 and like a bad coin here I am again your blue professor of psychology my name is some back mean and I'm the author of malignant self-love narcissism revisited and countless other books which no one myself included is ever read so today we're going to discuss psychopaths and narcissists under the radar masquerading in camouflage as something else but in order to understand how this works we first need to discuss defenses alloplastic defenses versus autoplastic defenses you can't say that I'm not exposing you to $20 words recently autoplastic defenses simply means blaming oneself for the consequences and outcomes of one's own choices and decisions as well as blaming oneself for the outcomes of the choices that other people make and even for circumstances beyond one's control in other words blaming myself or blaming yourself for every everything and for everyone whatever other people do it's your fault whatever mishaps and misfortunes occur must have been you even when circumstances change I don't know natural disasters you should have taken greater care and you should have been more careful to avoid the unfavorable consequences autoplastic defenses are a common type of defense in neurosis and they are constructed they're contrasted with alloplastic defenses alloplastic defenses is the opposite blaming other people blaming other people for the predictable consequences and outcomes of your own choices and decisions you make bad choices bad decisions you're never guilty you're never to blame you're never ashamed you never accept responsibility it's never your fault you're never wrong you never apologize other people are to blame they made it happen they conspired they were lazy or indolent they were stupid they underestimated or overestimated or did not estimate or something always blaming other people institutions the weather god universe destiny and of course the Chinese comedy spotting alloplastic defenses are a feature of cluster B personality disorders especially narcissistic borderline and psychopathic antisocial personality disorder examples of alloplastic defenses it is their fault they made me do it they should have been more careful they should have been less gullible frequently you talk to a psychopathic corner artist and he says they had it coming they had it coming they should have been more cautious they should have been more wary they should have done their due diligence they should have done some research it's of my fault that they are naive bumbling fools indeed but there are situations where autoplastic defenses mix with alloplastic defenses this is especially true where cognitive distortions are involved cognitive distortions such as grandiosity example there are many people who are for example people pleases there are many people who are emotionally disregulated or delusional or paranoid narcissistic or passive aggressive or depressive or anxious or or you get a negative attitude there are many people with problems in functioning problems flaws in character and pathologies of the self but all these psychopathologies sometimes serve as excuses as covers for psychopathic immoral anti-social and narcissistic acts and misconduct and this is a unique combination of both alloplastic and autoplastic defenses similarly mental ill people would say I am the victim of my own proclivities my own weaknesses my own lack of mental health my own character defects I'm a victim all these things are me of course I'm the one who is having the flawed character I'm the one with the personality disorder I'm the one whose anxiety drives him to act impulsively and recklessly I'm the one whose emotional dysregulation causes him to be aggressive and hurtful to other people I'm the one but these things overpower me they overwhelm me I can't help I can't help it it's stronger than me so in a way it's me autoplastic defense but it's not my fault alloplastic defense in this case internal structures internal constructs internal introjects internal processes serve as some kind of outside influence it's as if you as if you were to say in the Middle Ages I'm possessed I have demons inside me these demons are responsible yes they're inside me I my body is there about my mind is the shrine of these demons that's where they reside but these demons are not me in some way they're not who I am so they are responsible for my misbehavior and misconduct mental illness is the new demonology psychiatry is the new form of demonology so instead of demons we say personality disorders so it's blaming your illness for your misbehavior blaming your character for your misbehavior your parents you upbringing so it's a combination of autoplastic and alloplastic defense people are leveraging the the the excuse is that people are leveraging taking advantage of my frailties I never do wrong I never to blame I'm never responsible for my actions there are higher internal forces at work I'm as much a victim as the people I victimize they need to believe there's a need to believe on both parties in both sides of the abyss both sides of the equation the abuser needs to believe that he is essentially a good person a good person who is imperfect owing to his or her mental illness and personality constitution so the message is or the the underlying signal is it's a form of virtue signaling the underlying signal is I'm a good person but I hurt people and I hurt people because I cannot help it I'm the victim of these forces which are stronger than me please forgive me please help me to help myself please restrain me somehow so this is on the abuser side on the victim side there's also a need to believe it's the need to believe in the essential goodness of people it's a need to believe that the world is essentially just and structured it's a naive kind of belief of course but it's essential for daily functioning we need to believe that people will not act maliciously for no reason at all or even when there is a reason we need to believe that the world has some kind of underlying order which is intimately connected with a sense of justice we need to believe all this and another need is to not feel like a victim we don't want to feel stupid no one wants to believe that his judgment is wrong no one wants to suspect that he misapprehends people no one wants to think that she can can and do fall in the hands of predators or con artists people don't want to believe that they had been victimized and these needs the need to believe in some kind of some quiddity of goodness in people they need to believe that the world is structured and just they need the need to not feel like a victim these needs coalesce they come together and they result in a cognitive dissonance when people we have trusted and role models misbehave when they betray us there's a great break in the order of the world the unease is extreme the anxiety is profound there's a sense of all pervasive discomfort and in a conflict that ruptures us asunder tears us apart and we need to get get to grips with this lest we lose it lest we split we we slip over the edge and crash way down below so to allay this to mitigate to ameliorate this we receive ourselves in order to overcome this internal upheaval this inner upset when we are confronted with the truth we lie to ourselves we reframe so for example we say well maybe she hurt me maybe she did me wrong but she's flawed she's weak she's human she means well she's just unfortunately mentally ill and she's so in need of love or we say she is a people pleaser she's emotionally dysregulated she's merely being depressed or anxious she's delusional she's labile in short she didn't hurt me she is not the one who hurt me she's not the one who devastated me it's her disorder it's her mental illness it's her character flow it's her personality in this array whoops the dissonance is gone now you don't blame yourself for having this judge another person you don't blame the other person even there's this mysterious third essence mysterious entity ectoplasm of a ghost the ghost of mental illness in the air she didn't do anything to me her borderline personality did he didn't abuse me he's people pleasing tendency did so no one is to blame and there's no dissonance but in reality of course she did victimize him he did damage you they did pray on you she to say that she did not mean it it is not her fault it was stronger than her you see this is to deceive yourself because everyone has a choice ultimately and everyone can tell right from wrong unless they are severely psychotic the thing is that this need to deny that you had become a victim that you had been victimized this need is coupled with grandiose autoplasmic defendant defenses the tendency to blame yourself for anything that had gone wrong because you need to feel in control your grandiosity tells you you should be supreme you should be above you should be in charge you should be the puppet master and so if you are in control you made it happen if she acted immorally and hurt you to the quick and ruined you and devastated you with her actions it was all your fault you made her do it you caused it to happen you're not the victim you're the victimizer you're the abuser so everything is fine you're the one who took advantage of the character flaws and the mental illness of other people and so if you made it happen if you orchestrated the whole thing if you took charge and if you were in control then you're still safe to restore this sense of safety you need to reframe everything in terms of control and this is again an autoplasmic defense so as you can see autoplasmic defenses and alloplasmic defenses intermingle are very often entwined they very often interact with each other and in quite a few cases they coexist they are co-extant it is wrong to say that people have only autoplasmic defenses or only alloplasmic defenses I gave you an example that if you're grandiose you're likely to deploy autoplasmic defenses in order to restore your sense of control and if you are mentally ill or believe yourself to be mentally ill you're likely to deploy alloplasmic defenses directed at yourself you're likely to say my mental illness made me do it not me as if your mental illness was not you as if your mental illness is not a part of you and this is of course fiction but very useful fiction allowing you to split autoplasmic defenses from alloplasmic defenses and also to split yourself in the middle there is you and you're all good and there is your mental illness and your mental illness is all bad and it is this bad part of you your mental illness that is responsible for your abusive misconduct and egregious misbehavior this part of you this dark side this shadow whatever you want to call it he's it is to blame not you it's kind of self-directed self-splitting which allows you to entertain suppose simultaneously alloplastic and autoplasmic defenses so the field is a lot a lot more murky than Freud had believed and others later it seems that we all deploy multiple arrays and cascades of alloplasmic and autoplasmic defenses intended to preserve cognitive distortions and to reframe reality in a way that will not cause us undue trauma and will not push us to decompensate and act out