 There is a question, this raises of course the question of object constancy. The narcissist, we keep talking about external object constancy. The narcissist is never sure that people in his life will stay in his life. He started with his mother, who was a dead mother, was never there for him, emotionally unavailable or instrumentalizing or objectifying or parentifying or you know, or was depressive or was absent, physically absent or was narcissistic. So he was exposed, the first object in his life, first person in his life, was not constant, whatever else you see. So he had developed an insecure attachment style coupled with object inconsistency, but we keep talking about external object constancy. But wait a minute, by far more important is internal object constancy. We have a self, constellated self, the lucky ones. You know, we feel this as a bit separate from us. That's why we're able to engage in introspection, to look inside ourselves, as though we were the object, objects of our, the object of our gaze. We look at us, we observe ourselves, as though we were a separate object. And there is object constancy. Do you feel that yourself is a constant, reliable, safe base to be trusted object? Or don't you? Narcissists borderline, they don't feel that inside themselves, there is an object that is constant that they can trust, that will always be there, that will provide them with safety at the very least by being consistent, that will endow their lives with meaning, that will organize the world and reality in ways which would be comprehensible and manipulable in the good sense, that will enhance their self-efficacy. They don't have such an object which is otherwise known as self. So they don't have external object constancy, and they don't have internal object constancy. And similarly, they have two phenomena. Phenomenon, ego in concurrency and ego discrepancy. Ego in concurrency is when the internal object is in conflict, parts of the internal, because the internal object is not integrated. There is a lot of chaos, we call this disorganized personality. There's a lot of chaos there, constructs are fighting with each other, introjects are shouting over each other, there's a bloody mess, it's mayhem, it's pandemonium inside the borderline and inside the narcissists. And very often the needs of one construct, one part of the self are diametrically opposed to the needs of the other. For example, one part could be introverted and one part could be extroverted. So it creates ego in concurrency when there is input and the constructs can't get their act together, can't operate in a cohesive, coherent manner, outcome-oriented manner, self-efficacious manner with an agency. We have severe problems within the ego. That's why it keeps saying narcissists don't have any ego. The incongruency and discrepancy are so gigantic they don't have an ego actually. There is attempted ego at best. And similarly there's ego discrepancy. It's when external input from the outside, external input conflicts dramatically with certain functions of the self and certain needs of the self. For example, when grandiosity is challenged. So all these processes are happening and as a result there is no core, there is no stable state, there are self states, multiple, many and they are in flux. When you talk to a healthy person you can safely assume that 80%, 90% of this person will remain in one year's time. You can't make this assumption about the narcissist in one hour's time and with the borderline in 10 minutes time. The narcissists on the borderline are not solid objects. They are fluids. They're in flux. I'll give you the best metaphor. Glass. Glass is not solid. Glass is a liquid. I don't know if you know that. Glass is a liquid that is flowing glacially, very, very, very minutely and microscopically so you don't notice it. But glass is liquid. It's a form of fluid. It's the same with the narcissists from the outside. The narcissists on the borderline look like you and me or you and you. They look normal healthy functioning somehow. They have their act together but actually it's glass. It's brittle. It's fragile. It's vulnerable. It's not resistant to external shocks and it's in constant flux. So there are numerous self states that kaleidoscopically and dizzingly replace each other. You never enter the same narcissists twice. The famous Heraclitus saying you never enter the same river twice. You never enter the same borderline twice. And what they're trying to do desperately is to use the partner to legitimize the shadow part. They have very pronounced shadow parts. Parts of themselves that they had repressed. Complexes that they had repressed deny and they want the partner to legitimize these parts for them. They want to experience this part of themselves, the shadow part and in the case of the male narcissists part of the shadow part and the integral part of the shadow part is the feminine aspect. So they want to project the shadow part on the partner and they want the partner to allow them to experience the shadow part through him vicariously or through her. So the partner's role, the intimate partner's role is to allow the narcissists and the borderline to experience themselves by legitimizing their shadow part. I'm using Jungian parlance but you can use any any other metaphor. It's a metaphor of course. And when the partner is healthy he can contain the shadow part that was given to him, handed over to him, projected onto him. He can contain it because he has boundaries and he doesn't allow himself to be influenced. But what happens when the partner is equally sick, when you have a narcissist and a borderline? They trade the shadow parts constantly. They constantly try to force their shadow parts on each other. And it's a war. It's a war because they don't have boundaries and they constantly trespass. They constantly invade and they constantly mirror each other in the best sense of the word. The narcissist suddenly becomes a borderline for a minute because he had absorbed the shockwave of his borderline partner's shadow part. And the borderline becomes grandiose and narcissistic because she had absconded with the projected grandiosity of her narcissistic partner. They become each other's mirrors but you know put two mirrors and have a look what happens. If you put two mirrors facing each other have a look what happens. Infinite regression. You never get any word. The depth is infinite. It's a corridor of mirrors and that is what I call the hall of mirrors. And there is in these people, the borderline's analysis, there is a background process of mourning and grieving. They are grieving a dead object. Probably the dead mother but not necessarily. And they are grieving this dead object because they have early on interjected this object. They are actually grieving themselves. And when they give the shadow part to the partner they feel whole but only by subsuming the partner. When they give the shadow part to the partner the shadow part is legitimized and the borderline of the narcissist can experience it finally safely. But to do that they must assimilate the partner because he has the shadow part. To become one whole they must merge and fuse with the partner because he is holding an important part. So imagine that I'm a borderline and you are my partner. I take my shadow part and I give it to you. That moment I have to digest you. I have to merge with you. I have to fuse with you because half of me is with you. You have half of me. You own half of me. You control half of me. And to experience myself in my totality we have to become one. And this is the famous process of merger and fusion which is also common among codependents. And then when we become one wholeness is restored. Wholeness is restored. A safe base is established. We call it a holding environment. Safe base is established. And this is done in therapy as well. It's precisely what we do in therapy. With transference, counter transference. We play with this. Actually we allow the patient to give us as therapists to give us the shadow part. We hold the shadow part for the patient. And we let the patient experience the shadow part from the safety of our base as therapists. It's the same process. And then the patient feels whole. And the morning stops. The dead object is revived and resuscitated. And yes, if there are religious overtones to what I'm saying, it's because religion is the earliest form of psychotherapy, of course. And here I acknowledge Jordan Peterson's recent contributions. He went deep into this Netherlands between religion and therapy. So this is the kind of process that happens in borderline narcissistic mixed couples, also to some extent, codependent narcissistic mixed couples, and so on and so forth. Now, one last thing. Of course, in the shared fantasy, the shared fantasy, by the way, is intended to facilitate exactly this, the swap, the swap of shadow parts, the swap of autoerotic, libidinal gender roles, the swap, simply the swap. But because the swap is so extensive and massive and intensive and repetitive, the two parties become one through merger and fusion. They swapped so many parts that they become indistinguishable. At that point, they lose reality testing. Fantasy by definition is poor reality testing. But the fantasy in this case involves disappearing as an individual and reappearing as an organism with two heads, as a merged, fused togetherness. And this damages reality testing. Because reality intrudes, reality challenges, undermines, sabotages. You don't want reality. You want to live in this safe, holding, warm, accepting, unconditional love. It's okay to be you, environment. So there is a problem with reality testing. Some narcissists, definitely psychopaths and many borderlines, react to this, to the loss of reality testing with alarm. They get very frightened and they try to restore the reality testing with something called hyperreflection or hyperrealism. They actually withdraw from the partner and merge with reality. They extend themselves and swallow reality. They say, okay, I have to merge. I have to fuse. But merging and fusing only with my intimate partner denies me the benefits of reality, access to reality, acting upon reality, securing favorable outcomes from reality. It damages my self-efficacy, my agency, my individuality. I don't want that. So they withdraw. But they must merge and fuse. Merger and fusion is the fundamental dynamic in these disorders because they are disorders of the self. And when you don't have your own self, you need another person's self or some other self. You need to have a self by proxy vicariously through someone or through something. So when they lose the partner, because they're terrified that they're losing themselves, they adopt reality instead. And this is hyperreflection. It's when the self, the dysfunctional self, expands to include reality and it creates something called, which I call hyperrealism. These people become paranoid, cynical, conspiracist, exact opposite. Not trusting, fearful, anxious. And you have these two poles. You have the co-dependence and borderlines who merge with the intimate partner, lose themselves, vanish as individuals and reappear through the agency of the intimate partner. And you have those who reject the intimate partner, torture the intimate partner, push him away. They don't want the intimate partner because they are afraid of enmeshment and engulfment. And in many borderlines, there's this pendulum dynamic. They're afraid of enmeshment and engulfment. They want merger and fusion. They want to be enmeshed. They want to be engulfed. When they do, they're terrified. Again, they withdraw. So approach, avoidance, repetition, compulsion. On the one hand, there's the intimate partner. On the other hand, there's the world. And the borderline swings between the world, rejecting the intimate partner and the intimate partner while rejecting the world. And this swinging motion is the repetition compulsion. Approach, avoidance, repetition compulsion. As far as the intimate partner is concerned, he experiences it as lability, modulability and dysregulated emotions. That's how we describe it from the outside. From the inside, it's simply fear. The borderline and the narcissists live in constant terror, terror of disappearing on the one hand, especially with an intimate partner and terror of having to manage the universe, having to be God. If they, if they flee from the partner, if they avoid the partner and escape the partner, they have to embrace the world. And because the world is dangerous, hostile, you have to manage the world. So you have to become God. And this is between zero and hero, between not being and being everything, between being, between vanishing and becoming God. These are the outside parameters of the existence of people with disorders of the self, such as borderline and narcissists. I hope you had fun. I know I did. It's time for another sip of water. Ach, wunderbar mein Kinder!