for this shame, the child became a narcissist.

But the narcissist doesn't dare to touch his shame.

In mortification, the narcissist is humiliated, ashamed. Sohe gets in touch with his shame.

That's why he becomes borderline suicidal.

Because he is in touch with the shame.

I have been mortified several times in my life, twice in the last three years. SoI went through mortification twice in the last three years.

I am clinically mortifiedas I speak to you right now. I am in a mortified state, right now, just speaking.

So it's a little like, it's a lot like, a lot like dying, a lot like falling apart, this interview.

And it is because I got in touch with the underlying reservoir of shame that gave rise to the narcissism.

It's as if I lost my narcissism defense. And I became a child all over again, and a child who experiences the full power of the shame that is inside me.

Child is defensive, of course, against the shame. That's why there is suicidal ideation and so on.

Soshame and guilt.

The narcissist doesn't dare to experience shame and guilt because it will be life-threatening.

Consequently, he is incapable of remorse for a great deal.

But everything you said is a multi-pig of a psychopath, actually.

That is another question, yes.

So in your time, there is a real time of motivation?

The narcissist reacts to the mortification by becoming a mortoner, I think. That's suicidal mortoner. That's suicidal mortoner.

And then he begins to, there are two ways to react, you think?

What you're talking about, my intro.

There are two ways to react. One is called external, and one is called internal.

External reaction to mortification is to saythese people are evil, they wanted to get me, they're horrible people, I was a victim, so on.

Andthe internal reaction to mortification isI made it happen. I pushed them to do it. I engineered the whole thing. I was the puppet master. I was in control.

So this restores the walls.

In both cases, it restores the grandiosepy.

Because in the external mortification, you are a victim. So you are the bull guy. You are morally deprived.

So in grandiosepy, no peace is in no morality or fickle.

And in the other solution, you are a go-bun. You are the puppet master. You made the deal.

So these are the two solutions.

So, mortification, it takes time, these narratives, because they're not very convincing.

So you have to deceive yourself, as an artist, you have to deceive yourself into believing them.

Now, if you are not highly intelligent, it takes a shorter period of time.

But if you are highly analytic, like me, I have enormous difficulty to accept either of the two solutions, because I know they don't sit well with all the facts.

So I'm struggling with mortification much longer than the typical analysis. Much longer.

And the risk to my life is much enhanced than in the typical analysis, because of my intelligence and my physical skills.

So intelligence is not always an asset in the analysis. Not always.

And is this something that co-therapy can help to...

Co-therapy creates mortification. Co-therapy is a process of creating artificial mortification, controlled mortification.

And then through the mortification, we bring the narcissist out of it.

So in the first few days of co-therapy, there is extreme suicidal ideation. And I need to be with the patient in the same room, or the same apartment room. If the patient is looking, I'm happy. I'm not asking. I'm never doing that. I'm not going to.

So it's simulated mortification. So I came to this insight cold therapy because I demortified it before, and I realized the only window changed is mortification.

All the differences are done. There's a risk of suicide.

The narcissist is terrified. He's like a child again.

And in the community, developmentally, the narcissist is about two years old.

When he's in mortification.

Talking to him now, he's a hero. He's no better.

Generally, by the way, even in normal life, the narcissist is about two years old.

As far as emotional literacy, emotional intelligence, the ability to interact as a narcissist, narcissism is a form of a resting development. It's a regressive state.

That's true. That's not what I mean. It's a regressive state.

And so, narcissists are children. Absolutely. And they are all of this, in some respects, two years old, in other respects, six years old, to very developed narcissists, the least affected of my life.

But you would never findany narcissist about my life. And the vast majority of them are kids.

Now, the usually, this doesn't because they have skills, they have education, they have a loose letter, you know, they have no autism.

But under conditions of extreme stress, decompensation, multiplication, the loose letter falls, many other things.

And what is left is a terrified three-year-old, who has to cope head- on with a replayingor reenactment of, with original trauma with his mother, and the shame attached to the trauma, the helplessness, the helplessness about you.

Helplessness provoked shame.

When your head was very shameful, three million, three million.

So, imagine you're my age, but you're experiencing the emotions of a two-year-old who is terrified, humiliated, ashamed, and totally dangerous.

Of course it pushes to suicide. It's a very dangerous thing.

So, many shared fantasies end in mortification. Many shared fantasiesend in mortification because the narcissist, if the narcissist chooses the wrong interdepartment, the interplay of the pathologies leads to defiance because the other department defies the narcissism, and then she wants to curb the narcissism.

So, for example, inter-narcissist teams up with a psychopath, is a partner, is a partner, is a psychopath. Or even a bolder-like, who is very frequently in a psychopathic state.

Now, there are new studies, relatively new studies, that show that there are, or bolder-lice, that become psychopathic when they are exposed to abandonment and rejection.

But some bolder-lice are way more psychopathic than other bolder-lice.

They are comorbid, so there is a co-f because she would reject or resent being transformed into a figment of fantasy. She would insist on her autonomy and defiance, she would be defiant. And finally, she would create what we call the secretary object.

She would begin to sit on the narcissist as an enemy, and she would want to attack the narcissist. She would want to hurt the narcissist. And very often, in the way she does it, is that she can cheat on him with another guy, in full view, humiliating the public, but you miss.

So, it ends badly if there is a wrong-made suggestion.

Not all narcissists choose to be psychopathic, but many of them do.

Mortification is most common after the disintegration of an inter-menture, if I'm not correct.

Like I do in commanding the suffocation. I'm tricking narcissists with quantification. And from the outside, it's...

Wow, so the ultimate condition is to have good comparative schizophrenia over.

It's really terrifying to be open.

How is it?

There was a question, "How can I survive living with a narcissistic person?" How can I survive?

Why do you want to survive with a narcissist?

The only thing with a narcissist is to walk away.

What if you can't walk away?

I never bought this.

I can't walk away because I am the narcissist.

The narcissist, the question should be phrased differently.

How can I survive as a narcissist?

We don't know.

Let's first answer this question.

There is no situation where you cannot walk away.

I don't buy the news.

I can't walk away because she's my mother.

So I haven't spoken to my mother in 26 years.

I haven't seen her in 26 years.

So I can't walk away because she's my son.

So I can't walk away because we are children.

You also have an attorney and an accountant.

You have to walk away.

There is no situation where you cannot walk away.

It's bullshit.

It's because you want to remain in touch with a narcissist.

Somehow.

Because there's a vestige of the chef-fantasist in the video.

And a light in the line.

Because you hope maybe that he will hurry one day.

Take you back.

The reasons for staying in touch with a narcissist are unholy reasons. All of them.

So the only solution is no contact.

Of course you can manage your life with a narcissist if you insist.

But why would you insist? It's simple.

What's the logic?

What would happen?

Which type of personality can be this narcissist?

Which type of personality can be narcissist?

Anyone can be a narcissist.

A narcissist doesn't care. He wants a narcissist to supply.

So a narcissist wants four things.

They want sex. They want supply.

A narcissist because they speak. They want services. They want safety.

If you give them two or four, two out of four, then you are in an apartment.

But the narcissist prefers as preference for certain types because they fit much more easily into the chef-fantasist.

It's a lot less work to get them to be in the family.

So if I interact with a healthy woman, I would have to work very hard to convince her to enter my fantasy and never exit.

This is not easy.

But if you're borderline, you are already in a fantasy state. You're in a fantasy about me, actually.

If you're borderline, you're fantasizing about me because your fantasy is an intimate partner centered around the intimate partner.

So it's much easier for me to recruit you, to convert you into my fantasy.

Soa failure of course.

Same with both dependents.

All these mental health disorders, they are one step removed from the narcissist fantasy.

While nothing will go attentionally, I can get any person to be in my fantasy. It's a lot more work than mental health.

What would they do?

You are saying that there is a self-aware narcissist, they should reject and avoid all the relationships.

That's not a self-aware narcissist, that's a moral narcissist, which is a bit like honest politicians.

The decision to abstain from having relationships is a moral decision. It's about not trying to get out of people. It's not even a separation of any narcissist's retirement.

However, in my casefor example, I decided to be childish. I decided to not achieve that. I think it's a moral...

I'm trying to convince myself it's a moral decision, but probably I just want to do travel a lot too.

Andyou know, children are serious inconvenience. Butmasses are going to make this kind of a risk.

They never need. They are hungry. They are predators. They are hungry animals. They don't make this kind of a risk.

Like, I've been mortifying now. I'm in great need to be in the park right now. It's a compulsion and a compliment. I don't see...

Let me listen to a lecture by Stan Bartlett about shared fantasy. And see if it's okay to recruit an Indian and to be a part of the conversation. And I think that's the best thing to describe it is a compulsion.

Not something that a narcissist can perform. It's not a controlled reaction. After working away from a narcissist, how many years you try? How many years he tries to move out of the...

If you do not modify the narcissist, he remains with your introject. Your introject is in his mind. And the introject is always idealized. That's the problem. If he values youand he discounts you, the introject remains here idealized.

This creates a disembras. There's a disembras because the introject is here as active. You're gone.

So he needs to put you back together with an introject.

This process is called real idealization. Or in clinical terms, he re-affects you. He invests in emotion. So he real idealizes you to make you match the introject. Make you match the structure.

And then his disembras goes down. He's a glad he goes down.

When you're gone, having disordered you and devalued you, when you're gone, his introjects are active. And they demand correspondence with the outer world. And when he doesn't have this, he uses very options. So over-ing is very common for narcissists. He re-idealizes you and he psychostates you. So he's been paid on viewers? Masters would re-idealize you and over-do.

At any moment where there are no other introjects active, so he doesn't have another intimate partner whose introject is dominant and active, then your introject is still active and you need to make the match.

That's why narcissists over-ing between the relationships. Very goodwhen they're out of the intuition. It's basically described, go before me, of course. It's been described by many theories that are going to apply to the company.

This dynamic and economy, many others, this dynamic sort of economy of internal objectsis very fascinating because it is very big in explanatory power. It explains a lot.

So I took it and applied it to masses. And I think, it's very common. Over-ing is an attempt to silence the introject by matching it up with an external object.

So external object is you, it is to idealize you, it re-idealizes you, matches you up with the introject, society is now, basically.

The other question was already mentioned that how can someone overcome being a narcissist? How can someone overcome being a narcissist?

I didn't submit it, but someone else also had to say it.

It's not a...

In narcissism, it's not a common code. You don't overcome being a narcissist.

Can you hear?

Can you hear?

Like, is it possible to overcome the trauma that you were talking about in the beginning?

To overcome the trauma?

Yeah, that is at the center of it?

Because the trauma is a childhood trauma. It's what we call the formative one.

It'sa one of the forms of it.

A one that shapes it.

It's not possible to eliminate this or eliminate, or freedom to...

You are this one.

You are this one.

So that's not the way to go about it.

Howdo you survive being a narcissist?

I hate to be...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news.

But it's a sentence.

It's a life sentence.

Narcissism is a total solution.

While, for example, other disorders are highly specific.

Narcissism is what the DSM calls "the basic".

It's primarily a sentence.

Narcissism affects everything.

Every dimension of the life, every field, every area, every type of function, your cognition, your emotions, your energy. It's all pervasive.

In short, narcissism is you.

While normally it's not good to say that the disorder is the person.

It's not good to say that's not true.

The disorder is the person.

In some cases, the disorder is the person.

So in both borderline narcissism, the disorder is the person.

And there's no meaning to asking the question, "How can I not be a narcissist?" It's like asking, "How can I not be?"

So you learn to modify the behaviors, the concept of learning.

If some narcissist decide that being moral is their grandiose.

They are grandiose by being moral.

This is called "coventoon", or "prosocial narcissism".

It's a narcissist who is proud of being moral.

So that's his claim to fame.

That's his grandiose.

So if you're like that, then, yeah, you will not get married, you will not have a relationship, you will not have children, and so on and so forth.

And you would amniscize this.

It would be ostentatious.

You would let everyone know what a great person you are.

If you have made these personal sacrifices, you realize that you are a narcissist.

And this would be all a narcissist who is a client.

Your morality.

It's possible to reframe yourself this way.

It's possible to program yourself this way.

People think that grandioseity is about being the best or being the most.

That's not true.

Grandioseity is about being unique.

So for example, you can say, "I'm a unique victim. I'm an amazing loser." Nobody is a loser like me.

When my company failed, it was the biggest bankruptcy in the history of the United States.

Yeah.

So grandioseity can be about failure. It can be about anything.

So grandioseity is malleable.

It's like acting. You can play with it.

So you can convince yourself, you can program yourself, to be grandiose by being altruistic, uncharitable, immoral.

And then you'll be famous for being moral. You'll be famous for being human.

So, for example, my grandioseity means that I teach people about narcissism.

And many people make the mistake.

If you don't believe me, go and see comments on my video. They will say, "You can't be a narcissist. You know way you're a narcissist. Look. You love people. Teach them. You kill them."

I'm not even talking about this.

You know, I leverage my grandioseity. I sublimated.

Sublimation is converting a drive or an urge into a socially acceptable form.

I sublimated my narcissism, which is pathology, anti-social pathology. I sublimated it into socially acceptable form.

And now, the locus of my grandioseity, I'm the great teacher. I'm the great teacher because I stopped the ball. And all the others were teenagerswhen I stopped it. So I'm the great teacher. That's my grandioseity. So it's a win-win. You win. I win. You're all win.

You don't do the same. You can find a win-win formula. But you will never get rid of the wrong.

Anything else?

Are these percentage disorders determined? How they're determined?

I mentioned that. It's childhood abuse.

Now, just to clarify what I mean by abuse and trauma. When I say "child abuse and trauma," you see a mother beating up a child in the room. Or a room beating up the mother with a child.

So abuse and trauma are aiming for any behaviorthat violates the child's boundaries and does not allow the child to separate from the parent and become an individual.

So, of course, physical abuse violates the child's bodily boundaries. So, okay, it's abuse.

Sexual abuse violates the child's physical body boundaries. Of course, it's abuse.

But spoiling the child, hampering the child, idolizing the child, pedestalizing the child, there are also forms of abuse.

Because the parent doesn't allow the child to be in touch with reality. When you spoil the child or temper the child, isolating the child from reality and from the consequences of the child's actions.

So you're not allowing the child to grow up. People grow up by having friction with reality and by experiencing losses.

If you prevent this, you don't allow the child to do this, then you're abusing the child.

If you're parentifying the child, you're forcing the child to be a parent figure. That's abusing.

If you're using the child as an instrument, that's abusing.

So we're very fast forward.

Any other questions?

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [applause].