 Welcome my friends to the depression 2 expression podcast Scott St. Marie here along with Dr. Sam Vaknin who is a professor of psychology in Russia holds two PhDs one in philosophy one in physics and is an expert in narcissism and narcissistic personality Disorder now. I'm so excited to share this episode with everyone Here's just a preview of what we spoke about because it got heavy It got deep and we touched a lot of topics But all that all of them really came back to narcissism and how we're living today We spoke about self-righteousness glorifying victimhood self-help gurus and coaches God Identity politics and mental illness in the West. It's all in this episode and I appreciate your attention I appreciate your mindset of curiosity and willingness to learn Enjoy the episode my friends Sam thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I appreciate it my pleasure. So, you know Narcissism is is a word that's being used, especially as of late with with social media And people love to throw that around if people are let's say self-loving but Is narcissism can we take this a step further and really talk about what narcissism truly is if someone is a Narcissist with a personality disorder, what does this look like and and what did this look like in your own experience? Well, that's Like 26 questions rolled into one. Let's try to somehow make Make order out of chaos imitating imitating God mind you so First of all, we must it's important to realize that everyone is a narcissist in the sense that everyone has something called healthy narcissism It's also called primary Primary narcissism This is the kind of narcissism that babies have This is the kind of narcissism that allows you as a child to venture out into the world and explore it because it takes some Grandiosity to assume that you as a baby can take on the world This is the kind of narcissism that underlies a well-regulated Internally regulated sense of self-worth and self-esteem and self-confidence. This is the kind of narcissism That allows you to ignore certain challenges and certain threats and certain and and just venture out there and do your thing This is the kind of narcissism that that allows you to stand up to bullies and and Enemies etc etc. So this is healthy narcissism. Everyone has it every single person on earth has it Then there is the pathological kind also known as secondary narcissism logical kind is when there's a confluence of circumstances The first and most important is trauma childhood abuse and trauma When the child is abused and traumatized it does something to the child's mind and That something is reversible because the mind is the brain is neuroplastic and it can be reprogrammed and deprogrammed Via for example therapy or even via self-work or self-analysis so there is hope but still it does something to the mind and And children then are forced having been subjected to trauma and abuse They are forced to to find a solution somehow to avoid the pain and the hurt of being traumatized and abused And abused so one solution is to identify with the abuser and they become co-dependence another solution is To become the abuser to to abuse and then they become narcissists And another solution is to try to become the abuser and to fail and then they become borderlines. This is the etiology This is the these are the paths Psychodynamic Psychological development paths that lead to these pathologies. It's very important to emphasize that only a tiny percentage of the children Of children exposed to abuse and trauma Develop these pathologies the vast majority Go on to be relatively healthy adults or be it with problems some problems with depression and anxiety and so It's also equally important to answer to to explain or to expound on the on the term abuse on the on the concept of trauma Abuse is not only when you beat up your child is not only when you have incest with your child It's not only when you verbally and psychologically torment and taunt your child or you humiliate your child These are classic forms of abuse and actually they're the minority There are other forms of abuse which we tend to overlook or reframe or not treat as abuse or even condone For example, when you spoil your child Well, you when you pamper your child when you idolize your child when you place your child on a pedestal or the Pedestal on your child when you treat your child as an instrument of gratification As the tool which will help you you as a parent realize your fantasies and wishes When you parentify your child when you force your child to act as a parent to you All these are forms of abuse So the only thing that's common to all forms of abuse classic and the those that I've just mentioned The only thing that's common to all of them is that the child is not allowed to separate from the parent Child is not allowed to separate and to become an individual because the child is not allowed to develop boundaries and To set boundaries to insist to enforce them The parent insists to invade the child to assimilate the child to treat the child as an extension To merge and fuse with the child in a variety of ways socially acceptable ways like spoiling or pampering or idolizing and Socially unacceptable ways like incest, but there's absolutely no psychodynamic difference between incest and idolizing In both these cases The child becomes part of the parent is not allowed to separate from the parent in the second case of incest It's physically Bodily and in the case of pampering or spoiling or idolizing or using the child is instrument of gratification It's psychologically But in both cases the child is not his or her own person No personality is allowed to develop So one of the solutions that children choose when they are exposed exposed to these Implicit or explicit messages. Don't leave me. You are part of me. You will never be your own person When they are faced with this kind of messaging One of the solutions is known as pathological narcissism What the child does in pathological narcissism? He invents an imaginary friend Imaginary friend called the false self and this imaginary friend is everything the child is not The child is helpless This imaginary friend is omnipotent The child cannot predict the behavior of the parents as parents is unpredictable capricious arbitrary The false self is omniscient knows everything The child is is helpless Cannot cope with the abuse and the trauma is no effective means and tools of managing the abuse of trauma let alone eliminating it The false self is all powerful So if you put all these attributes together, you know perfection brilliance omnipotence Omniscience if you put all these together you you get the attributes of God So the false false self is a God What happens to a child who is exposed to trauma and abuse? When and if he chooses the narcissistic solution is that the child develops a private religion? he invents a God and Then he worships this God and then he sacrifices to this God He makes a human sacrifice. He sacrifices himself because it's the only human he has access to So he makes a human sacrifice. It's a recreation of primitive proto-religions Absolutely, it's like exactly what you said you called it the collective unconscious You know, it is like we are re-create like the child recreates the history of the race the history of the species In his attitude in his attempts to cope So when the child grows up, there are essentially two serious problems one The child when he becomes an adult is the child is in a post-traumatic state Narcissism is a post-traumatic condition Not in my view at least I'm trying to reconceive of it as a post-traumatic condition not a personality disorder Interesting. Okay. Okay. So so it's a post-traumatic condition and the second problem are rested development The child never becomes an adult At least not mentally he gets stuck at some stage of development Usually six years old it's six to nine. Nine is a very very well developed mentally well-developed narcissists most narcissists are four to six years old and Here's the problem and here's why we've keep failing in therapy when we are trying to treat narcissists We keep failing in therapy because we relate to narcissists. We try to negotiate with narcissists We try to talk reason we try to Rationalize we try we treat the narcissists that comes into the into the clinic into the office. We treat the narcissists as an adult But the narcissist is not an adult It's a four-year-old It's a six-year-old and of course all the all adult therapies Fail with narcissists, right? Because they are not adults That's first thing the second thing We treat narcissism as an all-pervasive problem of the personality is a multi-dimensional Cancerous process which affects every dimension of personality in every dimension of functioning Consequently, we trot out we roll out systemic solutions. We try to cope with problems systemically It's a little like treating common cold as though it were cancer But Narcissism is a post-traumatic condition. We do know that trauma affects Does affect all dimensions of functionality? Including for example interpersonal relationships and all diamond all cognitive dimensions and all emotional dimensions We know this but we equally know the trauma is totally reversible and That it can be cured and healed totally. Okay, so that can be I definitely want to unpack that but this is so extremely interesting When I think of narcissism, I never thought of a in the developmental stages now You have this child grown up. Let's say an abusive environment does social isolation and the lack of friendships really help develop that that narcissism because if you're developing this false self and Developing developing this imaginary and new religion. Are these children more isolated than the rest of them and not having this this these social Relationships to actually hinder that narcissistic development. Does that even play a role into how this develops? Language itself fails us. Let us analyze your question Do these children? You know self-isolate whatever They can't do anything They can't have friends. They can't isolate and For the very simple reason that the minute the false self is invented. They cease to exist The narcissist is not a being not an entity not an existence the narcissist is an absence It's a void it's deep space It's a whole of mirrors when we discuss if we discuss interpersonal relationships we can we can dwell on my concept of whole of mirrors It's a reflection which reflects a reflection. It's a reflexive Recursive process. It's not a human being not a person in any sense by the way Not not not as far as empathy notice. I mean no dimension of personality We are acquainted with is operative in the narcissistic psychodynamic So how can how can one actually? Okay, so we can move to let's let's talk about treatment. How can you actually have a Sense of self or or self-awareness and maybe in your experience, too, like I'm thinking okay, you're you're You're a narcissist and you're behaving in this certain way and someone calls you out for behaving Let's simply selfishly self-interested You're abusing this person both mentally and physically You can't actually in treatment or or in a relationship. Tell that person you are doing this Why aren't you aware that you are doing harm to others or are you simply aware and is that even a choice? That you that narcissists are making Narcissist consists of a single a single Operational construct functioning constructs called the false self which is divorced from the narcissist. It's a concoction It's a piece of fiction. It's like a movie It's a confabulation. It's a it's a construct. It's not real So there is the false self Very similar to God. I think you know when you say God and There is the true self which is ossified and fossilized is functional Cowering in the corner crying four-year-old baby So utterly irrelevant for our discussion as a this stage of life. You still don't have full-fledged empathy You don't have any interpersonal skills. You don't have even what we call object relations You don't perceive others are separate from you. So this four-year-old is not relevant to our conversation The narcissist therefore is a drug addict and he's focused on obtaining a drug called narcissistic supply Essentially is a tension attention could be positive adulation admiration applause affirmation or negative being feared is equally gratifying being hated is equally gratifying So the narcissist is focused on obtaining narcissistic supply because he uses the supply To regulate his internal environment. This is the sacrifice He makes daily to the Moloch to the God to the idol of the false self And he is addicted to this because it also helps him to regulate his sense of self-worth. He's his internal environment, so This is the sole focus of the narcissist supply If harming people will get him supply. He will harm people But there are many narcissists who are Political activists and tier racists There are many narcissists who are public intellectuals And propagate systems of thought and living correctly There are many narcissists who are Indian mystics and Indian gurus There are many narcissists who are altruists Charitable and benefactors of humanity actually I Would say that the majority of these people are rabid narcissists they just discovered that pushing a few verbal buttons and virtual signaling Gets you places Allow allows you to obtain supply Recently in Canada by the way, there was a study published few I think a few weeks ago in British Columbia there was a study published Which had demonstrated conclusively that the majority of political activists including anti-racism activists and the majority of philanthropists and the majority of Public intellectuals including the most well-known public intellectuals who purport to tell you how to live life in a meaningful way And the majority of life coaches the majority of mystics and gurus, etc. Et cetera are not only narcissists, but psychopathic narcissists. Wow to put it less Or to put it less gently con artists Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense I'd love for you to use your beautiful language to unpack that because I know I think it makes sense from the outside like how could you be and no no normal human being could could be in that position of power and Convincing the public and individuals of living a certain way and living as a way as the right way to live and the right things to Do I think that makes sense to be somewhat narcissistic, but I guess there's different levels consider the hubris and Hortiness it takes to claim that you have found the rules for meaningfully at life Consider after five thousand years of human philosophy human religion human studies human science Consider how you bristic how insanely prideful and Horty you need to be to make such a claim Whether it's whether it's justified or not is an entirely different debate But just to make the claim, you know, right consider consider how How superior you must feel The other day I saw a video words the most Slimy and smart me self-styled Indian mystic Challenge the head of a major medical school in the United States telling him you don't know medicine. I know medicine I mean and then going on to say that the left breast of the woman Excrets different breast different milk than the right breast in breast in breastfeeding It's a different type of milk. Okay You know, it's The so you can ask why do people why do people listen to these guys, right? Why do they dignify them and honor them? Because There is something called base-rate fallacy base-rate fallacy is a recent discovery in psychology discovered Dana really and others we we discovered that People believe automatically and instantly and without cross-checking and very fine 95% of all claims made That's not nine point five not nine point five percent ninety five percent When people are exposed to the most inane bizarre outlandish insane sentences They believe ninety five out of a hundred of these sentences And they will not question these sentences nor will they bother to cross-check or to verify To to to ascertain the veracity of these sentences So if a guy comes to you and tells you I love you I Am so empathic There is a whole new movement online of people who self-styled empaths and Now they have a rank a hierarchy. There is a regular empath Then there is a super empath and now there is a Nova empath super Nova empath, you know Yeah, so they there's infighting in turn is infighting between these self-styled narcissists The overwhelming vast majority of people who would go online and claim such virtue Narcissists out for narcissistic supply There's no such thing as an empath clinically. It's a nonsensical term idiotic term It aggrandizes It makes perfect sense, you know, if you just look at the classic American infomercial that's been the same for 50 years, you know, you have these claims You have these testimonials and people continue to buy and believe it But it's the same formula like nothing has changed the technology for all these products that are sold online And what people are selling is is new But the formula for getting people to buy is the same and I guess that can be attributed to people will believe any claim Or most claims any claim you you go online And you say I I I bring love I Will teach you empathy because I am a super Nova empath. I Have been a victim I And people will not stop and us themselves This guy keeps saying the word I every second sentence Is this not an indicator of narcissism? And by the way, it is it's called pronoun density. It's a major indicator of narcissism I have seen lectures by public intellectuals life coaches Indian swamis self-styled swamis from North London, mind you Indian mystics and gurus some of whom just exited just were released from jail for murdering other people and And I've seen these people and the pronoun density of these people is enormous Literally every fifth word is I me my myself mine a Major prime indicator of narcissism people don't stop to us ask themselves someone who publishes a book and The front cover is a giant picture of his face giant photo of his face and the back cover and the back cover Is another giant photo of his face? Is this not an indicator that there is something narcissistic about this alleged activist against narcissistic abuse I coined the phrase narcissistic abuse in 1995 and I coined nine out of every terms and phrases used today To describe narcissism There is nothing I regret more in my life The then the fact that I have taken my work and made it popular and public in the in the 1990s Nothing I regret why is that because the whole because the whole thing has been hijacked by covert narcissists psychopaths and narcissists Pretending and masquerading as victims pretending and masquerading as empaths pretending and masquerading as life coaches Pretending and masquerading as self-styled experts every one in his dog is an expert on narcissistic abuse I personally know a test witness and know doctors and professors Who know who knew nothing about narcissism? Declare the next morning that they are experts on narcissism and opening their youtube channels And garnering enormous following Wow, and I have and I have written messages from these people Telling me that they never heard the term narcissism But there's a lot of money in it. So they're going to to enter the field so I guess if you're if you're educated, let's just think of someone else if you're educated in a subject A life coach and you have this personal experience and you genuinely want to help others Would you not have that that pronoun density I because you're talking about your own experience and it might sound Less forceful if you're speaking from From your own experience rather than saying you should do this. You should do that You're speaking from your own experience When I say pronoun density, I'm not referring to autobiographical notes I'm referring to claims about superior knowledge privilege information Systems of thought systems of meaningful life in viewing life with meaning I'm not referring to you know, I grew up in this city and I did this I'm referring I have learned this and this and I'm telling you that this is the way you should behave This is what you should do. This is a system I develop. This is etc Right and not of not of course not all life coaches and not all Um Not everyone is a narcissistic side, but I would If I have to venture a guess and this and I've been in this racket for 25 years I've seen them all coming and going. They all Almost without exception first made contact with me I have written documents From the vast majority of them Describing their struggles and their thought processes and how they reach a conclusion that they are experts on narcissism because there's a lot of money in it And so on and so forth So I have I'm I would venture to say that about 80 percent of this population Are narcissists psychopaths and con artists 80 not eight unbelievable Or is it very believable now since the 90s? Would you say these rates have gone up with technological use and and online profiles because we can start with we have the narcissistic abuse of a child But can you develop narcissism through through actions of your own and through technology that we see today? No, narcissism is a is a childhood Childhood reaction to trauma and abuse and therefore is but what can happen Is that narcissists narcissists and psychopaths are like water They look for the nearest ravine The nearest stream bed the nearest bank They are they are people in search of narcissistic supply in case of narcissists Or for sex money and power in case of psychopaths Wherever they find it they will go Now social media and other online platforms are ideal vehicles Ideal distribution channels ideal transmission mechanisms to obtain these goals So this is they gravitate there They gravitated there. It's not that their exposure to online technology or platforms Rendered them narcissists Is that when narcissists to start with and they are making use of these platforms and technologies To gratify their need for narcissistic supply or honestly to make a lot of money Because it's a cottage industry Victimhood is a cottage industry it pays Ask any black person in the united states It's a cottage industry I am not denigrating or undermining or challenging The very true claims about racism About systemic bias about implicit bias about institutionally institutional racism. It's all very true In the case of racism, of course Similarly, it's all very true about narcissistic abuse I invented the phrase you're talking to the father The father of the field I feel very humbled No, no, no question of humble not humble. I'm saying the father of field chronologically I have I invented the phrase in 95 Everything else you've heard flying monkeys. I invented ghosting. I invented uvaring. I invented Narcissistic supply I borrowed from a 1937 obscure essay and made it for what it is for self I borrowed from winnico And again made it what it is today somatic narcissists. I invented inverted narcissists And cerebral narcissists you name it. I invented I invented the field This is I made this playground but then police Narcissists psychopaths Invaded the field using the base rate policy Making claims of empathy and love and support and sacor Because these are the buttons to push And they were successful they hijacked the playground And that's where you're saying the money is made not in Selling narcissism, but selling what narcissists are selling now, which is the self love and coaching let's say and all of these things Yeah, they sell books. They sell DVDs. There's a coaching sessions. They sell and they tell you what you want to hear Now people say so what this is what I want to hear. It makes me feel good right Well any any any psychology professor which I'm one yeah will tell you that The last thing you need to hear in therapy is what you want to hear That perpetuates perpetuates pathology The the the real the only real Hope for healing and recovery moving on in a meaningful way is to tell you To insist to tell you what you don't want to hear to break down Defenses such as denial and repression Of course to do it in a risen way in a structured way in a in a controlled way But you need to be challenged to grow And the overwhelming vast majority of these people and all you need to do by the way is don't trust me go online Listen to these videos The overwhelming vast majority of these videos are A formula like they're like a formula and what's the formula? Yes, you're a victim. Yes, you felt victim to a horrible demonic person poor you Um, it's not your fault. You did nothing wrong You are an empath. So you are superior your grandiose. You're an empath He targeted you because you are such a treasure, you know Had you not been a treasure? He would have never targeted the very fact that you were targeted proves how superior you are This is catering to the victim's narcissism Right The victim's grandiosity. This is aggrandizing victim the victim and aggrand and aggrandizing victimhood Victimhood is a way of life and a way to make money. Mind you And victimhood is an identity Here's the problem. It perpetuates victimhood as an integral strand and strain in the identity of the victim It doesn't allow the victim to move on not to move on to the next relationship. That's easy to move on From a stance and a self identity as a victim All these all these youtube channels and youtube videos They render a horrible disservice to the victims horrible That they will pay for for the rest of their lives Because they don't allow them to be anything but a victim because they glorify victimhood Because they aggrandize victimhood Because they render victimhood an identity identity politics We're coming back to racism, right, you know So And And you know unscrupulous callous Ruthless psychopaths and narcissists They see the potential in this And they flock in Millions hundreds thousands of them flocked into this And when i'm saying narcissism or narcissistic abuse, that's one arena. There are many other arenas. I think Anti-racism is infested with narcissists and psychopaths Well that that I would love to unpack because if you had to separate the general population of Kind of what's going on now in the u.s. Maybe around the world. Would you say you have Narcissists on one side with this political ideology and this This self-righteousness and then you have just victims in the other half And one is trying to convince the other that this is the right way to live and the victims just are kind of eating that up Is that what's kind of going on in in politics right now and what we're seeing in the states? Is it I know that's very simplified obviously Victimhood is a reflection Of power as asymmetry Wherever there is power asymmetry there will be victims Even if you take the most righteous God-fearing bible thumping people And you let them have power They will abuse someone Power and abuse go together power and victimhood always go together end of story Now Should we tackle these power asymmetries? Absolutely We should level the playing field. We should eliminate the institutional discrimination we should Crack down on scum Like the policeman who placed his knee on on Floyd's neck We should also crack down on scum like Floyd himself mind you Who was a low life criminal career a career criminal so But victimhood is not an identity It is not A state of mind should not be let's put it this way an identity or a state of mind If it becomes an identity or a state of mind, it's pathological We actually have diagnostic Criteria for perennial perpetual victims professional victims For example, we have a diagnosis called dependent personality disorder Which includes strong elements of victimhood we we we Realize in in clinical psychology That anything could become An identity determinant a determinant of identity And that victimhood has many provides many advantages. In other words, we I'm trying my best to avoid a professional jargon or professional lingo But I can't in this case victimhood is self efficacious In other words victim was victim would get your results right it serves it serves the individual Yes, it gets you favor it as a state it ensures favorable outcomes in your environment So it's addictive Like anything that guarantees favorable outcomes. It becomes a habit habit habit habits Combine familiarity with self efficacy So victimhood is this And here's the thing the overwhelming vast majority of people who are protesting in the streets Overturning sculptures and I don't know what else monuments and I don't know what else they're doing The overwhelming Number the overwhelming number of these people are well meaning Or they're simply angry and they're not angry at george floyd And they're not the angry george floyd's death. They couldn't give a damn about george floyd or his death They're angry. They're simply they have diffuse anger Because they lost their jobs. They lost the familiar world. They lost access to the neighborhood pub They are locked down. They're under restrictions. They hate the government. They hate fauci They hate the medical establishment. They simply hate. They're angry. They're hateful They're resentful and this was a perfect opportunity to afloat and to vent And nothing wrong with that Nothing's wrong with it So the vast majority are regular folks regular people who are simply very very angry And they're very angry at power structures. They're very angry at the elites You see bill gates and you know, they're very angry at politicians They're very angry at the medical establishments who cannot the establishment who fails to provide solutions They're very angry at akkadine. They're they're angry. Generally. They're angry. Yeah All you have to do is go online and see how angry people are. So This was a perfect opportunity. Here was the representative the emblem the reification of authority putting his neck On the reification of the victim Great great symbol. So everything erupted what I'm saying is something else What I'm saying is that narcissists and psychopaths hijack this legitimate Emotions expressions cognitions and behaviors hijack them They hijack them They morph them. They shape shift them. They channel them and then They abuse them and exploit them That's all I'm saying There were legitimate grievances in Germany after the first world war legitimate grievances Not the list of which Was the extortionary reparations by the west These were legitimate grievances and there were many movements. For example, the socialists in Germany They were, you know protesting in the streets and so on But then a psychopath came into the picture a narcissistic psychopath Adolf Hitler And he hijacked these legitimate grievances And he created the nazi party in Auschwitz Similarly, there were legitimate grievances in tsarist russia There was hunger There was a defeat in the war There were sailors whose salaries were not paid. I mean, there were legitimate grievances And there were legitimate protests And the initial revolution in russia was made by the middle class And the first government Kerensky's government was a middle class government and then Psychopaths and narcissists took over Lenin rabbit dog Lenin They crazed insane paranoid Stalin They took over they hijacked these legitimate grievances And much smaller scale we have this in the United States with Donald Trump There are legitimate grievances in the United States Of the disenfranchised Disillusion disenchanted middle class Or working class These are legitimate grievances. No one took care of them. No one riskilled them. No one prepared them for globalization No one took care of these people. They were discarded like so much wet clinics, you know, these are legitimate grievances but then amygdala maniacal Malignant possibly psychopathic narcissists donald trump Hijacked these grievances That's all i'm saying. I'm not challenging the grievances or even the expression of the grievances even by violent means I am Very worried that all these movements are hijacked By narcissists and psychopaths And these narcissists and psychopaths are adept At telling us what we want to hear love Empathy greatness Restoration tradition God And so they push these buttons And like the brain dead people that most humanity had become we follow them And this goes also For the for example for for millennials Someone Millennials are so lost so Confused so disoriented so dislocated their economic prospects are so dim and horrible and so on so forth That there is a proliferation of coaches public intellectuals wannabe philosophers and so on that Guide these lemmings to the cliff Provide them with 12 rules for life or awaken the giants within them Or tell them that if they only put their minds to it they can achieve anything Of course paying pay $20 for my book, yeah or You know these are narcissistic psychopathic con artists Who are taking hijacking? the legitimate anxiety angst and grievances of entire generations And this is the danger because this is a pattern that had repeated itself throughout history If you go back long long long time ago to ancient greece there was a Cbiades, you know the the general the athenian general He was among the first to do this Psychopaths and narcissists are lurking in the shadows And they know how to manipulate your mind expertly It's their survival. Let's take it's their narcissistic supply. It's money. It's power. It's sex. It's access So Would this mean wow, this is so unbelievably interesting. So if my world's kind of flipped upside down here Would a couldn't we just call these people extremely well great salesman first of all I wonder if there's a a study out there with people that are really good at sales who also have this This narcissistic quality Um, but what's what's the solution here sam? So is it the public becoming more educated and more skeptical and actually knowing The signs of of what is going on politically and in the streets and how the world is fueled by narcissism and And this this imbalance of power What's the solution here? What can we do because it seems like This has always been the case with with leaders. How can you lead a country and not Have this narcissistic quality Well, as usual, there are three questions here You're an expert at this Okay, so so what what what's the solution? What what's the solution? No starts with salesmanship salesmanship There's nothing wrong with salesmanship. There's nothing wrong even with manipulative salesmanship There's nothing wrong with marketing advertising which are overtly manipulative And and based on insights from psychology So there's nothing wrong with any of this education to a large extent is manipulative because it includes strong elements of socialization And acculturation in other words education shapes us to be useful citizens It education is not open-ended Education is restrictive. It constricts our worlds our world. It narrows it To legitimate choices and illegitimate choices, right? So even education is a manipulative process There's nothing wrong with this with any of this Where it begins to be wrong Is if you are irresponsibly affecting people's lives and minds just to sell If I sell your smartphone At worst I have taken from you 1,000 canadian dollars. You will overcome trust me But if I screw up with your mind with your priorities with the way you see the world Etc etc If I Put you in a straight jacket of rules If I pretend to have access to knowledge and information which is arcane or occult Or godly or privileged or and thereby acquiring authority over you And able to affect And channel your behavior in ways which are beneficial to me That's an entirely different story Entirely different story And no the vast majority of leaders are not not narcissistic. We didn't find we don't have such a finding The vast majority of leaders are not narcissistic. Actually, there are quite a few findings which say that Narcissistic leaders are not efficient in the long run We have something called high functioning narcissists And narcissists and psychopaths are highly efficient in business So they are over represented in certain professions. They're over represented in medicine In show business In business proper About three to five percent of chief executive officers of fortune 500 have been Formerly diagnosed With psychopathy the psychopaths So in some areas but not in politics ironically In politics actually The modest self-effacing stable Leader who is concerned with the public good is much more successful in the long term Than the narcissistic leader who may end up with one term or whatever. So Also, we should remove this myth from the table narcissistic leaders are narcissists first They happen to be leaders because that's the way they had found to obtain narcissistic supply You must understand narcissists would do anything If being a racist would guarantee supply, he would become a racist So narcissists were probably over represented in the Ku Klux Klan You know, right If being an anti-racist will garner him supply, he would become a rabid anti-racist Vocal vociferous anti-racist If I don't know if Working for the public good will guarantee narcissistic supply. He will work for the public good He will do it He will be charitable. He will be a trueistic ostentatiously. So mind you, but he will be So whatever it takes whatever works Narcissists have no allegiances. No affiliations. No real interests. They are not invested in anything Nothing really interests them even A narcissist who is a historian is a historian because that's where he's getting his supply from If tomorrow for some oblivious unpredictable reason cleaning the streets Sanitary work would become the thing and would guarantee him supply He would go and do sanitary work and give up his professorship of history at a prestigious university That's how fickle volatile and Cor-less without core narcissists are They're reflections. They're shimmering. They're not real So narcissistic leaders happen to be leaders They first and foremost are narcissists That's an important thing to to understand what can be what can be done Well, I think the first thing that needs to be done is to get rid of the question what can be done There is this american assumption American mind you assumption they can do assumption That every problem has a solution That everything is in principle Could be subject to a recipe That rules can structure and yields outcomes That self if efficacy depends in some way on a doctrine and a discipline These are all american ideas And they are all wrong first of all Most problems do not have a solution Most overwhelming vast majority of problems in every field of human endeavor Do not have a solution. You don't believe me. Look outside your window. There's a pandemic. Do you have a solution? You don't Majority of human problems Do not have a solution end of story Number two, there are no rules for a meaningful life. There are no rules for life There is no meaning. There is no nothing You just go on living end of story And you know what we are not all equal And the overwhelming vast majority of the population Will end up doing basically nothing with their lives With the exception perhaps of spreading the seed if they're lucky because 61 percent of all men end up childless And 40 percent of women end up childless so fact The first thing we need to do is to accept life as it is Not as we imagine it to be which is a pathological defense mechanism called fantasy And not as we can shape it for the very simple reason we cannot shape it There is no giant inside you because you're not a giant The majority of people you will meet and probably you as well are zeros Your intellectual capacity is limited. You will leave no mark in the world. You will pass As ephemeral and meaningless as a dust dust storm Accept it surrender Don't fight back. It's a futile waste of resources and it leads to pathologies like narcissism And all the coaches and mortars and psychology. I mean they tell you the exact opposite the law of attraction Just put your mind to it and the universe will gratify you mind you the universe itself will gratify you It will gear gear itself They change the courses of the planets just to gratify a Scott or south, you know, yeah, the universe is uh Indifferent the secret the secret the 12 rules the 16 rules the two rules I mean the hell what the hell you are born Out of an out of out of two. Nobody. Nobody's who no one remembers And who left no mark on this earth You're born out of these two and you are doomed to the same fate In the meantime have fun Try to make the most of what you have because you have very little And no you can't be rich and you can't be powerful and you can't be famous and you can't make your mark And you can't have any lasting achievements Statistically these sentences are are correct 99.99999999999% of the time Yes Every generation There are 100 people thousand people 10,000 people who have an impact of some kind Of these 9999 I've forgotten within the generation Within one generation and one remains in the in memory How many do you know how many personalities affected your life directly? Three if I'm generous three trust me Maybe three if you are really really into learning and into into studying and into you exposed to the world I mean then you then three people affected your life three personalities affected your life, but if you are the typical human being They eat to shit machine Then Then I'm sorry That's what you are You are a unit for processing food and producing utterly utterly worthless product And if you're very lucky because again, I repeat the statistics are against you You will produce Children who will be exactly like you because social mobility is a myth myth It's a lie told by the rich to the poor to keep them at bay to keep to keep Social unrest at the minimum. There's no such thing the American the American dream is made up to start from the bottom and rise There is no such thing as social mobility 70 years of studies or if you want to go back to emil do kind 100 years of study have proven it beyond any debate If you are born to a poor family, you will die poor and your children will be poor and your children's children will be poor end of story If your parents had high school education, that's what you will have In the vast majority of cases or if you go to college You will not make use of this education because he didn't have the tools given to you when you were a child We never move beyond our station The 19th century With with the various classes the class society The caste system in india They reflect reality far better than the egalitarian bullshit of of our day and And all the social arrangements that reflect this myth This collective fantasy mind you grandiose fantasy. Yes that everyone is equal to everyone It's malignant egalitarianism It's a sick fantasy because it's not founded on reality whenever fantasy fails the reality testing it's pathological So this gear gave rise to institutions which are highly dysfunctional Including democracy It's not working because it's not true None of it is true The west The west Is the first experiment in human history to live in a dream in a dreamscape All other experiment. There have been numerous experiments in human history with governing systems, governance systems with Organizing principles with hermeneutic principles with philosophical systems. I mean We have been experimenting for at least five six thousand years with a variety of you know The west um Liberal democracy is the first experiment ever to to Consist entirely of a dreamscape to divorce reality entirely And look where it got us Look where it got us because we know in psychology in clinical psychology That when fantasy takes over when fantasy life takes over This is the extreme apex of pathology. This is when we get really really worried about the patient Hmm consider consider for example psychosis psychotic disorder psychotic disorders by vanuja schizophrenia Is considered the by far most extreme form of mental illness I would say the second one is bipolar disorder These are the two that really really terrify us as clinical psychologists because we know our limitations So what is common to what what is psychosis? What is the underlying principle of psychosis? Removal from reality. Oh, sorry answer your question Is it a removal from reality and the false self? Yes in a way in a way. Yes, but how do how does the psychotic remove himself from reality? He confuses objects with external objects He has a voice in his head. So he believes the voice is coming from the world He has a vision So he suddenly sees it in front of him like you would see a show on television The psychotic externalizes his internal objects. He projects them in a process called hyperreflection His personality is so fragmented and so disintegrates so disintegrative That the elements of his personality acquire their own life acquire life and become Independent autonomous entities which interact with the psychotic as though they were outside him while actually all of them are inside him This confusion between external and internal inside and outside real and imagined mind and matter This is psychosis But I have just described the west All the principles of the west I have just described The governance principles the political principles the philosophical principles What are all these messages if you only put your mind to it? This is magical thinking This is sick. It's a sick message It means that if you think it will happen It means that if you just put that your mind has an effect on the world This is this is a great way to visualize psychosis. Yes, right, sorry if I'm thinking what's the alternative here? As far as let's say governance is the west not the most free country as it claims to be in the world Like is it more I thought it was more free than ancient egypt where we had slaves thousands of slaves build things and in absolute power And is the distribution better now and freedom in the west? Have we achieved something over the years or are we are we still at square one? Freedom is not is not an end. It's a means freedom to do what? Freedom of expression freedom to make money to do what you want And What the test is what outcomes does it guarantee this freedom? You would hope happens None I just quoted to your statistics. There's no such thing as social mobility. The poor remain poor So it doesn't get you money About 87 percent of global wealth is concentrated in the hands of 10 000 people 100 people in the united states have more money Then all the blacks All these panics and 15 million whites 100 people that's one zero zero So it doesn't get you money It doesn't get you political power because political power It's a the west is a plutocracy or pluto democracy, you know, it's a the rich rule So it doesn't get you power. So forget power forget money It gets you sex Well, yes, but slaves had sex What does it get you this freedom? The the of course the rich and the elites and the intellectuals at the service of the rich because every cast every elite has its subservient intellectuals who legitimize the ideology and doctrine of the elite And who help who collude with the elite to suppress any Right thinking and any unrest among the masses. That's not me. That's was it so They're in the west to keep the masses at bay to keep them quiet to keep them pacified The west made freedom the end Not what freedom can get you but freedom And of course, this is exactly The philosophical debate with china Is in china freedom is not the end Outcomes at the end Now you can say listen, I prefer to be free with zero efficacy I prefer to be free for me What matters is freedom and I don't care If freedom means that I will I'm born poor and will die poor that I have zero political leverage That my opinions don't matter as long as I can express them to other people whose opinions don't matter And that I'm going to marry into my caste or into my class To a boring dreary wife and have two boring dreary children who will also be poor and have no political leverage and study totally irrelevant Information in totally irrelevant institutions who will take my money for that Student loans student loans went up 610 percent in the past 15 years 610 percent students in the united states now owe 1.86 trillion dollars So even when they give you education they make sure that you remain a slave Are you not a slave? Are you bloody kidding me? Can you pay the rent in san francisco? So your geographical mobility is limited Can you buy a home without paying mortgage for 40 years? Can you do anything? Can you study at the university without paying student loans for an average of 32 years? Is this not slavery by any other name? It's not slavery, but it's less suffering I would say than then slaves thousands of years ago. So yes, we can both have sex But is maybe the end uh an end to extreme suffering and pain Who told you that? No one who told you that I just made it up the vast majority the vast majority of slaves There were of course outliers. There were cruel masters who tortured and tormented and sexually abused slaves and so on But that has not been the case that with the vast majority of slaves in the united states vast majority of slaves in ancient greece vast majority of slaves in rome in egypt and and elsewhere Slavery is a restriction mainly Mainly of political freedom ability to exert and exercise power mainly All the rest is the same Working to pay off your mortgage and student loan for the rest of your life is not slavery. Are you kidding me? Try not to pay See where you end up See if you are not as abused as any slave in the plantation Try do me a favor personal personal favor try to not pay Your next credit Rate your next mortgage mortgage payment or your next student loan rate. Yeah See where you end up and after the experience of spending a month In a county jail or a prison You tell me if it's not as abusive Is what most slaves had experience in plantations So what is the Is there a country? Is there a society in the past or present that has this? Freedom and this way of life for the general public is is someone doing this right? Is there an example that is being set for the rest of the world? Who can we follow? Scott These are western questions You are totally indoctrinated and and and poisoned By by the system within which you grew Why do you need to follow anyone? Why do you assume that there's a right solution? Why do you assume there's a problem in it? Why do you think if there's a problem there's a solution? These are all western assumptions I'm telling you Except that you're a zero born to zeros will end your life as a zero You may have zeros as children who will end their lives as zeros You will achieve nothing or value You will not make your mark because you have no mark. There's no giant inside you you can contribute nothing At most you're consuming resources Some people will say wasting resources That's it. That's the human condition And although I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with that. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with that that I think that is the that is the reality and and getting rid of that that state of fantasy as you said so in your in clinical practice Let's say you're dealing with someone who's dealing with depression Is this the reality that is helpful With with clients depression Is the direct result of fantasy Depression is when there is a gap between fantasy and reality When there is no gap depression is impossible If I were to accept my zeroness my nothingness And by the way, this is not me. This is existentialism This is Dostoevsky This is Kierkegaard to some extent although Kierkegaard introduced God into the equation. This is Nietzsche, of course If I were to accept my nothingness my profound essential Nothingness I would never be depressed. Why would I be depressed? Anything that happens to me would be a great surprise a wonderful surprise A good glass of wine an invitation to to a podcast everything Be a wonderful surprise because I deserve nothing And I will accomplish nothing because I am a nothing and now This insight This insight Is the basic the foundational insight of 80 percent of humanity This is the insight at the basis of islam This is the insight at the basis of indian mysticism This is the insight the basis of most eastern religions You must understand that the west Is exceptional american exceptionalism. Yes, the west is exceptional an aberration A deviation A sickness apathology That is dying and disappearing luckily for us The overwhelming majority of people in the world don't live like in the west They don't think that every problem has a solution. They don't even think there's a problem They don't have This illusion of freedom for to do what to do nothing They realize that western people are slaves Slaves of a plutocratic elite They realize how brainwashed westerners are I know because I lived in africa for four years I worked in asia for three years south korea I know these regions I grew up in the middle east among arabs Amadjou essentially a middle eastern tribe We don't think like the westerners You are sick people You are sick mothers. You just don't realize it You are so inside the pathology that you think the pathology is health This is the state of health You don't realize that what you call health is the most extreme psychotic fantastic sickness and Narcissists and psychopaths Narcissists and psychopaths realize this So they are taking advantage of you of your gallability Of your base rate fallacy of your Strivings of your inspirations Of your grandiosity Of your narcissism They take advantage of this You are sheeple You are retards And narcissists and psychopaths are taking advantage of this pretending to be gurus Or cult leaders or indian mystics or other mystics or public intellectuals or life coaches When it comes to mental illness and how the west treats mental illness and especially psychosis as well There's different different countries that treat psychosis and see psychosis and also almost a spiritual way What the west likes to do is over medicate as you know with antidepressants and anti anxiety medications There's a huge problem with benzos in in the u.s. And even in canada Is this part of the problem that you see as well as us trying to seek a solution for every type of mental state and pathologize Normal human emotion. How do you see mental? I guess the one question is how do you see mental illness being treated in the u.s. Versus the other countries that you live in First of all, you are very right the underlying philosophy that every problem has a solution And that essentially everything can and it can become and is a problem because There are two pernicious processes at work Everything is problematic problematized. Everything becomes a problem. Everything is cast as a problem And then if it's a problem, you need to seek the solution And then there are solution providers who make a lot of money So We take conditions that are not problematic in themselves We problematize them. We make we convert them into problems And that gives rise to cottage cottage industries or huge industries like the pharmaceutical industry That cater to these totally invented problems Now I can prove to you That people are inventing problems where they are none In 1950 The first 1950 to 1954 The first edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual was published edition one It was a comprehensive list of all the mental health conditions then known to humanity It had a hundred pages In 2013 The fifth edition not the 500 edition the fifth edition of the same book was published We are talking 63 years later This time the manual contained 1000 pages show me any other fields Where the number of problems went up 10 times So obviously we are creating problems out of nothing Out of nothing Out of we are you know, it's whole cloth. It's nothing Um, well, where does where does narcissism fall in that in the in the dsm versus the dsm 5? It was is that when was that kind of created? Um, when was that problem created or could you even say? Discovered were these I guess a mental illness isn't really a discovery when you just put a label on it And you put it in a book was narcissism. It was there a time of discovery for it What does a profound a more profound question? What in 1954? 90 percent of all mental health conditions were unknown Because that's that's what it means If the book in in 54 had 100 pages and then 60 years later the book had 1000 pages It means in 1954 We were not aware of 90 percent of mental health conditions simple But of course it's nonsense absolute nonsense Narcissism made its first appearance in 1980 in the third edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual And then was enlarged in the text revision in 1987 And it took its final form in The text revision of the fourth edition in 2000 And then in the fifth edition They kept The text they kept the diagnostic criteria the nine diagnostic criteria of the fourth edition But they suggested an alternative. They call it call it the alternate alternate model Alternate model of narcissism They suggested an alternative diagnostic text for narcissism, which is much better much improved Much more flexible much more dimensional Captures the spectrum not only specific, you know, because in daggers in the edition four There was a list a bullet list with nine criteria Also pretty idiotic. I'll come to it in a minute, but in the DSM five. It's a text. It's like a story. It's a narrative So there's no bullet list. It's like Read the text and then identify the narcissists and I prefer this This approach much more and also the information in this text is much much improved much better than the DSM four The problem with the DSM four one of the problems with the DSM four Is that it was what we call polythetic Let me try to explain the problem Imagine that you are narcissists and I'm a narcissist not too difficult to imagine but still imagine both of us are narcissists And we go to we go to a clinician We go to a psychologist. Are you still there? Yeah Okay You go to a psychologist. I wouldn't I wouldn't blame you if you were to walk away. So So we both go to a psychologist now We remember there are nine criteria for narcissistic personality disorder and it's enough that you satisfy five If you satisfy five out of the nine, you're diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder Now imagine that both of us go to the psychologists to to a diagnostician and you You satisfy conditions one through five one two three four five And I satisfy conditions five to nine five six seven eight nine We are both diagnosed with the same diagnosis But we have almost nothing in common. Do you see that? I would see that as a problem Yes, it's a problem. And so problems do have solutions It's a polyesthetic problem. So In under the dsm4 There could be two people diagnosed with the same diagnosis, but which have nothing in common clinically Because you were diagnosed with criteria one to five and I'm diagnosed with criteria five to nine So we share only criteria and five But nothing else Right. I'm radically different to you Because my criteria are different You're radically different to me and still we have the same diagnosis So dsm4 was very badly constructed. It's called the polyesthetic problem dsm5 is is better. The text is improved Well, the text now has so a thousand pages Saying that we've we've created these problems. Is it more just Is it to do with semantics and people just helping to identify and put a label on something Like is it supposed to be just a guide of of diagnosis? Is there is there an issue with that? It's got to do with money the dsm Was created at the behest of the insurance companies The medical insurance companies and later hmo's and health maintenance organizations and similar They insisted to codify To codify mental health disorders so they can reimburse the doctors for the time So the dsm is an insurance insurance guide And of course the more behaviors And traits you medicalize the more behaviors and traits you pathologize The more money you can claim from insurance companies So the profession has a huge incentive to medicalize and pathologize day-to-day behaviors Which are common probably totally healthy Right and that's where I see a massive massive issue in in mental health in in the west Sorry, sorry go on No, no, no, you're making a pertinent point. Go ahead. Well, that's a massive problem and something I'm totally against I was put on antidepressants and I got off this year I was on them for 12 years and in hindsight if I look back I say You know if I saw a different doctor You could have a completely different outcome What someone might say well, what's going on in your life? I know there's a lot going on this emotion of depression Let's let it ride for a little longer. Here's some things to think about here's some things to do rather than Rather than give a prescription but in the west People come in with a problem and now I see this now like you expect A solution right away You expect to leave with something tangible something you can take something. Okay. I have a problem This will make me feel better. This will make the problem go away This is the magic bullet. Right. So how does this work in in other countries? Is the dsm still is that in india and people are going in and and given antidepressants as much as the us Well, unfortunately, yes, and the reason is laziness human laziness and so it's much easier for psychiatrists to prescribe pills Than to actually sit with you and talk to you and and get his hands around your Highly specific situation idiosyncratic situations and then help you help you Not help the condition Psychiatrists and psychologists treat conditions No longer treat patients The the guy who gave you the pill Gave the pill not to you but to your depression Was treating not you but your depression Exactly And that's bad the thing is It's antidepressants are an excellent example of the grandiose narcissistic hubris of the profession Because we know nothing about depression I repeat we know Nothing about depression End of story here. I summarize for you a whole semester That's right. We we do not know Anything about the connection between brain biochemicals and depression I again summarize for you a whole semester Only 10 years ago 12 years ago Did we discover That the neurotransmitter Serotonin Which is heavily involved in the regulation of moodlability Only 12 years ago we discovered that 90 percent that's 90 percent Of serotonin is not actually produced in the brain But in the intestines We have been giving to people to patients like you For 40 years, that's four decades We have been giving you Pills which regulated serotonin reabsorption the way you process serotonin in your brain We've been giving you these pills Not knowing that actually the majority of serotonin is not in the brain That's how advanced our knowledge was And today today we are reconceiving of depression Is possibly a gastrointestinal problem I mean And that is an exactly an example of what I'm saying When there's a confluence of narcissism and psychopathy When whole Professions are taken over by narcissists and psychopaths Because listen The pharmaceutical companies and the executives at the head of the pharmaceutical companies They are unscrupulous They know this what I just told you they knew it. They knew it all along They knew we don't know anything But they wanted your money that's psychopathic behavior It's utterly psychopathic behavior Psychopaths are goal oriented Goal focused They want your money. They will kill your mother to get your money. They will kill you to get your money They will kill anyone on the way in their way to get the money They are so This is an example of institutionalized psychopathy and narcissism Why narcissism the grandiosity we didn't know anything but we pretended to know we lied We lied and we faked and we feigned knowledge that we did not have On the one hand and on the other hand, we sold you we gave you for 12 years Probably a totally useless product Knowing full well that it is probably useless And that is psychopathic behavior Why because we wanted your money directly through the insurance company doesn't matter Especially therefore I think that that's great and something that i'm so passionate about especially If there's one thing I do know a lot about it is antidepressants and the history of depression and anxiety And now gut health. So what was key is is getting off of antidepressants was a few supplements, but also I'm getting rid of dairy gluten refined sugar and caffeine and doing that rigorously But but this is something that's so interesting and so sad at the same time. So you have you almost want Narcissists at this other level of of western medicine where Where we educate people on gut health and away from antidepressants like that is the power imbalance that I see And what happens is when we try to educate the public Google is really the worst way to do that now because to rank on google It's not about how great the work is how great the study is and no matter how true the study or information is It's people who are trained in seo who can rank on google when people type type in how to deal with depression Of course, it's the person who puts out the most content the fastest with the most keywords gets ranked So what you have is is pharmaceutical companies will rise to the top And people not with the latest and greatest studies. So we're skewing What information people are actually getting in getting in and needing at the time That's always been the case by the way in academe forget google in academe The importance The ranking of articles academic articles depends crucially on how many times they are cited by other academic articles So you have mafias You have mafia mob like Structures mob like networks cause an Oscar Of academics who cite each other all the time multiply In order to gain the algorithm which determines which academic Article which paper would appear first and second and third it's well known and it precedes it preceded google by like few decades So there's a lack Of is is fairness even the right word a lack of of equal opportunity In the world it's narcissism So it goes back to narcissism. It's narcissism because when you rank things based on popularity That's the quint quintessence of narcissism Narcissism is narcissism is about popularity. How many eyeballs you have how do you monetize these eyeballs? How do you rank yourself? How many likes you get? How many this is popular is popularity contest relative positioning. It's narcissism. It's only narcissism So today if I want to to find the best conceivable article about a specific topic I will go there are there are no search engines for academic papers I will use such a dedicated search engine, but I know the results Don't have to do with the quality of the paper But with how many connections the author has how many personal friends he has And how many of them he got to cite his article in their article right reciprocally, you know It's all gained But it's gained it's gained because of two things Narcissism and psychopathy It's gained because you want popularity. So this is a narcissistic behavior and it's gained because of money Which is a psychopathic behavior It's one trying to tell you all the time narcissists and psychopaths hijack every bloody thing academic publishing They hijack google they hijack social media They hijack hijack your need to find meaning in your life. They hijack your freedom. They They take over but not in a coordinated way. They are like water. They seep in It's surreptitiously Stentively and you know what very often inadvertently they just gravitate They're like inert substances. They gravitate, you know, there's money there. There's money there. So they gravitate there There's popularity. There's There so they there's narcissistic supply. There's I can be admired with this group. So you know I followed the career I made a personal study I didn't publish it but I made a personal kind of personal study I followed the career of 10 public intellectuals um and I saw how their output Is absolutely determined by the amount of adulation and admiration they receive from specific population segments So they start off Trying to cater to the needs of a certain population This population is not responsive Doesn't adulate them doesn't admire them is not interested in their work or in them So they try another population And that population is responsive. So suddenly Everything they write everything they say every interview they give every lecture and every seminar are geared towards that other population the second population Their entire output changes dramatically very often they contradict their earlier work They make statements. They know the the the admiring population want to hear They shape shift they morph because they don't exist. They're like smoke and mirrors smoke and mirrors great definition of narcissism So you're no longer spreading Truth you even believe it's exactly what you want other people to hear You're one that narcissistic supply. Uh-huh. Whatever whatever it takes. Yeah, whatever it takes. Listen I if I were to move to the United States, I would become anti-racist a prominent anti-racist Anti-racist activist because it works gets me supply next thing climate change for against whatever works I would move. I don't know where to a country where racism is the is the doctrine is the is embedded I don't know apartheid South Africa. I would become a champion of racism. I mean who cares Whatever gets me attention adulation admiration support You know And I don't want to mention names, but I've been following for example the work of one of the boss prominent public intellectuals Maybe the most prominent I read his first book and I read his second book. So you can see the shift So I was going to bring that up just as we come to a close and I believe I know who you're talking about You may have taken a few jabs Throughout the podcast. I know who you're speaking of and and what what issue do you see with with this intellectual? No, I I I never I never Kind of target specific individuals because I think Um, I think this intellectual and other intellectuals. They are symptoms. They're symptoms. They're tips of an iceberg They are representative. They're rafi social trends and so on. They so it's on their fault if you wish It's they are the the growths. They are the tumors on a very sick body So it's like accusing the tumor for the death of the body. The body is dying decaying So of course when the body is dying and decaying all kinds of vermin flourish it's normal How can you be a public intellectual as you say you follow these these 10 people that maybe gain popularity Is it is it almost inevitable to to be more narcissistic or to To claim yourself as godly when you have millions and millions of people who now know that you exist And that you've helped millions of people around the world. Is that just not inevitable to see yourself and act differently? Yes, it is. It's a it's called acquired situation of narcissism and I I beg to differ with the world helps um You induce change in these people that they self delusionally believe help them You drew them further away from reality and more into fantasy land Fantasy is comforting fantasy is fuzzy and wonderful and warm You feel great in fantasy and these people are peddling fantasies Peddling delusions peddling lies that you want to hear telling you aggrandizing you making you feel good. There are drugs these People the gurus the life coaches the public intellectuals the wannabe philosophers and the real fellow. They are They are drugs. They are the exact equivalent of class one drugs They get you addicted and while you consume them You feel wonderful And so you want to consume them more And of course it makes them feel godlike because you can do anything to you They have captivated your mind in the worst conceivable sense They are like body snatchers It's really bad out there Can a public intellectual be anything else? Well with all modesty. Yes. I am an example I'm a minor very minor public intellectual, but I'm still public intellectual I mean, I I have 30 million views on my webs on my youtube channel. That's not a small amount I would say that's very impressive and In due a result of that could result in I guess extreme Narcissism isn't that a source of narcissistic supply for you? How do you how do you kind of control that? How do you deal with that? No? No, and you notice for example in this conversation I was true to myself I did not tell you what you wanted to hear nor did I tell the listeners what they wanted to hear On the contrary. I disparaged you. I I I insisted That you confront the truth and the reality of course as I see them. Yeah, I'm not good. I'm not good. I may be wrong But it's my reality and it's my truth And I will not budge Or change an iota To gratify you to satisfy you to make you my follower my fan my adherent. Fuck that I am wedded to reality and to the truth. That is the sacred obligation of a true public intellectual Prophets in the bible were the first public intellectuals And they got stoned and they got killed they got executed Jesus was a loss of them. Yes This was this is the obligation of people who have access to the public To not to lead the public astray to the best of their ability these people have an obligation To describe reality and the truth Never mind how painful it is never mind how discordant Never mind how disagreeable and never mind how hated they become and I am very hated I'm a global hate figure I'm a global hate figure because I will always tell you the truth Even if it makes you depressed and you hate my guts and you want to kill me and many do I mean at least verbally So why the hate specifically is is there certain content that you've put out or things you've written because I say the truth If I if I for example the the other day I was I gave a seminar to a packed auditorium I gave a seminar to a packed auditorium of self-styled victims And I told them What bothers you is that you're interchangeable. You mean nothing to the narcissist You're replaceable. You're commoditized You're like grains of rice. You're indistinguishable. Well, this doesn't care at all about you And don't aggrandize yourself that the narcissist has chosen you isn't chosen you Your sources of supply. So he used you and like wet clinics. He trashed you They hated me. They started to scream. You are scum. I'm kidding. You know Wow, but But it is the truth And I have a sacred obligation to say the truth If Some other public intellectual were on the stage Some other life coach some other guru They would have never said what I said Never in a million years. They would have said what I said. They would have said I'll tell you what they would have said They would have said poor victims Abuses are horrible. They're demons. They are they should be, you know They would have gone with the flow They would have reflected mirror the audience to itself. They would have told people what they want to what they want to hear That's a crime That's a thought crime. That's an intellectual crime These public intellectuals that I'm alluding to and referring to they are traitors They are traitors to their conscience They are traitors to intellect. They're traitors to academia. They're traitors to knowledge and human progress They have betrayed the people who follow them Because they take them further away from the truth and from reality and deeper and deeper into the pathologized resources of fallacious fantasies Do you consider there to be just an objective reality or there's only the subjective reality of each individual? No, when I when I use the word reality I'm referring to mainly Social realities and so on that are easily Analyzable with statistical tools and so on so forth. There is a huge debate. I have appeased in philosophy among many others There's a huge debate about reality as as material material reality and the the contribution of Of subjective the subjective component into material reality and it's a whole different a whole different story I'm not referring to any of this referring to social reality. For example, the fact that if you're born poor Most likely you will die poor Not only that not only that but in the last 20 years Most likely you will die poorer than your parents That's fair end of story Why lie to the people? Why tell them why tell them? Yes, you can be rich. You get you cannot be rich You cannot be rich. Actually, you will end your life poorer than your parents why Because less than one in a million According to statistics ends up life With 10 times the wealth of his parents Can you be this one in a million? Of course you can But this is not not the life coaches are saying The coaches are not saying listen one in a million of you will succeed They tell you all of you will succeed. Just follow what and follow my advice follow my rules And then all of you will become rich. Yeah Well, that's why you know, and I noticed the change within myself when I started reading First of all the happiest people the most content people aren't in the self-help book aisle, right? But I started reading those and I felt that I was getting actually less content and feeling worse Reading self-help books and I read them for years as to look for You know the ultimate solution for depression a new way to think about things And kind of when you stop You actually feel better when you remove yourself from other people's I wouldn't say orders, but expectations of what life should be like and what your life should be The self-help industry is is definitely One that could be called, you know Sick and and and taking advantage of people. I agree with you It's aptly named. It's self-help. It helps the author Nice It's it's so true. So I just want to just Not challenge you but ask you since you've you've studied philosophy of phd and philosophy So we talk about the this this constant culture of seeking solutions But is that not what philosophy has been doing since ancient Greece is the ultimate question of who am I the existence of us? Why are we here? These are awesome questions that that tickle the mind and I absolutely love Is that not just a question to finally seek a a solution? Or are there certain questions that are just not worth asking? No, philosophy is not about answers Oh, definitely definitely not about solutions Philosophy is about formulating the right questions That's what all the major philosophers have been doing since Plato and uh, it's totally socrates, of course. Socrates the Socratic method is about questions questioning so Philosophies about this what has happened In the starting in the 17th century Philosophy started to be forked or to actually fragment And you started to have branches of philosophy which were concerned with solutions So for example one branch of philosophy later became physics But initially it was known as philosophy of nature and then when it became clear that a philosophy of nature dealt with solutions not with questions philosophy as a discipline divorced To this very day most countries of the world There's no separate faculty of psychology in the university It's it's a branch of the faculty. It's part of the department in the faculty of philosophy Psychology used to be a part of philosophy But when psychology at the beginning of the 20th century started to or the end of the 19th century started to be interested in solutions It separated from philosophy any time Any time philosophers started to be interested in solutions They seized to be philosophers. They became physicists. They became mathematicians. They became psychologists. They acquired a different identity Philosophy deals with posing the right questions And posing the right questions so that maybe other branches of knowledge will attempt to find Answers not solutions by the way answers Why not solutions? Because the answers are always wrong The basic the the fundamental the most profound assumptions of science Is that it approximates reality it approximates truth science can never attain it It's what we call asymptotic It can never attain truth All the answers in science all the answers in science all the theories in science all the everything we think we know We know one thing for sure Is not true The only thing we know for sure is that whatever we know today is not true And that is that is the essence of science Uh, is it is it fair? Have I judged you correctly to say that you're an atheist? No, atheism atheism is a form of religion It's anything that involves belief Is a religion or an ideology which is a distortion of religion a secular religion So with your view on fantasy and and the staying in reality with what it presents us Do you believe in in a higher power or in a god is is being Jewish as well? Is there you have an affinity for that beautiful old testament? I do my best to avoid terms that can never be defined Never mind how much how much you try So I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know what is higher power as I have no idea what it means life energy or soul Or you know So I try not to waste my time on terms that cannot be defined because I believe that in the absence Of mutually agreed terminology no Reason reasonable or rational discourse is possible. You know what? No discourse is possible not even mystical discourse I mean you need to agree on the language Communication is critical If you don't want to devolve into solipsism if you don't want to you know Cut yourself out of the world So I have no idea what is god I've doubt very much if anyone does Never mind how how many people will protest And I have no idea what is a higher power So I I therefore cannot relate to your question because it contains words which are meaningless Do you follow the the guidelines of of Judaism? Is that fair to ask? The guidelines of Judaism in which in which areas? Um, I guess the the Sabbath Why would I follow? Why would I follow anyone's guidelines the the or anything the Ten Commandments? Ten Commandments are reasonable distillation of civilized Civilized coexistence they useful in other words, right? But this is something that that you don't take I'm not gonna say takes it, but you don't put a lot of thought into it. It's it's not really important Since it's hard to define and there's not overwhelming evidence for what's out there You mean god? Yeah Well, I didn't put lately a lot of thought into the tooth fairy As well So no, it's a Nonsensical term not in the sense that it's nonsense, but nonsense. It has no sense It's a nonsensical. It's an empty. We call it in mathematics an empty set. It's a It's a combination of letters that convey nothing So in the mind of a Narcissist since they're creating as you said like almost creating this false self in this god figure Is it more likely for is there also religious affiliation that they that they live with do they believe in god? Or they just believe in themselves now I think you should differentiate between god as an objective entity Which is meaningless because no one can define what is good. So the whole question is meaningless And god is a piece of fiction That affects people's lives God has an existence of course God has has affected people's lives and people's death people's deaths Uh throughout millennia People died for god People went to the cross for god people talk about god people like you and me for example, so god has an existence as a very very riveting and and and stimulating and motivating piece of fiction So if you're asking whether the narcissist Believes in this piece of fiction, which is called god No, because he has his own he has his own god and if he pretends to believe in god It's in order to manipulate people So he will say that he believes in god because it gives him access to parishioners that he can abuse Or to or it makes him a holy man and then he can fuck many young girls or he you know so In that ways The narcissist will make use of god as he will make use of anti racism as he will make use of racism As he will make use of weapons as he will make use of anti weapons He will make use of anything whatever works. I mean if god works, why not? Good for god Yeah, I guess i'm still stuck if if I could rewind of of what we chatted about i'm still stuck on on treatment for like I understand and i'm totally Opposed to giving people pills and knowing that there's other solutions Or other ways to think about Depression anxiety and different types of mental illness when it comes to narcissism We you said we we'd look for a solution, but there there's no solution So when when someone who makes those guidelines of the dsm 5 and they they go into a session with a therapist psychologist psychiatrist, whatever it may be Oh, what happens in that session? It can you be quote-unquote cured of narcissistic personality disorder? No, there's no there's no cure and so I I came up with the new type of treatment that ameliorates some aspects and eliminates other aspects of narcissism but narcissism cannot be cured because um, it's uh As I said, it's uh, the narcissist is stuck at a certain mental age And there is no way to to reverse this. There's no way to make him an adult And it's not only a child but a traumatized child. So it's a very very deficient and problematic and And destroyed child. It's a damaged damaged goods broken And so we can't put we can't put Humpty Dumpty back together what we can do In with some treatment modalities we can modify behaviors That's uh with medication we can reduce symptoms like Perhaps obsessive compulsive disorder Or behaviors with my kind of treatment. I I called I dubbed it cold therapy I can eliminate the false self and grandiosity But this is not the narcissism. Narcissism is uh A traumatized child And this child is stuck and will never grow There's no way to convert a child into an adult when the adult is 60 years old, yeah, right But you treat the the child in these sessions. That's the only way to have effective treatment Yes, I in a cold therapies is a combination of techniques borrowed from trauma therapies And from child psychology the cold therapy doesn't include a single technique from adult psychology It's actually child psychology adopted for traumatized children And we with that we have a lot of experience and with that we are very successful actually We treat traumatized children children after sexual abuse after or children who have survived the natural disaster or children in famine with famine We we have we're very successful at treating traumatized children So I borrowed these techniques put them together added a few 25 techniques that I invented and put all this package together And I'm treating narcissists As traumatized children and taking away The edge of the trauma and I'm teaching them that grandiosity And the false self are no longer necessary The minute they are not necessary there's a principle called economy economy of the mind mental economy When something is not necessary it dies automatically When I show this children that they can cope without grandiosity and false self grandiosity and false self die automatically But grandiosity and false self are only elements in narcissism Narcissism is a is a state of being And so There's there is no way to take the narcissists and making something else. It's it's not like sex change. Yeah. Yeah That is unbelievably interesting and I think I could ask you probably another hundred questions and we could Speak all day, but I would love to have you on for for a second podcast my life. My life expectancy is limited. I'm 59 years old, so We may have to take this into account. I hope I look as good as you do at age 59, sam Everyone please check out sam's youtube channel. All the links are in the description below Maligan self-love there was an updated version. I saw on amazon Yeah, the 10th edition was published But it was published in 2015 five years And it's a 10th edition and are there things that you would you know, it's a few years old now Are there things that are you could add already years later? Oh, I publish I publish updates in the form of separate books. So if you go to amazon my amazon store, you will see all the All the recent books and I've just published analysis is a reader in collaboration with another psychologist. So Amazing, you you can find all this on amazon just type some back in and then ignore the results. Yeah He's ranking on google everyone. He's gotten all these academic readers to cite him. That's why you're ranking Um, everyone the links are in the description for for sam's amazon store his youtube channel Um, anything else you want to to tell the audience before we before we turn off here Ah The mic is yours anything at all give it up your strength The proof of your strength and your resilience And your only hope for contentment the happiness is too much to ask but contentment Is if you stop fighting It is the fight that drives you to pathologies the fight pathologizes you Everyone is encouraging you to fight Everything everyone is encouraging you to change Everyone tells you that if you don't change and you don't succeed you don't fight. It's only your fault Give it up forget all this Forget what you can do with life Just live life Just be End of story being is a huge accomplishment Just existing is a huge accomplishment and Stop catering to your grandiosity Stop believing that you can have an impact or that there are solutions Or even or even that there are problems There is so much to do You know in a typical day just get up and do it Don't think don't overthink Don't overanalyze Don't develop this delusion That you are in control that you can make a change That things can get better or worse or anything It's beyond you You are insignificant Your life is meaningless It's all nothingness Get on with it. That's my message