 And I'm super excited to be here with Sam Vakni, who is the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, and he's also a professor of psychology. Thank you for the plug. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Shall we? Let's do it. Yeah, let's talk about covert borderline. I'm eager to learn from you. Covert borderline is a suggested diagnosis. It's not accepted yet. It's a diagnosis that I suggested. My second, by the way, I was... I proposed another diagnosis 25 years ago, inverted narcissists, which later became a subspecies of covert narcissists. So this is the second diagnosis I'm proposing. And the reason I'm proposing it is because there is a hole and there is a lacuna. There's a gap between the classic narcissists and the classic borderline. There are borderlines who are very, very narcissistic. They are very grandiose, for example. They are not self-harming. They are glib. They are defiant, et cetera, et cetera. So there are borderlines who cannot be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. They don't meet all the criteria, but they have very pronounced narcissistic traits and behaviors. Lensperry called it narcissistic style. So these are borderlines with a narcissistic style or a narcissistic overlay. Now, this is most common among men who are diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, less among women. So there was this gap. And the diagnostic criteria in the diagnostic and statistical manual, including the latest text revision published a few months ago, don't cater to this gap. They don't describe narcissistic borderlines. The diagnostic criteria capture a sliver of borderline personality disorder, which is essentially the emotionally dysregulated borderline. But there are other types of borderlines. And I tried to plug this whole by suggesting the diagnosis. What I think is interesting is trying to understand if the covert borderline is a hybrid, what elements are psychopathy? What elements belongs to narcissism? And do they take on more qualities of covert narcissism or classic or possibly both? No, they are mostly, they borrow traits and behaviors and the psychodynamic of overt plastic narcissists, grandiose, used to be known grandiose phallic narcissists. So no, there are no covert elements in covert borderline, no covert narcissistic elements in covert borderline. The reason I coined the phrase covert borderline is because they can easily be mistaken for narcissists. But they have very pronounced and strong elements of borderline. For example, they're emotionally dysregulated. So, which is the main feature of borderline personality disorder. Now, narcissists are not emotionally dysregulated because narcissists don't have access to positive emotions. And so narcissists are never overwhelmed by emotions. The covert borderline is overwhelmed by emotions, does drown in his own emotions, gets dysregulated, acts out, etc. Exactly like the classic borderline. But is often mistaken for a classic narcissist because, for example, he is very grandiose. He is very ambitious. He is usually very successful and loquacious, eloquent. He is the center of attention. He's the life of the party and so on and so forth. So, it's extremely easy to mistake him for a narcissist, which is not. Now, there's one element common to covert borderline in a covert narcissist. And that's pseudo-humility. Covert borderline is ostentatiously modest. In your face, humble. He emphasizes his humility and modesty, renders them ostentatious and open, and leverages his humility. Pseudo-humility is fake, leverages his humility and modesty to obtain, essentially, narcissistic supply. So, this is common to the covert borderline and the covert narcissists. But that's more or less the only thing that's common. If a covert borderline is emotionally dysregulated and acting out, would that be considered narcissistic rage, or that's just the acting out of the borderline element? Narcissistic rage is not about emotions. That's a very common mistake. The word rage is very misleading. Or actually, the word rage is appropriate because it's not anger. Anger is an emotion. Narcissists don't experience anger. They experience rage. And the difference between the two is the following. Anger is intended to modify the behaviors of people around you. When you're angry, you're trying to influence or affect people who frustrate you in order to induce them to not frustrate you anymore. Anger is a signal, is a form of communication. Rage has nothing to do with the environment. Rage is intended to restore an internal equilibrium, an internal balance by engaging in displays that restore grandiosity. Like if the grandiosity of the narcissist is challenged or undermined, he would rage so as to demonstrate his superiority or his ability to harm other people, his power, his omnipotence. So actually, the rage is intended to convince the narcissist that he is still superior in some way. It's a form of internal dialogue, not external dialogue. The rage is intended to eliminate sources of frustration, not to modify their behaviors. So there's a very clear distinction between rage and anger, and rage has nothing to do with emotional dysregulation. It has to do with cognitive distortions. The narcissist perceives reality wrongly, filters it through his grandiosity and inflated fantastic self-image. And then he needs to protect this, to defend this by raging. The rage restores his sense of godlike omnipotence. Speaking about interpersonal communication, something I personally observed in a covert borderline was perceiving slights, disappointments, parts, making accusations of someone being a liar or withholding almost a paranoia. So is that because the covert borderline is also looking through the lens of a distorted reality? What elements of those issues belong to classic narcissism or BPD? Again, there is a lot of confusion between paranoia and hypervigilance. Hypervigilance is typical of both overt and covert narcissism. Hypervigilance involves scanning the environment, other people, for perceived slights and insults, reframing input from the environment, speech acts, gestures, laughter, reframing these cues that emanate from the environment in a way that could be perceived as humiliating, shaming, insulting, etc. This is hypervigilance. Paranoia is something completely different. Paranoia is the belief that you are sufficiently important to attract and to warrant malevolent attention. In other words, paranoia or paranoid ideation to be more precise is a grandiose defense, a narcissistic defense. It is part and parcel of the grandiosity. The paranoid believes that it is important enough to attract the attention of the CIA. So it's a form of self-aggrandizement. Now, the covert borderline is paranoid, but he is not hypervigilant. And the reason the covert borderline is not hypervigilant is because as distinct as opposed to the narcissist, the covert borderline has an internal locus of control. In other words, he tends to believe that he is in control of his own destiny, that his decisions and choices matter, that he is able to influence his life and direct it appropriately, that he is not subject to outside forces that conspire to put him down and so on and so forth. So he is not hypervigilant. He doesn't scan for insults and so on and so forth. And when he is paranoid, it's paranoia with an internal locus of control. So for example, the covert borderline can say, I know that I hurt him, I know that I hurt someone, and now he's going to take revenge on me. It's a form of paranoia, but with internal locus of control. I made it happen. I made it happen. If there is a conspiracy against me, it's because I'm really doing something wrong. If someone takes revenge on me, it's because I deserve it, I had it coming. I'm still in control, I'm still in charge. I actually am a puppet master. I control people. I make them do things, including make them, you know, make them vengeful. So these are subtle distinctions between the covert borderline and the narcissist, both overt and covert. The covert borderline is not a narcissist. He is not a narcissist. He is grandiose mostly and resembles a narcissist. But in very important ways, he is distinct from classic and covert narcissism, sufficiently distinct to warrant or to justify a separate diagnosis. So to be very clear, the covert borderline is not the same as a borderline who is also a narcissist. We have comorbidities. We have many borderlines who are also diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. The comorbidity of borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder is very high. We often diagnose these two disorders in the same person. But that's not a covert borderline. A covert borderline is a grandiose, near psychopathic borderline with the emphasis on the grandiosity. While all borderlines are grandiose, in the covert borderline, grandiosity is a regulatory mechanism. It is a cognitive distortion that regulates the internal environment of the borderline. So it's very crucial this grandiosity. And in this sense, it's similar to the narcissist. But that's where the similarity stops. What function does the grandiosity serve to protect the covert borderline? Like I researched in some of your work. If I understand it correctly, the narcissist doesn't really have an ego. There's nothing there, right? So there's just a false self. What about the covert borderline? Similarly, the covert borderline has a false sense. Exactly like the classic borderline. Classic borderline also has a false sense. And all three of them engage in fantasy, which leads me to the questions that you send me. All three of them engage in fantasy. The difference is the type of fantasy. The narcissist's fantasy is a shared fantasy. It's a fantasy that involves another person and that person is allocated a role. And that person is supposed to fulfill the role to conform to an image of that person in the narcissist's mind that had been idealized. So both members, both participants in the classic narcissist shared fantasy are equally important and equally crucial to the maintenance of the fantasy. The borderline is a fantasy that involves her intimate partner, regulating her emotions, stabilizing her moods, and generally serving as a rock around which she can construct a stable and safe life. So her fantasy is other oriented. In effect, the borderline does not see herself in the fantasy at all. The fantasy is 100% focused on her intimate partner. She disappears into the intimate partner. She merges and fuses with the intimate partner. And that's why she develops engulfment anxiety or enmeshment anxiety. The borderline's fantasy is to disappear, to vanish. It's a kind of death wish. It is sublimated suicide. Suicide by intimate partner. It's like if the borderline finds the perfect intimate partner, she can rest in peace because he's going to take over her mind. He's going to stabilize her moods. He's going to make her feel safe. He's going to regulate her emotions. She might as well be in a vegetative state in common because she outsources, relegates all internal functions to the intimate partner. That's her fantasy. The narcissists, as I said, as an intimate partner within a fantastic space and both of them are collaborating in this shared fantasy. They're both each other's mother, in effect. This is something I call dual mothergy. The covert borderline is a borderline. First and foremost is a borderline. So the covert borderline's fantasy also focuses on the intimate partner. Exactly like the classic borderline. Classic borderline's fantasy is centered around the intimate partner. The covert borderline is the same. His fantasy revolves around the intimate partner and includes only the intimate partner. And the fantasy is ideal everlasting love. That's the covert borderline's fantasy. The narcissist's shared fantasy is not about love. It's a common mistake. The narcissist's shared fantasy is about mothering, is looking for a mother. So to summarize, the narcissist is looking for a mother. The borderline is looking for external regulation. Someone will take over her mind. And the covert borderline is looking for ideal love, essentially. Is there the same element of shared fantasy, limited fantasy? Like what happens if someone starts to break away from the covert borderline's fantasy of everlasting love? Because it's not working. Maybe they're seeing the emotional dysregulation. They're seeing the crazy making and they start to pull away. Is that the same? Nothing much. The reaction of the covert borderline is much more subdued than even the reaction of the narcissist. So narcissists can experience modification in the wake of a shared fantasy that's broke up. The borderline definitely falls apart. She decompensates. She loses her defenses. She begins to act out. She becomes a secondary psychopath. She does horrible things. Definitely. The covert borderline is very nonchalant about this. Because the covert borderline's fantasy is about the ideal love. Not the specific lover. The ideal love. So he's going to say, okay, it didn't work with this one. I'm going to try it with the next one. It's the ideal love that is invested in. He's in love with ideal love. Never with any person. So he switches among intimate partners much faster than the narcissist. So he will have a much larger number of intimate partners over the lifespan. The investment in the intimate partner will be shallow. The narcissist's investment in the intimate partner is intense, is huge. The narcissist has extreme catechesis, extreme emotional investment in the partner. That's why the narcissist love bombs. Love bombs because there's a huge investment in the intimate partner. The borderline even more. But the covert borderline is very shallow investment if any. And switches very easily between intimate partners. Actually, he doesn't have intimate partners. He's in love with love. Is there still a grooming phase of any element of love bombing? Can you talk about devaluing, discarding cycles? The covert borderline is seductive, glibly seductive. So he's bound to be flutatious. He's very socially charming. He's charismatic. So he resembles very much. If I have to make a comparison, he resembles the somatic narcissist. He is cold. He's greedily seductive. He's promiscuous. His sexual life is uninhibited. He's likely to be into kink and more. His relationships are unstable, including his marriage. He's much more likely to be invested in his children than in his spouse, for example. So the narcissist would go through a phase of love bombing and the psychopath would go through a phase of grooming. And the borderline would go through a phase of idealizing, extremely idealizing her partner and uninhibited, disinhibited sex. But the covert borderline would simply flirt, minimally invest, seduce, and then move on, more or less. More or less. It's a butterfly. It's like the wind. A player, effectively a player, or as the British used to saying, 100 years ago, a CAD, you know, CAD. So that's the covert borderline. That creates dissonance in the covert borderline. Because he wants, he pursues ideal love. That's his obsession, his obsession is ideal love, his fantasy is ideal love. But he is not willing or able to invest in a relationship to reach the stage of an ideal love. He expects to have an ideal love on a first date. And that's why typically he would have sex and he would do everything within a first date. Because he believes in serendipity, serendipity, like fortuitous, it's going to be fortuitous, it's going to find ideal love by accident. It's meant to be. It's written in the stars, you know, one day he's going to walk into a bar and she's going to be there. And hard work, hard labor is the antithesis, it's the opposite of ideal love. Because ideal love is a cosmic force. It's very, it involves a lot of magical thinking. And, you know, if you have to work hard to flirt to court to, you know, that negates the idea of ideal love because ideal love is spontaneous. It's instantaneous. It's like fireworks. It just erupts. It's a force that puts two people together and it's irresistible. It's a very infantile perception of object relations and love, of course. And so the covert borderline exactly like the narcissist is very mature, very infantile and developmentally arrested. Can we go through your questions, the questions you sent me because some of them were really good. I think I've answered the first one. I answered the second one. But you can start with the third one, if you wish. These are really good questions. I don't have them. Yeah, I don't have the list. Do you have them in front of you? Yeah. So you wanted to ask me is intermittent reinforcement the same as devalue and discard cycles. Is there any way you can put a list on the screen because it's very bizarre if I ask myself the question and then I answer. I mean, it's narcissistic, but there's a limit even to narcissism. Oh yeah, I just thought of a way that I can do it. Okay, so. I'm looking for it. Sorry. While you're looking for it, I will answer the questions. Intermittent reinforcement has nothing to do with devalue and discard. Intermittent reinforcement is a control technique. It's intended to induce extreme uncertainty and dependency in a target by behaving hot and cold. I love you. I hate you. I'm here for you on gun. This kind of mixed signals or mixed messages. They create, as I said, fear. They create anxiety and they create dependency in the sense that the victim becomes dependent on the good will of the intermittent reinforcement. Intermittent reinforcement is the precursor is the foundation of trauma bonding, because it induces many traumas. It's like death by a thousand cuts. Devaluation and discard. I have nothing to do with intermittent reinforcement. They are autonomous part of the cycle of relationships with the narcissist. They reflect the narcissist's internal need to separate from a mother figure. Because the intimate partner is always a mother figure. And so he needs to devalue her and push her away. He needs to discard her because he has this overriding urge or compulsion to reenact early childhood conflicts with the mother and to finally accomplish separation and individuation. And he's compelled to repeat the cycle. Also, when the partner deviates or diverges from the snapshot, when she deviates or diverges from the ideal image that the narcissist had created the snapshot, the Photoshop snapshot, the narcissist had created the regionally. When there is a conflict between the real life intimate partner and the image of the intimate partner in the narcissist mind. That creates a lot of anger and frustration and aggression and leads to devaluation and discard because the dissonance is unbearable, intolerable. Every single time the intimate partner demonstrates agency, autonomy, independence, decision making. Every time she has new friends, she travels, she goes to work, she talks to her family. Every single time is a challenge to the inert, zombified and mummified avatar of her in his mind. And this challenge is intolerable because it induces anxiety, abandonment anxiety, separation and security. And so the narcissist needs to get rid of her because she makes him anxious all the time. And then he devalues and discards. And usually devaluing and discard are point operations. In other words, as devalued, discard, goodbye. Intermittent reinforcement means that the abuser keeps coming back. Like he devalues you and then he idealizes you and then he devalues you and then he idealizes you and then he hurts you and then he solves your wounds and then he loves you and then he hates you. So it's a cycle. Intermittent reinforcement is a cycle. The evaluation and discard is aligned. It's linear. So it's not the same thing. So a narcissistic devalue discard might happen one time. Is that like the element where the intermittent reinforcement could happen 10, 20, 30 times? Intermittent reinforcement is a control technique or tactic that is used repeatedly. Hundreds of times, thousands of times in a relationship. And again, it's intended to reduce an extreme state of, of uncertainty and extreme indeterminacy. So that you are terrified to move your paralyzed, freeze, freeze response. The narcissist devaluing discard is very often final. Not always. The narcissist hoovers sometimes, but very often it is final and the narcissist moves on to another partner to repeat the cycle actually. Narcissist is sisyphus. It's a sisyphian thing. It is doomed for the rest of his life to repeat the pattern of finding an intimate partner, rendering her mother figure, devaluing her, discounting her, finding an intimate partner, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's a terrible existence. Now many, many abuses are not narcissists and not psychopaths and not even mentally healing in any way, shape or form. Many abuses just don't know any better. That's the way they control their partners. They need to control the partner because they're afraid of abandonment or more often because they're in an ego treat. They want to feel in charge. They want to feel they're the boss. They're calling the shots. They're in the driver's seat. So it's a power play. Intermittent reinforcement is a power play. The evaluation and discard are internal inexorable dynamics that the narcissist cannot control. That's why I keep saying to victims of narcissists is nothing to do with you. You couldn't have done anything differently or else. You're absolutely not to blame. These dynamics play out and they play out regardless of you in a way. You're interchangeable. You're fungible. You're replaceable. You're nobody. The victims of narcissists are nobodies. They are just excuses to replay the internal dynamic. Now you asked me one of the questions. Do you have the questions in front of you or? Yes, I do. All right. So we can move on to the next one. Okay. Is the covert borderline in a state of prolonged grief? Like when I think about CPTSD and I've studied your work that BPD is like an extreme subtype of CPTSD. Try and understand if they're also in a state of prolonged grief from childhood abuse and trauma. First, I want to give credit where it's due, which I always am very careful with this because a lot of my work is stolen and appropriated and plagiarized. And I know the feeling it's a very bad feeling. So to give credit where it's due, the idea that perception, the concept that BPD is a form of CPTSD is not mine. It was first suggested by the mother of CPTSD, by the woman who coined the phrase complex trauma or complex PTSD. Her name is Judith Herman and she has been campaigning for a long period now. Long time to render borderline personality disorder a form of PTSD, a post-traumatic condition with emotional dysregulation. And I fully agree with her. I fully concur. I think narcissistic personality disorder is also a post-traumatic condition, not a personality disorder. I think borderline and narcissism are post-traumatic conditions. And this is the answer to your question. When you're traumatized, you experience grief. This trauma takes something away from you. There's a loss. Always there's a loss. A loss of innocence. A loss of sense of safety. A loss of a loved one. A loss of property. There's always a loss involved. And so trauma induces grief. And yes, the covert borderline possibly has double grief because he has the grief of the narcissist and the grief of the borderline. And so I would say that he is in a deep, profound state of prolonged grief. But the covert borderline compensates for this in a variety of ways. He borrows techniques from both narcissism and borderline. So in a way, the covert borderline is much better adopted. It's a much higher level positive adaptation. Whereas the borderline is disorganized and chaotic and out of control and dysregulated all over the place and crazy making. And whereas the narcissist is divorced from reality, delusional and on the border of psychosis. It's totally nuts. The covert borderline actually functions very well. It copes with his grief, with his internal dysfunctional dynamics, much better than the narcissist or the borderline, possibly because of the combination. Now there was a psychoanalyst, but the name of Gorshton and Gorshton suggested that borderline is a form of failed narcissism. He said that the child is abused, child experiences trauma and that the child attempts to become a narcissist because narcissism is a wonderful defense against hurt and against pain. So the child attempts to become a narcissist. And some children succeed and they become narcissists, lifelong narcissists, but some children fail and the children who fail are actually borderlines. So he said that borderlines are borderline is a form of failed narcissism. The covert borderline is an exception. It's a borderline who transitioned to narcissism and kept the best features, the best defensive features of both disorders. So the covert borderline is much more self-efficacious. We call it self-efficacious. He is much more positively adapted to his environment. He, for example, he has an internal locus of control. He is self-sufficient and although he has modulability and is emotionally dysregulated, he has antisocial or psychopathic features which compensate for this. For example, he rationalizes. He is defined, he has reactants and so on. He doesn't have suicidal ideation like the borderline. He directs his aggression outwardly, not inwardly. He doesn't self-mutilate. He doesn't have addictive behaviors. He does succeed to have relationships, however shallow. In short, he is better adapted to reality. He is socially charming. He is charismatic. He has a very strong work ethic. He is a consistent hard worker. We call it pseudo-sublimation. In other words, he is working hard in order to gain admiration. He is intensely ambitious. He is often successful. He fits in. He simply fits in. He is much more functional than either the narcissist or the borderline. When you were talking about some of the antisocial qualities or the psychopathic, what would that actually look like in a relationship? Can you give examples of how a covert borderline, what that behavior might, how it might manifest to see that play out in a relationship? Well, the covert borderline is simply likely to walk away. The narcissist is so invested in the shared fantasy. That the narcissist initially would try to keep the partner. And ironically, the narcissist would use narcissistic abuse to keep the partner. In other words, he would use intermittent reinforcement and so on. He would try to condition the partner to generate trauma bonding within the shared fantasy. When the narcissist finally devalues the partner and discards her, people don't realize that it's a traumatic experience for the narcissist because it's like giving up on mother. It's a mother figure. It's not true that narcissists are happy or lucky and they break up with their intimate partners. They move on to the next partner without a second thought. That's a psychopath, not a narcissist. That's a covert borderline, not a narcissist. The narcissist is heartbroken. He lost his fantasy. He lost his mother. The substitute mother. So narcissists react very badly to the breakdown of shared fantasies. Borderlines react even worse. They totally disintegrate. They do crazy things. They harm themselves. The covert borderline is similar to a psychopath in this sense and that's where the antisocial traits come in. He simply walks away. He packs his things literally or figuratively and just moves on. He's not really emotionally invested in anything. He's shallow. He has shallow effect or even no effect. And so he just moves on. He's very unlikely to engage in recriminations, fights, arguments, abuse, intermittent reinforcement. He doesn't do any of this. You don't fit his ideal or you don't fit his image or his fantasy of an ideal love, your gun, your history. And because no one does, he keeps moving on from partner to partner, forgetting the previous partner in like days or weeks, something like that. He has no fantasy involving the other partner. He has a fantasy involving love. So it's easy to carry this fantasy with you and be totally self-sufficient, which is exactly what the borderline does. A covert borderline, I'm sorry, does. So the answer to your question is you're not likely to see narcissistic behaviors or borderline behaviors with the covert borderline in interpersonal relationships. And the reason is he has no interpersonal relationships. Simple. He has flinks. He has affairs. He has casual sex. He has one night stands. He has, you know, flirting. He has, he does flirting. He does, he is, he's not into reality when it comes to romantic or intimate relationships because no reality can match up to the fantasy of ideal love. So it's very frustrating and disappointing and heartbreaking and, you know, and he avoids it. He avoids testing ideal love in the laboratory of reality because it's bound to fail. So he's avoiding failing. Are there some cases where a covert borderline could use the control tactic of intermittent reinforcement? Yeah, he does all the time. He does all the time. But because the relationship are very short and very shallow. He's going to attempt it. And then if there's no ideal love, he just gives up and moves on. So he's not serious about intermittent reinforcement. Let's put it this way. Definitely not as serious as a narcissist, let along the cycle. So he just everything to him is. Kind of an afterthought. Not serious. I would say the covert borderline is not serious about interpersonal relationships and very serious about his career. About his appearance. About his image. About his, his looks. About the way other people perceive him. So impression management. He's very serious about this. He's committed, he's invested, he's hardworking and so on. Although he's also superficial in some ways. For example, he will not, he will borrow or steal ideas from other people or other people's work and pretend that it's his very shortcuts. He will resort to shortcuts. But still I would say that all in all is pretty serious about his professional life. But when it comes to his interpersonal life, it's like he says to himself, I know I'm going to be disappointed. No one can give me what I need. What I need is idea love. So forget about it. You know, I will focus on work, I'll focus on career, I'll focus on, and there is pretty successful. Unfortunately, it's pretty, it's pretty stable. He's impressively knowledgeable, usually is decisive opinionated. He loves language. So he's very articulate. He usually pretends to be moral modest. Many of them are activists, activists, social activists and so on and so forth. They pretend that they have contempt for money. They're spiritual. They have a guru status. When it comes to authority, they are irreverent. They're contumations. They hate authority, reject authority. But they are hard workers because they need admiration. Hard work is their way of obtaining narcissistic supply. And this is what we call pseudo sublimation. They've intense ambition. And so on and so forth. Now they do intermittent reinforcement. They also do triangulation. Some of them are sadistic and punitive. Some of them are goal-oriented like a psychopath. Some of them are reckless. Some of them have scorned and contempt for other people. Masked as pseudo humility. You know, some of them are attention-seeking. Some of them are passive-aggressive or ostentatiously self-denying and ascetic. Some of them are cunning. Some of them are malevolent. You know, they're human, you know, like all humans. But I would say that they're focused on professional life and career and they neglect the interpersonal side. Interpersonal side. Interpersonal side is like entertainment or after-hours show or something. Not serious. A matinee show. What about elements of chronic victimhood or vulnerability in the covert borderline? No, no, that's not the covert borderline. That's the covert narcissism, but not the covert borderline. They don't have this. They have internal focus of control. They are in charge. They are in control. They made everything happen. If someone is happy, they made him happy. If someone hurt them or harmed them or damaged them, they made him do it. They had it coming. They engineered the whole situation. They orchestrated the whole situation. They need to feel they are in charge. And in this sense, they're very much like psychopaths. Psychopaths and grandiose narcissists, overt narcissists. So this is borrowed from psychopathy and narcissists. They have an internal focus of control. Now, they do have alloplastic defenses. In other words, they can say, for example, yeah, I misbehaved. And I'm being punished because I misbehaved. But I'm being punished disproportionately because whoever is doing the punishing is even and malevolent. So they mix alloplastic defenses and an internal focus of control. It's a very bizarre hybrid. Very strange hybrid. But they're not likely, for example, to scan for insults. They're not hyper-visual. And they're never likely to complain about being victimized. They're not victims. They are, however, superheroes fighting supervillains. They are modern versions of Spider-Man or Batman more precisely. They're Batman. Marvel Comics superheroes. They defend women. Or they defend minorities. So they gravitate naturally to activism. Sometimes one man crusades against some perceived social injustice or some identified villain. So some of them would pick up a target. They would say, for example, I don't know, Donald Trump. And so they would pick on it. And they would go on a cruise. They would go on a cruise. They would go on a cruise. They would go on a cruise. I don't know, Donald Trump. And so they would pick on it. And they would go on a crusade against him. Or they would say women are mistreated. So we're going to defend women. The biggest misogynist among covert borderlines are women defenders. Because they think women need defense. They perceive women as weak, stupid, and so on. So you have this narrative of my life is cosmically significant and meaningful. Because I'm modest. I'm humble. But I contribute to society with my benevolence, with my goodwill, with my activism, with my good heart, and with my charity and altruism. So in anything that conflicts with this, they're going to reject. They're going to reject. So you're very unlikely to hear a covert borderline apologize. Extremely unlikely. A covert borderline can go for decades without saying once, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I should not have acted this way. Because whatever it does, it does for the common good, is self-sacrificial. And we call this pseudo-sublimation. So the sublimation means you present yourself as self-sacrificial and acting in socially acceptable ways. But this presentation is false and fake. You're a fake person. You're inauthentic. Covert borderlines are inauthentic. They are replicas. They're not real. They're absolutely not real. They are appearance. They're Fatima Ogana. They're shimmering mirage. They're not real, in any sense. And they adapt themselves. They shape-shift, like the famous movie Zellig, Woody Allen Zellig. You know, they shape-shift all the time. Because they're essentially people-pleasants. They depend on people for input. In this sense, they are like the narcissists. They need narcissistic supply. But their dependence on people is not the same as the narcissists. The narcissists' message is, I'm supreme. I'm superior. I'm godlike. And you have to confirm this to me. That's narcissistic supply. The covert borderlines messages. I love you. I care for you. I'm going to help you. I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to defend your interests. You have to love me. You have to give me narcissistic supply. And I'm modest. I'm humble. I am not demanding this supply. I just deserve it. So, you know, ostentatious saints. So to speak. Conspicuous saints. That made me think mixing those comments in with allopathic defenses. It's almost like, is there almost a moral justification for verbal abuse? Meaning, well, I'm going to tell you off. And I'm going to devalue you, right? Put you down, criticize you. Because I'm going to make you a bit. I care enough to make you a better person. But it's justified. Tough love. Tough love. I love you. Because I love you. I'm going to discipline you. I'm going to humiliate you. I'm going to push you to your limits. I'm going to change you. Transform you even if you don't want to be changed and transformed. Because I know better. And I know what's good for you. And I know that you are self-destructive and self-defeating. And I'm going to change this. I'm going to stop this. Whatever it takes, even if I destroy you in the process, I'm doing it for your own good. And so there is this moral high ground. The covert borderline is always on the moral high ground. That's why we find many covert borderlines in politics, social activism, in the clergy, among medical doctors, among psychologists and therapists, always on the moral high ground. There's always no best what's good for you. And they're going to impose it on you. Like it or not. No one is asking you. They deny your agency because they have a narcissistic component. Narcissists take away your agency. They take away your autonomy. They take away your independence. Covert borderlines do the same, but the narcissist takes these away because he wants to control you. The covert borderlines take these things away from you because they want to improve upon you. They want to make your better version of yourself. And you can't argue with them because they know best and they know better. And because they're very benevolent, not malevolent, and because they're very self-sacrificial, they're sacrificing their own best interests, time, money, resources, all for you. How ungrateful you are that you reject their altruism and charity. And because you are ungrateful, you need to be punished, of course, and so on and so forth. It's extremely distorted, convoluted and bloody sick. The covert borderline is seriously sick person. Is part of that defense, is the allopathic defense part of that? Well, I'm justified to rant, to rage, to rant, to put you down, to take away your agency because you're a liar or because you did this or because you did that. Is that the allopathic defense? Alloplastic. Alloplastic. Alloplastic defense means that you attribute to others premeditation and malevolence in acting against you. So that's not necessarily part of the intercourse or interaction between the covert borderline and this intimate partner, for example. But yeah, the covert borderline in order to, in order to render you helpless, in order to render you amenable to his ministrations and recriminations, he needs to break you. He needs to tame you. He needs you housebroken. So he needs to demolish your defenses, including your ability to argue back, to debate, critical thinking, so it's a barrage. It's an onslaught of messaging that is intended to what we call entrain you, intended to brainwash you. And part of this messaging is you are inadequate. You're insufficient. You can't properly evaluate what's good for you. I can do it much better than you. You know, you're not competent enough to decide what's in your best interest. So the covert borderline appoints himself, is a self-appointed custodian or guardian over you. And henceforth, and from that moment on, you are his charge. In short, the covert borderline infantilizes you. He tells you, you're a child, I'm the adult. I know what's best for you. And you're going to listen to me. Because if you listen to yourself, you're going to end up badly. Never listen to yourself. You can't trust yourself. Don't trust yourself. Don't trust your reality testing. Don't trust your judgment of other people. You're naive. You're stupid. You're gullible. You are, let me do this for you. Let me replace your reality testing. That's a classic borderline thing. The borderline uses her intimate partner to regulate her internal environment. She uses his reality testing. She uses his stability, his safety. So the borderline merges and fuses with an intimate partner so that she can appropriate the ability to regulate her, to stabilize her and to give her a handle, a grip on reality, which she lacks. The covert borderline is doing the same, but in reverse. In short, the covert borderline tries to convert you into a borderline. He tries to dysregulate you so that he becomes the exclusive source of regulation. He tries to destabilize you or your moods so that he becomes the exclusive reserve and domain of stability. He tries to make you feel unsafe. You don't judge people properly. You don't perceive reality accurately. He tries to gaslight you so that you, so that he becomes the only reality testing in your life. He tries to isolate you from other people like friends and family so that you become utterly dependent on him. These are narcissistic techniques and the borderline uses them, of course. The great luck of the covert borderline's victims is that he doesn't stick around for long. So the narcissists can stick around for years and decades and the damage is extensive and irreversible in many cases. The narcissist penetrates your mind, installs an introject like an app, like an app in your mind and controls you from inside. It's really harrowing. It's horrible. But the covert borderline doesn't stick around for too long. Luckily for his victims. So the damage is usually limited. If a covert borderline, which is not common, did stick around longer, four or five, six years, would it create an introject just like a classic narcissist and a victim's mind? Yes. The same process, the introjection and then you would need to get rid of the introject somehow and you need actually to go through process of separation and individuation because the introject would be a mother introject because it's a mother who is telling you, you have to rely on me. You have to trust me. My judgment is superior to your judgment because now you're a child. I'm your mother. You're just a child. You have to listen to me. I have to discipline you. So it's a mother introject. It's a maternal introject. And if you stick around in the borderline, covert borderline, sticks around long enough. Yeah, he does to you what the narcissist does to you. It's difficult to eradicate. Extremely difficult. And it's sometimes life long. And so you need to work hard. You need to actually separate from this internal mother. This introject is a mother to separate from them and individuate all over again. That's why many victims say that like they are reborn. It's like a rebirth, you know, it's like starting from zero from scratch and finding yourself and drawing up and everything. As if you're two years old. And just to impress you that I'm a good student. Following you. So, so the, the interject would be super imposed over the, the super ego gets super imposed with the interject. Is that correct? Super ego is, is a part of the ego. People think that there are three things. Eid, ego and super ego. That's not true. There are only two. Eid and super ego. And a part of the ego is called super ego. It's like the tip of an iceberg. So yes, you're right. The intro, you're a good student. The interject. The negative intro. That the narcissist installs in your mind. Immediately. Begins to collaborate co-ops colludes. With other negative intro. And with your super ego, your harsh inner critic, with your sadistic internal super ego. So the narcissist interject. Creates a cluster of internal objects. Cluster of interjects. So becomes a galaxy of negative voices. That's why that's why the narcissist interject. Is overpowering. Because it's not a single. It's like the leader of a coalition. And this is a coalition of voices that want you dead. Voices that hate you. Voices that detest you and load you. And want you to fail. Want you to be self-defeated. Want you to self destruct. And the narcissist app. The interject. Scans your mind. Finds these other interjects. Merges with them. Find your super ego. If it's sadistic. If it's malevolent. Merges with the super ego. Merges with the super ego. And then you have a Trojan horse. The fifth column inside your mind. Group of traitors. Who are hell bent on destroying you. The narcissist wants to destroy you. Because once you are destroyed, he can control you. Once you're defenseless. Once you're helpless. He can then control you fully. The narcissist are obsessed with controlling their intimate partners. Because they are terrified of loss and abandonment. And because they need the intimate partner to conform 100% to the snapshot. To avoid dissonance and anxiety. So the narcissist. Mind is inhabited. With dead internal objects. They're all dead. And if you're not dead yet. The narcissist will kill you mentally. The narcissist needs you dead. It reminds me of the movie Psycho. 1960 Alfred Hitchcock. There is this guy in Norman Bates. He has a motel. And his mother is dead. But every morning he dresses her up. He puts her in a chair facing the window. And every evening he undresses her. Puts her in bed and kisses her cheek. She's mummified. She's embalmed. It's not a real... She's been dead for years. But that is his ideal mother. Because she just doesn't criticize him. She doesn't disagree with him. She doesn't humiliate him. That's the mother he is capable of loving. The narcissist wants you in this condition. So he needs to destroy you. He needs to install this interjection in your mind. To poison you from within. It's a slow death. Possibly the most horrible and traumatizing thing that can happen to a human being. I would much rather be with a psychopath than with a narcissist. Psychopaths are much more human than narcissists. Psychopaths are exaggerated humans. You want money? The psychopath wants more money. You want sex? The psychopath wants additional sex. The psychopath wants more. And it's ruthless and callous. Okay, but it's human. Psychopath is recognizably human. The narcissist is not... is not human. In any sense, I mean it. It's not hyperbole. There is nothing in the narcissist's composition in mind that resembles a human being. Nothing. Nothing. I don't know how many times to emphasize this. The covert borderline because he has strong narcissistic elements is partly human, shall we say. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, he is more of a narcissist. When it comes to career and jobs, he is more of a psychopath. When it comes to emotions, he is more of a borderline. It's like it's like a basket of all cluster B personality disorder. But it's a much needed diagnosis because it bridges all the gaps between all these cluster Bs. Ultimately, we may actually reach the conclusion that the only diagnosis is covert borderline. We may reach a conclusion that the covert borderline is the diagnosis. But when the grandiosity is exaggerated, it's a narcissist. When the defiance is exaggerated, it's a psychopath. And when emotional dysregulation is exaggerated, it's a borderline. It's the covert borderline is like a synthesis of all these diagnosis in one. But if I had to choose to live with a covert borderline or a narcissist, covert borderline. There is nothing worse than a narcissist and survival. Nothing remotely, not a borderline, not a psychopath, not a covert borderline. They're all recognizably human forms, mutated human forms, but they're human forms, not so the narcissist. It resembles some kind of malevolent or malicious artificial intelligence. It's like a swarm, it's like a hive mind. It's something there is like, it's, I do not explain it. And for disclosure's sake, I'm a narcissist. I've been diagnosed twice with narcissistic personalities. So no one can blame me of being anti-narcissistic. I'm a narcissist myself. I am very self-aware and very introspective. And so I observe in myself these alien dynamics which have no equivalent in any mental health disorder that I'm aware of and of course not in mental health. Something is happening in the mind of the narcissist which puts him apart from the rest of humanity. I don't know, I mean it's the outcome of childhood abuse and trauma but I have to believe that it's also genetics and some brain abnormalities. I have to believe because childhood trauma is common in borderline, it's common in covert borderline yet we don't have these outcomes. The narcissist something happens that denuded him of humanity and it's terrifying even for a self-aware narcissist like me I wake up at night literally every night terrified with myself terrified of myself and bloody scary even to myself not because I'm a bad person not because I'm an evil person I've helped millions around the world that's not the issue I do good I'm a good person because of how inhuman I am and how artificial I don't know what words to use this is such a strange alienation in clinical terms that it leads to extreme fear and dissonance of what I might do actually for example I don't know what I might do because everything I know about psychology and I'm a professor of psychology I'm a published author but it doesn't prepare me for the narcissistic experience doesn't they have narcissists online who describe behaviors that's not the issue the issue is not behaviors people hurt people hurt people hurt people many people hurt people and they're not narcissists focusing on what narcissists do is wrong because many people do the same we should focus on what the heck is going on in the narcissist's mind what is this life form where did it come from which planet it's like the 1938 Orson Welles invasion from Mars the radio sketch that's the alien aspect of it yeah that was actually one of my yeah please go ahead that was actually one of my questions if the covert borderline does stay long term in a relationship so the victim is experienced some of that narcissism, interjection and that narcissistic abuse I think you answered the question just now but I was going to ask who was the most toxic covert borderline narcissists by far and I would say most toxic is the covert narcissists second most toxic is the overt narcissists there's the overt narcissists you see them coming the overt narcissists is in your face usually pretty stupid and grandiose the overt narcissists is more of a caricature is more is good for mockery and derision the overt narcissists is funny comic in a way it's a snake in the grass it's someone who pretends to be modest and humble and altruistic and charitable and pro-social and communal and helpful and loving and caring and all the time underneath there's a miasma swamp of seething hatred and envy and passive aggression and is toxicity reified reified the overt narcissists is a stupid two-year-old with temper tantrums and a misperception of reality and his importance in reality the covert is much more sophisticated much more cunning much more scheming much more underhanded much more fallacious much more he's he's humility he's pseudo-humility deep inside he's arrogant and contemptuous his sublimation is socially acceptable ways socially acceptable only because he has anti-social criminal, pathological I don't know what goes in mind his insistentness and his politeness and his there are actually forms of passive aggression his sense of humor is biting and dark and aggressive and hurtful his brutal honesty is intended to demolish you he's a snake absolute snake and so the covert narcissists will be the most because also it's very difficult to convince other people that the covert narcissists are the narcissists they say he's a wonderful person he's a guru he's a healer, he's a fixer, he's a saviour he's a rescuer he's so self-effacing and so self-deprecating and so truthful and so honest no one believes that the covert narcissists is a covert narcissists that's why we call it a covert narcissists but in reality it's the most egregious sick venomous version of the narcissists I think that would be a really dangerous person to be in a divorce with or in a dispute with any dispute because you need, you're fighting a dual battle you're fighting against the covert narcissists and you're fighting to convince everyone else that he's a covert narcissist they simply don't believe it they don't believe you it's crazy so there is a collective gaslighting the covert narcissists creates collective gaslight he has flying monkeys people who do his bidding but everyone around him even if it's not a flying monkey believes him, not you and so this is gaslighting you're beginning to doubt your own perception of reality your own judgment and so you're destabilized you have a sense of reality you're becoming a bit psychotic it's a horrible experience when you're fighting a grandiose overt narcissists when you're in a dispute or a divorce everyone knows he's a asshole everyone knows he's a jerk he's not as much convincing but what do you do with the covert narcissists who is, I don't know a psychologist what do you do with the covert narcissists who is a community leader a renowned and celebrated social activist what do you do with someone like that how do you convince people a cult leader these are the covert narcissists they gravitate to places where there's a lot of grass because they're snakes I know that you've developed cold therapy to treat narcissism what is the likelihood that a covert borderline is treatable and what therapies would work best for that person cold therapy doesn't treat narcissism actually it just eliminates the component of grandiosity it eliminates the cognitive distortion so the narcissist is no longer grandiose doesn't need the false self has no false self after that and does not seek narcissistic supply but everything else remains he has no empathy he is horrible in interpersonal relationships he intermittently reinforces he's abusive all this remains cold therapy doesn't help with any of this it just eliminates the grandiosity so yes cold therapy is useful with covert borderlines it eliminates the grandiosity but everything else remains and it cannot be used with borderlines for example because of the suicide risk cold therapy takes away the defenses of the narcissist and eliminates the false self so for a while for short while the narcissist becomes suicidal and there's a huge suicide risk in cold therapy so there are special procedures and so on to prevent suicide and but if we were to do this with borderlines many of them commit suicide so cold therapy is counter indicated in borderline and in the case of the covert borderline we take away the grandiosity the covert borderline becomes the classic borderline so there's a moral question here if we take away this defense it's a defense it's a cognitive distortion take away this defense and the person becomes a classic borderline is this morally justified when I treat narcissists with cold therapy they go through a phase of a few weeks where they are clinically borderlines they have emotional dysregulation and ideation but this is a temporary phase it's a temporary phase and they recover with a covert borderline it would not be a temporary phase if I take away the grandiosity the covert borderline would be a borderline classic borderline for life there's some responsibility I'm not willing to take so I treat only people who are diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder with no other comorbidity none and I'd never treat anyone with any borderline personality organization a classic borderline covert borderline I would never treat these people it's dangerous 11% of people with borderline personality disorder commit suicide successfully that's a leading cause of death among people with borderline personality disorder if they were to develop narcissistic defenses they would not have committed suicide ironically I think the way to prevent suicide in borderline personality disorder is to teach them to be narcissists to kind of continue the grudge time grudge time said that narcissists have failed borderline so to undo the failure to teach them to be narcissistic and then they will not commit suicide there are moral questions here there's serious moral questions here imagine for example I can prove to you that I can prevent all suicides among borderlines if I render them narcissists if I teach them how to be narcissists should I do that imagine that I tell you that I can take away the grandiosity from a covert borderline and then it becomes a borderline and it's chances to die of suicide are 11% should I do that imagine that I tell you that in cold therapy with narcissists and with suicidal ideation for a week should I do that there are moral questions here so that's why that's why cold therapy I'm slow I'm taking it slow I was in the process of certifying a few hundred therapies but then the pandemic struck and I'm restarting the process now but I'm very hesitant about the whole thing as distinct from other therapies cold therapy is the only therapy I know and I think I know most of them if not all of them the only therapy I know which substitutes one personality for another all other therapies deal with elements of personality impulse control suicidal ideation emotional regulation cold therapy destroys the previous personality eradicate it eliminates it completely and replaces it with another that raises extremely complex ethical issues and that's why I'm I'm taking it very very slow that makes sense I think we ran out of time no one will have patience to watch more well it's fascinating fascinating we're thinking of more questions if we do this again thank you so much for your time I hope everyone really gets a lot out of it thank you Melissa it was a pleasure take care thanks