 We all know the reasonable old men who died there thinning hair Blacker and blacker by the year We all know the 63 year old professors of psychology Who clad who clad themselves in leather jackets on camera? And we all know the women passed the prime who tried to emulate adolescent figures in short We all have a conflicted relationship with our bodies to varying degrees If you look at various social Manifestations and phenomena you will realize this for example religion Which treats body the body is a shrine somehow to be worshipped and nurtured cannibalism Where eating another person's internal organs Endows you with the qualities and traits of this person So if you eat a warrior's liver you are bound to become more courageous Religious prostitution the Vestal non-virgin virgins Simple prostitution sex work where the sex workers conform to stereotypes like big boobs human sacrifice where bodies are immolated or eviscerated in honor of the gods and in order to fend off impending looming rather than catastrophe of the divine so all these Clearly exemplify and reify some kind of conflictual relationship with the corporeal with a bodily but this is tenfold amplified in narcissism in narcissism The body is either idealized by somatic narcissists or devalued by cerebral narcissists But in both cases the somatics and the cerebrals The body is a persecutory object an enemy aging disease disability and death are inexorable ineluctable and so all of life is spent Fending off the inevitable the body needs to be placated Sacrifices need to be made sacrifices of time of effort of money Need to be made in order to keep the body alive and well for as long as possible or In the cerebral case The body needs to be maintained or renovated It is an unwieldy container of the brain of the intellect So both are narcissists both types of narcissists cerebral and somatic regard the body as a persecutory object an adversary an enemy a foe Something to be somehow settled with and negotiated with not to remind you the somatic Narcissist is someone who derives narcissistic supply by using his body in a variety of ways I will discuss it a bit later and the cerebral narcissist is a narcissist who derives narcissistic supply by displaying and Leveraging his intellect in a spectacular pyrotechnic fashion okay But what people fail to understand and that includes scholars is that the body is never Never the narcissist friend It's never a friendly relationship the somatic narcissist regards his own body as an imminent and looming threat The somatic narcissist ages is subject to accidents in diseases finally dies This is really bad news in the case of the somatic narcissist because he needs his body to elicit narcissistic supply By the way, when I say he it's a she she is a he gender pronouns are interchangeable half of all narcissists are women. This is a new insight which The literature has missed on Both the cerebral narcissists and the somatic narcissists are ambivalent About their bodies the somatic narcissist Loves his body or is emotionally invested perfected in his body because his body is the main instrument of a Sertaining and guaranteeing a regular flow of narcissistic supply and the cerebral narcissists Outrived hates his body, but realizes his body's indispensability As far as his brain is concerned he needs a body to somehow keep the brain alive It's the laboratory or the factory within which his brain operates So there's ambivalence there and there is existential angst dread in Kierkegaard's terms there is dread fear of the deterioration decade and degenerate degeneration of the body There's nothing you can do to stop this process. It's as I said inexorable and You're just a witness the narcissist witnesses his own Decomposition however imperceptible and glacial it is and this is quite terrifying And so this creates a lot of anxiety One could say that in the case of the narcissist somatic or cerebral the body is angziogenic creates anxiety hence Anxiety reactions such as hypochondriasis and So all these complex relationship conflicted relationship with the body Leads to OCD obsessive compulsive artifacts behavioral artifacts for example Injurious ritualistic exercise regime such a regime is Essentially a right a ritual a ceremony to fend off the ultimate demise of the body or It's an essence This is an example of obsessive compulsive practices similarly over consumption of Vitamins or supplements All these all these behaviors which are structured rigid Ritualistic and are the outcomes of catastrophizing about the body if I don't do this I'm gonna embedly All these behaviors are essentially compulsive and They are reactions to anxiety. They're intended to ameliorate or reduce anxiety and the anxiety is the outcome of the dissonance between the narcissist's self-perception as perfect immortal Immutable godlike and the fact that the narcissist is deeply embedded in a Body that is falling apart. However gradually ultimately all narcissists end up Regarding the body as an enemy dissociating the body away and They become estranged to their own bodies There's a hint of Depersonalization So dissociation is a major mechanism of Copying with the body where narcissism is concerned regardless of the type of narcissists Narcissist dissociates his body away as a dissociated body and estranged body In the case of the somatic the dissociation and the estrangement Lead to the objectification of the body the body becomes a kind of external object The narcissist is a mere observer of his own body in action We'll come to it a bit later in the case of this cerebral narcissist. The body is relegated To a kind of abode or residence of the really important or the only important thing Which is the narcissist intelligence and intellect and so the body is an unfortunate unfortunate necessity or Side-effect you can't do without the body body Regrettably as a rebel narcissist would gladly dispense with his body. This is body brings him no pleasure whatsoever Only requires things only consumes resources So in both cases the body is dissociated It is therefore not surprising that the body is the seat of the of trauma as Fund a corkset the body keeps the score Trauma is embodied. It is in the body and Consequently, many people believe many scholars believe that the only way to heal from trauma Or to reverse trauma is to work through the body rather than through the mind starting from EMDR Treatment modalities such as EMDR and ending with real somatic techniques so This is the sequence the sequence is the narcissist the narcissist body Challenges the narcissist grandiosity cognitive distortion The narcissist self-perception is perfect and divine Immortal in effect is challenged by his body So his body becomes a secretary object an enemy and he develops a variety of strategies to cope with the body He objectifies the body or he devalues the body. He regards the body as a necessary evil and So on so forth he reacts with compulsive rituals and he dissociates the body. He becomes estranged to the body Now we said that the body is the seat of trauma because dissociation is a major reaction to trauma and And all narcissists have been traumatized and abused in early childhood Remember, there's a variety. There's a wide diversity of abuse Abuse is not a model monolithic construct or concept You can abuse a child by idolizing and pedestalizing the child You can abuse a child by being overprotective You can abuse a child by instrumentalizing and parentifying the child and you can of course abuse a child Physically sexually and so on so forth. There's a variety of ways to abuse the child But all narcissists without a single exception have been abused and traumatized in early childhood So they have learned to embody the trauma they gradually come to identify their bodies as Traumatic or traumatizing as seats of trauma and And this relationship of The body is a reification of trauma bed experiences abuse Stays with the narcissists for life The narcissists has this conflicted Attitude towards his body because very early on as a child Long before he has had the chance to develop a self or an ego or a personality the child Headed to somehow process trauma and abuse and used his body to do so the linkage between body Trauma abuse pain hurt is Is established in very early childhood and remains with the narcissists for life and So the narcissists tries to overcome this linkage to sever the link between trauma and body because Who can who can survive in a body that is constantly reminiscent of trauma? How can you how can you? Prevail how can you sustain yourself in an environment? Which you inhabit in which you reside your body an environment that? Reifies that constitutes trauma So you need the narcissists Seeks throughout his life the narcissists seeks to decouple The body from the early childhood trauma in a variety of ways techniques and strategies first of all The narcissists somatizes somatizes a lot Has somatiform disorders conversion conversion symptoms to you do as a much older phrase So he somatizes he uses his body to express The trauma the abuse recurrent repetition compulsion patterns Later Modification or narcissistic injuries. They're all expressed through the body in the case of the somatic narcissists The body is Instrumentalized we'll talk about it a bit later and by instrumentalizing and objectifying the body the narcissists Distances himself from the body and at the same time Converts the body into a tool of pleasure to pleasure bringing to So he kinds of he kind of erases The trauma by flooding it with pleasures of the flesh. That's a somatic the cerebral Has a much tougher time in this sense because His relationship with the body is bad and it grows bad by the year as the body Weakens as the body degenerates and dick decays and decomposes as the body experiences illnesses and diseases and accidents and Aging and disabilities and so on the cerebrals rage at the body anger at his own At this unwieldy instrumental unwieldy container of the brain Just mounts all the time The bad blood between the cerebral narcissists and the body increases all the time Whereas the somatic has found a solution by converting the body into a pleasure center The cerebral has failed to do so fails to do so So the cerebral needs to adopt a different Solution and the cerebral solution is to deny his body to pretend that his body does not exist or Is an afterthought or Is a Fantasy or an illusion or that he can somehow overcome his body With a sheer force of his intellect and incisive and penetrating intelligence or That he has to invest in the body only extremely minimally so cerebral would never exercise for example would never have sex And so on so forth so he denies his body whereas the somatic Embraces the body and then converts it into a pleasurable Artified pleasurable instrument the cerebral denies and rejects his body Divorces his body if you wish But in both cases of course The body is objectified When you reject the body when you deny the body, it's as if you were saying I am not my body There is me and there is my body So you treat your body as an external object We know of course that narcissists are incapable of Perceiving external objects as external and separate We'll discuss it a bit later. They're incapable of othering So because they're incapable of perceiving objects any objects as external and separate The cerebral narcissist keeps failing He wants to Externalize his body. He wants to treat his body as if it were an external object Yet, he doesn't have the tools or the capacities to externalize his body and regard it as separate He doesn't do othering So the cerebral is caught in a conundrum He tries to get rid of his body at least mentally and yet he keeps failing all the time This brings on episodes of collapse and somatic phases in the cerebrals existence where he becomes somatic One could therefore say that the somatic Somatic narcissist solution when it comes to the body is much more Self-efficacious than the cerebral The cerebral solution is Less real. There's a denial of reality there There's any the reality testing is much more impaired with the cerebral because the cerebral lives inside his mind It's all fantasy. The cerebral refuses to introduce into the fantasy Any physical object and his body is a physical object While the somatic is partly accommodated to reality partly compromises with it is more transigent and flexible the somatic accepts the inevitability And the immanence of his body I have a body. That's it. I have to live with it. Now. How can I make the best of it? And this is what the somatic does And so the somatic Is much closer to reality and much healthier mentally than the cerebral Actually, it's a form of attenuated Narcissism when it comes to the body, but the body is a very important part of life. Perhaps the most important part of life Both of them objectify the body The cerebral fails in the process of objectification Because he cannot perceive external objects. So he keeps finding himself stuck with his own body Which is always an internal object And the somatic succeeds to objectify the body By wielding it as a tool and an instrument for gratification The body is objectified and In the case of the somatic narcissist, it is also perceived as fluid in other words The somatic narcissist says The my body is like, I don't know smartphone And so I can install apps in my smartphone. I can change my smartphone I can I can drift away from the factory settings By installing all kinds of things and changing and and maybe rooting the phone or whatever So the somatic keeps experimenting with his body. He treats his body as a fluid body. This body fluidity anything from makeup to plastic surgery to tattoos Which we'll discuss a bit later bodybuilding martial arts Exercise extreme sports. You name it. We'll discuss all these a bit later. All these are attempts to shape shift the body to render the body mutable and malleable And so exert control over the body the somatic regains An internal locus of control when it comes to his own body Whereas all narcissists have an external locus of control They blame other people the environment the government history They blame the outside For their own failures and mistakes and defeats and bad decisions and wrong choices This is called alloplastic defenses. So narcissists have alloplastic defenses or narcissists The difference between cerebral and somatic Is that when it comes to the body The cerebral has alloplastic defenses as well The cerebral blames his body For anything that goes wrong in his life The cerebral doesn't get along with his body. He keeps fighting with his body. He keeps Repressing his body. He keeps punishing his body in a variety of ways. He doesn't exercise doesn't eat well and so on so forth Whereas the somatic Develops an autoplastic defense. In other words, the somatic takes responsibility for his body to the point That the somatic believes that he can mold his body sculpt his body that his body is like a work of art And the total discretion Of the somatic narcissists somatic narcissists can do to his body. Whatever he wishes So when it comes to the body, the somatic has an internal locus of control with autoplastic defenses The cerebral is an external locus of control with alloplastic defenses and in this sense again The somatic is much healthier than the cerebral mental mentally speaking In the case of the somatic The body is objectified And presented as a bait It is a strategy to elicit supply The somatic's internal monologue is If I just shape my body take care of it Remold it paint it I don't know if I use it in a variety of ways I can bait people. I can lure them can attract them To me They would provide me with narcissistic supply By complimenting my body by interacting with my body by gratifying my body by providing for my body Generally by worshiping my body so The somatic narcissists Is very close to some pagan religions and some elements in monotheistic religions which regard the body as a temple Ashrine the body is a as a religious Essence or element where you have to somehow service the body Pray to the body and sacrifice to the body And exactly as the roman said That a healthy mind is in a healthy body Taking care of the body will also automatically translate To a superior mind somehow That's why somatic narcissists transition to cerebral narcissists And they believe that their physical endowments Are equivalent to intellectual endowments They have heft and the mistake it for intellectual heft and so This is a common fallacy in the mind of the somatic He says to himself My commitment to my body my investment in my body my cafex is in my body my My the resources I keep Piling into my body Putting in my body the regime my discipline all these Demonstrate and show who I am. This is my essence. I'm disciplined. I am resourceful I am serious. I'm committed. I'm a good person. I'm decent. So the body serves as A form of virtual signaling The the somatic uses his body to signal virtue You see His body his body is a message. You see how How Well taken care of is my body You see how I'm not neglecting myself. You see how healthy I am And then this means that I'm intellectually somehow superior because I realize the importance of my body and unlike you inferior to me I really put the effort into Maintaining in superiority And so the body becomes a bait And a strategy to elicit supply and the somatic leverages his body To obtain narcissistic supply in a variety of ways some of which are very surprising Consider for example, flagellation Or religious modification done brown the done brown novels Christian saints Flagellating themselves, you know Diogenes in his barrel Gandhi the emaciated Gandhi And endurance sports extreme sports and so on these are all forms of punishing the body modifying it Flagellating it in order to demonstrate virtue To signal and broadcast virtue Even political prisoners You know, they brag About the horrible conditions and the penal colonies and prisons in which they find themselves Because the suffering of the body is proof positive of virtue and Guarantees gods grace and blessing so Christian martyro martyrology and islamic martyrology She had died so they all centered around the idea that the body can Somehow be converted into a ticket to heaven somehow if you were To sacrifice your well-being your comfort Creature comforts your Desires your passions and that's why catholic priests Never get married and are not allowed to have sex It's a form of self-denial disguised as a commitment To a larger cause or in the case of nuns. They're married to jesus, but It's really about modifying the flesh So punishing the flesh somehow is proof of a virtuous moral ethical personality and This is an integral part of the repertory of the somatic narcissists Even going to the gym four hours a day lifting weights sweating and so on so forth. These are all visible ostentatious signs of self-denial self-punishment self-flagellation self-motification pain Pain is a currency that says a lot about you willing to endure pain you're willing to experience pain means you're strong you're resilient you're trustworthy you're reliable you're disciplined all the good qualities So this is a surprising way that the body is used by the somatic narcissists to attract attention positive attention adulation affirmation, adoration, applause follow followers disciples and so on so forth and this is very easy for the somatic to accomplish because the somatic is interested only in his or her of course remember he, she, gender pronouns somatic is interested only in his body no one else's body only his Now this would come as a major surprise to some of you because most of you assume that somatic narcissists are interested in other people's bodies sexually or otherwise that is absolutely not true the only body in which the somatic narcissist finds an interest is his own the only relationship he has corporeal relationship is with his own carcass or body and because the somatic the somatic narcissist is after all a narcissist and narcissists are capable because they are stuck at an early stage of development their children narcissists are children pre-adolescent children so because they are like that narcissists are capable only of auto erotic gratification they derive sexual arousal and sexual gratification only from their own bodies and by interacting with their own bodies not with anyone else's body so the interest of the somatic narcissist is in his own body and when I mention flagellation or the modification of the flesh or extreme denial bodily needs fasting endurance sports extreme athletics spending four hours at the gym each day all these have to do with auto erotic gratification the somatic narcissist is testing his body to the limits because it's arousing to discover one's omnipotence divinity by pushing your body to the limits is an endorphin endorphin endorphin gratification it's a dopamine high it's something that is addictive and it's very auto erotic you're developing a sweaty relationship with your own perspiration making love to your own body in effect even the somatic narcissist's sex remember that cerebrals are by and large asexual they abstain from having sex completely but the somatic is hyper sex the somatic pursues sexual adventures and acts with the vengeance, with the zeal is compulsive about it if I've just said that narcissists are auto erotic they derive sexual arousal and gratification from their own bodies so why do they need other bodies they need other people in order to confirm to them how attractive their bodies are like all narcissists somatic narcissists require external regulation so in order for the somatic narcissist to regard his own body as a sex object in order for the somatic narcissist to be attracted to his own body in order for the somatic narcissist to be aroused by his own body and then gratified by his own body he needs other people to tell him that his body is attractive that his body is arousing that his body is sexy he needs this external regulation exactly the same way that a serial narcissist needs other people to tell him that he is a genius so that's why somatic narcissists have sex with other people compulsive sex it's not sex it's narcissistic supply the sex is confirmatory it it confirms to the somatic narcissist that his body is irresistible that it's okay to be aroused by his own body indeed sex with the somatic narcissist is very masturbatory the somatic narcissist masturbates with the partner's body objectifies the partner's body often degrades sometimes statistically the partner's body the partner's body is there in order to allow the somatic narcissist to derive arousal and gratification from his own body it's the equivalent of a dildo animated dildo or animated sexdome it's not a human being the somatic narcissist partner is not a human being and that's why somatic narcissists are very very invested and help end on statistics how many times did you come was I the best did you ever have sex like this etc etc because they need these performance statistics in order to buttress to support their conviction that their bodies are irresistible the reaction of the sex partner is just an affirmation or confirmation it's rational for the somatic narcissist to make love with himself through the partner or not through the partner but it's all about the somatic narcissist and his relationship with his body other bodies are incidental that's why it's very the phrase sexual narcissist is very misleading and very wrong and I never use it no sexual narcissist it's somatic narcissist the somatic narcissist somatizes his body somatizes his narcissism using his body not only via sex the somatic narcissist derives narcissistic supply by leveraging his body by displaying and exhibiting his body and it's often done not in sex but in other settings in a gym in bodybuilding in wrestling so it's wrong to say sexual narcissist the narcissist who is invested in sex is a narcissist who is invested in his body in sex so he's going to use his body in any way possible to obtain narcissistic supply sexual or not let's consider a few of these ways signaling the somatic narcissist uses his body as a signal a message a broadcast his body is a palimpsest of hidden and overt texts piled on top of each other tattoos for example tattoos are tattoos externalize the somatic narcissist essence they record the somatic narcissist personal history milestones mnemonics and so on they are like a book the somatic narcissist tattoos are like a book and they are definitely intended to elicit curiosity questions reactions from bystanders and observers they are a tool an instrument for obtaining narcissistic supply the somatic narcissist makes use of his skin his skin deep anyhow but he makes use of his skin to obtain supply this is nothing to do with sex and yet it is very common in somatic narcissism now tattoos have a strong history a long history in many places in the world tattoos designates a rank hierarchy social hierarchy or for example in the pacific islands in other places tattoos serve as badges of in-group affiliation for example in gangs various criminal gangs and so on but in the case of the somatic narcissist tattoos are not part of a cultural phenomenon they are a message the equivalent of texting texting with your skin and they are intended definitely to lure and attract and entrap and convert possible sources of narcissistic supply and again it has nothing to do with sex so sexual narcissism is wrong it's partial, it's reductionist it's counterfactual somatic narcissists use their body in any way imaginable including in sex which is actually not sex it is autoerotic they are using the partner's body but the partner is not there as far as they are concerned they are unable to perceive external objects bodybuilding for example is compensatory the somatic narcissist uses bodybuilding to rewrite his body if you consider the body as a text he rewrites the text by a bodybuilding he rewires his musculature by changing the emphasis emphasizing certain muscles over others because they are more visible so it's all about visibility and ostentatiousness and communication these are all forms of communication tattooing, bodybuilding somatic narcissism doesn't have to be done doesn't have to be done for example martial arts which definitely attract their share of somatic narcissism especially covert somatic narcissism martial arts are deeply immersed in and emanate from philosophies and worldviews which are pretty complex so you don't have to be done to be somatic it's just that your emphasis is on the body it's your body you have a truly attractive body or your body is more amenable to manipulation or to reshaping than the cerebrals or because your intellect or intelligence are not outstanding as are the intellect and intelligence of the cerebrals the narcissist uses his natural endowments whatever they may be to obtain supply the somatic narcissist happens to have a nice body and the cerebral narcissist happens to have an amazing mind so they use them to obtain supply but somatic narcissism is not about sex so it's not sexual narcissism it's also about sex and even then it's a strange kind of sex as I made clear extreme sports it's also a form of somatic narcissism you know what sartorial attire how you dress norm core ostentatious clothing is a form of signaling it signals your social ingroup your belonging or affiliation with a specific socio-economic stratum worldview philosophy and so on and so forth the somatic narcissist dresses ostentatiously conspicuously his attire fashion statements are statements they're intended to attract attention he is always over clad and even when he is dressed ostensibly simply it's with very expensive items which he makes sure everyone knows are expensive and he fits the clothing to his specific musculature dimensions and proportions and so on in order to aggrandize himself and emphasize and of course attract attract potential sources of narcissistic supply which in the case of the somatic narcissist could become sex partners so as to allow the somatic narcissist to make love to himself with the body via the body of another partner it is therefore not surprising that among somatic narcissists homosexuality is more common than in the general population because the sex is auto-erotic the somatic narcissist is attracted to the same sex to himself he is attracted to himself and so he is attracted to the same sex and so this this allows for homosexuality to be much more gratifying in somatic narcissism than heterosexuality heterosexuality all this has to do with a mechanism that I am working on nowadays and that I have nicknamed othering othering is recognizing and accepting the externality and separateness of other people the child others himself via his mother's gaze the child suddenly perceives himself through mommy's gaze through mommy's eyes prior to that the child is merged and fused with mother in a symbiotic state but then one day the child wakes up and realizes mommy sees me so there must be a me and a mommy and we are not the same so othering starts very early in life it starts at the point where the child realizes his own separateness and externality to his mother this is a major traumatic event the world breaks into me and mommy world so at that point the child others himself through his mother's gaze but when this happens which is usually the age of 18 months when the first incident of othering happens when the child others himself through his mother's eyes the child doesn't have a fully constellated and integrated self he doesn't have an ego he doesn't have much of a mind to talk of his brain is still developing there's nobody there almost I mean there are a few rudimentary rudimentary apparatuses which later will blossom into a full-fledged human being with a personality but in the age of 18 months there's very little there and yet the child is able to internalize the new insight that he is separate from mommy he is not the same as mother he is external to mother and therefore there is the child and the rest of the world including mother this is the first instance of othering because the child doesn't have much of a mind and no personality at all and no self, no ego the child others himself from mommy through his body the child perceives his separateness from mommy his externality to mother the fact that he is not mother he perceives this his disposal, his body and this is what Freud called the psychosexual stages of development you know oral stage anal stage and so on they all have to do with the body only much much later in life does the child begin to other himself through his mind and this is a very early form of splitting but it is neutral splitting whereas the splitting defense mechanism is black and white good and bad all or nothing it is dichotomous thinking it divides the world, I am all bad my mother is all good the earliest form of splitting proto-splitting is neutral it just says there is me and there is mother the world is split the world is broken and this is done through the body and much much later through the mind so the child others his mother he realizes that there is him or her and there is the other and the first other is the child the child perceives himself as an other and then once the child has integrated and constellated once the child has developed an identity however rudimentary however basic the child then others mother and having othered mother having come to the conclusion or to the realization that mother is another person capable of othering other people realizing that they are separate from him that they are external to him he develops boundaries and he is ready for object relations in clinical terms or in psychonalytic terms we say that the child transitions from autoerotic narcissistic libido to other directed object libido so to summarize these stages the child is born at first he is merged and fused with mother the child doesn't see the difference or the distinction between himself and mother it's a single unitary entity the whole world is one the child mother others the old one then through the mother's gaze through the mother's eyes the child realizes that he is separate from mother and he others himself he begins to realize that he is other in mother's eyes he still sees the world through mother's eyes mother is still the intermediary and the agent through which he perceives the world so he others himself because in his mother's eyes or through his mother's gaze he is the other so the first thing mothering is self-othering gradually the child develops an identity an ego or self, personality and so on so the child is integrated and consolidated and becomes one with himself so he doesn't regard himself as the other he begins to regard mother as the other and then he begins to regard other people as others separate to him narcissism is a failure of othering disrupted othering the child remains stuck in his own othered body he becomes somatic solipsistically somatic so if the interruption if the disruption in development is at an extremely early stage when the child processes othering through his body because he doesn't have a mind and if he gets stuck there then he would other his own body he would the othering of the body he would be fixated at that stage so his body would become an object an other and he would treat his body as an other his relationship with his body throughout his life will remain as if his body were not him estranged something else an object an instrument a container a laboratory but not him there will not be a feeling of co-extant coterminous existence between himself and his body as if his mind somehow was observing his body or residing outside his body or projected outside his body somehow if the disruption happens much later then the mind is othered this is solipsistically cerebral the mind is othered the mind is perceived as this enormous contraption or machine cerebral narcissists very often talk about their brains as if their brains were alien to them as if their brains were some kind of computer a device they are using not they so a narcissist that regards his own body as out there as othered is a narcissist who got stuck developmentally at a very early stage and a narcissist who gets stuck gets stuck much later at a much later stage becomes cerebral and he others his mind not his body that is why cerebells have a very conflicted relationship with the body they have difficulty to objectify their own bodies whereas somatics can objectify their bodies with ease because somatic gets stuck the somatic gets stuck at a stage where the body is othered whereas the cerebral has transitioned through this stage completed it successfully and moved on to where the mind is othered in any case it's an othering thing of course this raises the question I just said earlier in this video that somatics are healthier than cerebral closer to reality how to reconcile that statement with this statement that somatics are stuck at a much earlier developmental stage the thing is that um reality testing as an ego function is crucially dependent on the relationship with the body if you have a good relationship with your body or if your relationship with the body is such that your body is functional and instrumental for you allows you to be self-efficacious more self-efficacious then even though you are stuck at an earlier developmental stage you would still be closer to reality self-efficacy is a measure of reality testing and the ability to operate in reality if you are close to your body or if you use your body in a way that instrumentalizes it and allows you to derive or extricate beneficial outcomes from your environment then you are closer to reality the cerebral denies his body gives up on his body hates his body, rejects his body and consequently the cerebral is driven much further away from reality than the somatic a similar thing happened in civilization primitive people in the Amazon, in Africa in Polynesia, in Pacific islands primitive people primitive tribes are much closer to nature they are much more integrated with nature they are very self-efficacious as far as survival is concerned people in advanced civilization and they are like somatic narcissists because they are close to their own bodies and they use their own bodies to secure favorable outcomes from an environment with which they are totally integrated bodily it's all about the body in more advanced civilizations and especially western civilization we divorce the body the emphasis shifted at least until the middle of the 20th century the emphasis shifted to the mind it was all about the mind science philosophy, it was all about the mind and so we divorced our bodies we denied our bodies in Christianity for example we divorced it, we sacrificed it we mistreated our bodies we had a bad relationship with our bodies and consequently we were experiencing a breakdown a pandemic a loneliness, mental illness and so on and so forth we are not as self-efficaciously as we think we are we are confusing technology with survival and survival with self-efficacy they are not the same the closer you are to your body the healthier you are psychologically regardless of your level of development and 18 months old can be mentally healthy the closeness to the body is the test the score, you need your body to be mentally healthy and to interact with reality and to be embedded in and to make sure that you the outcomes of your behaviors and actions are good for you favorable to you and the somatic is much closer to his body than the cerebral is the somatic has massive problems he is autoerotic he instrumentalizes his body it's all true but he is definitely much closer to his body the cerebral is body less it's just a mind the mind in the machine the demon in the machine the cerebral is an obstruction not real in any sense that's why ultimately cerebrals end badly in many ways more badly than somatics somatics gradually begin to resent their bodies because their bodies betrayed them they become diseased or disabled aging, death and so on and they try to transition to cerebral but they usually fail or they are pretty reasonable but they end up the way most people most people have problems with their bodies at the later stage of life the cerebral is a different story cerebral the cerebrals hatred for his own body or her own body is such that his mind even becomes diseased the rejection and denial of the body are a pathology in its own unique right so cerebral narcissists suffer from the pathology of narcissism but piled on top of it there's a pathology of estrangement from the body dissociated body rejection and hatred of the body that's a pathology in its own right the second layer is absent in somatic narcissists and that's why while it's true that somatic narcissists are more primitive as far as personal development is concerned then cerebral narcissists they are also more mentally healthy and attuned to reality