 I've been diagnosed twice with narcissistic personality disorder and once with borderline psychopathy and I have paid the ultimate price for these all-pervasive cancers of the soul. I have lost fortunes, family and everything else one can lose, reputation and so on several times. I've added time in jail for securities fraud and so on. Are you a narcissist? Have you or are you currently dating a narcissist? What about psychopaths? Ever meet a charming, well-spoken person but feel like there's something not quite right about them? The narcissist acts out and ruins everything and everyone around him most specifically himself. So this is the danger in narcissism because narcissists are great actors. They con the system, the ones who can deceive everyone all the time. This is the danger. They are stealthy and I would beg to differ with you that they are human and technically as far as biology goes, they are human but not as far as their psychology goes. As far as the psychology of the narcissist goes, the narcissist is an alien, an extraterrestrial on earth. Today on the Shy Man's Dating School podcast series, we delve into the deeply dark and disturbing world of narcissism. Stephen Davis speaks with Sam Vaknen, a twice-diagnosed cerebral narcissist who authored the book Malignant Self-Love. Today, they speak about the traits of narcissists and psychopaths and about the women who date them. So first of all, there is the issue of the narcissist tends to blame his mistakes, failures on others. The world is guilty. Everyone is guilty. Everyone is responsible for what's happening to the narcissist except himself. He never takes responsibility. The narcissist is very eager. If you date a narcissist, he pushes you to get married on the second date, planning on having children on the first date and he immediately tells you that you have the love of his life. So stay tuned to the Shy Man's Dating School podcast series where today we find out, are you a narcissist? I'm fascinated by human behavior and I'm clear that there's just so many personality types, points of view, just ways people are that I'm not aware of or I've never experienced myself or I experienced, but I don't know that's what it is. You've clearly researched this, investigated it, organized thoughts about it. I'd love to find out about your journey to the place where you are now as a resource. Now you're a resource for that. It's a pretty straightforward arrow in my case. I've been diagnosed twice with narcissistic personality disorder and once with borderline psychopathy and I have paid the ultimate price for these all pervasive cancers of the soul. I have lost fortunes, family and everything else one can lose, reputation and so on several times. I've added time in jail for securities fraud and so on. So having hit rock bottom several times, having hit rock bottom and bounce and then hit rock bottom and bounce, I decided that I would like to discover the laws of physics that regulate this bouncing motion. And what I came across was the general topic of personality disorders. In 1995 when I embarked on my path of self-discovery, there was no awareness of pathological narcissism. It was an obscure sub-sub-subfield which had been neglected for decades. Freud, Ziegman Freud was the first to coin the term narcissism in 1916 and then there were sporadic studies in the early to mid-70s and that's more or less it. No one has paid attention to pathological narcissism, definitely not on the scale that it is being studied today. It's a cottage industry and a major driver of psychological research in faculties and universities across the globe, especially in the United States. But at that time there was nothing, absolutely nothing. Consequently, I had to essentially invent the whole field single-handed. I have written a book in 1995, which was the first book to describe and coin the phrase narcissistic abuse. I also had to come up with a whole language. Most of the language used today to describe and tackle this extremely untoward phenomenon was invented by me in the mid-90s, so narcissistic supply, somatic narcissists, cerebral narcissists. They all turned ahead to invent as I was plowing along into this terra incognita. But ultimately, after a journey of several years, I thought that I have reached a modicum of self-awareness and self-revelation and then I branched out. I established support groups online. Well over 100,000 people joined within the first two years, which was, yeah, it indicated, it was an indicator of how serious and how ubiquitous the problem was. Were you shocked by the number? Yeah, very much so. I thought I was alone. That characterizes many mentally ill people. They think they're alone. Absolutely. And then there was this whole thing of victims of narcissistic abuse. So by now, I think narcissism is a well-established clinical phenomenon as well as a well-understood path towards abuse, violence, and aggression in myriad forms. That's how I got into this mess. Wow, that must have been really pioneering work. Must have felt like you were doing it alone. Yeah, for a while I have been alone, completely alone. But then there was an avalanche of scholars, self-styled scholars, experts, victims, ex-victims, would-be victims, wannabe victims. Narcissists and psychopaths thrilled to discover that there's a name and a label and a handle to what's happening to them. And then there was the narcissism pride movement. So today you can find narcissists and psychopaths online saying we are the next evolutionary stage. We are the epitome of human achievement, and we are superior to other human beings. That's why we feel superior, hence the source of our arrogance and haughtiness, because we really are. You have manifestations of the study of narcissism, which are both benign and cancerous, as is the case for every other social movement or phenomenon. And it probably lets you know that it's reached a certain degree of success or... Oh, yeah, you can't open television today. You can't watch a movie. You can't watch a crime serial. You can't watch a police procedural where the word narcissism doesn't crop up. People use narcissism as a pejorative term. They hurl narcissism. It's a curse word, you know, hence it's all over the place. Today narcissism is really, in a way, the name of the game. But more seriously, it is beginning to be thought of, pathological narcissism is beginning to be thought of as the root cause of many other, either two ostensibly unrelated mental health disorders. So we're beginning to see a common root for all these disorders, especially what used to be called cluster B disorders, which means antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, histrionic. But also other types of, for instance, there is a very close behavioral, at least, match between aspergers, autistic spectrum disorders, and narcissism. There are bipolar disorder, especially the manic phase, which resemble narcissism very very closely. And generalized anxiety disorder also is. So we're beginning to see that pathological narcissism rears its ugly head in multitudes, in multifarious mental health disorders, because what is narcissism? Narcissism is our core. That's who we are. It's about self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence. And in short, it's a pathology of the self. So if the self is involved in everything, and in every mental health disorder. Can you tell me what it's like to have this? It sucks. It sounds like it. It's a self-defeating, self-destructive disorder in a variety of ways. It impacts on one's ability to act in the world and on the world. It affects gravely and irreversibly and ineluctably interpersonal disorders, interpersonal relationships. All forms of intimacy, the ability to collaborate with other people in teamwork, the ability to function, and so on and so forth. Mind you, there are functional narcissists and functional psychopaths. And they for a while make it to the pinnacle, they are the pillars of the community and they become everything from your local parish priest to the president of the United States. But then they self-impload, then they self-destruct. And depending on the level they have attained, depending on their accomplishments, they take with them numerous people. So if you're a small-time guy, you take your family with you. But if you're the president of the United States, you take the whole nation with you. One thing is inevitable and unavoidable, and that is the self-implosion. So for a while, a narcissist for a while, when I say while, it could be decades. Narcissists can be totally functional and give the outward impression of having made it. As stress is accumulating, the narcissist acts out, lashes out, implodes, explodes and ruins everything and everyone around him, most specifically himself. So this is the danger in narcissism because narcissists are great actors. They have thespian skills. They con the system and they are the ones who can deceive everyone all the time. This is the danger. They are stealthy. They're all around and they're stealthy. And I would beg to differ with you that they are human. You said that narcissism is a human manifestation and technically, as far as biology goes, physiology perhaps, biochemistry, they are human. But not as far as their psychology goes. As far as the psychology of the narcissist goes, the narcissist is an alien, an extraterrestrial on earth, a form of artificial intelligence. And that is because the narcissist lacks the basic machinery, the basic apparatus of which is required in order to qualify as a human being. Narcissists have no empathy. Narcissists have no emotions or no access to emotions. Narcissists are robotic because they are like cruise missiles. They home in on narcissistic supply, attention, adulation, admiration, being feared. They are more like drag addicts. They are junkies. But junkies who are also devoid of major dimensions of what it means to be human. So it's a very frightening phenomenon actually. It's a home movie. It's a nightmarish proposition. It's not like, you know, other things, like bipolar, bipolar, you're up, you're down. It's a human experience to be bipolar, to be depressed, be manic. It's a human experience even to be schizophrenic or schizophrenic paranoid. It's human to be paranoid from time to time, all of us are paranoid. It's human to be, to be, you know, it's human to be everything else except a psychopath. It is not human to be a psychopath. It is outside the realm and the spectrum of human experience. And the same goes for a narcissist. You never looked at it that way, but that really makes sense. Before I called you, I thought about how I haven't, I would say I haven't come across many narcissists or psychopaths, probably in business more than anywhere else. But I'm getting the sense that I'm just not aware of it. Across them, I'm just not aware of it. Yeah, you're definitely coming across them. Statistically speaking, 1% of all the population are narcissistic or psychopathic. So you must have come across several in your lifetime. For sure. But I think the statistics are grossly underestimated because narcissists and psychopaths do not subject themselves to rigorous testing, let alone treatment. Or it's safer to think that something like, I don't know what, 5%, 7% of the population have pronounced narcissistic and psychopathic tendencies. Now you're right though that narcissists tend to gravitate towards specific profession where they can wield power when they can make money, when they can garner adulation and admiration. So you are more likely to find narcissists in show business, among the clergy, in law enforcement, in the judiciary, in politics. So you're more likely to find narcissists where narcissistic supply is more plentiful. So they gravitate to these professions. And so your statement that you mostly have come across them in a business environment strikes me as true and correct. How would I, if I wanted to increase my awareness so that I was more able to identify that trait in people, is there a particular thing I would look for? If you are sensitized and aware, you can spot them on the first date. If you are not, it would take you a decade. Education, education, education is very, very important. And since sensitization and exposure to other people's experiences and to literature online and offline, these are critical. Otherwise, it's very easy not to spot a narcissist or a psychopath until it's way, way too late. I can give you a few markers if you wish. So first of all, there is the issue of what we call alloplastic defenses. The narcissist tends to blame his mistakes, failures, and so on, on others. The world is guilty. His boss is guilty. The company is guilty. His family is guilty. Everyone is guilty. Everyone is responsible for what's happening to the narcissist except himself. He never takes responsibility. And we call this an external locus of control. It's like the narcissist's life is controlled from the outside. The next thing is, narcissists are very hypersensitive. They pick a fight. They feel constantly slighted, injured, insulted. They're hyper-vigilant, so they are on guard. In all times, you know, they are a bit paranoid. They tend to treat weak people, animals, sick people, and children impatiently and cruelly. They're very cruel. And they express negative and aggressive emotions towards their inferiors or people they perceive to be inferior, like people who are poorer or more stupid or needy or sentimental or disabled. They usually have a history of aggression and violence, sometimes bordering on the criminal and sometimes criminal. So violent offenses, battering, domestic violence, and so on is very common among narcissists and psychopaths. At the very least, they would be verbally, verbally violent, verbally abusive. So they would use a vile language infused with expletives, threats, and the general impression would be hostility, debt of hostility. A narcissist is very eager. If you date a narcissist, he pushes you to get married on the second date, and he's planning on having children on the first date, and he immediately tells you that you have the love of his life. And he's pressing you for exclusivity, for instant intimacy, and almost rapes you and acts jealous. And this is incommensurate with the time lapse, like it happens on the first or second date. So they're very possessive and very eager. And then there's the issue of boundaries and privacy. Narcissists and psychopaths do not recognize other people's boundaries and privacy. They ignore your wishes, your rules, your rules of conduct. They select from the menu. They choose which movie you're going to see. They never consult you. They disrespect you. They treat you as an object or an instrument of gratification, you know. They go through your personal belonging while waiting for you. They text you or phone you multiple times and so on and so forth. It's just you have the increasingly distinct feeling that you don't really exist, that the narcissist sees through you, that you're transparent. And then the narcissists and psychopaths are controlled freaks. So they must control the situation and you compulsively. So they insist to ride, if you date a narcissist, she would insist to ride in her car. She would hold on to the car keys. She would hold on to the money, to the theta tickets, to the air tickets, to your bag. She would disapprove if you stay away for too long. I don't know. You go to the loo. She would interrogate you when you return. So they're very insecure actually. So they compensate for that by being controlled freaks. And they make it very clear that in future you would need their permission to do things, even innocuous things like meeting your friends or visiting with your family. They would tend to isolate you from the very, very beginning. So they would disparage your friends. They would criticize your friends. They would tell you that, you know, they're your friends are beneath you. They, you deserve better. And they would try to isolate you from your family. And finally, they usually act in a patronizing, haughty, condescending manner. They criticize you often. They emphasize your smallest, minutest faults. They devalue you. They exaggerate. They also, on the one hand, so it's a pendulum. It's called idealization, devaluation. On the one hand, they exaggerate your talents, your traits, and your skills. They idealize you because by idealizing you, they are idealizing and aggrandizing themselves, you know. And on the other hand, with the same breath, you know, on a dime, they turn on a dime and they hermit you, the most abusive invectives and criticism. And this pendulum is very, very telling. And they would tend to diminish you, harass you, ridicule you, and then switch immediately to saccharine sugary, sugary compliments. And so this pendulum movement, these fluctuations, are very, very telling. This is a very partial list. But, you know, even if you implement this list, you're likely to support narcissistic cycle. Not to oversimplify, but it sounds like the story of so many of women who are a relationship where they get abused. And initially, they liked all the attention. They liked how important they were to the other person. They liked that the other person kind of controlled, you know, or led the relationship. And then it gets really volatile with that swing back and forth between the verbal abuse and the making up. Narcissists and psychopaths fulfill deep emotional needs in their partners. The bonding is not accidental. I mean, many women would fall for a narcissist or a psychopath on a first date because they're very charming and they home in on you. They are like lasers, you know, you are suddenly the center of the universe. They're the most amazing and thrilling and fascinating being. And so it's very flattering and it's very difficult to resist. So many a woman would fall for a narcissist. But very few would remain with a narcissist after a certain, you know, and those who remain have a very, have a highly specific psychological profile. Those who tolerate the abuse and even welcome it, those who settle in and adopt themselves to the narcissist, these specific needs and requirements, those women have a highly specific psychological profile. Before we continue, I wanna make clear that 75% of all diagnosed narcissists are male, but 25% of all diagnosed narcissists are female. So we do have women narcissists, female narcissists. It's not an exclusive preserve of men. But throughout this conversation, I would tend to use the male pronoun because most narcissists are men and definitely most abusers are men, physical abusers and so on. You know, there is a weeding out process. There's a filtering process. The vast, I mean, women or women would be delighted on a first or second date with a narcissist and the vast majority of women would give up on a narcissist or a psychopath by the fifth date because the emanations are there, the feeling that something is not right, that, you know, something doesn't click, that there is something wrong, that this person is wrongly put together, that the feeling of fakeness, the feeling that it's a forged proximity of a human being, but not really a human being. And there was an expert, a robotics expert in Japan. His field was robotics, so he's an expert in robots. And he invented the concept of uncanny valley. He said that as robots become more and more similar to humans, they are likely to provoke feelings of unease and discomfort in their environment because everyone knows they're robots and yet they are so human. And this discrepancy between human-like robots and the underlying steel and aluminum, this discrepancy is what he called the uncanny valley. And some narcissists and psychopaths provoke the same ill-at-ease discomforture in people. Whenever you meet a psychopath or a narcissist, you keep, there's a dialogue, you keep having an internal dialogue which says, this guy looks so charming, so intelligent, so amazing, what's wrong with him? Why do I feel that something's wrong with him? And you can't put your finger on it, but you know that something's wrong with this guy. So healthy psychologically and mentally healthy women would usually disengage after a while. But there is a minority and it's not in substantial minority of women who would actually latch on to the narcissists. And these women are usually co-dependents. Some of them are narcissists themselves, something called covert narcissism or inverted narcissism. And so the psychological profile of this type of intimate partner of a narcissist is also pathologic in effect, long-term path. But can you describe any more of what their pathology is, the long-term part? Yeah, well, to be a long-term, to serve, and I'm using the word serve judiciously, you know, to serve as the long-term partner of a narcissist, you must have a very efficient or distorted grasp of yourself and of reality. You must have what we call in psychology, cognitive distortion, which consists of belittling and demeaning yourself while aggrandizing and adoring the narcissist. Partner is placing yourself as the long-term partner, mind you. Placing yourself essentially in the position of an eternal victim. She's undeserving. She's punishable. She's a scapegoat. And it's this kind of person, it's very important for her to appear moral, sacrificial, victimized. She's, many of these women are not even aware of these predicaments. They perceive the narcissists as someone deserving of their sacrifice because he's superior in so many ways, intellectually, emotionally, morally, professionally, financially. But they are professional victims. And then we have another type of long-term partner, the kind of partner which maintains a symbiotic relationship with the narcissist. She's totally dependent on the narcissist. Sometimes as a source of supply, narcissistic or masochistic supply, near attention. So this kind of partner is a codependent. She suffers from severe abandonment, anxiety. She has very dysfunctional attachment and bonding styles. She's clinging. She's needy. And in the narcissist, she finds this partner that can keep her on her toes, if you wish, that can, because this kind of partner is also a drama queen. She's adrenaline junkie. She's addicted to the ups and downs. She loves these. And whenever she is with a normal person, a non-narcissist, she would find this kind of partner boring, black and white. The narcissist is the technique color eruption in her life. It gives her life color and meaning. It's a dance macabre. It's a tango of two. One last thing that is important to understand, that it is not true, that the common myth that no one survives the narcissist. It's not true. They are very, many narcissists have very stable relationships with their intimate partners. Only it's a match of pathologies. It's simply one pathology meets another, and then they bond. And the bond is very strong and very meaningful to both parties and survives for decades. But it's still a pathological bond that is functional. So many narcissists are stable in their marriage and it's not true that all narcissists end up being divorced and abandoned. It's absolutely, it's a myth. They find a good fit. Yeah, they find the lead, exactly. To me, it seems that some of the traits of the psychopath are similar to the traits of someone who's really good at picking up women, who's a player, who has all that charming, no empathy type of personality. Do you, am I off base and naive on that? No, I wouldn't say that you're off base and naive. I would make two, I would make two pertinent observation. One, the dating scene, the adult dating scene, let's say 40s and 50s. 40 and 50 year olds dating scene is a negative filter. It is not representative of the whole population. This is a self-selecting group. This is a group of people who have failed in their relationship, their divorce, they've never been married. This, the people on the dating scene are not a representative sample. Most of the people on the dating scene from my experience, and it's, we're talking 17 years experience of interviewing these people. I have a database of close to 120,000 cases and so on. Most of these people suffer from one form of dysfunction or another. They are not necessarily mentally ill, they're not necessarily personality disordered, but they are dysfunctional one way or another. And it is this dysfunction exactly that brought them into the dating scene. So yes, it's an easy hunting ground for the narcissist and the psychopath, the dating scene. And you find an unusual concentration of narcissists and psychopaths among those who date, both as pickup artists and as the willing victims or the willing prey. This is not the case in the general population of, for example, in one's 20s or early 30s when most of the stable, long-term relationships are formed and getting to meet partners and potentially intimate partners in settings like university, college, and so I call it the general, the non-dating scene, the general population. In the general population, narcissists and psychopaths would have very little success and they very fast acquire very bad reputation. And so if you are a 20-year-old narcissist and you study in a college and you're beginning to date girls, if you're gonna suck, it's not gonna work. The first girl you date will spread the word that you are a weirdo, you know? You're a low-case, you're a wacko, and that'll be the end of it and so on. So there's a lot of peer control and social control of fitness and compatibility in dating in these settings because they are reputation-based. They are not essentially anonymous. They're reputation-based. However, when one gets into one's 40s and 50s and is twice divorced and roams singles bars and strip clubs and I know what, or computer online dating websites and what have you, these are all negative filters. The people, I mean, the population which frequents these joints and or is on online dating sites is not a representative sample. It's a highly unique subculture and subgroup. And among these people, as I said, mental health dysfunctions are very common and they are all very easy prey. And then you're right. Narcissists and psychopaths would have an inordinate success among these groups. Right. The reputation isn't as easily shared. It's also, on online dating sites, you can't believe a word. I mean, it's anything like between 90 and 100% fake. I mean, there's no reputation there. And when you go to a singles bar and you pick up a one-night stand, it's also not reputation-based. It's muscle-based or whatever. So, for instance, there is a subtype of narcissist called the somatic narcissist. It's a narcissist who uses, leverages his body, his musculature, his sex appeal, his charm and so on and so forth in order to perpetrate a series of sexual conquests. This kind of narcissist, a somatic narcissist, derives his narcissistic supply, derives the attention and adulation via his sexual conquests and his musculature and his bodybuilding and so forth. The somatic narcissist roams these exactly these places, scores, it's a scoring game. There's no emotional dimension to that. There's no, it's just notches on his belt. And so, this is not a healthy scene, that's from trying to tell you. And in this miasma, in this unhealthy scene, of course, unhealthy characters like narcissists and psychopaths thrive. I can see also, like you mentioned, even bars where everyone's going there for the very purpose of picking up or getting picked up would be a fertile hunting ground, definitely a destiny. It is, it is a fertile hunting ground. Narcissists and psychopaths don't go there to get laid as most normal people would. They go there to score, they go there to wield power. This is why some of these encounters end in rape. As rape is not about sex, rape is about power. It's a power play, it's a mind game. So narcissists and psychopaths inhabit these places because they want to score, not in the sexual sense, but to score in the power play sense, to have power over others, to demonstrate to themselves and to others their remit, their capacity, their amazing ability to subjugate and subject and dominate and convert people to their cause and make them do what they want. It's a cult-like setting in the narcissist's mind. And the narcissist needs people to tell him, time and again, you are the greatest, you are the best, you are the most sexual beast, you are the most brilliant, you are the perfect, he needs this. This is what we call narcissistic supply. Precisely because his sense of self-worth is very volatile. In the absence of narcissistic supply, the narcissist crumbles to dust, exactly like in vampire movies. He crumbles to dust and that's why many people describe narcissists as energy vampires because they suck your lifeblood, your mental lifeblood. They demand, they demand sometimes aggressively that you reflect to them their grandeur, their grandiosity, that you consistently affirm and confirm to them how outstanding and superior they are, how essentially divine, inhuman they are. And so if you go to a bar, singles bar, you wanna get laid, that's a legitimate destination and a legitimate quest. And if you find an appropriate partner, there's nothing wrong with it, I mean, enjoy it. But the narcissists and the psychopaths are there not for this purpose. It's very dangerous, it's a very dangerous environment. Are they looking for that constant affirmation verbally or is it just the fact that you're interested in them? Well it depends, if you are cerebral, sorry, I cut you off. I mean, it's just the fact that you're interested in them, is that enough or do they need it verbally? Well it depends, as I said, there are two types of, two major types of narcissists, the cerebral and the somatic. The cerebral narcissist is a narcissist who places emphasis on his brain, his intellectual capacity and his intelligence. So he needs you to tell him how brilliant, amazing, perfect, stunning, fascinating, he is intellectually. And then, yes, it's verbal. He doesn't want or require anything more. He's actually pretty repelled by sex and the vast majority of cerebral narcissists, one of which I am, are asexual, they don't have sex. So they won't go beyond that. They would stun you with intellectual pyrotechnics with their vocabulary, with their ability to think and to rationalize and raciocinate. And then they would say, you know, you're really brilliant, you're amazing and so on. That'll be the end all and beyond. And that's it, that's a narcissistic supply. However, if you are somatic, a somatic narcissist is someone who uses mainly his sexuality to obtain narcissistic supply. And that would require sexual dominance and sexual consummation. That would require sexual conquest. And if, when the narcissist is denied this conquests, this consummation or this acknowledgement of his irresistibility, he becomes aggressive. He becomes aggressive, not because he's rejected, but he becomes aggressive because he is a junkie without a drug, without his drug. He becomes aggressive the same way junkies become aggressive when they are denied their fix. And so this could become ugly and usually does, by the way. And then it depends on the narcissist. Some narcissists are aggressive but not violent, but a small minority of narcissists are also psychopathic and even smaller minority are also sexual sadists. So this small minority, if you get on the wrong side, if you deny them what they think is their right because they are irresistible, no one can withstand their charm. And if you deny that to their face, if you give them what I call negative narcissistic supply, then they may well become violent and it's happened before, thousands of times. And it's easy to see how a woman could wake up feeling very distant, used, that it was either an experience they wanted or a... There is no woman in this encounter but only an arch, it's an instrument of gratification. The narcissist needs her as an inflatable doll to prove to himself that he has the capacity to dominate and subjugate other people, especially females, if he is straight, but other people generally, regardless of sexual orientation. So he needs to subjugate and dominate. It's a power place, I told you, it's a mind game. It's nothing to do with sex or let alone with emotion or relationship or anything. So her job is to be there, wide-eyed, and to admire the narcissist and to succumb to his expressed and non-expressed wishes, thereby proving to him that he is worthy of adulation, admiration, and that he is irresistible. And that's her job. And once she has done her job, once it's over, he has no need for her and she is dismissed. She is an object, he masturbates with her body. It's a narcissist and psychopaths are homoerotic, not homoerotic in the sense that they are attracted to their own gender, like homosexuals, but in the sense that they are attracted to themselves. They are, as Freud said and others, they are their own sexual objects. So with a narcissist, as a woman, you may have sex with a narcissist and it'll be great as far as technique goes. He's gonna have the greater technique and it's gonna be paratechnics, it's gonna be firework. But at the end of the day, you will feel emptied, voided because you have never been there. You have been an excuse. You have been a conduit. You have been an instrument of virtue through which, via which, the narcissist obtained an act of love-making with himself. Indeed, this is narcissism, malignant self-love. And this is the title of my book, malignant self-love. And it's similar for psychopath. Yeah, psychopath is even worse. Psychopath is even worse because psychopaths are almost invariably violent. Today, the distinction with a psychopath and narcissists is very blurred with the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Fifth Edition last year. It's been recognized that the lines, the demarcations between personality disorders in the past were very blurry, fuzzy and superfluous. So today it's all merged. So there are narcissists spectrum. So some narcissists are psychopathic narcissists and these people are usually violent. So with a psychopath, it's much worse because it's likely to involve some violence. Ritualized violence, like in Saddo Mazzo or real violence. Your description of the narcissist having sex, needing that constant verbal admiration sounds a lot like porn. Sounds like... Yes, of course. Narcissists are notorious porn addicts, of course. It sounds, it definitely sounds like the way porn is constructed these days. I haven't come across a single narcissist and I have come across thousands by far. I have the biggest database in the world on narcissism. Just to give you a measure of comparison. Most of the studies on narcissism in Akadem involve usually 20 or 30 people. My database includes thousands of people diagnosed with narcissism and I have had very long, detailed interactions with them online, admittedly. And they've answered my questions because they regard me as one of them. So I'm in the brotherhood. And so I can tell you that I have yet to come across a narcissist who is not a porn addict. A addict. I mean, addict is a strong word, but like who doesn't find porn very appealing and who is not exposed to porn at least once a day. Sam, your books, Malignant Self-Love, is, you know, it looks like a really valuable tool for anyone who relates to other people. Just to know who you're dealing with or to see in yourself some of the trades. Yeah, I think you're touching on a very, very important point, often neglected in other interviews and write-ups and so on. Narcissism is a tidal wave, it's on the rise. Our society and culture are narcissistic. We have constructed, we have embedded narcissism as a foundation stone of the edifice in which we live. So narcissism permeates every cell, every social cell and every cultural aspect. Therefore, Malignant Self-Love is a guidebook not only to, you know, a husband, a boss, narcissistic husband or whatever, but it's a guidebook to modern life. It's regrettably, regrettably, even when you don't come across narcissists, you inevitably come across narcissism somewhere and you can have narcissistic collectives like narcissistic bureaucracy, the VA administration, if you wish, you can come across narcissistic church, narcissistic parish. You can come across narcissistic clubs and narcissistic political parties and narcissistic narcissism. And I was not the first to suggest it. I mean, the first one was Christopher Lash in 1976 in his seminal book, The Culture of Narcissists. Narcissism is no longer a phenomenon isolated to the cabinets of sarcastic German names. Narcissism is all around us. We are awash in narcissism and gradually psychopathy. So it's very frightening and everyone needs a guidebook to this brave new world, brave ominous new world. You have, you list other books like The Toxic Relationships, It's Abuse and It's Aftermath. Is that part of Malignant Self-Love? Right now we are selling, my publisher is selling a series of 16 books that I have written on narcissism, personality disorders, but also specifically on relationships with narcissists and with psychopaths. And I mean, people can buy the whole series or they can buy volumes individually. Some volumes deal with specific relationship issues, yes? Abuse in relationship, how to cope with narcissists in various settings. When you take them to court, when you have a narcissistic coworker or a narcissistic boss, so in the workplace, there is no shortage of context for narcissism and there is no shortage of books on narcissism and mine are an early and periodically updated contribution to this field. These look terrific. I've had clients who, you know, using your books, your knowledge, your information would have been very helpful to them. There is no access to the narcissist mind, except if you are a narcissist. In this sense, it really takes one to know one. So I keep reading these scholarly studies and books written by victims and observers and I chuckle. I keep laughing, you know, because they don't get it right. It is such a solipsist, the narcissist mind is such solipsistic monastic universe that it's a mob, it's a mafia. You need to be a wise guy to know what's going on. So only one narcissist, only a narcissist knows what it means to be a narcissist. It is an experience which is exclusive, mutually exclusive with the human. It's really unique. Sam, I want to thank you so much for your time. I really, it's been fascinating. I'd love to revisit with you after I digest some of this unique perspective you've given me. And I, I want to again, just point out your book, Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited and your website, Sam Fack, S-A-M-V-A-K, dot tripod dot com. Yes, or www.narcissistic-abuse.com. Cause it's just fantastic resource and I really appreciate the work you're doing. I appreciate you having me. Have a nice day there. Take care, bye bye.