 Hello, this is Audrey Michele with Sam Backman. Hi Sam. Hi Audrey, thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. I had one question to start with. You had one piece of advice to offer to a person in an abusive relationship. What would it be? Well, if the abuse is repetitive and femic and all-pervasive and unrelenting and not amenable to any intervention by professionals, family members, friends, then following a period of experimentation with various methods of abating and ameliorating the abuse, walk away, no contact, ameliorate it. If it doesn't recede, if the abuse doesn't disappear, then walk away. If the abuser is a narcissist or a psychopath, walk away without trying anything. So if you came upon an abuser, if you refused to be abused and pointed all the abuse tactics out, they would just continue on anyway. If the abuser was a narcissist and no matter what you said or did, they would still continue on. Narcissists and psychopaths are immutable, unchangeable. There's no way to modify the behavior of a narcissist or a psychopath on a long-term basis. Narcissists and psychopaths can adopt, in the short term, behaviors which are helpful in their quest for narcissistic supply or which help them manipulate other people so as to obtain goals or benefits. But this is short-term. In the long-term, it's hopeless. If you think your abuser is a narcissist or a psychopath, on place your time and don't put yourself in ever-increasing danger. Is there ever a time that you could speak with a person that has narcissism that would be more open or that there is more of a possibility that they could be aware or learn what their issues are? Many of them are aware of what their issues are. It is a myth that narcissists are not self-aware. Actually, I would say that the majority of them are self-aware. Only they are very proud of their narcissism. As the next step in the evolutionary ladder, they think of themselves as superhuman. They are very proud of what other people might call their disorder. So it's not a question of self-awareness. It's a question of carrot and stick. You can strike a deal or you can strike bargains with the narcissist. You can provide the narcissist with narcissistic supply. You can walk on eggshell. You can cater to every need and whim. And then everything is going to be fine and dandy until the moment it's not. I'm not saying that it's impossible to coexist with the narcissist or to maintain a relationship with the narcissist. But in such a relationship, one has to deny oneself to the extreme. One has to stop existing. One has to cease to exist in order to survive with the narcissist. And now some people, extreme co-dependence and so on, are willing to pay this price. They say the narcissist brings color into my life. When I'm with the narcissist, it's all exciting and thrilling. And when I'm not with the narcissist, it's like being in a black-and-white movie. The narcissist is my technicolor film. And so these co-dependence can't live without a narcissist in their lives. And they would pay any price. And they do pay a price, a heavy price. You know, to each his own. But if you are a relatively healthy person or a mild co-dependent even, remaining with the narcissist requires a cost which borders on self-annihilation. Self-examination. Now, is this a cost you're willing to pay? I shouldn't think so. The narcissist, in your articles, you say there's times that they feel their true self to a degree where they feel so much self-flowing and self-hate that they have to bring back their mask on all the time. Narcissism, certain types of narcissists, compensatory narcissists, use elements of their pathological narcissism to compensate for an inner, or pervasive, deeply-shelt conviction of their own worthlessness. There have been many studies, for instance, and these scholars have demonstrated that narcissism is a flipside of shame, overwhelming, all-dominating shame. The shame of being abused and mistreated and mishandled and objectified in early childhood and pathological narcissism is a compensation, a defense mechanism against this overpowering and potentially dangerous shame because this shame can easily become, lead you to suicidal ideation or even suicidal acts. So some narcissists defend against shame, self-loading and a sense of worthlessness by adopting grandiose fantasies, by feeling or by declaring their omnipotental mission. Other narcissists don't have this. Other narcissists, type-known as classic narcissists, they are usually people who have been tampered, spoiled, spoiled rotten, I would say, tampered and put in a pedestal when they were young. They could do no wrong. They were idolized. They were godlike and divine creatures in their early childhood. And they have learned entitlement. They have learned to expect the world to behave the same way. It is a rude awakening when the world does not conform and when the world and reality do not idolize the adult narcissists. So these people, they have a sense of entitlement. They are obnoxious. They are dangerous and so on. So they are both antisocial trait, a big sociopathic. What separates them from actually being labeled the antisocial? I suggested long ago, about two decades ago, that the distinction between narcissists and psychopathists is pretty artificial. They both lie on a spectrum of mental health dysfunction starting with mild narcissists. Now people with narcissistic traits, certain narcissistic behaviors or a narcissistic personality style, as Theodore Millen calls it, that's on one end. In the middle of it there is people diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, which are full-fledged narcissists. And then at the very end, we have psychopaths, people with antisocial personality disorder. So I think that psychopaths are extreme forms of narcissists. But there is one important distinction. Narcissists are addicted to narcissistic supply. They orient their lives, everything they do, all their cognitive processes, their emotions, the ones left. Everything, everything, everything in the narcissist's life evolves and revolves around obtaining narcissistic supply. It's exactly like a junkie. Narcissists are junkies. And they are addicted to attention, adulation, admiration, or even to being feared, to being noticed. While the psychopath doesn't have this, psychopaths are not addicted to narcissistic supply. They couldn't care less. Psychopaths, their lives revolve around obtaining advantages, benefits, money, power, sex. They are about getting things. They are about acquiring things. They are about overpowering, mastering. They are not into being noticed, being attended to, being the center of attention. They are nothing to this. So this is the main distinction between narcissists and psychopaths. Additionally, narcissists are more squeamish. There are things they won't do. They are less physical, for instance, while psychopaths are a lot more violent. So narcissists are aggressive. Psychopaths are violent. And so on. But these distinctions are pretty artificial. I believe that the diagnosis should be unified. My work is based on 17 years of corresponding with well over 100,000 people. My work is based on a very, very wide, possibly the widest in existence, range of data on narcissistic psychopaths and abuse. The cerebral versus the somatic. I know that you had mentioned prior that there was a sadistic sufferer part of. I just wanted to go through if there's a reason that certain narcissists are more sadistic, certain ones are more cerebral or somatic and how that works together. Well, yes. Sadism has a place in the narcissist's life. A very, very small minority of narcissists and psychopaths derives actual pleasure from inflicting pain on other people. And these are the consequences that Sadist first described well over 140 years ago. These are people who inflict pain so that they can derive pleasure. It could be sexual, it could be psychological, it could be verbal. They derive pleasure from making people arrive and squirm and cry. But that's a very tiny minority. The vast majority of narcissists and psychopaths are instrumentally sadistic. They use sadism in order to secure a goal or to obtain benefit and to manipulate others or to communicate as a form of communication or to broadcast some information, for instance, to demonstrate that they are more powerful than someone else and so on. With instrumental sadism, it is very little to do with any sensation of pleasure. It's connected somewhat to a feeling of omnipotence. It endows certain narcissists with the feeling that they are godlike and they control the destinies and faiths of other human beings. That's a great high. That's a great rush. And so on. But sadism in narcissism and psychopathy is not akin to the classic constructs, for instance, in the DSM-3 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, in the third edition. We had a sadistic personality disorder, which had since been removed, I regret to say, and captured classical sadism. When you see television shows which tend to imply that all psychopaths are sadists and therefore all psychopaths are potential or actual serial killers, that's utter nonsense, utter nonsense. The sexual sadists is sometimes psychopathic. A few psychopaths are sadistic, but the vast majority are not and the vast majority of narcissists are not. They inflict pain the same way that a tornado inflicts pain or a virus inflicts pain, because that's what they do. They do it so as to achieve certain goals and to survive. It's an adaptive strategy. A side effect of their disorder. Their narcissism acts in that way, but it's the narcissism that's the problem rather than their attempt to cause pain and soothe color. Yeah, exactly. It touches upon a much wider question. And our narcissists are evil creatures. You know that there's been an author about 25 years ago or something called Scott Peck. And Scott Peck can claim that EV is another name for narcissism. So the pathological narcissism is simply another technical clinical name for evil. I completely disagree. Narcissists are not evil. Psychopaths are not evil because they don't make choices. They make operational choices, but they make these choices within the framework of their disorder. It's not that they can behave differently. It's not that they weigh their options and then say, well, this option inflicts a maximum pain and this option is the most destructive. I'm going to choose that one. It's just from the way the narcissist's mind works. The narcissist says, for instance, I must obtain narcissistic supply. If I have to inflict pain in order to obtain it, I'm going to do that. And junkies largely behave the same way. I mean, a junkie would steal from his own mother because he needs a drug, hear it? Not because he's evil. And a psychopath would steal from someone or defraud someone because how to put it? That's the way psychopaths are. It's like saying that a tiger is evil because he just ate your child, you know? He just freed on your child. Makes the tiger evil. Tiger is not evil. A tiger is a tiger. Of course, there is a distinction. There's a difference between a tiger and a psychopath in that the psychopath possesses a mind. And theoretically, he can deploy this mind in order to make a free choice. But that's precisely what I'm saying. Psychopaths and narcissists do not have a free choice. I repeat, they do not have a free choice. They are driven compulsively, uncontrollably and relentlessly towards the very behaviors that render them a danger to humanity. Will you go through, first of all, the difference between a cerebral and a thematic? I know that all narcissists exhibit both behaviors at time. What exactly is each one and how would they become the other one at some point or another and fluck back at some point then after? First of all, compliments. You've done your homework. Surprise. Me too. Everyone you are told good clothes. Both somatic and cerebral. It's just that one of the types is dominant. So a narcissist would be predominantly a cerebral narcissist and then he will revert to being somatic under certain circumstances. And what are these circumstances? A life crisis, a major life crisis. For instance, losing all his sources of supply simultaneously or losing a major source of supply or getting divorced or going bankrupt or being incarcerated in prison or someone important as a source of supply dying on him or something. So a major life crisis could lead the narcissist to behave as a pendulum more between the types. So let's take an example. A cerebral narcissist divorces. His wife leaves him and his wife is his major source of supply. So now he is left not only without a wife but he's also left without a major source without narcissistic supply. So one option the cerebral narcissist faces is to invest the next two years cultivating another source of supply demonstrating his intellect and his intelligence and his overwhelming agility, mental agility and so on. But it takes time. It takes a lot of time. And in the meantime, there's no narcissistic supply. So the easiest way to obtain supply is a sexual conquest. You know, you can meet someone and have sex with her in a matter of a day or an evening. And having sex with her in five minutes. Or minutes. So sexual conquest is a form of narcissistic supply. And even a cerebral narcissist has just lost all his sources of supply does not have any incoming narcissistic supply. Having sex is a quick way, a quick fix until he finds the next pusher, the next source of supply. What would be the next pusher? His next wife, but it takes time. So cultivating a source of supply takes time, takes weeks, takes months, sometimes takes years. And if one is left without narcissistic supply in the meantime, then having sex is a great way of obtaining supply. So even a cerebral would become somatic for a while just to shore over the rough period lack of supply. Would it also be to hurt the mate? No, no, not really. The minute a source of supply exits the narcissist's life, that source is usually deleted completely. The narcissist then concentrates exclusively on securing the next fix. He's a junkie, remember that. The best I can describe the narcissist's mind of a junkie. Now what junkie would begin to analyze his relationship when he needs the next fix? The main concentration, the main issue now is getting the next fix. It is true that narcissists maintain a kind of mental rolodex kind of mental address book and that they recycle sources of supply, old sources of supply. So the first thing the narcissist is going to do having been abandoned by his wife is not analyze the relationship and try to understand why she had left him and derive lessons from it for the future. The first thing he's going to do is call up his old girlfriends, his ex-wife and anyone else can shore him up. Narcissists maintain this list of former sources of supply which they approach when supply is low. I call that recycling the sources. Are they hoping to fulfill the wives or their husbands in some situations to fulfill their place right away or they don't end up being somatic, they could just instantly fill their place with somebody else? It could be that, it could be this way. Depending on the nature of the relationship if the relationship is all about the bodily aspect then it will be a somatic behavior. If the relationship has been collegial or intellectual or formal student or formal fan or formal follower then it will be cerebral. Narcissist supply wears many forms it's multifarious so you can get supply from having fix or from having a conversation which you dominate or from displaying the pyrotechnics of your mind or from even buying something is a form of obtaining supply. So you could see a narcissist who just lost the source of supply again take the example of a divorce going on a shopping spree because purchasing things is narcissistic supply. So you can't really predict what the narcissist is going to do next the only thing you can predict for sure in a life crisis is that the narcissist is going to act out clinical term in psychology. In every addiction too. Sex addicts can act out or they can be... Acting out is so it's sure that what I'm trying to present is that narcissism should be considered an addictive behavior to drug abuse, alcoholism and so on and we know from 12 step programs and so on we know that narcissism is given pride of place in trying to rehabilitate alcoholics because alcoholism is largely a narcissistic behavior and when you go to 12 step program the first thing they tell you is let go of your ego, let go of your submit to a higher power in the sense of let go of your delusion that you are master of the universe that you are in control of your life and so on. So I think narcissism underlies most addictive behaviors and I also happen to think that narcissism, pathological narcissism not narcissistic personality disorder is such a set of pathological narcissism but pathological narcissism the global phenomenon, I think it underlies almost all other mental health disorders except those which are biochemical in origin like mental illness compared to personality disorder Yes well personality disorders for instance I think you could reduce most personality disorders to pathological narcissism one way or the other personality disorders that today are not recognized at all as having anything to do with narcissism they are actually a kind of narcissistic disturbance, consider for instance the schizotypal disorder, it's supposed to be a cognitive disorder, remote relative of schizophrenia, so in a way biochemical but it's a personality disorder in which there are among other things there are strange esoteric beliefs held by the patient, the patient holds all kinds of strange beliefs about the cosmos and his place in the cosmos and so if you analyze these beliefs you find out that these are highly narcissistic beliefs which place the patient at the center and the core of kind of a global network or global conspiracy or paranoia, paranoid behavior what is paranoid behavior? Paranoid behavior, paranoid says I am so important that I am at the center of a conspiracy, paranoia is a classic manifestation of narcissism in effect because the paranoid believes that he or she is a very important person why would the paranoid be the victim of a CIA conspiracy, why would the paranoid be persecuted by government authorities and other shady organizations if he is not very important so the paranoid uses this paranoid ideation to feel important to feel the center of attention to become the crux and the core and the kernel of his universe, so even paranoia is actually a narcissistic delusion I think narcissism, pathological narcissism is a unifying organizing principle of clinical psychology. We were speaking of the cerebral and the somatic, but if you could explain what is each one additionally I understand from your reading the cerebral can become somatic, but when can the somatic become cerebral? Well that's more rare that's more rare because usually in early childhood, the narcissist selects prominent traits, so if the narcissist is highly intelligent he is likely to become cerebral because he can leverage, he can use his intellect his intelligence to attract attention, admiration and this is also in answer to your question it's easy for the cerebral narcissist to become a somatic narcissist for a while, for a few weeks, for a few women it's easy because the cerebral narcissist possesses a body and can use his body to elicit supply more difficult for the somatic narcissist to become cerebral because to become cerebral, the somatic narcissist must possess an outstanding shining intellect and frankly no offense, you know they are more brawn than brain. Oh so I see no offense. So you think I'm a somatic narcissist? Oh no no offense to any of the I know, I was kidding. Okay so basically when cerebral becomes somatic gets more of a compulsive behavior as if they could see themselves as acting like a sex addict. Well somatic would very rarely become cerebral even in a life crisis somatic would usually enhance his behavior these behaviors would become more intense more concentrated so somatic would go on a rampage of unbridled sexuality or would exercise in the gene three times more than he had done before. A somatic would become more somatic. A cerebral might become somatic for a while and then revert to form and go back to being cerebral. Is that because they become more successful in their job or because they found a new supply because they found a new source yeah, because they cultivated a new source. I know a lot of narcissists lose everything they have over and over and then rebuild it and so if their position at work or in their job they become more successful again when that be enough or they would need the maid as well. No, the maid is not important. I make a distinction between primary and secondary sources of supply. A primary source of supply is anything that generates narcissistic supply in other people so possessions, job satisfaction or job recognition success, sparkling intellect a stunning body or sex appeal and so on. So all these are primary sources of supply. They are the tools they are the toolkit, they are the instruments with which the narcissists guarantee gratification in deriving supply from other people. In other words these are the things that render the narcissists noticeable. They make other people notice the narcissists. They garner for the narcissists attention. So these are the primary sources. The narcissists spouse or maid or intimate partner is a completely different role. Her role, I'm using her because most narcissists are men. Her role is to accumulate to witness the narcissists successors to accumulate this information to accumulate these memories of the narcissists. She acts a bit like a camcorder. Her job is to document she's a documentarist. Her job is to be within us, to be by his side and sort of witness his grandiose achievements his outstanding accomplishments. The narcissistic supply that he garners everywhere the adoration, the admiration, the adulation the attention that he keeps getting and then she accumulates all this she documents it, she keeps it in her memory and then when supply runs low which happens, you know supply fluctuates there are good days and bad days good times and bad times. When supply runs low then her job is to release the accumulated supply. Her job is to remind the narcissists to keep telling the narcissists but do you remember how popular you were do you remember how magnificent you were, how brilliant, how perfect. So her job is to sort of solve the narcissists wounded ego in times of short supply and that's her only job actually. So it is wrong to think that the narcissists mate, spouse or intimate partner could be a source of supply primary supply. The narcissists couldn't care less about his mate's opinion of him, whether she cares for him, whether she loves him he doesn't give a fig about him he just wants her to be there by his side documenting his grandeur his grandiosity and his accomplishments and then reminding him in bad times how great he is how wonderful he is, how perfect and how brilliant and so on. Also as the false side it's their image of being successful and happily married and all of that. Yeah, she's a sidekick she's the perfect mother perfect wife, the wife that everyone envies, everyone would have liked to have she's the perfect hostess and she's by his side when he needs support, when he needs to be reminded how perfect brilliant, amazing, omniscient omniscient, unparalleled president it is, that's a job this is a very taxing job description, a very taxing role because it drains you, that's why narcissists are often called energy vampire because the narcissist doesn't give anything in return it's not a deal, it's not a transaction he gives nothing to his spouse or mate she is the one who is supposed to give all the time. So there's no boundaries that can be created, you can't do this and this and I'll do this and this, there's no agreement No, there's no give or take, no there's no question there is, there's no give and take, simply no give and take it's not a transaction, it's like if you are privileged enough entitled enough to be my wife prior to endowed you with my presence and bestowed upon you my divine existence then you should be so grateful that you should only give from this moment on. Just the fact that I'm here and I choose to be with you is big thing. Yes, it's a great privilege for which you should pay constantly it's a bit reminiscent of the courts of the kings in the 17th and 18th century where people were competing to be in the presence of the king. Just to be in his presence, nothing more. They received nothing they got nothing but they could later claim you know I've been in the presence of the king when you woke up this morning. So it's the same with the narcissist, just to be in his presence is sufficient reward and you should pay for it through the nose You're so lucky that I chose you I'm God's gift to you. I had one question but I did after that want to get into the specifics of the types of abuse and how they are used on their partners because I talked of that in the preliminary information I posted. There's differing side I get from your articles at times about narcissist and love because I spoke to you before when we talked to Lydia which you're going to do and you had said that you know you love as you love and that they are capable of love it's just a different kind and then there's times that you've said that narcissists are incapable of love. Well it boils down to how we define love narcissists are definitely incapable of what all normal people would agree upon as the emotion of love completely incapable of that. When women keep telling me but he loves me so much, he adores me, this is malignant optimism. The victims and the survivors need to make sense of the narcissist and of the chaotic and unpredictable and senseless world of the narcissist. Victims try to make sense of the narcissist in his misbehavior by attributing to the narcissist a modicum of humanity saying maybe he's bad, maybe he's obnoxious, maybe he's vicious but if I only love him I can reform him, I can rescue him. It has to do with his horrible childhood. Inside there is a child that I can see, I can see through the layers of obnoxiousness and horror and viciousness and wickedness and be under these layers I can see the child begging to be laughed and held and I don't know what. There's a wounded, vulnerable child hiding inside every narcissist and the rest of abortion. Narcissists ever believed that they're in love? Yeah, that's precisely the issue. Narcissists are incapable of what all reasonable people would construe as love. But they feel they interpret their dependence on sources of supply as love. They re-label. Actually this is not love, it is dependence on supply. I may hate myself to be dependent on it. They're dependent on a source of supply. If you ask them what is it that you feel they would say I love my wife because they can't admit they're dependent on anyone. That's a narcissistic injury. It's wounding. It's horrible to admit that you're dependent if you're also the master of the universe. An inner contradiction in the narcissist. On the one hand, the narcissist believes himself to be the next level after goal, next level removed. Is powerful, all-knowing, brilliant, perfect and so on? Why would he be dependent on anyone for anything? But then the fact is that narcissists depend on other people for narcissistic supply. And the narcissist cannot reconcile this. It's an inner contradiction that tears the narcissist apart. Narciss makes up in the morning and says I'm the greatest, I'm the biggest, I'm the cleverest, I'm the most amazing. And the next minute he says but I need supply. Who's going to give me supply today? Where can I find supply? And there's this panic, this hysteria, where to get your next fix, your next dose. It's an inner break. It's an inner contradiction. Narciss cannot reconcile his narcissism, his grandiose fantasies about himself with his abject neediness, with his modified existence as a junkie. Instead of calling himself a junkie and admitting that he's dependent, he says I love my wife. It's not that I'm dependent on her and it's not that I need her to inject me with constant doses of self-esteem and self-confidence and reminders how great I am. It's not that because I don't need anyone. I'm beyond needing anyone. I'm godlike. But I love her. That's the thing. They call their dependence, they relabel it love. But it is nothing, absolutely nothing to do with love. Is it a conscious choice when they wake up and they feel this and that, now ok, where am I going to get supplied? Do they realize that that is their next thought? Do they recognize it and do so realizing that they need that? They often feel very bad that they have to break other people for handouts, for some attention. I mean, notice me, please pay attention to me. I'm here. I exist. They define themselves through other people's gaze. It is other people's gaze that gives them existence. The precarious house of cards is the narcissist's personality. Cannot survive a second without constant infusions of other people's look, other people's gaze. If you were to cast away a narcissist on a remote island he would crumble in 24 hours. He would commit suicide in 48. Narcissists cannot go on living without other people's defining gaze. They are defined by this external input and they know that and they feel humiliated most of the time. Those narcissists who are truly accomplished and there are, of course, pillars of the community presidents, prime ministers show business, judges, policemen, people who do possess, who are accomplished and do possess real power over other people or they are rich. They do possess money. People whose outward achievements and accomplishments correspond with their grandiose fantasies of themselves are lucky because they don't feel this neediness and dependence although it exists but they don't feel it. The vast majority of narcissists are mediocre. They are not really very accomplished. They are not really very successful. Some are very famous although they aspire to be. They didn't do anything memorable or distinguished and so they have to charge along. They have to stumble from one supply one dose to another for one fix to another. They have to beg and extort and threaten and ask any way we do narcissistic supply any which way they can. And it's a very humiliating existence exactly as a junkie sees. And with the abuse their major form or person that they are dependent on they actually hate because they're dependent on them. So in a way that's why they abuse them or devalue them person they abuse because they are needy on them because they're testing them to make sure they're still good supplies is it because they have an anger toward their spouse because they are most needy of them. Well, that's a complex issue first of all not all abusers are narcissists and not all abusers are psychopaths actually I would say only a portion of them are. The others are sadists or don't suffer from any mental abuse order. They abuse because they abuse. Abuses are not a systemic phenomenon. In other words, if you're a narcissist you're a narcissist in everything. You're a narcissist in your personal life, interpersonal relationship, at the workplace, in church you can't stop being a narcissist. But abusers are not like that. Abuses single out for a single person or a group of people. And they abuse only a single person. And only these people who outside this group or person they are not abusers. So we know therefore that abuse is an elected behavior. It's a behavior that is largely a result of a kind of choice. That's the first important distinction between abuse and personality disorders because personality disorders are all pervasive. There isn't a single field in the narcissist life that is not affected by his narcissism. But the abuser abuses only his wife and children and he's perfectly okay, functional and happy and accepted and loved by everyone else. In the workplace, in church and so on. But the narcissist is so common, the woman ends up, or the man, but usually the woman end up looking crazy and they abuse by proxy so they talk down around them. Exactly because people including mental health professionals, evaluators, custodians, judges, police, people think that abuse is a systemic, all pervasive thing and it is not. It is an elected behavior. It's a behavior that is manifested only in specific circumstances and with highly specific targets and that is why it's not automatically linked to a personality disorder. This is one thing. Second thing, abuse is a mode of communication that is difficult to rep one's mind around this concept. But think about it. What is abuse? Abuse is simply the abuser's way of telling you something. He's trying to communicate to you something. The methods of abuse in abuse are dysfunctional. They involve aggression, violence, verbal, psychological, sometimes physical, or sexual, financial, legal. There are many types of abuse. But all types of abuse are about conveying a message. Now what is the message in abuse? The message depends on many, many variables. For instance, one possible message is I'm stronger than you, I'm more powerful than you. I am the boss. You should be submissive, subservient. That's one type of message. But there could be another type of message. For instance, I love you. Many abusers and many victims believe that continued abuse signifies deep attachment. So you find women saying, he lost all interest in me, he lost all interest, he is no longer romantically jealous. He used to make scenes every time I talk to another man, he used to beat me up every time I talk to another man. Now he doesn't, so he doesn't love me. Sometimes abuse is a communication strategy intended to convey attachment, bonding and love. Sometimes abuse is about pain. So these are the sadistic abusers. They enjoy inflicting pain. At other times, abuse is about power play, who is on top, who is alpha male. We can't generalize about abuse. One great sin and big mistake of many texts, many scholars is that they generalize. Consider for instance the fact that the vast majority of humanity live in cultures and societies which condone abuse and courage abuse and regard abuse is a totally legitimate way of communicating emotional needs and satisfying them. The environment in which I grew up, beating up on children was considered to be a sign of love, a sign of good education. The Bible says you should not withhold your role, you should beat up the child. So in the ancient world, beating up children was considered to be a sign of deep attachment, bonding and love and so on and a culturally condoned thing. Students have been flogged in Britain well into the beginning of the 20th century in public schools. So abuse is, sometimes it's a cultural artifact. It doesn't really exist except in the western observers' mind. Within the culture, it's not perceived as abuse at all. And you see women horribly abused, but you see with your western eyes. If you talk to the woman, she would tell you what they're talking about. I'm not being abused. My husband is the best of men. I love him. Our relationship is great. So abuse is culturally sensitive and culturally dependent. It's a social construct. It's a communication mode. There are numerous forms of abuse. You cannot generalize at all and definitely it is not systematically connected to some mental health problem. Socially and culturally determined, not psychologically. Something Lydia had said to me that sounded similar to that, that her family was a certain way in comparison, you're not abusive to her because of the way that she grew up. Is that similar where she's just accustomed to it or it's the way that things are? I don't know. This is left to us Lydia, but yeah, sure. If a person grows up in what we call abusive environment then abuse would be the person's work zone. Never mind how horrible the ring. If you know the ropes, you know how to box, you know how to wrestle. Children who grew up in abusive families feel much more comfortable in an abusive environment because they know the ropes, they know how to behave, they know how to manipulate, they're spouse, they know how to react, they know what is acceptable, what is not. They know the rules. They don't know how to behave in a non-abusive environment. The role of women in the 1940s and 50s in the United States would have been considered abusive to confine his wife to home and kitchen and child rearing and not allow her to go to work as has been the typical case in the 1930s and 40s in the United States. Abuse is not an objective entity that we can analyze and discuss and so on. It depends, simply depends and many women who are in what we would call abusive relationship with narcissists are actually very happy. What I call inverted narcissists or codependent narcissists, classical dependents, many of them are very, very happy in relationships with narcissists that you and I would call highly abusive, but they are happy and this is the only test. Are you happy? The test is not is your relationship abusive because abuse is a relative term. We can never agree on what constitutes abuse but we can always agree on the core question. Are you happy? If you are not happy, leave. Even if your husband is not abusive at all and the best of husbands on earth and you are not happy, leave. Of course if your husband is abusive and you are not happy you should leave. The test is a test of happiness and functioning. Are you able to function or are you being rendered dysfunctional by your relationship? If you are happy and you are able to function then your thing is sadomasochism flagellation to bleeding and it makes you happy then go for it. There are no objective criteria. Still though, is that like you said with junkies with a codependent, is that a functioning addict? Functioning means a dysfunction. But it's not, but it doesn't mean they are an addict if they seek that on purpose or they are an addict of it. Again, even with addiction the question is question of functioning. In the 1970s and 1980s clinical psychology changed its orientation. There were objective entities objective clinical diagnostic entities criteria. And if you fell within these criteria you were sick, mentally sick. But today modern clinical psychology asks only two questions. Are you happy? Can you function? If you are happy you can function, the rest is completely irrelevant. If you feel addicted or not addicted. If you are tortured on a daily basis and it makes you happy and allows you to function properly if it is adaptive to you. A masochist is someone that would be tortured every day. A masochist needs such an environment actually. In the absence of such an environment the masochist will become dysfunctional. So we don't, in psychology today they don't try to cure you or to change you. They try to make you happier and more functional. And I think that's a great attitude because enough with this judgment this is not the way it should be you should not be like that, you should be like this categorical statement all narcissists are, they are your childish infantile and they don't work in reality. Reality is much more new and there are many shades of grey, very very little black and white. Well I was reading about narcissism and the treatment is that the true self is so shattered that they don't try to reform the true self, they try to breed a new self, a shred that's left of the true self. A whole new person is what their therapy is about. There is no treatment for narcissism. There are many many self-interested fraudsters and charlatans who claim that there's a treatment because they make a lot of money. Off valuable people. And they include many so-called scholars and many so-called dexter, counselors and therapists. They are all fraudsters and charlatans in proper society they would all end up in jail. There is no treatment for narcissistic personality disorder. There is no treatment for any personality disorder. It's all utter nonsense. As you had said before you'll always be a narcissist but you filter and I've learned to say that about codependencies. I'll always be a codependent but now I used to filter and I'm great. What you can do is you can modify behaviors to a logic sentiment and you can learn adaptive strategies. Strategies that will minimize the damage caused to you and to others by your dysfunctional traits and behaviors. This can be achieved. In other words we can take a narcissist, put him through therapy for instance cognitive behavioral therapy which is pretty effective. Then put the narcissists through therapy and out the other end will come a much more well behaved narcissist much less abrasive, much less aggressive, much less obnoxious, much easier to get along with a team worker and so on. This we can achieve. But modifying behaviors and rendering someone more socially acceptable is not the same as curing and healing. It's a little like having cancer. Once you have cancer or certain types of cancer at least you have cancer and now you learn how to live with it. And many people who have incurable cancer live happily. I mean happily. They live functionally. They're okay. And this can be achieved with narcissists to a lesser extent. Psychopaths with histrionic, borderline and so on. To say that you can form a new personality this is such utter nonsense that cannot begin to be described. A personality 101 is that the process of constructing personality ends more or less at age 16 to 18. Nothing can be done after that. Now narcissistic personality disorder by definition in the diagnostic and manual and in every considerable textbook is all pervasive. In other words it is the personality. It's not that it is something grafted onto the personality. It's not something artificial that with abrasion you can remove it somehow. It's not a stain. It is the person. It is every behavior they act. Everything they say. Hell. Every pore in the narcissistic skin is narcissistic. It's interpersonal behavior. It's behavior in the workplace. It's behavior when he attends church. When he walks. When he talks. When he takes a crap sorry for the expression. When he sleeps he's always there. Narcissistic personality disorder is a personality disorder. It's not an itch. It's not a rash. It's not something that can be cured. Now there are many, many, many therapists, counselors, experts and scholars, many of them self-styled who claim that narcissists can be treated and cured. Guess why? Because they make a lot of money out of it. By giving close hope. Believe me I've read every available study on narcissism I believe. Most of them use samples of 10, 5, 7 people. That in itself is fraudulent. My database includes well over 100,000 people of which 3,000 have been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. In my database there are 2,000 therapists with whom I've had correspondence over the years. I've been doing this for 17 years plus. I don't think there's anyone on earth who comes close to the amount of raw information that I possess and I'm telling you without any reservations, pathological narcissism in all these manifestations cannot be cured at all. It is untouchable. Now I feel like as a codependent it's in every single one of your behaviors. It's in everything that you do. It's the same thing where it is the person. It becomes the personality and it's the same thing where you can become educated codependent and put that filter in place and every action you do you think through with your brain like you had described. But it's the same thing with a codependent is that everything that they do is a codependent behavior. I'm not an expert of codependence so I cannot express any opinion. Narcissism I hold myself to be an expert. Well I'm not an expert of codependence but either way when I read things that you write about codependency there are always explanations of me to a T. I've corresponded with tens of thousands of codependents. Regrettably many of the spouses and intimate partners and others have pronounced codependent traits even if they don't have full-fledged dependent personality disorder. By the way the term codependent is not a professional term. Professional diagnosis is dependent personality disorder. So many of them have never been diagnosed with dependent personality disorder but they have very pronounced codependent behaviors and traits. I was forced to study that too because of Narcissism. Do you want to quickly go through some of the types of abuse and things like that, the techniques of the abusers? Well abusers are very creative. Again, remember what I said earlier that abuse is a mode of communication. It's a language actually. Typical language has 100,000 words. It's the same with abuse. There are 100,000 forms of abuse because the abuser needs to communicate something to himself. Abuse feels the emotional needs of the abuser. The abuse wants to communicate something to the victim and the abuser wants to communicate something to society to his friends, to his environment. Abuse has multiple goals and multiple functions and therefore it has multiple forms and it is exactly a language and there are many forms of abuse. First of all there is overt abuse. That's the open and explicit abuse. So threatening, cursing, beating, lying, derating, demeaning, all this kind of thing insulting, devaluing, discarding, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse. We are all acquainted with this form of abuse but this is only the tip of an iceberg actually because for instance pantering, spoiling, putting on a pedestal is also a form of abuse. Why? Because it objectifies the person. It shifts the person or the child for instance as a tool, as an instrument of gratification. Consider covert or controlling abuse. Any form of excessive control is actually abusive. Being controlled free is being an abuser and it's actually the outcome of panic. The abuser is in a constant state of panic of losing control but as far as the victim is concerned it is abuse. Independent people disobedient people, autonomous people, provoke in the abuser the panic of losing control. He wants to pull them back into the fold. He wants to subjugate. Here's another form. Unpredictability, uncertainty, behaving in an arbitrary and capricious manner. When you have to walk connections you don't know what's the next thing coming. You don't know how he's going to react, when he's going to react and why he's going to react. When he's totally unpredictable rendering the whole situation uncertain, clinically we call it intermittent reinforcement. So this is also a form of abuse. When you behave in a way that makes everyone around you sit on edge and walk connections you are abusive. Next thing is disproportional reactions. The tiniest provocation leads to a rage attack or cause colossal proportion. Disproportionate reactions is a form of abuse. Dehumanization, objectification when the abuser regards you as an object. Sometimes in the sex act. Like a pump doll. A masturbation tool. Masturbating with your body. But sex is only one form. Objectifying people in various forms. So that's also an abuse. Abuse of information. You share something with someone. You trust him with information and he comes around and uses it against you. That's another form of abuse. It is to extort or to blackmail or simply to humiliate you insult you. It allure you. That's a form of abuse. Some abusers create impossible situations where they are the saviors. Everyone has to refer to them to resolve the situation that they had created in the first place. There's abuse by proxy. Abusers who use third parties to abuse you. They don't abuse you directly. But they work with friends of colleagues of your own family. They use your own family against you. So this is abuse by proxy. And then you have ambient abuse also known as gaslight. That's the basic though, right? Isn't it? Yeah, it's very common. This is a situation where the abuser is crazy making. Makes him think that you're losing your mind. Literally tells you you're crazy. Or tells you you're crazy. But more often it's ambient. I call it ambient. It creates an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, instability, unpredictability, irritation and the extent that you're really beginning to lose your mind. They say they don't remember these things that you bring up. I just gave you a taste of the myriad forms of abuse out there. The myriad forms of abuse. The idealized devalue then discard. I have an article from you that I love. She wrote about that. Basically, they have to idolize their source because the more special they are, the more special their supply is. And then they get worried about the dependency or they start devaluing you even with things projected from themselves. They devalue and call you this and this and that, which has nothing to do with you but they actually believe that you have their issues. That's one reason to devalue. They've become over dependent on you and they resent the fact that they are powerless. They you hold their self-confidence, self-esteem and sense of self-worth in your hands. So they resent that. But there's also another reason to devalue and discard. And that's if suddenly you have become autonomous and dependent, disobedient. If you begin to disagree with an artist, criticize him, suggest something imply that he is in need of help. If you don't play along. If you're not the machine that you're supposed to be that he installed. Yes, if you are not the perfect secondary source of supply. Okay, Sam, I guess we'll end for today and I'll speak to you again soon. There's so many more subjects to bring up and discuss. They're endless, as is your knowledge. But I do love working with you. I appreciate the conversation today and I look forward to our next one. Thank you for having me and I'm looking forward as well. And I will speak to you very soon. Thank you so much. Take care. Thank you for everything you're doing. Bye. Bye.