 Is I know that you like you said 98% you're gonna just be kind of teaching You know as you do Would you do this in a way we now we have a global audience? Can you Can you speak as if you were doing a diagnosis of Americans? Can you do that for us today? Because that's really the direction that I I Want to go because we have a large listening audience I feel like we're in a bubble and I feel like we cannot see ourselves We cannot objectively see ourselves right now as it relates to narcissism and you're outside of us. You're an expert Can you help us? Well, I'm not sure it'll be of help sometimes introspection and self-awareness Counterproductive, but I will do my best to provide it's just profound what you have taught and I I know you know, thank you. Yeah, I know I know you understand this but literally To to be able to sit and talk to a person who's been influential in the work that you do Again, I just want to extend my thanks. Don't worry about it My pleasure to be with you and I'm grateful to you for having me It's important to discuss these subjects and I think you're doing this for us to the community and to People at large all over the world for sure We owe each other credit. I Like to welcome the mental speak family to the to the broadcast today I'm your host Latanya Davidson licensed master social worker mental health therapist and social psychologist and I Have on I'm honored to have on this gentleman. It's been Many years for myself that I've been researching the topic of narcissism I Know that right now Particularly for Americans now we have a global audience but Americans are in a very unique situation where we are What I believe locked in in a bubble that is not allowing us for Perspective political aspects social aspects I Think it requires us to Bring in those who can help us start to make sense to to gain awareness to gain a greater consciousness about Who we are what we become what we are in the present and I really don't think we're able to see it objectively this gentleman is an expert on the topic actually many topics but specifically the topic of narcissism and He is going to educate us today. He's going to enlighten us today And hopefully we can be courageous enough to Listen, I don't think we're listening these days I think we need to take the time to listen to learn and hopefully to apply the knowledge that's given to us today So I would like to welcome to the show Mr. Sam Vaknin and I want you to tell us about yourself your background He says he's going to do 98% of the talking and I'm just going to sit back and let him indulge us Welcome to the show Sam Thank you. Thank you for having me You made me you made me sound like an Indian Indian guru which Which I'm not I My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm a professor of psychology in several universities. I've written a series of books about Personality of which is malignant self-love Narcissism revisited in its 10th edition. I've written it in 1995. I started to write it in 1995 When there was utterly no awareness of narcissism especially of the pathological kind narcissism had been bandied around by cultural critics such as Christopher Lash by psychoanalysts Such as Kohut or Kernberg and so on but it's been limited to a very tiny circle of arcane scholars and And and no one simply knew about it layman definitely didn't 1995 I Released the genie. I left the genie out of the bottle And I had to create a whole new language to communicate to people who are not adept in psychology this question is being debated to this very day and I think it behooves us and would be also helpful to make a distinction between Pathological narcissism as a clinical Diagnostic entity the equivalent of tuberculosis or cancer of the mind on the one hand and in its in its most extreme form known as narcissistic personality disorder and narcissism as a societal cultural and historical organizing principle an explanatory Principle that allows us to understand the world around us So now system has these two facets and they are very often conflated and confused I Did I started my early work was with a clinical entity? I studied narcissistic personality disorder in individuals and in their interpersonal immunity Etc. Etc. Then I branched out into narcissism in politics and then from there into narcissism in in society as mediated today via technology This is a kind of general background of myself and my work Like you said, I feel like you were one of the pioneers of actually discussing the topic online When I was initially researching The topic again, I want to say maybe 2012 2013 there weren't a lot of a lot of people discussing This topic at all. It was pretty much your face was synonymous with With this topic Do you feel like you're a pioneer of of bringing narcissism to the forefront? I Was the only person to discuss narcissism online between 1997 and 2004. That's a fact I had the only website dedicated to narcissism. I had the only support group Dedicated to victims of narcissistic abuse and I coined 99% of the language. Everyone is using today I coined phrases such as narcissistic abuse. I coined the phrase Somatic narcissists cerebral narcissists no contact. I mean you name it. I did 99% of the language is mine ghosting Hoovering, I mean, it's all I had to there was no language and in the absence of languages or insight And in the absence of insight there's no change and no no ability to transform and to develop and to evolve and to avoid dangers So I had to first of all invent the language and then following the language I had to sort of disseminate it somehow the internet was very helpful, frankly the internet at that time was It's very little to do with the internet of shall we say Up to 2006 or 2007 these were two totally dissimilar technological phenomena The internet until 2007 was community oriented a bit altruistic a lot altruistic actually Had to do more with the dissemination of knowledge support With providing access with elevating people Intellectually emotionally and otherwise etc etc the internet after 2006 7 became much more narcissistic and Was was me focused became me focused and Later on I think this phase which is the third phase of evolution The internet is becoming psychopathic So the internet reflects major social trends. I For once don't I don't believe the technology engenders social trends I think it's the culmination and ratification of processes that take place in communities and in in other Organizational social units such as families nations Politics etc etc And I think what happened is as people became more and more narcissistic a fact that is documented in Quite a few studies most notably the studies of twinge and Campbell and others as People became more and more narcissistic. They demanded Empowerment they insisted on access They wanted Interaction with like-minded people in order to amplify and enhance The their omnipotence and omniscience and alleged or self-imputed omnipotence and omniscience and so on so there was a lot of grassroots peer pressure There's demand the supply and the internet had been utterly transformed within fewer than three years. I Watched the and I really appreciate the fly on the wall series I hope I hope you guys continue that you and your wife Just living Lydia's it was wonderful to be able to just kind of observe and engage But she made the point that you know, she herself was observing how Volatile it had become towards her and towards yourself and you spoke about The fact that human beings are now becoming more machine like more That left-brain kind of logical but to the point of of almost being an android themselves As far as the internet is concerned. Is that what you're saying? We're becoming more narcissistic as a result of our dependency on on technology No, I'm saying exactly the opposite thing. I'm saying the technology Had been created by these android people To gratify their needs and to amplify their alleged and self-imputed capacity Okay, I think what happened is I think what happened is As the number of people in the world increased as the population exploded When I was born, which is which is when the dinosaurs lost dinosaurs roamed the earth when I was born there were three billion and Today the seven point six billion. It's much more difficult to be noticed People need to feel that they are special that they're unique people want want to be seen they want to be noted that they are being seen That they are being observed that they are being noticed people and in the past a hundred years ago This was provided by the village. This was provided by the small town This was provided by family members extended family nuclear family see all these social units disintegrated Artillery disintegrated families are a long gun communities are nowhere to be seen Towns have have mushroomed and strolled and became megalopolises. I mean, it's very difficult today to be to be Embedded in any kind of social fabric and to receive from this social fabric the affirmation validation That one needs so What happened is a process called? Atomization I think with with early formative years of childhood the child needs to be seen because to be His survival depends on being seen if he's not noticed Attended to by his parents and caregivers a child can die So being seen is crucial But it's very difficult to be seen when there's seven point six billion others competing for scarce scarce resources and scarce attention so Nauseasism has been on the rise because people want to render themselves unique special noticeable Apart from the madding crowd And one way to do that is via social media and and powering technologies and so I think technologies reflect this need not the other way Technologies were created to cater to this rising tide of narcissism and People have become machine like when you say people have become machine like it's interesting in as early as 1970 There was a Japanese roboticist His name was Maury and he came up with the concept of the uncanny valley He said that the more robots resemble human beings The more ill at ease we feel in their presence The more uncomfortable we feel I mean the more the machine Resembles the clothes of the machine is to a human being the more uncomfortable we feel and this he called it the uncanny valley Taking off on Freud Freud coined the term uncanny so I think it's the same with the with the Narcissists we feel it ill at ease we feel uncomfortable Because narcissists are good imitations of human beings however, they are not Quiet fully human beings and the reason they are not fully human human is because of course Oracic empathy, I suggested few years ago that narcissists actually do have empathy cold empathy But cold empathy is machine-like It's it's cognitive. It's analytic. There's no emotional component in it And so narcissists lack empathy They don't understand the minds of other people. They don't have a theory of mind. They don't know what it is to be human Because they lack empathy it is why it is true empathy That we understand what it is to be human. They have they narcissists lack The common experience of being human They lack lack the archetype of all archetypes humanity and Instead what they do they create artificial mechanical ways of coping with this lack Sam, how do I reconcile? when you say that And this is the the struggle for myself whether it be personally or professionally that a lot of the The criteria for NPD it it sounds like people today though It sounds like empathy is gone. It sounds like or or empathy has to be learned as well it does that make sense like it's I Just I hear a lot of what seems to be the norm now But not under the diagnosis of of narcissistic personality disorder, how do I reconcile that well first of all the diagnosis The diagnostic and statistical manual edition 5 it was published in 2013 Suggested an alternative model Of of diagnosing narcissistic personality disorder and that alternative model Place emphasis on inability to attain intimacy a pronounced lack of empathy mood fluctuations or mood lability And a regulation of a sense of self-worth from the outside So that goal orientation is directed by the outside in other words the narcissist chooses what to do and what not to do In accordance with feedback from the outside that supports his grandiose self-image and self-deception He would embark on a course of action if the course of action is unlikely to yield this feedback He would abstain from it and this is the general description of diagnostic DSM 5 The DSM 4 is categorical in the sense that it provides nine diagnostic criteria pathological envy sense of entitlement lack of empathy exploitativeness Etc. Etc. Any five of these nine criteria are satisfied Then you have yourself a narcissist a problem with the Previous model the nine criteria model is that it were it was possible for two people To be diagnosed as narcissists and to share only one diagnostic criteria Criterion because you needed five out of nine. So one person could have one one to five and the other one could have five to nine So they would share only only the fifth criteria Made I mean force the committee of the diagnostic and statistical manual five To revamp the the whole perception of of narcissism the minute they did this They mean it the minute they revamped The way these they viewed narcissism it became a lot more general phenomenon As long as as the mental health profession limited itself to nine highly specific criteria Much fewer people Could have been considered narcissists, but the minute you start to talk in generalities The minute you move from categorical a categorical way of looking at narcissism To a dimensional way The minute you start to say well people who cannot have intimacy people who don't have empathy it applies to a much larger Shunk of the population by definition and indeed today I think I don't have numbers, but I think most people that I know Have narcissistic traits and narcissistic behaviors and narcissistic defenses And so I think narcissism is an all-pervasive phenomenon today Actually to such an extent That I think it is the organizing principle of our society civilization and culture In other words what I'm trying to say. I think we have created a civilization that is narcissistic and Because it's narcissistic and increasingly more psychopathic It is to be a narcissist It's a positive adaptation It's rewarding if you are a narcissist you end up being president of the United States Wow, if you are not a narcissist you end up being homeless Wow Survival it's become a survival mechanism. It's a positive adaptation. That's the precise term It's a positive adaptation in the sense that if you adopt this set of traits behaviors and behaviors You are positively reinforced. You are positively rewarded and you can accomplish things in other words You have an impact on your environment that is beneficial to you. That is in accordance with your goals and so on so Narcissism works to cut the long story short in a narcissistic psychopathic civilization Narcissism works. Yeah, and and anything that is enter anti narcissistic Does not work Empathy doesn't work Community doesn't work teamwork doesn't work It's now it's Donald Trump works. Yeah. Yeah, it's now considered a weakness to be empathetic Yeah, so here's the question when you as a therapist Because therapy is not devoid of values Therapy is is culture bound It's values oriented right when you try to to heal people to cure them You try to heal them and to cure them in according in accordance with some ideal type Freud called it ego ideal. You try to conform them to some mold or some set of criteria or some Imaginary ideal person which does not it who does not exist, of course or what we call normalcy. You try to make them more normal statistically speaking But if the very values change Then the whole profession of therapy should change Because what have you if empathy is not working anymore if it's counter productive It is if it is obstructive if it prevents the patient From obtaining her goals from realizing her life and life's ambitions and so on We ask only two questions in psychotherapy essentially the first question is Is the patient happy? Is the patient content? Is the patient ego symptonic? That's the first question and the second question we ask is the patient functional Is there any area or set of areas in the patient's life? Which are adversely affected by the patient's mental constitution? If the answer to these two questions If the answer is the patient is happy and she's fully functional Then her set of values is irrelevant In other words, how do you take Donald Trump? How do you convince Donald Trump that he needs help? Donald Trump is a psychopathic narcissist. Yeah extreme case malignant. I I vain vain gloriously consider myself an expert on that on To the understanding of this condition more than most people alive. Yes, and so I feel sufficiently qualified to make this statement Donald Trump is a seriously sick person utterly malignantly narcissistic bordering on psychopath probably also psychopath But how do you convince Donald Trump? to attend therapy Why would he attend therapy? his Mental state was beneficiary to him He made money. He dated gorgeous women He ended up president being president of the United States He I mean it worked for him. He's psychopathic narcissism was a positive adaptation It brought him success luck me and Everything else that he said as his life's goals He is functional He's functioning the sense that he realized his life's ambitions So he's functional and if you ask him people tell you of course. I'm happy. I mean He's equal to egos. He's symbolic. He doesn't feel bad. He doesn't feel uncomfortable. He doesn't feel ill it is He doesn't feel he has to change anything Why why on earth with someone like Donald Trump attend therapy? What does he have to learn from a loser like the like the therapist in? His world therapists are losers so and The problem is that more and more More and more our world is geared Towards Donald Trump's There is a Donald Trump in the Philippines. His name is Duterte. There's a Donald Trump in Brazil. His name is Bolsonaro There's a Donald Trump in Russia. His name is Putin and one in Turkey's Erdogan and one in Hungary. His name is Oban and one in Britain. His name is Lafouch Donald Trump's are proliferating Precisely because the structure of our civilization our societies our cultures our political institutions and where the money flows The transmission mechanisms of power and money the nexus All this is geared To promote to empower to enhance And to leverage and levitate people like Donald Trump Why on earth would they want to change? Our values are wrong They are outdated. They are old-fashioned. They no longer work And in this sense we are doing a disservice to our patients when we try to dissuade them from being narcissists Actually Actually in july 2017 The science magazine new scientist one of the two most important in the world the other one being scientific america So new scientists came up with a cover story Teach your children to be more narcissistic You have a whole group of academics Kevin Dutton Makobi others you have a whole group of academics scholars Pretty influential pretty famous pretty who insist That narcissism and psychopathy are good things That they are positive adaptations in a series of professions That we should elevate Narcissists and psychopaths to positions of power in politics in business And so on that narcissists and psychopaths are creative. They are the yeast In our collective bread They are the ones who come up with new art new culture new books new movies new inventions new science new everything These people these academics They call they invented they coined the phrase high functioning narcissists Narcissists don't have empathy. Yes They abuse and exploit everyone in their ambit including their so-called nearest and dearest Yes, they are treacherous. They are treasonous. They are exploitative They are liars. They are Antisocial sometimes criminalized And they are grandiose. They are delusional. They have fantasies All this is true All this is absolutely true. They create cults and shared psychosis Into which they coerce everyone around them They are unpleasant to be around. They are difficult as patients as people as Collaborators in teams inside teams. They are self destructive and other destructive. It's all very true But they're happy And they succeed And you never argue with success You're describing any comment section on facebook. That's the problem. We are faced with All I hear Every bullet point that you offer. I literally observe in In any given topic any given circle Any given dimension right now that is a facebook comment section And and it's And the scary part is There will be no introspection. There there's no as you said, there's no ability Why would we change? And it's interesting that you say that as far as as therapy goes what I have And and I consider it the most ethical thing I can do with with the patients that I work with Is as you said, I say are you happy? Are you functioning? And really all I could say is how do we Minimize the effects that you have on your family on those around you even on yourself Uh, because that's all I have, you know, they they are going to Uh pursue life as they see fit and for me ethically my job is to help them to do such Um, whatever it takes for them to get resources, but At this point treatment goals have just become how do we help you to not hurt other people? You know, that's that's where I am in In my work our our goals our goals as mental health practitioners are becoming more and more and more limited Yes, we are beginning to lead a constricted life in the sense that We thinker we can no longer Change anything of essence of substance of quiddity, but we can only thinker We can modify some behaviors which are abrasive socially unacceptable and damaging We can play a little with protocols communication protocol Don't do much more right now. We can't do much more Because what used to be considered pathological had been rendered a positive adaptation had been rendered useful and helpful to the patient's life It reminds me of nazi germany In nazi germany If you were not a psychopath something was wrong with you The positive adaptation in nazi germany was to have been a psychopath Because people with psychopathy people with antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy in robert herr's sense These people rose to the top They became the political leadership. They ran the ss. They ran the concentration camps and became fabulously rich They ran the german industry. I mean Only psychopaths Were able to thrive In germany and germany ruled the world for a while So what what would have been your advice? To a german patient The german patient listened to be a psychopath is a bad thing You should love the jews. You should not hate the jews. You should not torture people. You should not kill people That would have been an advice that conforms to the judo-christian set of values But it would have been an extremely bad advice Yes, because that patient would have immediately become an outcast And would it would even endanger this life So depends psychology Is cut is context dependent And the context right now is narcissism Long long time ago in 1995 I wrote an article One of the first I've ever written about the topic where I have warned that narcissism is the equivalent of a viral epidemic And if not stopped It will infect and affect everything you mentioned the comment section in facebook online forums instagram Other social media the workplace Parishes church parishes I mean all these places are Infested and infiltrated with narcissists And the minute there's one or two or three of them The whole place is con is transformed And becomes narcissistic Because We all have healthy narcissism Narcissism is the foundation of our sense of self-worth self esteem self confidence without healthy narcissism We're in very bad shape. So we all have healthy narcissism And what pathological narcissists succeed to do? They succeed to activate Activate elicit this healthy narcissism Bring it to the surface. There was a guy there were two French philosophers in the 1960s Louis Althusser and Gidebaugh Gidebaugh came wrote a book called the society of the spectacle and Gidebaugh said We are entering a period where Appearances will become much more important than reality the image. That's why I called it society of the spectacle He said images will become much more important than reality and Althusser Louis Althusser who ended up by the way the mental asylum Louis Althusser warned us That these images Create a process called interpolation They force us to act unbeknownst to us So he said that images have a huge power And this is what narcissists do Because the narcissists constructs at a very early age the narcissists constructs a false self That is a concept that I borrowed from Winnicott. He constructs a false self That this self is false It is godlike. It's not realistic. It's an image. It's a confabulation. It's a piece of fiction And so the narcissist is concerned with maintaining this piece of fiction. In other words The narcissist Is constantly producing a movie is a movie producer and a movie director And he's concerned with the movie not with reality And so when you're interacting with the narcissist, you're interacting with the image that he projects With his reflection with this piece of falsity Prevarication and confabulation called the false self and so As Louis Althusser taught us These images have a lot of power They induce action and so it's enough to have two or three narcissists in a group of 100 For all 100 people to become narcissistic and in this sense Many of the observations of this new group of academics When they say that narcissists are like yeast They are right Narcissists are exactly like yeast. They are catalysts. They catalyze An enzymatic reaction That transforms everyone around them into narcissists. And then of course, it's like the zombie apocalypse These 100 narcissists they transform 10,000 people and these 10,000 transform a million and then the whole nation becomes narcissistic As you are as you are experiencing right now. Yes In the question that I I think you know for the listeners and you know for myself, how do we Again If it's become us How do we know? You know, how do we and if we're asking I've I've read that if we ask the question Am I a narcissist? It could be one of two answers. It could be the fact that you're asking the question means that you're not Or that if you can answer the question. Yes, that you are, you know, are we are we are we all Narcissistic, um at this point. No, it's uh It's an it's an unfortunate online myth that narcissists are not self aware. It's utterly wrong Actually, the majority of narcissists are completely self aware But they are proud of their narcissism They are self aware. They are aware of it But they're proud of it If you talk to narcissists as I've been doing for 23 years, I have the biggest probably the largest database of interviews with narcissists People diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder the minute I the minute I find one I send them question news and because they are narcissists they answer them thousands of people so Narcissists first of all the majority of them knew because they had been diagnosed and also knew before before they had been diagnosed That they were not narcissistic But as as opposed to non narcissistic people they were proud of it They considered narcissism The next stage the next phase in human evolution They considered themselves superior They consider themselves the harbingers and the pioneers of a new type of human Transhumanity kind of transhuman variant they Regarded themselves as endowed with such gifts to humanity In some ironic way Aronic away they they converted them their narcissism into an act of altruism. They said yes We may be But we are doing this to advance humanity's cause. We are the unfortunate pioneers. We are we are actually self-sacrificial We are we should be admired. We are saints Because we are so superior and yet And yet we deploy our considerable assets Which render render us superhuman We deploy it to help our less fortunate The less fortunate members of society who are not narcissists So there's a whole ideology That had developed around narcissism an ideology Which glorifies narcissism? renders it an asset something to aspire to A role model for imitation and emulation When you analyze speeches by the likes of donald trump and not only donald trump tony robbins and you know numerous others who are I mean Different their narcissism. They don't shy away from it. They just divide the world to winners and losers Me and others i mean superior and inferior They don't shy away from their narcissism. They glorify it. They they render it religious And here I want to say something that most people don't I think Let's put it this way didn't didn't they didn't consider narcissism the way i'm going to present it right now Narcissism pathological narcissism Is in most in vast majority of cases a reaction to childhood abuse The abuse can be classic sexual abuse physical abuse verbal psychological abuse But abuse can also mean Putting the child on a pedestal idolizing the child considering the child an extension of the parent Rewarding the child when the child succeeds or performance Using the child to realize the parents unfulfilled wishes and fantasies and hopes Etc etc Whenever we don't allow the child to separate from the parent and to individuate We have a situation that is abusive So some children small minority react with pathological narcissism. They develop pathological narcissism And what do they do these children? These children create an entity Some a separate entity called the false self The false self is everything that the child is not The child is helpless. The false self is omnipotent The child cannot predict the behavior of his parents because they are narcissistic The false self is omniscient The child is Told by the parents that it is bad and unworthy and Deficient The false self is perfect and brilliant. So the false self is everything the child is not We will easily we easily see that the false self is actually god It's god. Yes, the child had created god and narcissism becomes a private religion As the narcissist grows he worships the false self and he makes a human sacrifice To the false self like they used to do with the malloc in the bible And this human sacrifice Is himself The narcissist sacrifices himself his true self To the malloc of the false self The narcissist offers himself the nazi says listen I will annul myself. I will cancel out myself. I will annihilate myself. I will disappear Just be with me for you. Just yeah, I mean here I am I will disappear as a true self and I will reappear in your form and and as you spoke So poignantly and it and it validated my own thoughts The the internet is waiting there for you to create an avatar For you to project that self onto now you have a hologram to embody All that is your god and and and then you present that That being to everyone and and and say look look at look at this wonderful Self of this creation that I've created And and and on and on and on It's it's insane and it's a yeah, it's a religious experience. Yes The the the worshiper merges with god And becomes god by disappearing. Wow, and that's narcissism. That's the best description of narcissism that I can come up with It's perfect. And so when the narcissist grows up When the narcissist grows up he And of himself because there's no real self there the true self had been sacrificed So he speaks of his false self And of his disorder in religious terms Most narcissists will tell you that they are on a mission Most narcissists will tell you that their life has cosmic significance Most narcissists will tell you ever since I was small. I knew I'm destined to big things Most narcissists will will discuss themselves as divinities as godlike creatures at the very least idols Even if there are nobodies zero true losers in life They would still convert their their situation Into some step on the way to to grandeur and grandiosity. So When you talk to someone like or when you listen to someone like donald trump or similar narcissists Donald trump for example Keeps presenting himself as a sacrificial lamb You know, he's sacrificing Is everything he's doing is a sacrifice actually he he openly says I didn't need to be president of the United States I'm doing it for you You know, it's like jesus He sounds like the mutation of jesus Hitler Used exactly the same as pathology and religious speech Hitler presented himself as the embodiment of the historical spirit of germany and Sacrificed himself for example, he never got married When people asked him Why don't you why didn't you ever get married hitler used to answer because I'm married to germany And that is of course immediately reminiscent of the catholic church where nuns and monks are married to jesus That's why they don't have sex. That's why they don't get married in this sense pathological narcissism is a new global religion A new a new global cult That is it's the source of its power This is why it is becoming so all-pervasive prevalent um admired and propagated and so on because It embodies and is imbued with religious motifs and archetypes Jesus sacrifice god Omnipotence omnis I mean it's There are echoes Echoes that go back thousands of years It's it taps narcissism taps into the what yung used to call collective unconscious. Yes It's uh, it's a much more profound phenomena than an asshole who is not empathic, right? And yeah, this is the fourth rite. I mean, that's what I hear I hear Reduce narcissism or at an inflection point to look at an inflection point And there is the possibility of the emergence of a new religion Not in the classic sense with a supreme being But a new decentralized religion a new network religion where everyone is god God distributed god A kind of distributed god Where everyone is god? And and together They are the god it reminds me of a story. I read science fiction story I read a long time ago The story is about a scientist who connects all the computers in the world to each other And when he finishes connecting all the computers in the world to each other He asks this vast network of computers. He asks, who are you? Well, of course, I'm god It's the same With narcissism each one of the now each narcissist is a god And when they're all put together It is the god the one and only yes It's in this sense a religion. We don't understand it. How dangerous this is It becomes the the thought form what they call that the the egregore where where it's just one hive mind of As you said godlike beings Um, what's the prognosis sam? What's what's the prognosis? How does this are are we, you know, do we do we hit the pinnacle and then You know, it's it's downhill from there. How how does this play out? I don't know if it's downhill or happy uphill. Obviously you're using phrases such as the words such as downhill and uphill implies value jotting Uh, we have mind A video I made two or three years ago is exactly about this that narcissism is a hive mind We are going to be transformed. I think we are moving From more individualistic modes of relating to the world and to each other to more collective modes of relating to each other and to ourselves With a distribution distribution of power So that each one of us is god unto himself So we have reduced god into the network And we had become gods Consequently Now The question is How well are we built To cope with our new role as god? Because throughout human history from probably from from pre-history I'm agnostic. Don't misunderstand. I'm not espousing any religion. I personally have a very dim view Of organized religion and an even dimmer view of of god as a construct supreme being and so on So I'm not a religious person and it's important to to say but what I am saying is From from the from ancient pre-history We had A very clear relationship between between god and men God that is his his roles manned his roles and they all collaborated More or less efficiently and and well I think it's the first time in human history Where we are humanizing. I mean we tried it once with jesus. We humanize god with jesus It didn't work too well So I think it's the second time. We are trying to humanize god By reducing god to us The first attempt was had its problems What we are doing now. We are decentralizing god. We are converting god into the network metaphor And it is the first time that we are subsuming god and digesting god and becoming god Are we built for that? Do we have the tools, mental, psychological, organizational, societal, cultural To cope with such a massive, unbelievable, incredible unprecedented transformation? I don't know Narcissism is a reaction to that Obviously because if I am god like suddenly it can get to my head, you know go to my head Did um a few decades ago two decades ago A professor by the name of milman in harvard university came up with the idea of diagnosis or whatever you want to call it of acquired situational narcissism he said That it's true that most is formed or is fostered in early childhood But there can be late onset narcissism Narcissism that is the outcome of changing life circumstances. He studied rock stars Rock stars were totally normal people Before they became rock stars And then they became rock stars And they scored very high on narcissists on test for narcissism Like narcissistic personality disorder and mmpi too So he said that they became narcissists late in life because their Circumstances of their life changed and he called it acquired situation of narcissism I think most of the narcissism that we see today In adults Is acquired situation of narcissism not the pathological kind that not the clinical entity that we're used to Most of these people were never abused as children most of them are normal folks 10 years ago. They were okay. They were empathic. They were nice. They were the Works in teams. They were collaborative. They are they were happy nice people, you know Suddenly 10 years later They have no empathy. They have no intimacy They are rapacious. They're predatory What on earth happened to these people in these 10 years? They are 50 years old. They're 40 years old. They're 30 years old. He couldn't have been their childhood So this is late onset narcissism This is acquired situation of narcissism. Okay. What has changed in the situation? What made them narcissists? They didn't become rock stars vast majority of them didn't become rock stars What happened what happened is technology They were empowered by technology If every person today everyone can everyone and his dog can publish a book make a television Made even normal people godlike The power that a typical internet user has today at her fingertips. The what happened is technology technology Rendered each and every one of us godlike The things you can do today with your with your iphone multinational companies couldn't do in the 1960s The total computing power in iphone 6 Which is you know An ancient tradition of iphone said dinosaur the total total computing power in iphone 6 far exceeds The computing power that nasa had when it sent them into the moon And and you can publish books you can make radio shows you can have tv emissions I mean you can do anything you can do anything you are omnipotent By virtue of technology and you are omniscient if you have access to wikipedia so We have become gods in this transformation in our situation situation This induced in us Acquired situation of narcissism late onset narcissism. And so we need to distinguish The classic construct of narcissism, which is a clinical diagnostic entity From late onset Narcissism, which is much more common Much more common It's a little like diabetes one and diabetes two. Yes Diabetes one is you know genetic in Inherited et cetera et cetera in childhood. It's a childhood disease diabetes two Is acquired much later in life owing to bed lifestyle Wrong lifestyle decisions like no exercise overeating and so so We are having narcissism one and narcissism two Narcissism one is child a childhood disease narcissism The circumstantial and the outcome of lifestyle choices and access to technology I want to ask you of This is something that's been on my mind because of the you know the the Prognosis that we've been told as you said that there's there's no reason to change Um when it works, but I do want to present to you. You've been doing this for quite a while Uh 23 years, right? Uh, yeah How has it transformed you has it? Has it had any effect on on minimizing your traits? And can that apply to us? I have been I've been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder twice in the space of 10 years and The first time I've been diagnosed it was an Included in the diagnostic and statistical manual four or five years before So now I knew much knew anything about it So I I didn't pay too much attention to to a clinical entity that that is just At its inception and there's no studies no research or nothing. I didn't take it seriously Then in 1995 I've been diagnosed again with Narcissistic personality disorder come up with other issues And so this time I took it seriously and that's when I started my work on the on the subject And ever since then I've been working on the subject in the last six years I have developed a treatment modality a therapy For narcissistic personality disorder and depressive illnesses There is a Strong connection between narcissism and depression. We can talk about it if you want, but I developed a treatment modality, which I dubbed called Therapy so over the world. I just came back from Brazil and so And it's it's aimed and targeted at specifically narcissistic personality disorder nothing else Um The work on cold therapy and teaching cold therapy and writing about cold therapy have has transformed me Obviously, I haven't been treated with cold therapy because The first therapies will be certified certified next year. Okay I hadn't been treated but the very fact of working on it and developing it and being exposed to it somehow Had had a had an effect on me For example, I lost my need for narcissistic supply this interview not with notwithstanding No, really, I didn't I don't need it anymore. I am utterly utterly devoid of the compulsion to obtain narcissistic supply, which is a enormous um, a normal Eugene and the core fuel and the core, you know shema in narcissism Is the compulsive uninhibited Non-controllable need to obtain narcissistic supply in this sense Narcissism is a form of addictive personality So I lost that I don't need supply at all. I can go on for months and and longer without any supply And I'm not bothered in the list. That's an interesting development Uh, but with that exception nothing nothing much else has happened With that exception So it didn't have much of an impact on me um I I have applied called therapy to 43 volunteers in various cultures societies countries around the world And five years later three to five years later this follow-up Uh, all of them have lost both depressive aspects. Wow So, I mean, there's no trace of narcissism there of any kind. Yeah, they score very low on npi mmpi etc etc and they They are not narcissists. I mean that today they cannot be diagnosed with narcissistic personalities or this So it seems that but 43 is a tiny sample, right? Non-representative non-representative. And so I warn against any optimist. Of course I like anecdotal. I like anecdotal though Well, yeah, it's interesting for me yet. It's taking into account the intractable nature of narcissism It's like, you know having a Liver liver cancer where the survivor rate is zero essentially, right? And then curing 43 cases and you can say, okay, 43 cases is nothing. There's 60 000 Patients a year. It's a tiny percentage. Yeah, it's true. It's all true But all 60 000 used to die and this 43 hadn't so, you know A key to a possibility a potential. I'm warning. I'm being very disclaimer like I it seems I found some key and if you're interested I will tell you what are the underlying fellow. What's the underlying philosophy of I would love I would love to hear it Actually, I don't want to hijack your your space. No, so Call therapy is founded on the on the belief that we had miss completely misunderstood narcissism We cast narcissism as a personality disorder and what cold therapy says There's actually narcissism is nothing to do with the personality that the narcissist personality is both intact and healthy But has been subjected to such trauma and such torsion early on That the narcissist is in a permanent post traumatic condition So first of all cold therapy treats narcissism. It it casts narcissism as a form of complex PTSD second thing The mistake of all other treatment modalities and I know all of them by heart because I've used I've borrowed from all of them So the mistake of all other treatment modalities is that they interact with the narcissist as though the narcissists were an adult But narcissists are not adults Mentally narcissists are children So narcissism is a case of arrested development. Perhaps the case The most dominant case of arrested development The narcissist is frozen at age six or seven or eight or nine And that's where he stops. That's it Interacting with the narcissist as an adult is utterly useless Because you are talking to a nine-year-old It's a child psychology and it is constructed entirely as a form of child psychology a child therapy So this is the second the third observation is that Narcissism is a form of attachment disorder So it deals a lot with attachment cold therapy and the fourth observation is that narcissism is an addictive an addiction That the narcissist has an addictive personality and that the need for attention, adulation, admiration, affirmation, applause Input from the environment feedback This need is compulsive and a form of addiction Which is the outcome of conditioning and so never mind. So we're talking reinforcement theory and addiction theory So if you put the four together Arrested development post traumatic condition addiction and attachment disorder We know how to treat All four very effectively We have extremely effective therapies for trauma With addictions we we know how to treat this We do not know how to treat narcissistic personality disorder. We never succeed. I mean, it's total failure But we are extremely successful With these other four elements So If you treat narcissists as though they are poor as though they are traumatized Children with addictions You the success rate Is much higher And indeed It proved itself. Yeah cold therapy is successful Because when I talk to the Patient in cold therapy patient number 44 is starting on Saturday, by the way When I talk to a patient in cold therapy I don't talk to her as an adult I deal with her addiction And I deal with her trauma and I completely ignore Her her functioning her social structures. All this is utterly relevant to me because She is a child a traumatized child Who developed dysfunctional coping mechanisms such as addiction And who is incapable of attachment because of pain aversion We know how to treat such children. We treat millions of such children Exceedingly successfully Narcissists are such children I I have a Uh And I'm I'm telling you forgive me for for tripping up on my thoughts and my words because I literally Am in my head as you're speaking. I've worked with trauma victims. I'm also a 14 year military veteran Um, so I have worked with military vets children with trauma adults with trauma and the inpatient and the outpatient setting And all I can see right now is Exactly what you're saying that we deal with the individual criteria of each diagnosis And we've always been told that as a whole. No, you cannot treat a narcissistic Personality disordered person. You can't do it even you know, they'll tell you it's difficult to treat a borderline personality disorder patient but Exactly what you're saying. No, we're dealing with all the criteria just going down the line And dealing with the criteria under each category And as a whole treating the whole person Absolutely amazing and profound if you have been if you've since you have been involved in trauma I mean PTSD classic PTSD problem. Yes vets vets and so You know well That people with trauma become much more narcissistic. Very. Oh my god. Yes. Yes Yeah, it's one of the features of traumatized people That initially at least clues empathy. They become self-centered They they become exploitative And demanding they have a sense of entitlement And they develop fantasies that we draw from reality. They have become delusional very often, etc, etc These are the hallmarks of narcissism. Yes. Yes. They become narcissistic simply Actually, the irony is that the first observation the trauma leads to narcissism is well Well over 130 years old. There was a guy called Phineas Gage Phineas Gage was a I think a construction foreman And a steel bar penetrated his brain damages brain I mean, it was a horrible accident and destroyed her skull of his brain. Don't And he was heavily traumatized and the doctors at the time Described a striking change in his personality. They said he used to be empathic. Now he's not He used to be helpful. Now he's a Driving narcissistic personality disorder. So we knew that the we knew about the connection between brain trauma and physical brain trauma and narcissistic personality But what we fail to understand or fail to make the connection is that Mental trauma is the exact equivalent of physical trauma and this is mediated by neuroplasticity The brain is plastic You can penetrate the brain with a steel bar Or you can traumatize the brain and in both cases there will be lasting damage in both cases the brain will rewire The artificial distinction between physical trauma And non-physical trauma is exactly this artificial wrong And so anyone who has ever dealt with traumatized patients knows how Self-centered egotistic toddler like toddler like whining I mean, narcissists they are everyone knows that Everyone was ever dealt with traumatized patients. And so why we didn't we don't make the logical leap If traumatized patients are narcissists, narcissists are traumatized patients Absolutely profound and and you know what I it's why they call what we do practice It's uh, it's it's it's ever changing and you know, it's dynamic It's and to me, this is something that can lead in a whole other direction It almost answers the question when I present, you know, well, what do we do now? Well, it sounds like we you know We have a person who's been at the forefront Continuing to do the research continuing to explore and give us the answers and and it sounds like if someone who is You know where we before would tell a family member or loved ones Listen, you've got a narcissist. This is what you've got deal with it. Sorry. Don't know to tell you get away Do you still give the same advice or is that starting to change because you You know, there was a time where you said, look, you've just got to abandon the person Is that also going to change as well? It was I it was I who came up contact Yeah, 1997 I invented the whole thing But now now I'm offering hope via cold therapy. Of course, I'm I'm alone and I can only take as These many people and so I'm taking now patient number 44 because after and the therapy itself is short, by the way, it's three to four months, but After that, I usually take a year sometimes a year and a half to analyze the Patient notes the case notes and the so as to create a coherent body And so in between patients I have I also give seminars and certification seminars and so I mean the The cold therapy is sometimes counter-intuitive and definitely a bit so even if I say so a bit revolutionary because That's not the view of NASA. There's never been the view of NASA's Nazism initially in 1915 when Freud first suggested that the word narcissism was considered a regression Like your baby you had narcissism then when you grew up in your other If you go back to being a baby you you're sick, you know So it was a regression then it was this then it was that and The most recent incarnation is that it's a personality disorder. I don't need to tell you The diagnostic and statistical manual is an insurance document. It's a document created for insurance companies. Yes, sir There's a lot of money A lot of money riding on this definition And that's why for example the the committee of the diagnostic and statistical manual five Or categorical model they wanted to to throw to the trash as it should be The nine diagnostic criteria of the DSM for But pressure from interest groups from a theoretical industry Other I mean All the money that's sloshing around Prevented them from doing this. So what they did they put in the they copied copy pasted the DSM for but then they said actually ignore it We have an alternative model, which is much better And it's a dimensional model So there's a lot of money sloshing around so there are vested interests stroke. I can feel them now I didn't feel them two three years ago But now they've called therapy spreading and beginning to feel the pushback. Oh you feel it and the pushback never comes Pushback never comes from professionals like you Professional professionals like you are fascinated They want to learn it. I mean, they are you know, they are in a mord with with new therapies and concepts solutions We we like solutions. We don't like capitalizing on illness So right. Yeah, and so pushback comes from from Academics or academic institutions allied with industry from industry from I that's where I'm getting the pushback So for example, if if a seminar was supposed to have been organized in a specific European country, which I will not name It's just being cancelled because the pharmaceutical industry that country allied with the with the biggest university there Whose professors are at the pay of this industry and you know Uh said it's unproven experimental procedure and therefore illegal to teach it. Yes, which is out of nonsense, of course It's illegal to practice it maybe but not to teach it And so it's a big cancel So I'm beginning to see pushback, which is a good sign. It means that it's you know, it means you're doing the right thing I'm beginning to have an impact. Yeah. Yeah means you're on the right path I'll tell you this that this is the reason why I stepped out to do an independent show Where outside of the mainstream we can have these discussions have these conversations And let people put the information and that directly into the hands of the people Um, I have a uh a colleague. Uh, she is a clinical social worker And she directly takes My shows to her students and so uh her masters level students. So It cold therapy will be known and I'm looking for you said it'll be certified next year Yeah, next September the first certified therapist will be next September about 40 of them So as far as I'm concerned, um, you know, we we we won't worry about Uh, the the institutional the ivory tower A control of information. Yeah, not at all. No, I know you're not and and we'll definitely support, um Whatever you endeavor because again, um, my goal this year is to actually be To listen first of all to listen to those who have gone before us who are teaching us. Um Teaching us the way to go And uh, I think you're one of those people Your your work is profound again, and I'm not just, you know, it's it it literally is I wish I had the the terminology Uh to express it but I want people to actually be able to apply the knowledge to their life and Whether it's You know, gonna happen in in our lifetime. I don't know if it's gonna happen this generation I don't know but I know that narcissism does not work it for us It's not working for us. Yeah, it's dangerous. Simply dangerous to the survival of the species. I'm not exaggerating It is not high poverty It's simply dangerous. It's beginning to be seriously dangerous. It's uh I'm gonna ask you something. I read the on the facebook page that you're a comedian I am I do I do I do stand-up comedy. Yeah, I do stand-up comedy. I do I do here and there I do And it's a wonderful combination. Let me tell you what it does sam is it allows for the And I'm sure you know this think of all the inappropriate aspects of your mind that you go into But you know everyone else does the same thing It'll it allows for me to go to that space with the work that we do And find the humor in it Because it can be so serious at times and and it also You know, it it breaks the mold of the status quo I can say the things that I cannot say About the industry right but I can go on the stage and I can say it completely and I can say it in a witty way That also makes people laugh and makes them think at the same time. So it I don't know how it worked out I'm just kind of rolling with it. It works Yeah Burkson and others suggested that sense of humor is a is a form of uh, is it kind of unconscious and so I think stand-up comedy is Um, anti repression. It's uh, it brings that bring the unconscious up and this in in a disinhibited way It's very very therapeutic very therapeutic. It is a great work. That's what I call it It's definitely in in alchemy. It's it's a form of alchemy as far as I'm concerned and um I You know and I put this out to my listeners. I'm very honest I I look back to my teen 20s. I was as narcissistic as one could be I'm 40 now And I like to think that I've that I've Done a lot of work and I want to extend the hope to others. I hope that this conversation Uh Helps people to be to to to be hopeful that that there is It's funny because the the conversation starts off. It's so bleak and I'm like, oh, what happens now sam But you're giving us hope and And I'm excited about that in my own in my own small way. I hope Okay, listen, um, thank you so much. Send me a video file. I'll upload it to my youtube channel I sure will massive massive viewership and you have a great distribution to the audio file So let's cover as much ground as we can let's do what we can and Let us know if you if you need anything of the future as far as a platform or distribution anything like that Thank you so much for your time No, thank you. It's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure. You have a good one. Thank you. Bye. Bye