 What could be better I ask you than an intimate evening with Sam Vaknin and a good glass of wine Exactly like Freddy Krueger or a bad coin. I keep coming back You can get rid of me. Never mind what you do. Even when you unsubscribe you find me somewhere on YouTube. It's a disaster Good evening. My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignance of Love Narcissism Revisited And a professor of psychology. Actually, this is a university lecture. I hope my students don't see the introduction So today we are going to discuss a very interesting phenomenon known as compensatory Narcissism. It's not new by any stretch of the imagination. It's been described Decades ago it's been described by the biggest names in psychology Theodore Mellon a study of personality disorders Theodore Mellon Heinz Kohl Reich, Annie Reich, many others But there's a new study just came out and I'm cited in this study. My work is cited in this study, but that's not the reason I'm reviewing this study I'm reviewing this study because the authors had developed new tools new measurement tools Which seem to have proven pretty conclusively that compensatory narcissism is not just a figment of the imagination But an actual clinical entity as all of us have been saying for decades now So compensatory narcissism may be connected somehow to self discrepancy theory Self discrepancy or ego discrepancy is when traits and behaviors Make the person feel uncomfortable The person becomes ego ego dystonic. There is a discrepancy between traits behaviors and the self Now self discrepancy theory claims that the self has three three parts The classical Freudian part which interfaces with reality provides reality testing controls behavior Mediates between drives and behavior, etc, etc a second part which Freud at a time called ego ideal And that's how the self would like to be what it would like to become the fantasy of how the self would look in five years and ten years and 20 years when it grows up and The third part is how the self ought to be How the self should be in other words perhaps the equivalent of the super ego and and and and conscience so these three parts they constantly interact constantly negotiate compromise strike bargains and Drive on the personality in its totality the self But sometimes there are discrepancies There are dissonances between these parts and they don't sit well together the harmony is shuttered And this is known as self discrepancy I And many others have suggested that at the core of compensatory narcissism. There is self discrepancy I I use the I use the language of in internal objects Which is essentially an object relations language, but you don't have to use this language You can say some sub personalities. You can say pseudo identities. You can say some states It doesn't matter how you describe it the parts the moving parts of the self When they clash when they conflict when harmony is destroyed there is ego self discrepancy and It may lead to a compensatory effort the person tries to compensate for this extreme unease and this compensatory mechanism is what we call narcissism Later on I'm going to discuss another phenomena and also no shear Not anal Sognosia, I know Sognosia your mind is in the gutter today. I don't know what's wrong with you anyhow so and a Sognosia right many many years ago Many years ago when you were all just Imaginations in your parents minds. I was very much alive and I've written a book titled malignant self-love Narcissism revisited and the first edition was published in 1999. It was based on a website and writings from 1995 and In this book there was such sub chapter Titled the compensatory versus the classic narcissist I would like to read to an excerpt from this sub chapter because it leads Smoothly and see a smoothly and seamlessly into the newest the current research published in July In July this year. So the compensatory versus the classic narcissist I'm quoting from the book another interesting distinction Suggested by Dave Kelly in his excellent p-types website is between the compensatory type narcissistic personality disorder and the classic narcissistic personality disorder described in the diagnostic and statistical manual the DSM Here are the compensatory NPD criteria according to Dave Kelly And now I'm quoting Dave Kelly Personality types proposes compensatory narcissistic personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of unstable covert narcissistic behaviors that derive from an underlying sense of insecurity and weakness Rather than from genuine feelings of self-confidence and high self-esteem Beginning by early adult adulthood and present in a variety of contexts has indicated by six or more of the criteria below The basic trait of the compensatory narcissistic personality type is a pattern of overtly narcissistic behaviors that derive from an underlying sense of Insecurity and weakness Rather than from genuine feelings of self-confidence and high self-esteem the compensatory narcissistic personality type Seeks to create an illusion of superiority and to build up an image of high self-worth Theodomilion strives for recognition and prestige to compensate for the lack of a feeling of self-worth May acquire a Deprecatory attitude in which the achievements of others are ridiculed and degraded Milan again Has persistent aspirations for glory and status Milan has a tendency to exaggerate and boast Milan is Sensitive to how others react to him watches and listens carefully for critical judgment and feels slighted by disapproval Milan Is prone to feel ashamed and humiliated and especially anxious and vulnerable to the judgments of others Milan again Covers up a sense of inadequacy and deficiency with pseudo arrogance and pseudo grandiosity Milan has a tendency to periodic Hypocondria Foreman another scholar Alternates between feelings of emptiness and deadness and states of excitement and excess energy Foreman entertains fantasies of greatness Constantly striving for perfection genius or stardom Foreman has a history of searching for an idealized partner and has an intense need for affirmation and confirmation in relationships foreman Frequently entertains a wishful exaggerated and unrealistic concept of himself which he can't possibly measure up to an era Produces too quickly work not up to the level of his abilities Because of an overwhelmingly strong need for the immediate gratification of success an era Is touchy quick to take offense at the slightest provocation continually Anticipating attack and danger Reacting with anger and fantasies of revenge when he feels himself frustrated in his need for constant admiration right Is self-conscious due to a dependence on approval from others I? Suffers regularly from repetitive oscillations of self-esteem. I? Six to undo feelings of inadequacy by forcing everyone's attention or admiration upon himself any right May react with self-contempt and depression to the lack of fulfillment of his grandiose expectations reason So the sources are max foreman narcissistic disorders and the oedipal fixations in the annual of psychoanalysis volume 4 Theodore millen disorders of personality Any right pathological forms of self-esteem regulation in essential papers of narcissism Don Richard Riso our ISO personality types and now Dave Kelly continues by its Proposing speculative diagnostic criteria for compensatory narcissistic personality disorder a Pervasive pattern says Dave Kelly of self-inflation pseudo-confidence Exhibitionism and strivings for prestige that compensates for feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem as indicated by the following pseudo-confidence compensating for an underlying condition of insecurity and feelings of helplessness pretentiousness self-inflation Exhibitionism in the pursuit of attention recognition and glory Strivings for prestige to enhance self-esteem Deceitfulness and manipulativeness in the service of maintaining feelings of superiority idealization idealization in relationships fragmentation of the self feelings of emptiness and deadness a proud hubristic disposition Hypocondriasis substance abuse self-destructiveness Compensatory narcissistic personality disorder corresponds to Ernst Jones narcissistic God complex to any rikes compensatory narcissism to Heinz-Kohr's narcissistic personality disorder which made it into the diagnostic and statistical manual Heinz-Kohr described a compensatory narcissism not a grandiose overt one and to Theodore millen's compensatory narcissists Theodore millen and Roger Davis So not long ago There was a press release Which referred to a new study a new fascinating study my work is cited in this study It's a disclaimer, but that's not the reason I'm reviewing the study reviewing the study because it's the first substantial Evidence for the existence of compensatory narcissism using objective measurement tools So the press release said narcissism driven by insecurity not grandiose sense of self And it says narcissism is driven by insecurity not an inflated sense of self finds a new study by a team of psychology researchers It's research which offers a more detailed understanding of this long-examined phenomenon may also explain what motivates the self-focused nature of social media activity Pascal Wollish a clinical associate professor in New York University's Department of Psychology Says for a long time. It was unclear Why narcissists engage in unpleasant behaviors such as self Congratulation as it actually makes others think less of them and so the paper was published in In the academic journal personality individual differences volume 177 and Wollish says this has become quite prevalent in the age of social media a behavior That has been discoined as flexing. It's called flexing Our work reveals that these narcissists are not grandiose but rather insecure And this is how they seem to cope with their insecurities Mary Kovalchik the paper's lead author and at the time Graduate student today new at New York University. She says more specifically the results suggest that narcissism is better understood As a compensatory adaptation to overcome and cover low self-worth Narcissists are insecure and they cope with these insecurities by flexing This makes others like them less in the long run Thus further aggravating their insecurities, which then leads to a vicious cycle of flexing behaviors so the survey They they kind of worked with 300 people which is a pretty pretty large sample in a narcissism study Actually, one of the biggest I ever came across It's 300 people 60% female 40% male which shows you that narcissism is becoming a uni gender phenomenon Women are now as narcissistic as men The median age was 20. So these are young people. They answered 151 questions via a computer and so Oh Hold it for a second lady, I'm recording a YouTube in the middle. I'll call you okay. Where was I? right, so They can say they they say that Narcissistic personality disorder had been conceptualized as excessive self-love with this part. I have a dispute No serious scholar of narcissistic personality or pathological narcissism Had suggested that pathological narcissism is self-love none Actually many of the most preeminent scholars of narcissism Claimed that narcissists have no ego and no self. So definitely they cannot have self-love. They're also incapable of love No self no love no self love Okay, but I think what the authors tried to say that there's two sub types known as grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and They say a related related affliction psychopathy is also characterized by a grandiose sense of self and so the authors Invented a Novel measure new measure. They called it prison very appropriately performative refinement to soothe insecurities about sophistication Wow, and this produced flex performative self-elevation index and Flex captures insecurity driven self-concept conceptualization So it kind of impression management. It's an impression management measuring tool and so I'm not going to all the the tedious details and And they discovered some pretty amazing things and I'm going to I'm going to read to you a few segments a few excerpts from the paper and The and the paper as game was published in personality and individual differences and it is titled Narcissism through the lens of performative self-elevation Okay, okay. Here are the highlights Narcissism has been fundamentally misunderstood say the authors. It's compensatory not grandiose We developed flex a flex scale that captures genuinely narcissistic behavior Psychopaths do exhibit high levels of grandiosity Narcissism is not self-love. It is self-loathing in disguise and they they give an abstract and They explain their work, etc. I would like to read to you actually from the introduction The authors say We are interested in the nature of narcissism. Narcissism is a personality disorder that is conceptualized as excessive self-love wrong and Manifests as a grandiose sense of self-importance entitlement and superiority, right? They quote the American Psychiatric Association DSM our Bach and Freud More recently continue the authors in this otherwise excellent article More recently two sub types of narcissism have been distinguished vulnerable narcissism also known as covert narcissism characterized by low low self-esteem Anxiety about attachments and extreme sensitivity to criticism and the other subtype grandiose narcissism, which manifests as high self-esteem Self-aggrandizement and self-importance and they refer to work by Dickinson pinkus Roman Newman Turner beer beer hofen wink This distinction say the office has shown itself to be fruitful vulnerable narcissism is associated with low self-esteem low life satisfaction and Interdependent self-construct Conversely grandiose narcissism associated with high self-esteem high life satisfaction and an independent self-construction Roman hanker beer of rose These differential attitudes also present behaviorally say the authors both grandiose and vulnerable Narcissists have a tendency to deliberately induced jealousy in their romantic partners But for different reasons a vulnerable narcissist is motivated by insecurities He seeks reassurance to compensate for low self-esteem Whereas the grandiose narcissist induces jealousy primarily to gain power and control in the relationship and References made to the work by total yellow heart Richardson and tallit Considering differential underlying motivations opens up a broad perspective narcissistic personality disorder is often conceptualized as a part of a constellation of dark personalities and traits such as manipulativeness Machiavellianism and psychopathy Paul House Williams Anderson and kill This raises the possibility that these conditions are more closely related than previously believed Which is what I've been saying for 26 years These conditions are facets of the same single underlying disorder The authors continue it is important to recognize that there is considerable overlap in how these disorders manifest behaviorally Emotionally for instance a narcissist may manipulate others to increase their status Vaknin they quote my work, and they may exhibit low empathy for us However, such behavior exhibited by a narcissist might be due to a focus on protection of self-worth Even though these traits are primarily associated with psychopathy actually Moreover vulnerable, but not grandiose narcissists experience emotional dysregulation and false attribution or hostile disposition paranoid ideation Ideas of reference referential ideation, and they refer to Hanson Brown, Fries, Jean-Glougeau, Jean and Wang Sounds like a circus Okay They continue the introduction is excellent, and that's why I'm quoting it in full grandiose narcissism seems to resemble psychopathy in many respects Which raises a possibility that the tessellate tessellation of these conditions could be improved It appears to be the case that grandiose narcissism might be better understood as a manifestation of psychopathy This notion is supported by the finding that individuals who strongly exhibit psychopathic traits also tend to have a grandiose sense of self-worth Gustavson, Ritzer, Miller, Sleep, Crow, Lionel Recently 2020 Conversely vulnerable narcissism might be better conceived of as narcissism proper primary the primary type of narcissistic disorder and So in this research say the authors we aim to refine this distinction between vulnerable and grandiose We know the distinction we note the distinction between vulnerable and grandiose resulted from statistical not conceptual considerations the low internal consistency of commonly used narcissism scale a Scales wink the construct of covert narcissism was first proposed by Akhtar and Cooper the late Cooper died last year in 1989 But wink wink gave it the substantiation He had demonstrated that if you use narcissism scale you get two results one of them is covert fragile shrine and one of them is actually grandiose similarly scholars of borderline thought that as Such a bifurcation such a division could happen in borderline. You could have a shy borderline or vulnerable borderline, but this is not supported by research One problem Is that the measures rely on self-reporting I've been castigating narcissism studies and narcissism tests for ages because they rely on liars and They rely on manipulators before to self-report. Honestly, and they are also rely on people who are highly dissociative Narcissists and narcissists especially are highly dissociated They forget things then they confabulate the inventing's and so it's very contentious. It's very contentious and so they go on and on and They support literally the most of the insights of code Milan and with all modesty many of my suggestions and and proposals and ideas and Throughout the last three decades. I'm very very happy with this article and and they say We believe that our pattern of findings suggests an interesting relationship between narcissism and psychopathy that has not been fully appreciated in existing literature Specifically, we posit that what had was previously seen as grandiose narcissism is actually better understood as a behavioral manifestation of psychopathy which I've been saying this since 1997 Individuals with psychopathic traits tend to genuinely believe in their own Grandiosity here Newman and do not present with any hint of insecurities kill In contrast narcissism per se say the authors might be inherently vulnerable characterized by insecurities and self-elevating behavior in nature To validate the understanding of a relationship between narcissism and psychopathy It is important to recognize that the interpretation of behavior is inherently ambiguous motivations and intentions do matter So how would one distinguish which of the two conditions drives any given behavior? Psychopaths are known to be motivated by a desire to attain power. They are goal-oriented not only power sex money in contrast Narcissism manifests as a desire to pursue status Ziegler Hill and again with all due modesty vacuum Of course power and status are often correlated in the real world which presumably Why this issue has been conflated in the existing literature of narcissism? and so We predict that say the authors that both psychopathic and narcissistic individuals will score high on classic measures of narcissism But that individuals high on psychopathic traits will prefer outcomes conferring power Whereas individuals high on narcissistic traits will prefer outcomes conferring status Shifting the lens from psychopathy back to vulnerable narcissism One remaining issue pertains to the motivations for self-elevating behavior specifically It has been observed that the prevalence of narcissistic behaviors seems to be on the rise They are quoting by love sky are my graph Dink fielder and others They should have quoted also to engine camber and others an increase in such behaviors specifically self-elevation Flexing makes sense within the framework. We propose here as engaging with social media inherently inflicts Constant social comparison and appraisal which could exacerbate insecurities about sense about self-worth Vogel rose Ocady Eccles France in 2015 So The conclusion is we conclude that grandiose narcissism is better understood as one manifestation of the highest self-regard exhibited by psychopathy Conversely vulnerable narcissism Actually is narcissism proper a behavioral adaptation to cope with and to mitigate the suffering imposed by insecurities about oneself You remember anus agnosia not not anal So no shea I know so no shea those of you who misinterpret my words Please stop you have your mind is in the gutter get it out of there and watch the video. All right. I know so no shea I know so no shea is a very interesting phenomena, and I would like to somehow link it to narcissism In some mental illnesses for example bipolar disorder More pronounced Lee in schizophrenia There is a phenomenon called anus agnosia anus agnosia is from Greek from ancient Greek, and it means without knowledge of the disease So it's a lack of insight. It's when the person is unaware of their condition and When he's made aware is unable to accept it now In narcissism, there's no anus agnosia in narcissism. There's something much more interesting There is reframing When you come to the Nazis and say listen You talk to a narcissist, and I have a database of close to 2,000 of them spoken to all of I mean I've Administered questionnaires to all of them And you ask them You ask the narcissist. Do you know that you are misbehaving do you know that your behavior is abrasive and hurts people you would say Yeah, I do Do you know that you are very critical of other people? Yeah. Yeah, I do so they are fully aware of their behaviors The thing is that narcissists Refuse to accept their behaviors as problematic They say these are my behaviors and they give me a competitive advantage Because of my behaviors I'm humanity version 2. I'm the next version of humanity. I'm the next rung in the evolutionary ladder It gives me an advantage edge gives me an edge in the world So they glorify their disorder. They're emotionally invested in narcissism They think narcissism is the best thing that happened to them ever They don't want to give up on their narcissism because they connect the narcissism erroneously by the way to their creativity To their managerial skills to their real life success So everything that happens everything good that happens to them is an outcome of their narcissism. So they believe So in a way, it's a kind of as a no subnucia because when you come to someone with bipolar disorder and This person has an osopnocia and you tell them you have bipolar. He will deny it. You said I don't have bipolar When you come to a psychotic person's schizophrenia Paranoia schizophrenia and you tell them listen, you're sick You have paranoia schizophrenia and if this person has an osopnocia He or she will deny it completely. So I'm not sick at all. What's wrong with you? It's the same with the narcissist but the schizophrenic and the bipolar are Less aware than the narcissist They are they are not fully aware of the Panopoulian spectrum of their behaviors. The narcissist is it's just that he doesn't consider it a disorder So it's a lack of insight really It's an osopnocia is not simply being in denial or being stubborn. An osopnocia is when the brain Cannot process the fact that thoughts and moods don't reflect reality Narcissism don't have this. Narcissists don't have this. They are divorced from reality because they have the grandiosity firewall But within their domain within the field of space of internal objects They are fully conscious. They are fully aware Sometimes they behave in obnoxious Defiant consumatious in your face Ways they do it on purpose to manipulate to accomplish outcomes So they they sometimes own own and leverage Their alleged dysfunctions Because it gives them an advantage gives them an edge they get results they get things done So this is an osopnocia. An osopnocia Is caused by damage to an area of the brain involved in self-reflection and this damage had not been spotted in narcissists in the brains of narcissists Everyone all of all of us we constantly update our mental image of ourselves We gain new information and we Rejig the parts the jigsaw puzzle and we create a new image and when the frontal lobe is damaged It's schizophrenia bipolar disorder gradually the frontal lobe is damaged. You can no longer properly update the surf Surf image. So these patients have difficulty and so I Don't want to go now into all the details of the treatments and medication because it's not it's not the main the main thing So the classic person with an osopnocia is cognitively unaware That he has any underlying mental health condition and also not aware that he has of course an osopnocia the narcissist is perfectly aware of His behaviors of his traits of how he's hurting people of what he's doing Everything is in perfect awareness. He just miss interprets it He has an hermeneutic deficit explanatory deficit He misreads Not the facts, but he misreads the interpretation of the facts He says that's the way I am and it's good that I'm this way Because it makes me superior and I will never give this up because this is what makes me tick This is what makes me a winner not a loser. And so an osopnocia and narcissism is Kind of a metaphor. It's not real because there's no damage to the brain and narcissists are Fully self-aware when I say narcissists just to clarify in all my texts and in all my videos The word narcissists means someone diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder Not someone who is an a-hole or is a narcissistic style But someone with the diagnosis And so these people don't have an osopnocia Okay, I hope I satisfied your prurient instincts and Lifted your mind out of the gutter where it has been throughout this video since you saw me of course and See you tomorrow with high-functioning autism and what is the difference between HFA high-functioning autism and psychopathy Shocking stunning news