 Don't you just adore global warming? It's February and I'm wearing a t-shirt a Great t-shirt of all colors Thank you climate change And a propo climate change today. We're going to discuss the narcissist shared fantasy. What else? shared fantasy as Reaction formation Stay for the ride. My name is Sam Baknin. I'm the author of malignant self-love narcissism Revisited in the gray eminence behind narcissistic of use I'm a former visiting professor of psychology and currently on the faculty of see ups Throughout this video gender pronouns are interchangeable he she her his etc. etc. The reason women have finally made it Half of all narcissists are women So the narcissists shared fantasy is a form of reaction formation. Why is that? because he ends up devaluing and Discarding the very thing he craves most The narcissist is conditioned as a child to expect to be loved only subject to his performance The child was expected to suspend his self his nascent boundaries His need to separate his need to become an individual and to acquire a person would the child was opposed to vanish or disappear Into the maternal figure later the paternal figure into the parental figures the child was expected to merge and fuse with them and Become an extension and an instrument the child was objectified instrumentalized and parentified so the child Learned to dispense with what he craved most because craving Desiring something is a sign of an independent mind the hallmark of an Individuality of individuality so the child has learned that to express oneself To desire something to pursue something to be interested in anything to crave Anything these are bad things. These are no-nose This this kind of proclivities are going to displease Father and mother so the child learns to not be In essence the art of absence rather than of presence the child suspended itself Initially What the child craved most was unconditional love and acceptance from a maternal figure. Yes with a dose of idealization with a dash of forgiveness and It was this maternal love was not forthcoming It was conditioned on performance And what performance not being The child learned to associate being seen With not existing Whereas healthy people normal people learn to associate being seen with existence The child has learned to associate this kind of child who grew up in a dysfunctional family with a dead mother And a dysfunctional father this kind of child learns to be seen by not being To be seen Is an absence because absence is not threatening to the parental figures absence is not not going to piss them off Absence is going to prevent abandonment you can't abandon an emptiness so the child has learned to suppress to repress to deny to get rid Of his desires his wishes his dreams his hopes his fantasies his cravings things he wanted He learned to ignore all these put them aside bury them deep together with his emotions And this is a great description of what is known in psychoanalytic literature as reaction formation In psychoanalytic theory reaction formation is a defense mechanism In which unacceptable or threatening impulses Are denied They're replaced in consciousness with their exact opposite So if you desire something very much even unconsciously And you can't have it or having it will Will make you lose your mother's love Then you would deny this desire You would suppress this craving and you would replace them with the exact opposite Of not craving not desiring and by extension not being The narcissist's absence Is his reaction formation To his existence because his existence was perceived by the parental figures as something bad This is the bad object The narcissist's existence as a child was perceived by the parental figures as a challenge as subversive as evil as sinful as wrong the child has learned to bury his existence and replace it with the exact opposite with absence which is exactly what the mechanism underlined reaction formation So for example in typical reaction formation if you have if you are a latent homosexual you would become homophobic if you have an unconscious prejudice you would preach tolerance you to deny feelings of rejection you may become overindulgent with someone and through the symbolic relationship between the unconscious wish and its conscious opposite the outward behavior provides a disguised outlet for the tendencies that it seems to oppose So reaction formation is a particular form of defense mechanism in which the aim of an instinctual drive for example a negative drive to destroy or to mess up a positive drive to love to merge to be loved and also known as sex errors So the aim of an instinctual drive is transformed in Freud's model this is at the behest of the super ego but the aim is transformed into the exact opposite and the resulting change is generalized over the ego's attitude towards all objects in external reality So whereas the narcissistic child learns to suppress his independence his budding personal autonomy his agency his boundaries learns to suppress and deny and ignore and neglect his wishes and needs and dreams with regards to his vis-a-vis his mother and later father As this child grows up he learns to do the exact same thing with everyone reaction formation metastasizers it starts off with a single form of denial and substitution denial of the craving denial of the desire denial of the urge denial of the drive and their substitution their replacement with the exact opposite and it starts with one thing and then having learned this trick the child growing up applies it to everyone and everything the child becomes a walking talking reactive formation There is a process of generalization reaction formation leads to definitive change of personality The newly formed character traits ensure the once and for all success of repression that is Fenneco Fenneco has worked in more or less the mid 1940s Fenneco was a student of Freud reaction formation should be distinguished though from three related defense mechanisms one is known as undoing it's a relationship it's undoing is like a bigger rendition of reaction formation undoing is the reaction formation works by changing the character undoing reverses temporary increases in impulses so whereas reaction formation is a nuclear weapon it devastates the entire landscape and changes it changes it unrecognizably and irretrievably undoing is reaction formation light it does the same to specific impulses in specific moments displacement is also different to reaction formation in reaction formation it is the instinctual aim that is changed while in displacement it is the object of that aim that is replaced finally sublimation behaviors that result from sublimation are devoid of instinctual quality they're not pressured they're not rigid they're not emotional whereas behaviors that are caused by reaction formations do have this quality instinctual quality and so when Salman Rushdie talks about pitiless hospitality or Jordan Peterson mentions narcissistic compassion they're actually talking about reaction formation it's one instinctual manifestation one expression of an urge or a drive or an instinct substitutes for the original drive or instinct or urge or craving or desire it's a substitution process it's a make-believe thing I am not really homosexual I hate homosexuals so by substituting the drive or the instinct or the wish or the desire or whatever to be homosexual substituting for it with hatred of homosexuals it compensates for the internal rejection for the shame and the guilt over the original instinct similarly with the narcissistic child the narcissistic child wants to love mother and wants to be loved by mother he desires her at least psychologically and according to Freud also sexually and so on so when this child is rejected when the mother's love is conditioned on performance mainly on the child not separating from her not becoming independent not becoming autonomous not gaining agency these are the mother's conditions for loving the child the child learns to suppress or suspend itself in order to gain the maternal love and this self-suspension self-negation self-defeat self-destructiveness self-trashing self-annihilation self-loathing self-rejection become life-long features however this is highly uncomfortable how can one survive with self-loathing and self-rejection and self-destructiveness on such a massive scale by compensating for these and the compensation is known as pathological narcissism now it all starts with sex according to Freud reaction formation and sexuality reaction formation is the cathartic transformation of an impulse that causes intra-psychic conflict an impulse that is dissonant that causes ego-distony you have an impulse you have a drive you want to do something and it creates unease and discomfort maybe your conscience is acting out telling you this is wrong don't do this maybe your ego is alerting you and telling you if you were to do this the consequences would be dire so don't do this whichever the case may be there is inner turmoil there is conflict there is unease and so reaction formation is a transformation of this in a cathartic way and the effect associated with the original impulse is also reversed so for example if the original impulse is to love the reaction formation would be to hate and similarly with the narcissistic child the core issue is the child is not seen and is not loved and of course the reactive form reactive formative the reaction formation to this is to be seen compulsively to demand attention to be addicted to attention and to be loved unconditionally within a shared fantasy by a maternal figure now you understand that the shared fantasy is reaction formation writ large the catharsis because when you engage in reaction formation there's a good feeling elation ego-syntony feeling comfortable with yourself proud of yourself either so this catharsis allows the ego to defend against the impulse the original impulse which has been impulse that's been frustrated or perceived as forbidden or led to rejection and pain and hurt whichever the case may be the ego feels that it has to defend against this impulse because it leads to bed outcomes and so the catharsis allows the ego to defend against the original impulse without directly experiencing the adverse consequences associated with the original impulse in other words it's a form reaction formation is a form of self-deception and elaborate fantasy based in my view self-deception whereas the ego is confronted with an ostensible reality which is fake but the ego doesn't know it's fake and it's much more comfortable as far as the ego is concerned the ego can work with this faked version of the individual much better than it can with the original impulse so there's a preference for the fake version Freud first described reaction formation in his three essays on the theory of sexuality 1905 in this work he discussed the nature and characteristics of the libido the life instinct or part of which is the sexual instinct eros the deviations of the libido and the mental forces that control sexual instincts it is within the context of describing the mental functions that impede libidinal energy that Freud first mentions reaction formation Freud postulated he suggested that barriers that restrict the flaws of the sexual instinct he considered the sexual instinct as some kind of river a stream you know flow so there are barriers that somehow impede this constant regular flow and so these barriers are constructed during the period of sexual latency of childhood when sexuality is not manifest is not expressed and these barriers may include disgust feelings of shame claims of aesthetic moral ideals and so on so forth they're all barriers to free unbridled happy joyful sexuality according to Freud Freud further suggested that it is through reacting impulses now we call it reaction formation reacting impulses of sexual instincts that these barriers are built up rather than paraphrase Freud let me just quote quote him actually he he wrote on the one hand it would seem the sexual impulses cannot be utilized during these years of childhood since the reproductive function has been deferred on the other hand these impulses would seem in them in themselves to be perverse deviant that is to arise from irrotogenic zones and to derive their activity from instincts which in view of the direction of the subject development can only arouse unpleasurable feelings they consequently evoke opposing mental forces reacting impulses which in order to suppress this unpleasure effectively build up the mental dams that I've already mentioned disgust shame and morality in another work three years later um titled character and anal erotism don't ask Freud elaborated his concept of reaction formation in relation to character formation Freud described an orderly parsimonious an obstinate character traits as originating in the conflicts that surround psychosexual development leading up to the latency period that's why we use the phrase anal character yeah Freud stated that these traits develop as a result of erotic fixation it is within the context of discussing erotic fixation that Freud discussed reaction formation so it all started with Freud's theory of sexuality where Freud described a succession of psychosexual erotogenic zones and zones in the body and postulated that excitation coming from these bodily parts is partially channeled into libidinal energy and partially deflected from sexual aims anal eroticism particularly leads to the development of the character traits of orderliness orderliness parsimony a bit obsessive compulsivia and obstinacy they are counter forces said Freud today we call them reaction formations again let me quote him he says during the period of life which may be called the period of sexual latency childhood reaction formations are actually formed at the expense of the excitations preceding from the erotogenic zones it is therefore plausible to suppose that these character traits traits of orderliness parsimony obstinacy Hercules Poirot these character traits which are so prominent in people who were firstly anal erotics are to be regarded as the first and for and most constant result of anal eroticism so that's a primitive example of reaction formation today we no longer subscribe to Freud's views about psychosexual development but it's an interesting concept Freud says the anal part gives rise to sexual arousal in the child the child resents and rejects this and instead what the child does the child comes with moral morally positive socially accepted manifestations of anal eroticism such as orderliness parsimony and stubbornness they are actually manifestations of anal erotism but they are not perceived as such they substitute for the original impulse to enjoy anal erotism and this is an example of reaction formation so someone who is too orderly too compulsive too neat and tidy too parsimonious too obstinate this kind of person is simply into anal sex but is denying it is substituting for it with these traits and so in both works three s's on the theory of sexuality and character and anal erotism reaction formation is tied to the latency period of sexuality and to the redirection of sexual drive during the latency period it's very interesting what Freud is saying actually is that reaction formation is an infantile defense mechanism we know of other infantile primitive defense mechanisms such as splitting or projection and so is there a link between reaction formation splitting and projection I think so actually I think reaction formation is actually hybrid of splitting and projection what happens is the child rejects a part of him that the child considers shameful this is self-rejection but why does the child reject a part of himself because the mother does the child internalizes the mother's gaze and the mother's attitude which is conditional love and so what happens is the child is mistreated by the mother the child is abused the child is traumatized but the child cannot say that mother is bad what the child does he splits mother is all good I am all bad and so when the child does this he develops a bad object mother is an angel mother is never wrong if she is rejecting me if she is not loving me it's because I'm not lovable I'm unworthy of her love I'm stupid I'm ugly I'm evil something's wrong with me this is the bad object the splitting leads to the creation of the formation of a bad object but no one can survive with a bad object it's intolerable so the child projects the bad object externalizes it and becomes by doing so the opposite of the bad object this is projection by getting rid of the bad object symbolically attributing it to other people or the world at large the child purges it himself he becomes clean he cleanses himself ritually almost and he becomes all good and so this act of splitting and then rejection of the split part the bad object is a good description of captures the essence of reaction formation it's exactly what happens I consider reaction formation therefore a secondary defense mechanism comprised essentially of splitting and and projection help me out here okay Shoshanim it was Freud's daughter Anna great child psychologist who compiled the compendium of defense mechanisms and discussed the various manifestations of defense mechanisms in 1937 but do not underestimate Freud's contribution to the field he introduced the concept of defense mechanism he created an ontogeny of defense mechanisms and he postulated the defense mechanisms occur not only along a continuum of psychopathology but also along a continuum of ego healthy ego development Freud fully understood the enormity and consequentiality of defense mechanisms he anticipated the importance the defense mechanisms would play in our understanding of psychopathology he wrote further investigations may show that there is an intimate connection between special forms of defense in particular illness as for instance between repression and hysteria that was in 1926 so you could forgive him for using outdated language reaction formation starts with the individual but as I said it has metastatic qualities it takes over the entire personality and then via the bridge of object relations via the transmission mechanism of interpersonal relationships reaction formation infects society at large let's go back a bit reaction formation refers to an attitude or a character trait that responds to an unconscious repressed wish or desire by evoking the opposite of such a desire right so generosity for example conceals avariciousness or greed hoarding modesty replaces grandiosity or megalomania so you have many pseudo many people online with pseudo humility humble brand and you know so kindness or reluctance to engage in conflict conflict aversion mask sadistic tendencies reaction formation is a symptom of psychic conflict it's a defense against rejected against instincts and instinctive reactions the individual rejects either because the individual internalized society's point of view or because the individual has been exposed to rejection early on in childhood and has learned to internalize this rejection has learned to say I am not lovable I deserve to be rejected so even though reaction formation is a hallmark of various pathologies it's actually most apparent in cases of obsessional neurosis it used to be called in his early writings Freud again described the mechanisms in obsessive patience he saw clear signs of conflict of ambivalence regression from tender to sadistic impulses and back and he tried to understand what the heck was going on there in 1915 he wrote an essay instincts and their vicissitudes and he distinguished between reaction formation and similar concepts which he called substitute formation compromise formation he said the repression carried out differently in each of these types of formation and so for example a hostile impulse towards a loved one you love someone but you also hate them this is known as ambivalence right so you're sometimes hostile you sometimes resent them you're angry at them you want to hurt them you want to harm them and so this is subject to repression because it's a no no you're not supposed to hurt or to harm the people you love and by the way if someone hurts you and harms you on a regular basis he doesn't love you period end of story so this kind of impulse is repressed suppressed be deleted buried and it's a result of a regression or the erotic drive if the person is sexually sadistic and so on but it's buried and it's repressed and the repression usually succeeds the contents of the representation vanish and the associated effect also disappears so the anger the hatred the rage they all disappear because of the repression so repression works but what if the impulse is too strong what if it is overwhelming or dysregulating then these formations come into play a substitute formation is the modification of the ego through establishment of scruples moral conscience voices inside introjects that tell you don't do it don't do it because it's wrong and don't do it because the consequences would be horrible reality testing so the ego is modified by incorporating morality but morality is distinct from the symptom so that there is the impulse there is this there are the symptoms of the impulse and then there's morality which suppresses the impulse and consequently the symptoms disappear and this is known as compromise formation reaction formation does the same it represses the impulse but it represses the impulse by fostering and gendering creating encouraging and intensifying a counter impulse an anti impulse if the impulse is plus reaction formation creates a minus so that when the minus meets the plus they become zero and the impulse is gone so although conceptually and chronologically distinct reaction formation and substitute formation are different things they are of course related because all of them deal with the suppression or repression of an instinct something wrong something you shouldn't do or an attempt to change yourself in order to gain some beneficial outcome mother's love for example so the reaction formation is the antithesis the antithetical choice of a substitution and it has impact on impulses ambivalence and so on so forth and contrary to compromise formation the instinct that is inhibited via reaction formation is not represented anywhere in fact the instinct instinct remains active it remains in evidence in various situations even the even the subject's rigid defense or defensive rigidity specific contradictions in the reactive stance they are indicative that the impulse is not dead has not been eradicated it's repressed it's under lock and key it's like a volcano about to erupt and again in three essays of sexuality 1905 Freud gave reaction formation this more extended meaning it's a pathway to sublimation the instinct is diverted from the aiming and this is very socially useful of course society doesn't want you to go around gratifying your urges and needs and drives in an uncivilized manner you feel like having sex you rape someone in the street society doesn't want you to do this society encourages the ego and all the tools at the disposal of the ego including reaction formation which is actually activated by the superego so unlike sublimation however reaction formation has a different aim the instinctual aim is diametrically opposed to the origin reaction formation is a form of elaborate deception I'm not x I'm actually minus x reaction formation does not entirely succeed because it's a deception this diversion the inhibited desire attempts to constantly resurface and reassert itself because it in because reaction formation involves self-deception it's not reality grounded in other words reaction formation impairs reality testing it's a form of self-gaslighting reaction formation as I said becomes a permanent character trait and its significance grows all the time of course people are social agents they act in society they interact with each other and what they do they bring into the game their reactive formations and these reactions for reaction formations if you infect each other they infect each other it's not just a symptom of a specific pathology it's deeply involved in socialization people use as children use reaction formation to fit into society as reflected through the gaze and demands of the parental figures the parental figures as socialization agents the parental figures bring society into the room when the child is growing up and the child adopts scripts social scripts sexual scripts behavioral scripts the child adopts norms behavior behaviors through the parental guidance of how to act in society here they actually the father has a pronounced role more than the mother so socialization reaction formation is a part of socialization we become social beings by acquiring this permanent character traits morality and virtues but most morality and all virtues are opposed to our instincts and impulses the message the signal that is given by dead parents metaphorically dead parents is it is a virtue to not exist the utmost accomplishment in order to garner love is emptiness is self-suspension is self-denial it's an aesthetic kind of view the mother of the budding narcissist the mother of the child who would become narcissist in due time signals to this child broadcast to this child the message and it says I can't love you as you are I love you only when you perform I love you only when you suppress your naturality your drives your impulses your wishes your independence and separation from me I don't want you to be a separate entity I want you to be a part of me forever symbiosis womb matrix call it what you wish mother and child forever united so the child's morality begins to rely heavily on self-negation the child forms the conviction that in order to be loved and accepted and liked not only in the parental cell in the family but in society at large he needs to not be himself either as a narcissist as a narcissist as a false self or as a papal pleaser or as a codependent somehow to not be Freud said that a subspecies of sublimation is to be found in suppression by reaction formation which begins during a child's period of latency and continues in favorable cases throughout their own life that's when the child is raised by healthy functional parents what we describe said Freud as a person's character is built up to a considerable extent from the material of sexual excitations and is composed of instincts that have been fixed since childhood of constructions achieved by means of sublimation and of other constructions employed for effectively holding in check perverse impulses which have been recognized as being unutilizable the multifariously perverse sexual disposition of childhood can accordingly be regarded as a source of a number of our virtues insofar as through reaction formation it stimulates the development and we become moral agents social members of society and loved by our parents all this by denying our impulse to exist we substitute the impulse to exist with the impulse to be absent with an impulse to self-negate and this is the mother of all reaction formations reaction formation is not restricted to character moral virtues it includes the intellect cognitions even emotions the counter-cathesis of the system of conscience organizes a reaction formation supplies the first repression so our conscience is the first form of repression because it represses instincts and drives and urges whatever in another essay thoughts for the times of war and death published in 1915 Freud demonstrated how altruism originates from selfishness and compassion comes from cruelty emanates from cruelty noble so-called motives can have the same effect as non-noble motives so virtues can have the same effect as vices we cannot divine the instinctual life of a subject we can only observe behavior of course now human kind's capacity to reshape instincts including the selfishness of instincts is reshape them remold them recast them as something else which is pro-social communal sublimated this is known as aptitude for culture people have unequal abilities in this sense some people are much more in control much more self-discipline than others some people take it too far they become compulsive obsessive and so on but it's a core feature of culture, society and human civilization instinctual remodeling can more or less be done willingly by the individual although unconsciously most of the time but it can also be brought on by trauma such as war trauma such as upbringing by a dead mother being raised by a dead mother when the individual is at risk there's reaction formation when cultures and societies are at risk there's reaction formation civility the capacity to conduct yourself in a way that is not harmful to other people according to ethical considerations these are all reaction formations and when they're subjected to stress and anxiety and trauma and abuse many of these unravel there is a reversion to the instinct remember reaction formation is the suppression of an impulse the suppression of an instinct under stress under trauma under abusive circumstances under coercion sometimes reaction formation unravels all the defense mechanisms are subdued this is known as decomposition and the individual resorts to the original impulse an instinct which in many cases is antisocial reaction formation exposes the fragility of morality repressed instincts return with a vengeance with great intensity as acts of barbarism and cruelty and now you of course understand narcissistic abuse narcissistic abuse within the shared fantasy is the unraveling of reaction formation when the narcissist is confronted by another person an intimate partner a good friend who truly loves them they don't know how to cope with it it's very stressful it's very traumatic they perceive this as manipulation and abuse they perceive love as manipulation manipulative and dangerous and so they fall apart they decompensate they turn off or switch off the reaction formation they revert to the original impulse the original instinct of aggression and cruelty hence narcissistic abuse