 Those of you who follow my Instagram narcissism with back nin Know that I've been on a shopping spree yesterday. I bought a secondhand copy of My own book of short fiction it won the 1997 Award of the Ministry of Culture for prose for maiden prose Maiden me I bought many many other books Among them a Hebrew translation of the Quran. Yes, the Quran and and A copy of the holy Zohar the main book of the Kabbalah What's going on? Is the end of the world near? or am I Going psychotic insane To investigate this distinct possibility. I Decided to make a video and then to watch it myself Why should you be the only ones to suffer and the topic of today's video is Narcissist or psychotic Borderline or Schizophrenic Is psychosis psychotic disorders Schizophrenia, which is also a form of psychotic disorder Are these actually? Other names for borderline and narcissistic personality disorder now before you think that I really I've really gone start raving mad This idea has a very long provenance and pedigree Among those who supported this idea was Zygmunt Freud another one Otto Kernberg prominent psychologists The fathers of the profession in the field they were convinced that borderline and narcissistic personality disorders are attenuated mild forms of psychosis hence the name borderline Personality disorder on the border between neurosis and psychosis But I'm going to go when where no one has ventured before When no one dared to go before me I'm going to investigate the various features of narcissism Borderline and compare them to current day bleeding edge knowledge about psychotic disorders Before we proceed we need to disambiguate a few terms There's a pop-up here, and I can't get rid of it for some reason we need to disambiguate a few a few terms and and words and so on so forth so first of all we need to make a distinction between psychosis and Schizophrenia and Then we will disambiguate other terms. Let's start with psychosis and schizophrenia schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder But there are many many others now we use the word psychotic as a Disparaging derogatory stigmatizing word But actually all it means is losing touch with reality psychosis can and very often is brief and Temporary there is even something called brief psychotic disorder Psychosis is very common in the form of micro episodes A psychosis that lasts a few hours to a few days So it's very common in a variety of other mental health disorders. For example bipolar disorder major depressive disorder Disorder all kinds of dementias and Yes, you're right borderline personality disorder. Now don't confuse psychosis with psychopathy, please Schizophrenia is the most extreme known psychotic disorder. It involves delusions hallucinations Disorganized thinking disorganized speech Disorganized motor behavior like spilling wine all the time all over the keyboard Intimed and negative symptoms. For example a limited emotional expression Clinically known as reduced effect display We divide all the symptoms of psychotic disorders into positive and negative. Don't ask me why? positive symptoms are Include hallucinations delusions disorganized speech and so on so forth and negative symptoms is the inability to experience pleasure anhedonia and lack of emotional expression reduced effect display and so on and so forth I I remind you Psychosis is more common than you know Three in a hundred people three percent of a population have experienced psychosis at one time or another In their lives it is when your mind can't tell the difference between reality and Imagination between fact and fiction I wanted to say reality and fantasy, but that's wrong Fantasy is a defense mechanism Shortly I will I will discuss the difference between fantasy and Psychosis so remember delusions hallucinations disorganized speech and thinking disorganized motor behavior diminished emotional expression anhedonia inability to experience pleasure A volition a lack of motivation inability to get started on tasks lack of will losing will A loger this means that you're quiet and unresponsive And in extreme cases, this is known as catatonia and then a Sociality its limited interest in social interactions very reminiscent of the schizoid condition indeed Certain personality disorders are considered essentially psychotic they were separated from other psychotic disorders and relegated to the personality disorders sections Section in the diagnostic and statistical manual, but if you were to look at the ICD the international classification of diseases They are still listed under psychotic and the schizophrenia. So we have for example schizotypal personality disorder schizoid personality disorder and Paranoid personality disorder. They're all considered kind of psychotic or on the verge of psychosis or About to become psychotic precursors of psychosis now If you want a list of psychotic disorders the schizophrenia, we no longer use the term paranoid Schizophrenia or schizophrenia paranoia and the reason we don't use this term this phrase anymore any longer is because Not all people with schizophrenia are paranoid paranoia does characterize a substantial part of Schizophrenics, but not all of them. So it's very misleading to call all schizophrinics paranoid schizophrinics Then we have schizo schizophriniform disorder. We have schizo effective disorder Illusional disorder brief psychotic disorder, which I mentioned earlier and of course psychotic disorders that are induced by substances or medications or reading the wrong books late at night Or listening to some vaknin, of course A recent study in Idaho find out found out that if you listen to more than 3.7 videos of some vaknin per day You are bound to end up either psychotic or very very well educated in psychology Whichever comes first Okay, I mentioned that psychosis can be found in bipolar disorder in major depressive disorder, but it can it is also Very frequently the outcome of post traumatic stress disorder and here we are beginning to see the interface between psychotic disorders and Post traumatic personality disorders such as borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder You know that I've spent the last 10 years and even longer Trying to redefine Narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder is essentially post traumatic conditions not personality disorders and So psychosis is common in in all of them and also following some medical conditions such as stroke traumatic brain injury tumors dementia mention sleep disorders if you suffer from a Sleep apnea for very long time or if you suffer from insomnia other insomnia disorders and so on but I mean for a very long time You may definitely become psychotic actually a substantial portion of such people do become psychotic Epilepsy and Parkinson's disease are also also constitute part of the list. Okay, so I hope I disambiguate it Um Schizophrenia from psychosis. They are not the same schizophrenia is a private case of psychosis and psychosis is not a mental illness. It's a symptom Okay, what about imagination? What about fantasy? What sets them apart from psychosis? Well When you imagine something you know that you're imagining it normally if you're normal if you're healthy mentally healthy You know You can tell the difference between your imagination and reality Even if you are possessed of medical thinking which I will discuss a bit a bit further Even then you can tell the difference and Even when you have a fantasy defense, you can still to tell the difference the lines become very blurred When we discuss the fantasies of borderlines and narcissists Because narcissists for example are unable to tell the difference between a shared fantasy and Reality That's why narcissists do not gaslight Do not gaslight. They don't even lie They believe That their fantasies are real and They are trying to induct you into their fantasies. They're trying to inculcate in you the misinformation Information or misbelief that the fantasy is real So they deceive themselves to the point that they become delusional The fantasy defense of fantasy defenses of narcissists and borderlines have gone awry and Have become for all intents and purposes psychotic That's where I fully agree with Otto Kernberg's groundbreaking amazing work fantasy in the case of the narcissist feels very real and And the same goes for the borderline and this is a great definition of psychosis when your perception is is Human perception of reality Overrides reality when you believe that your perception of reality is reality Rather than reality itself and of course your perception is skewed is wrong is biased is imaginary and Ill-informed and yet you believe that the way you perceive reality is the real thing and reality itself is the fake Reality is the fantasy reality is the imagination reality is unreal and that is common to Psychotics people with psychotic disorder, but also Common to narcissists and borderlines in this sense Narcissists don't have imagination. They don't daydream They create alternative virtual realities Paracosms They move into the fantasy. They inhabit it. They reside in it. They possess the fantasy and so in many in the most crucial aspects and respects narcissistic personality disorder is a post-traumatic psychotic reaction and This goes doubly When we apply to borderline personality disorder I want to read to you something is this been this was written in 1990 1990 that's like 33 years ago It's an article. It's in Croatian. I'll translate for you. It was written by Turbovic Turbovic at the time was a Was working in the clinic for psychiatric medicine medicine in the faculty in Zagreb Zagreb Croatia And this is what he wrote depression in schizophrenia is determined by narcissistic injuries by a collapse of Narcissistic satisfactions today. We say narcissistic supply by a collapse of narcissistic satisfactions Through the loss of ego functions completeness competitiveness and competence The depressive mode model is most frequently encountered in florid Schizophrenic psychosis the beginning of hospitalization But depending on the intensity and depth of narcissistic traumas and losses It can develop also in any phase of the therapy Hewittic process and the course of illness in the author's view The depressive model in schizophrenia is not conditioned by the neuro elliptic treatment Its recognition is very important for the therapy with suicidal tendencies and for their prevention in particular This is one of the first if not the first observations that I've come across suggesting Some confluence or conflation or connection between narcissistic injuries And and for example narcissistic modification, which is a thousand times narcissistic injury between this and the emergence of psychosis to the point of schizophrenia What the author is suggesting is that psychotic disorders including schizophrenia our reactions To narcissistic modification and narcissistic injuries now Freud suggested the same Freud suggested that psychotic disorders are forms of narcissistic disturbances By but Freud didn't take the extra leap Of connecting psychosis to narcissistic injury and modification okay I'm going to now touch upon several elements which are common both to psychotic disorders and Personality disorders, especially erratic dramatic Schizotypal schizoid and paranoid personality disorders or cluster B and schizoid schizotypal and paranoid Start with role play In all these disorders The patient plays a role And it's a role embedded in a fantasy The fantasy can be erotic aggressive self-aggrandizing anything Many patients Consider themselves or view themselves as heroes rescuers saviors and protectors This is a form of role play In an extreme fantasy a fantasy defense gun or eye and the fantasy self-directed Whereas a typical fantasy defense refers to the environment it modifies the environment It changes the way we receive information and data From our surroundings and from other people. That's a typical fantasy in psychotic disorders And narcissistic and borderline disorders and paranoid and all the all the personality disorders that I mentioned The fantasy is not outward directed. It's not externalized It's internalized the fantasy is about the self And the role of the self in a totally imaginary environment And the conviction is huge enormous The patient is convinced For example, the patient is convinced that he is a good person That he's a savior or a protector or a helper or a rescuer Or a healer Or someone who is helpful To this or that group So this self conviction Is fantastic It's also delusional. We're going to come to delusions a bit later And when it is self directed We know that we are dealing with psychosis or psychotic elements In the narcissistic disturbance or the borderline disturbance Now when I say self directed you can immediately Those of you who are still awake you can immediately say but hey vaknin You taught us about the shared fantasy and shared fantasy includes other people For example the intimate partner So the shared fantasy is not self directed It incorporates other people you're wrong. No, I'm not wrong Because the narcissist And the borderline they regard other people As extensions of themselves They regard the narcissist regards other people as internal objects Inside his mind Introjects voices similar to the psychotic patient The borderline regards other people as outsourced functions externalized functions so The fantasy of the narcissist and the fantasy of the borderline are self directed And by extension It subsumes it includes other people because everyone in the eyes of the narcissist Is a part of himself And so This is the first connection between psychosis And narcissistic and borderline personality disorders Because in all three conditions there are There is self referential a self referential framework The psychotic regards himself as the world That's why the psychotic Confuses his internal environment And reality will come to it a bit later. So the fantasy is self directed as the fantasy is self directed There is a sense of self efficacy Which is also self directed In other words the psychotic patient the narcissist and the borderline They all perceive themselves As self contained Self sufficient Self efficacious Even the borderline Who needs who depends on her partner for self regulation Regards her partner as a tool a mere instrument She owns the partner he he belongs to her. He is her property So there is this perception of I don't need anyone I can accomplish anything I want if I just put my mind to it literally The fantasies of the psychotic the narcissists and the borderline involve wish fulfillment And Substitutive action The psychotic patient the narcissists and the borderline Imagine That their wishes and dreams are fulfilled that their fantasies are realized and actualized And this wish fulfillment Is done or accomplished via Imagining action not real action, but imaginary action Substitutive action and in totality this whole Compounded mechanism Is the equivalent of self regulation in healthy people? In other words these patients regulate their internal environment By developing a belief or a conviction or a fantasy Or a delusion that the internal environment is actually reality And so when they act on their internal environment They convince themselves that they have acted on reality. I mentioned that all three conditions Of the outcome of childhood trauma post traumatic stress disorder This is the patho patho etiology Of the of all three conditions, but this is much more pronounced in borderline personality disorder And then in narcissistic personality disorder and some psychotics have a background of trauma However Everyone with trauma can develop psychosis and many do Not everyone with psychosis comes from a background of trauma Now what is common to all three conditions? Is hyper reflexivity? A confusion between internal objects and external objects The narcissist perceives external objects as internal ones The psychotic perceives internal objects as external ones The borderline has no internal objects. She doesn't have introject constancy So she constantly internalizes External objects on the fly But it never holds water. It never persists So she is she has this cesifian task of recreating her internal environment all the time Which is a great way to describe identity disturbance Now all three conditions psychotic narcissistic and borderline They have paranoid ideation To to this or that degree hyper vigilance is a form of paranoid ideation But in extreme cases of borderline and narcissism and psychosis We have paranoia And of course we have a form of narcissistic disturbance Known as paranoid personality disorder Where paranoia is the core Now paranoia is a narcissistic defense The paranoid believes that he is the center of of attention The attention is malign It's malevolent But it's he is still the center of attention He is sufficiently important for others to conspire against him So we are beginning again to see a connection between paranoia Narcissism and psychosis This is the thread that connects all of them It is because of the paranoia That there is an innate preference for fantasy Reality is perceived as hostile Threatening Dangerous Risky frightening So rather than engage with reality on its own terms The paranoid the narcissists the borderline the psychotic They withdraw inside they retreat they avoid reality And they create an internal reality which is fully manageable and controllable And this reduces their anxiety Paranoia therefore Contrary Contrary to accept the opinion Paranoia is actually anxiolytic It reduces anxiety Because it generates The false perception of I'm in control I'm in the know I anticipate the next the enemy's next moves And I'm well prepared I'm well prepared for the conspiracy against me Magical thinking Is a form Of fantasy And paranoids often engage in magical thinking But magical thinking is a much bigger phenomenon It could be persecutory So someone with a persecutory form of magical thinking would say that he is haunted and possessed by demons who want to kill him Or destroy him somehow But the magical thinking can be grandiose So someone with a grandiose magical thinking Would consider consider himself a superhero Out to save humanity or to save women from their abusers or god knows what So that's an example of a grandiose grandiose magical thinking And all these Usually believe in some higher power They are tasked by god himself They communicate with god or with history Or with the nation Or with a group with a population that requires their services and help and healing They are they are out there And they are altruistic and they are charitable and they're good hearted and they're good persons and they're good people Because they cater to the needs Of other people But it's all done in a grandiose setting The whole story is grandiose Whatever they are doing it's a mission a cosmic mission almost They are on the side of good versus evil. It's a morality play It's Something that deserves an hbo Treatment or movie Magical thinking also involves the conviction That internal processes for example cognitive processes Are way more important than reality And shape reality So if you're just Concentrate on something long enough Hard enough It's gonna happen It's gonna manifest This is the infantile belief That you can alter reality Via Fantastic wishful thinking This is also very common in psychosis We're getting very close or very near the territory of delusions Now there's a fierce debate in the profession Whether Cognitive distortions are delusions Cognitive biases are not delusions. They are much closer to opinions Obstinate opinions Opinions of people who are not open to new information or to countervailing opinions Opinionated people are not delusional. They are simply You know a-holes But What about people who perceive reality wrongly Because their cognitions are distorted They fit a reality through defense mechanisms and cognitions That render reality unrecognizable to other people Healthy people, normal people So These cognitive distortions in my opinion Do constitute delusions And in this sense Grandiosity which is common to both narcissism Pathological narcissism and borderline personality organization Grandiosity is a delusion It's a cognitive distortion that is so extreme Falsifies and reframes reality so dramatically and drastically that it is a delusion And here we have the first and most important element of schizophrenia Delusions Delusional thinking Delusional disorders And delusions go hand-in-hand in psychotic disorders. They go hand-in-hand with hallucinations And yes, you got it right Borderline personality disorder patients experience hallucinations Far less Far less frequently and far fewer hallucinations than people with psychotic disorders But hallucinations are Part and parcel of people with borderline personality disorder diagnosis Well over one third Of people diagnosed with borderline have experience Are experiencing or will experience hallucinations hallucinations is seeing something that's on there hearing something that is has never been uttered and Generating memories of events that have never happened These are hallucinations So we're beginning to see that borderlines for example Have most of the hallmarks of psychosis Including hallucinations and delusions and fantasies and paranoid ideation And hyperreflexivity and magical thingy epigenemic Same goes for the narcissists with the exception that narcissists are not prone to hallucinations like borderlines but narcissists and borderlines Have a feature a clinical symptomatic feature Which is very very reminiscent of hallucinations and delusions and that is dissociation Dissociation comes in three flavors like ice cream One is amnesia One is derealization And one is depersonalization Amnesia is simply forgetting things derealization Is when you experience reality as unreal When you feel that you are somehow found yourself in a movie or in a theater production That everything that's happening around you is is absolutely not real And so this is derealization Depersonalization is when you feel that everything around you is real except yourself You're not real. You're not inside your body. You're not anyone. You're not a self. You're not you These two forms of dissociation are very common in borderline Borderlines describe it as autopilot or they're very common in borderline And they are pretty common in narcissism So we do have forms of hallucination and delusions And I would I would venture to suggest The derealization and depersonalization Are hallucinations They are combinations of hallucinations and delusions And so in this strict sense Of dissociation Narcissists are also to some extent hallucinatory Now all three psychotics borderlines are narcissists. They're labile They're dysregulated Unpredictable They are erratic That's why we confine people with psychotic disorders to mental asylum So what am I doing here? Don't ask And all of them have self perceptions that defy reality A very common self perception is victimhood Narcissists especially covert narcissists Borderlines and people with psychotic disorders Tend to regard themselves as victims. This has to do of course with the paranoid ideation People are out to get me People discriminate against me Victimize me Hate me Conspire against me Etc. Etc. This self perception as a victim Also upholds the high moral ground And supports and buttresses grandiosity In this sense This self perception Is a filter of reality that falsifies Reality Now in all three conditions there's anhedonia Inability to experience pleasure It's very common even in psychopathy. It's common Although the psychopath experiences it as boredom. He's bored And so in his excitement and drama exactly like the borderline Anhedonia is common in psychosis in psychotic disorders, especially in schizophrenia There is reduced effect display Narcissists have flat effect and flat attachment Morso Psychopaths even morso now don't confuse the narcissists love bombing in the initial phase of the shared fantasy With effect display. There's no effect This is a manipulative strategy unconscious manipulative strategy to kind of Lasso in or trap in trap And then entrain an intimate partner who will then be converted into a maternal figure and so so All all all these cluster b personality disorders schizoid schizotypo Paranoid and psychotic they all have reduced effect display or flat effect or inappropriate effect problems with effect The narcissist has negative affectivity There are problems with effect And these problems in effect are very very common in psychosis One could even argue and there have been scholars who have argued That affect problems of affect affect disorders are actually forms of psychosis now. There's abolition Anyone who has lived with a borderline can tell you that she has long stretches of Indulence laziness inability to get out of bed and this is not depression. This is abolition. She loses her will She she becomes deprived of volition She can't embark on any new project start anything finish a task and so on so forth Even though she may not be depressed at all. Of course, this is also a feature of depression And in psychosis we have grandiose psychosis Most religious leaders where are grandiosly psychotic We have grandiose psychosis. We have many types of of psychosis. So we have depressive psychosis as well the early work in in object relations starting with melanocline and others isaac's others dwelt on this that One could cast or describe depression as a form of psychosis And finally there's asociality Asociality is a lack of will to socialize not social anxiety not social shyness and not social introversion These are often confused. I mean people often confuse all these. This is asociality the absolute lack of will to socialize And this is also common in all in all four conditions now All these are intermittent The borderline is sometimes hyper social and then she is asocial The narcissist has increased volition. He is almost manic He could be easily misdiagnosed as bipolar the manic phase And then he reverts into a schizoid phase with avolition And hedonia Can be perceived as boredom And then there is a pursuit of pleasures hedonism, etc. So all these are intermittent conditions also in psychosis psychosis is not An extensive disorder. It's not like every second of every minute of every hour. The psychotic person is psychotic There are Episodes and attacks Of schizophrenia which lasts for years and so on. That's true But all people with psychotic disorders have long stretches of time where they're not psychotic at all They cannot be diagnosed now In the literature in the description, I'm going to post several The name the titles of several articles and you can expand your knowledge if you wish but What I do want to do I want to maybe dwell upon one or two One or two elements and the first one is schizo tp Schizo tp. Just let me see. I want somehow to But I don't know. Where is the I don't know. Where is the zoom function here? It's very very small So In schizo tp. I'm sorry. I'm gonna I'm gonna be in your face because Somehow the the zoom is not working So schizo tp is a A general condition. It's uh, it's uh, not necessarily pathological But it involves elements which are common to all The conditions are mentioned common to narcissism borderline psychotic disorders Paranoid schizo tp schizoidensal So schizo tp involves beliefs that are regarded as invalid and magical by conventional standards But might might well be shared by certain groups Subgroups subcultures for example certain esoteric beliefs spiritual beliefs or conspiracy theories And schizo tp involves distortions in the perception of one's body and or environmental stimuli sensory hypersensitivity Diminish pleasure or discomfort in social or interpersonal situations Deficits to in the ability to experience pleasure in different sensory domains or discomfort from sensory stimulation reduction in psychomotor drive flattened effect or reduction in emotional expressiveness Reduction in verbal expressiveness Speech deficits due to disorganized confused thinking that do not cause grave problems in other people's understanding of the person simultaneous experience of divergent emotions And so this is schizo tp now schizo tp Is the background process That underlies all these disorders now there are many people who are who have schizo tp And they are not mentally ill They cannot be diagnosed with a personality disorder or with psychosis. So let us now compare schizo tp to psychosis Psychosis has a defined onset It has a beginning date and an expiry date Each episode so it's a piece episodic Yeah, it involves delusions firm beliefs held with full conviction that are conviction And these beliefs are untrue As well as contrary to the personal person's educational and cultural background hallucinations Perceptions experience without an external stimulus and hedonia in social and other Activities or situations and hedonia is inability to experience pleasure finding pleasure in nothing abolition a lack of will to start or to continue doing anything affective flattening flat effect Reduce intensity of emotional response attentional impairment Wondering mind resembles very much much adhd And so there are scholars who compare hd adhd to psychosis allogia Formal thought disorder disorganized speech that severely hinders other people's understanding of the person disorganized or bizarre behavior incongruous effect inappropriate effect laughing at a funeral and As you see psychosis is an extreme form of schizotopy But schizotopy exists also in narcissism and borderline and I refer you to the video I've made About schizotopy and neoteny I have a video of course about every imaginable topic on earth And in some parts of the galaxy Okay, I hope you this I hope this video hasn't rendered you psychotic. You wouldn't know Um until it's too late. So um We're going to discuss These issues at length in other videos later. This was a general introduction Those of you who want to venture further for some oblivious reason at your own risk and parallel Um, just go to the literature and read the articles that I recommend