 See the world through other people's eyes Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world. Hi, I'm Edwin rutch And this is dialogues on how to build a culture of empathy and today. I'm here with Sam Bekman Thanks Sam for joining me once again for this dialogue Thank you for suffering me Little deprecation there self deprecation So So Sam you write and speak about narcissism and psychopathy just and You write articles books You've done some you know videos you have a website on narcissism and psychopathy you've got a book called Malignant self-love narcissism Revisited and you were featured in a documentary I psychopath then you were kind of like the star of that and the You know we've done a couple interviews to interviews so far and what I wanted to do in in this in this here is to actually have a dialogue with you and what we've been doing is something called empathy circles and It's using the Carl Rogers approach to empathic listening where Carl Rogers would I don't know if you're probably familiar with Well familiar with Carl Rogers use a famous psychiatrist In the United States and he would use an empathic listening approach with with his you know clients as he would call them and He would do like reflective empathic listening with them And I thought it would be interesting if you and I would have a dialogue around what our needs are for empathy and use the empathic listening approach and That as you say something, you know You want to you can share whatever is you know coming up for you And I will reflect it to the best of my abilities to hear really hear until you feel satisfied that I'm hearing what you say And then I'll respond or share something and you can reflect until I feel fully heard And I was just because I'm just wondering like you're saying you're a Narcissist with psychopathic tendencies. I'm just wondering what the effect will be what the experience will be if we have this mutual empathic listening approach So does that sound doable for you? I? I would gladly submit myself to being mirrored and reflected and so on Okay, I think I think I might find it a bit difficult to apply the same to you and Well, I We we the previous two encounters between us having been interviews in the classical sense that will be stretching the word to thin they have been Develops actually the second one has been a dialogue the first one has been a furious debate But they've both been interactive and you know, we equally contributed to both In this one the third one You're asking me to deploy an asset which I do not possess I I may be able to reflect back at you syntactical and grammatical structures I may be able to take your words and Recombine them so as to elicit from you Emotional and other reactions But I think in the absence of true empathy in the absence of the emotional component and correlate It won't work Okay, so I'm hearing that you're willing to give it a try and that in our first Interviews that we did well the first major delaying and so yeah, there's a major delay So we're gonna have to give it a lot of space between Between speaking because you're you're in Macedonia and I'm in California and there's low bandwidth there in Macedonia So just to give anyone an understanding of why that there's such a lag with the audio So you're saying that in our first we've had two calls the first one Was more of a debate do you felt and the second one was just a real dialogue and that you're willing to give this a try But you're feeling that you might be able to syntactically Reflect what I'm saying, but you won't have the kind of the real emotional kind of reflection Is is what I was kind of hearing So Yeah, just to continue. I thought we would just talk about what our needs are for empathy Or we can talk about whatever comes up for you if there is Yeah, why don't why don't we discuss the word empathy and you we mentioned in our first Interview with turn confrontation. That was the first one second one was much better But we mentioned the first one that empathy is an English rendering of I'm feeling the German boy which is precise to some extent and We also mentioned that I'm truly in German had to do with the appreciation of art with the aesthetics of art with the ability of the spectator To project himself into the frame of mind of the artist And so but the word empathy itself the etymology of the word comes from Greek not from German empathy is a combination of true over prefix and word in great and The word is but there which in Greek means To emote to feel But it also means to suffer to be in great pain to be tortured So empathy means the ability to to commiserate the ability to experience other people's negative emotions suffering torture pain At least etymologically of course is then the word has developed to engulf other emotions including positive emotions But it's telling that the etymological source of the word has to do with the negativity in life with with the ordeal Of life, you know with the with hell that life is Okay, so you're wanting to first before we kind of do this get into the dialogue You're wanting to look at what the word empathy means and you're referring to the etymology of it You're you know from the German Einfühlung that the word was brought into English as empathy and it's based on the on the on the Greek and it's dealing with commiserating together a relating to Em pati pati I guess is What what quite sure with that it's a feeling so you're seeing so if you're if the etymology is not necessarily how the word is actually used To now, but you're just saying that it's important to look at what the meaning the original meaning of the word is Yes, because because there is a choice of words There is a choice of words in Greek the people who invented the word empathy in the 19th century in the middle of the 19th century and Brought it into imported it into English. They could have chosen another word. They didn't have to choose the word Which is essentially a very negative word In Greek means mainly suffering torture and not And so and so the people who And signifies pain and suffering and torture. It's a very curious that Denotes love, you know to why didn't they coin a word which means To to feel the love of another person. Why did they that? Why did the coin of work? It says to feel the suffering of another person? so It's it. I think it would explain why narcissists for instance lack empathy if empathy is about Resonating with someone else's pain Narcissists can't do that because they are the products of pain Narcissists are the very set outcomes of abuse Mainly in childhood, but not only in childhood Like parents peers role models So they are the residue of pain. It's very difficult. They have engulfed themselves there and case themselves In a narcissistic defense precisely in order not to feel pain So narcissists narcissism is about being immune to pain normally Narcissists would not like to experience someone else's pain Or to translate it from Greek. They would not like to be empathic so It's an interesting path in my view. I see all of you leads us to Psychopathology, so you're really looking at the word empathy saying this it's about dealing Being aware of pain and that narcissists They've maybe through childhood. They've kind of like Suppressed the pain or they don't want to feel the pain and it's not narcissism is about, you know suppressing pain So and that's what's kind of inhibiting the empathy because they just don't want to feel their own pain or the pain of others either Yes, they're being averse Pain a verse a verse Being empathic being empathic means also Feeling other people's pain sharing in their pain sharing in their predicament existential predicament And narcissists don't want that they have narcissists invented the false self Narcissists invent these defense mechanism complicated perimeter offenses Fending off pain because as children they've been exposed to tremendous Unendurable amount amounts of pain and agony and so they they they have developed this shell this, you know cocoon Which isolates them from the environment, especially the human but humans are sources of pain humans are like beacons of pain and They are what they are averse to humans because they are averse to pain. Therefore, they are not empathic and The Greeks root of the word empathy seems to indicate that because and but they are in Greek means To commissary to share someone's suffering pain torture So you're saying that the root of the word itself kind of the etymology Logical root of empathy is the Greek and it's about sharing other people's pain So you kind of translate to the current where people don't want to feel other people's I mean Narcissists don't want to feel other people's pain because they're kind of cocoon themselves Off from that pain and they don't want to feel their own pain and they don't want to feel the pain of others So there's like a block to empathy there And you see and you see throughout history You see that when when pain was at its height when pain rolled Like in the 14th century during the Black Death and In the 20th century during the Second World War and the Holocaust and you know when pain was king you see an increase in Narcissistic behaviors narcissistic defenses and narcissistic traits You see a rise in narcissism and I think a rise in global narcissism is a reaction to being overwhelmed with pain Societal pain individual pain, you know take more than modern men Families are crumbling The social safety networks are nowhere to be found Terrorism AIDS, I mean it's a it's a pain. It's a pain infused and paints a fused environment And so I think we are becoming more and more narcissistic We are retreating and withdrawing and isolating ourselves and society has been atomized Because we are trying to avoid pain It is maybe precise because we are empathic That we turn off our empathy. It's like, you know, the volume volume is too high The volume is too high, you know, it's there's too much inputs coming in, you know, you open your television We open television and see Starving people here people blow to bits and pieces there, you know, it's in this test too much of it It's an overload of pain and The pain fatigue if you wish and I think we are learning as individuals in this Mass communication society. We're learning to turn off our empathy so And so we are becoming narcissists In a thing. So what you're what I'm hearing you say Sam is that society is so full of pain and during wars There's you know, there was a lot of pain and that there's a correlation with narcissism because narcissism is about turning off That pain because it just becomes too overwhelming. So in war, there's a huge amount of pain So people become, you know shut down It's it's almost like an avoidance then that you're kind of like avoiding pain You don't want to empathize with others because you you know feel that pain It just becomes too much and in fact that maybe people who are narcissistic are actually very empathic But that they just can't deal with that constant stimulus of pain And so that they start shutting down and go into this narcissism But actually underneath that might be a deep sense of empathy. I mean it's being your that Narcissist is trying to shut down Yes, exactly what you said, I do think and that's one of the tenets of my work on Narcissism where where I made what I consider to be an original contribution Because a lot of what I do is the rehash that where I made an original contribution I think is where when I suggested that actually narcissists are highly empathic people and It's what I call cold empathy what they have done. They've turned off. They turned off The emotional resonance of that empathy the tend of the emotional component of the ability they turned off They turned off the video. They left only with the audio if you wish So they have the cold empathy. In other words, they have the ability to Identify without the people to put themselves in other people's shoes to read other people's body language and so on so forth But they don't have the emotions that usually go with them because they turn them off And they learn to turn off these emotions because when these emotions were on when there were children It was painful was a painful experience. They were surrounded with abusive adults And they were subjected to recurrent trauma and recurrent abuse And they learned that if you want to survive was a survival instinct survivor mechanism They learned that if you if they want to survive if they want to avoid becoming suicidal for instance They have to turn off the emotions. And so they were left with a kernel of empathy, which I call cold empathy But there is no envelope of emotions and there are there is no emotional reaction to their perception of the other but I disagree completely with current So-called knowledge or current textbooks which say that narcissists don't have empathy Because in a nonsense doesn't have empathy. How can how can the narcissist manipulate other people? To manipulate other people to exploit them. You need to read them well. You need to understand human psychology You need to resonate with your victims, you know, and so It's exactly what you said Narcissists used to have full-scale full-fledged empathy and then they turned off the warm empathy They turned off the emotions because they were too painful So you're saying that the narcissists actually do have Empathy they were maybe growing up very empathic and they just couldn't deal with the pain So they kind of shut that down and they can still kind of read people But there's no kind of emotional effect. They kind of read people for getting maybe getting something from them, but It's a cold empathy. It's it's without the kind of the emotional warms or emotional feelings that are within that Exactly why why why I say that narcissists are a form of robotic artificial intelligence Because in laboratories all over the world today Machines devices are being developed Some of them robot some of them not robot some of them in sophisticated cameras that can read Social cues body language and even emotions, you know, so their machines have called empathy They can take the in the future and not too far future like ten years from now You have a camera on your on your in your laptop and that camera would be able to identify when you're sad When you are happy when you're you know, so that the camera would have the rudiments of empathy It would it would have called empathy, but of course the camera is not going to have emotions. It's the same with the narcissists narcissists turned off their emotions Because the adults around them abused their empathy the adults around them Tormented torture them and traumatize them repeatedly time and again day after day hour after hour It became too much the circuits were overburdened the circuits were over when and so the Empathy circuit in the narcissist brain was short circuited and what's left is the But not the software So you're using kind of the metaphor of machines that machines can kind of read Kind of the cold empathy, but not the feelings of it And it's the same thing with the narcissist that they were kind of emotionally abused kind of growing up And then they kind of shut down that Emotional part of of the empathy and just left the kind of the mechanistic Cold empathy Yeah, yeah, the whole the empathic circuitry all the empathic Well one thing with the search oh With with the empathic listening is that I'm gonna just keep listening to you until you feel fully heard Once you feel fully heard you can just let me know and then I will share something of myself and have See oh, sorry And well, I'm just yeah sharing that with you so whenever you feel ready that you feel satisfied to have been heard There's some things I would like to share too Okay, so what comes to mind is I have a friend who She her mother was very much a narcissist and she is very sensitive to narcissism and we were doing one of these empathy circles, you know with reflective listening and then She was kind of dealing with that narcissism She was afraid that she was narcissistic because her mother was so narcissistic and then I said well Let me play the narcissist. I will become the narcissist I will take on the role of your narcissism and We'll have a dialogue as you're So if you'd reflect what you're hearing so far You describe a situation where one of your acquaintances or friends Was exposed to narcissism and you suggested put yourself in To make yourself available as a stand in for for the narcissism in life and Enticing whether this can elicit reactions or a dynamic which might be beneficial if I this is currently that's a exactly And I started we started doing a dialogue and I acted as her narcissist You know and I got into a state of mind where it was so So enjoyable to only have her empathize with me It's like when she empathize with me. It's like it felt good It was like oh, this is so good. I'm totally in my own head in my own World and this person is empathizing with me and it was like, oh, then I'm interested in you I'm not like I'm not interested in you unless you're empathizing with me and So it was and it was so interesting. It was such an interesting It was almost like wow This is it feels really good to have people empathize with me and I'm and I I'm only interested in her as long as she's empathizing with my state of being and moving me forward in my self absorption So when you when you emulated or simulated the narcissist when you put yourself in the shoes of a narcissist When you try actually to empathize with a narcissist You discover that the experience is gradually becoming kind of addicted because You discover that it's great. It's very gratifying to be first of all the center of attention, but more importantly, it's very gratifying for her to provide you with empathy that you could consume And that that you did not have to reciprocate That's it exactly that it was it was such an insight for me And the other thing is is growing up. I would say my mother has some of those narcissistic tendencies In that she will talk and talk and talk But she just doesn't give any space to anyone else to talk And she went through a lot of trauma, you know world war two, you know Just really terrible things in germany and you know nervous breakdowns and all this kind of stuff. So um You know, I kind of have like a sense of feeling compassion for what she went through and And so I can but I mean it's hard as you're if you're growing up and you're not being heard You're not being seen and the person is only just you know Sharing where they are and they don't have space and time for you. It's uh, it's very difficult So as you were growing up, you were actually exposed to someone who who has I don't know if she's still alive, but She said well alias has So as you were growing up, you were exposed to someone who has uh at the very least narcissistic trains of behaviors and it was um a very Difficult experience because you felt that you were not being seen that you were not being heard That you're not being validated in a train or in power. Yeah That you said that you serve merely as a foil as a kind of projection screen and and a sounding board for for your mother in these things however Equally you felt pity you felt you felt you empathize with her you you took into account um emotionally Where she came from her very traumatic past the difficult experiences she went through in her life and so on and so forth So while you felt that you were not being validated and that's not a very nice experience You still were able the part of you was still able to understand her if not to justify Yeah, it's more now. I understand, you know now in time as his time has gone on. I kind of understand So they are not they are not simultaneous experiences. Yeah When you are when you are not the lesson to a child You felt only the negative aspects and but now you are more understanding exactly. Yeah, and so that's the need for empathy I think you know for my own personal development my need for empathy would have been To have heard more, you know to have been seen and heard more fully I think it would have helped my personal development. Yeah, you know growing up So I was kind of asking about our needs for personal needs for empathy and I think that's one of the needs for empathy that I had was Having would have liked to have been seen more deeply and heard more deeply, you know kind of growing up and Even though I Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. You believe that your preoccupation with empathy is to do with your personal background It's a I didn't say obsession. It's a preoccupation It has to do with with your personal background since you have you have Lived with and grown up with a very important figure in your life who Was not empathic in the sense that she didn't hear you and she didn't see you as an autonomous individual with needs and Emotions and priorities and so on Since you've gone through this harrowing experience You believe that your personal background is the reason that you're so interested in in empathy and and so Yeah, it wasn't a harrowing experience. Um, that's a little inaccurate. Um, and uh, I don't know if it that's my I'm not sure if it's really why I'm interested in empathy, you know, Paul rogers He came from an evangelical christian background conservative background So he talks about you know growing up in that environment your family your parents love you you feel the love But there's things that are kind of suppressed and you're not really deeply heard And so when he started being heard it was in you know, and hearing other people it was just very Uh fulfilling feeling something that he hadn't had so I think it's I feel more along the lines of call rogers that You know come from a loving background And it wasn't harrowing And you know, I had a lot of self independence But just you know feeling empathy it feels pretty good. So I just really that's Yeah, rather than rather than reflecting you I would make a comment on to what you just said if you finish reflecting then I'll be complete and then you can Move we can move to you. I still want to relate. I still want to relate to what you have said As soon as as soon as you reflect then, um, I will say I'm fully heard and we'll turn it over to you if that Right just to use the format But what I'm about to say has to do with you. So we still the same protocol Yeah, that's the same protocol is that you we just the person speaking speaks until they're fully heard And then they say I'm fully heard and then you can say anything you want and I'll reflect What you have to say Or all right. So do you feel that you're fully heard? Um What do you you want to do? There was that last piece just about the car rogers And seeing a similarity Yeah Well, you feel some affinity with the car rogers both of you came from families that you described as loving families However, with a lot of suppressed content and suppressed material in these things you don't talk about in this In these families So we feel some affinity with him and you believe that you have come you spring forth from us from a similar background and for him to To discover empathy both as a recipient and as a keeper was a liberating experience And you believe that you are undergoing the same kind of a experience or transformation And and that now that you are deeply into empathy both as a giver and as a recipient You believe that you're experiencing the same thing that car rogers went through That's it. I feel fully heard. Thank you sam I I just I just wanted to make a comment about something you have said I You said that you you came from a loving family and Almost with the same breath. You said that you were not being heard and seen And I think these are two mutually exclusive propositions I do not believe that it is possible to be loved Without being heard or seen I think the essence of love and the epitome of love Is exactly The ability to discern the other as the An autonomous entity with needs with emotions with wishes with fears with priorities and preferences with personal history with and so on so When you when For instance, I I say that I I love this person. I love my wife. I love these but I'm aware because of my that because of my inability To actually see or hear people I am also incapable of loving them in any in any sense of the word I think people often confuse love with dependence or they confuse love with provision With the provision of this of the existential essentials like food and shelter This is not love This is a working arrangement. It's a business arrangement, you know The love entails Being seen and heard there is no love without full-scale empathy. It's not a spectrum It's like pregnancy. You either are capable of loving or you're not There is no there are no gradations of empathy. You can't be 40 percent empathic and 26 percent loving It's a yes or no. It's a binary state And so when you say that your mother did not hear you and they don't see you or you felt that you were not heard and seen And therefore they don't validate, right? I am not sure in which sense you can equal this state that she loved you It's between you and yourself of course none of my business, but I'm just commenting on the I'm perplexed by the juxtaposition of these two statements because they are in congress They don't go together This is the the first thing the second thing is well, let me reflect that so I can So what I'm hearing is I had said, you know, I did have felt not seen in some cases and then But loved and you're seeing that as a juxtaposition that you can't Really that they don't go together that it's binary. You're either Seen and loved or you're not seen and loved and there's no kind of gradations between the two It's either on or off And so you're just kind of noticing about that about what I've said and you see that as kind of uh, I don't know if it's uh Maybe an incons you see is maybe an inconsistency or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, that's okay It is an open question why you feel the need to protest and to say that you did come from a lobby home and so But that's between you and your therapist I we are dealing now with the issue of equity not with your specific psychodynamics The second the second comment I would like to make with regards to what you have said When I use the word harrowing, which is admittedly a very Loaded and very harsh point When I use the word harrowing You were quick to Maybe not protest, but you were quick to suggest a A substitute They say it wasn't harrowing. It was you know, it was this it was that but I think That if one grows up In an environment where one is not seen fully not hurt fully and therefore in my view at least not flat In where where It's all kind of a secretive Secretive cult-like thing, you know things that you should never talk about Secrets that are you know In the family close it If the past Which is unmentionable, you know this kind of this kind of ambience for me For me it doesn't apply during may not apply to you But as far as I'm concerned This kind of ambience is harrowing I cannot think of something more difficult than not being seen and heard And I I cannot think of something more difficult than living in an environment where free speech is curtailed But some kind of clandestine occult protocols Of what can and cannot be said taboos Floating taboos as to what can and cannot be said For me, this is this is a harrowing experience But of course you may be you may have a different Psychological and mental constitution and composition you may you may react differently But I'm trying to explain why I use the word harrow. It's my experience I see so when I when you had reflected that you thought that my experience was harrowing and I kind of Said no, that's not what my experience is. You're kind of going into You're saying that that's what your experience is if you're not seen and you're not Felt and you're not experienced that that was would be your experience. It would be a harrowing experience And so, um, it's not necessarily. Yeah, it's like So but that yeah, so I guess that's your is there more to that or did I get it? No, and I'm pretty hurt. Okay Um, yeah with the empathic listening With, you know, call rogers It's really about the speaker to be heard to the to the way that they're feeling like when you said the word harrowing I checked my feelings And it's like the feeling didn't match The word harrowing didn't match To my feeling so So that's what I was just saying now that that word your reflection you were reflecting And that reflection didn't quite match my visceral feeling of harrowing for me harrowing is You know, it's like it there's a You know, I mean, uh, I don't know. It's a different. It's like kind of like this, you know And my feeling wasn't like that. It was like, you know, it's you know, it's It would be nice if I was heard more but I can kind of live with it because I have friends I have other, you know, it's it's so yeah So what you said is that my choice of words Should have under the protocols of car rogers and empathic listening and so on my choice of word should have resonated with your inner truth with the way you feel And it didn't you felt that the word harrowing did not describe your inner landscape and and how you truly felt about your upbringing and life and family of origin and Or you also said that It's not harrowing or you don't feel it's harrowing because you have other sources of empathy like friends and So which sort of compensate for for for this. So, you know, in general harrowing would not describe how you feel about it And that's why you took the To the trouble of substituting another word for it And if that's make me wonder about harrowing is if that was your experience I'm wondering kind of what your personal need was for empathy if you had a need You know, what are your actual needs is what I'm kind of wondering. What are your personal needs? for empathy Uh, we're in your room. So you should say fully heard though. Um, if you just reflect back my question then All right, so you're wondering your Now that we have discussed the mismatch between how I describe your experience and how you experience your experience He traces in your mind the question where there was actually referring to myself and how I must have felt In in a situation of not being heard and not being seen did I feel that it was a harrowing experience? Yeah, I feel fully heard. Yeah Thank you like Personally personally I grew up in an extremely an exceptionally abusive household Mainly there was no sexual abuse, but there has been there have been all the other forms of abuse Severe physical beatings several times a day up to the age of 16 And I mean hospitalization stuff hospital stuff stuff Psychological abuse verbal abuse immigration social abuse, you know I don't want to make this into a soap opera, but generally abuse of all kinds on a permanent basis every single day and so Normally in such an environment, I didn't I of course did not feel that I'm being seen or being heard I felt that I am an object An extension of object And that if I do not fulfill my parents expectations, I am to be penalized. So whatever Love they profess to was definitely conditional upon performance And if I deviated from their performance targets or performance expectations They would penalize me in exceptional ways. I mean exceptionally painful So yes for me it was a harrowing experience But it was harrowing partly because of not being seen and heard and partly because of the objective of it Mm-hmm. So you grew up in a in a family where there was a lot of punishment and if you Uh deviated from the way that you were supposed to be that there was punishment and Uh kind of a lack of I think you said lack of love in that sense. So it was kind of like a harrowing experience and that you weren't really seen and Heard and then if you were Kind of off the mark off of what was supposed to happen. It was like these beatings It sounded like you were just beat down a kind of uh or punished or on a kind of an ongoing daily basis almost Yeah, yes So of course my my defense The only defense defense open to me the only defense open to anyone aged to three and four and five and six And even even 10 and even even 13 I mean the only defense opens to a child and and a young adolescent is Either to escape from home And if that's not an option to escape Not outside but inside So what I did I escaped inwardly I developed a private world which had very little to do with reality It's totally delusional Included nor pronounced narcissistic defenses such as Um the belief that I'm omnipotent or the belief that I'm omniscient in other words the force self What I what I deliberately transformed myself into Was a kind of superman and this superman The main the main attribute of this superman was his inability to feel pain because he was omnipotent and omniscient and godlike Narcissism in my case Was an escape route a delusion Of being immune to pain and to humiliation and to punishment So uh, you're saying that is uh as a child, you know three four five eight whatever years old That you couldn't really escape Away kind of get away. And so you kind of escaped into yourself And kind of became kind of a super Man inside yourself and kind of had this sense of you know, I'm a superman. I'm omnis Omniscient And then uh, so and kind of immune to pain So you kind of had that kind of developed that kind of narcissistic Omniscient and can you even say that word but Unipotent Feeling As I kind of defense superman. Yes. Yes. That's that's what reflected the this superman was everything that I was not I was weak superman was omnipotent There were many things I didn't know and because I didn't know that I was I was being punished so so superman became omniscient I was uh, I was uh, you know Um Immobile as I was I was okay, you know, and but superman was was only present So superman was everything that that I had more pain and and because of that Superman was immune to pain not subject to punishment and in a way Capable of becoming the abuser rather than the abused Had the potential to become the abuser rather than the abuser and this in a nutshell is narcissism the narcissist invents a totally fictitious character Effectively everything that the narcissist is not Also is godlike this character. He is not prone to be abused He and and if necessary he can abuse others The narcissist says It's never gonna happen to me again From now on I'm not never going to be the victim of it I'm I'm going to be immune To the batteries of life to the punishments of life and pain and you know all this and if need be I'm going to use other people It reminds me a little of the israelis, but that'll be the next and last segment So I'll let you at least reflect. Yeah, so there's uh So what you what you did is you kind of created the superman And the superman was immune to pain And was everything that you were not like if you were weak superman was strong If you were kind of like small Superman was big And then so that was kind of the you know withdrawing into yourself Kind of becoming that and then from that point you can actually can become kind of the abuser yourself And say I'm not going to be I'm not going to be feel pain anymore But you're willing to kind of abuse others at that point And the last segment in in my part right now I want to talk about the israelis Israelis are israelis are descendants. Well, at least half of them in israel are descendants of jews All of them actually are descendants of jews who have experienced persecution and extermination over centuries in thousands of countries arab jews who used to live in arab countries of which i am descended Were also persecuted and maltreated and so and the jews of europe were exterminated So jews were the quintessential victims Were the quintessential victims They have never been truly seen They've never been truly heard no one empathized with them They were constantly beaten banished killed and you know So finally they decided that they should become supermen And they established a state of israel Where they are Immune to pain Immune to punishment and if need be they are the abusers So israel is a narcissistic response to too millennia Of persecution and victimization It's a classic narcissistic creation and if you I I grew up in israel And so israel is a totally narcissistic narrative Like never again Right might is right We're gonna use weapons to to settle affairs, you know, so it's a it's a totally narcissistic Defense against what has happened to the jews over 2000 years this is Sorry So you're saying that uh, you're you're from israel and you're looking at uh, kind of the state of israel that are in jews that over history Jews have been uh persecuted. There was a lot of pain. There was In the arab world as world is in europe with uh with the holocaust extermination So it was all this there was a lot of this, uh pain and that the The state of israel was kind of created and Out of this pain came kind of a narcissism like no more We're not going to be you know, kind of take this anymore And so we're gonna if anything we're going to be the abusers And um, so you're seeing israel is kind of like having kind of grown out of Having kind of this quality of narcissism From from all the pain that the jews have experienced through history Another sentence of turn i'll be heard so So in israel You have a narcissistic narrative that underlies the the states. It's the ethos ethos of the state And the the israelis consider themselves Unecotent they consider themselves omission They are they're arrogant. They're so they they are very narcissistic Now we have to link all this to empathy When you as an individual is a collective when you reach a decision That you will never again be victimized That if anything you will become the abuser you must Sacrifice empathy Empathy stands in the way Of never again being victimized Of of if need if need be being an abuser You need to get rid of empathy So getting rid of empathy Is an essential and critical step in transforming yourself from a victim To a narcissistic abuser So you're saying the relationship of of empathy within this Within this israel in that to become kind of that super person and that you need to kind of inhibit your empathy And so it's kind of like the empathy is kind of out of the society because that's part of that narcissism Is to suppress the empathy. So empathy goes becomes less and that's what you're seeing happened in happening in israel because of that history Okay So what's what i'm thinking about is is growing up Uh, you know, my family was a conservative, you know, evangelical christians And in you know, I was and I grew up during the 60s You know, I was young in the 60s and kind of came of age in the 70s And so I kind of got caught up in that 60s, you know confrontation the uh The generation gap as it was called And so there was a lot of fighting You know, it's like you feel kind of suppressed and then Fighting back, right? So that's kind of like I see what the 60s was it was a fighting back and I was fighting back And you know trying to have my own sense to be heard, right? I want to be heard I'll be I think this it was a lot of self righteousness and and whatnot and in myself too As well as on, you know, family other side. So maybe I'll just let you say Mitch say that first Uh, you grew up in a specific period in history the 60s In the 70s that was a period when young people fought back against Against being ignored They wanted to be heard. They wanted to be seen. They wanted to be listened to and even consulted And you were part of this part and parcel of this rebellion this Anti-establishment and anti anti older generation kind of sentiment And you describe it as It was called at the time generation gap And but it was a form of intergenerational conflict That you found yourself caught in or that you became willingly became part of and and you believe that I understood that you believe that this Form part of we were exactly and But now I've come to see is it in that in that rebellion It was not empathic. I see now empathy is another path Right that as I've gotten older And kind of learned more about empathy now. I just try to empathize with my family You know, I try to hear where they are what's important to them And so I find I think that that's I can I can understand is you know fighting back because you don't know any better But then I really see empathy as a whole another route to go In terms of well, you know, you have to be at have empathy yourself have been empathized with yourself So you have the space and the capacity and the resilience for empathy But now when I speak with them, I just try to hear I do a lot of reflective listening Like we're doing and just try to really hear what their deeper feelings and needs and aspirations are And it has it's really helped the relationship immensely Coming back to your relationship with your family you as you As you matured as you grew up over the years you realized that the rebelliousness of your youth Was not really about empathy That empathy entails and means other things and that is That as you applied empathic listening and other empathic techniques and as you develop your capacity for empathy You were able to truly hear and see other members of your family and develop a much better relationship with Exactly and there's been I've been trying to get the family more interested in empathy And there was some and they for them it was a little strange, you know But some conflicts started in the family and I was able to empathically mediate them And kind of bring the whole family together Um, and that led to other mediation and just recently we have on july 4th We have a holiday here where all the family gets together I did an empathy circle like we're doing now and we talked like this with empathic listening for four hours You know and it really slowed the conversation down and everyone I mean it was my brother sister and my Sister-in-law and my partner We're talking about growing up our childhood experiences And it really for four hours We just did this empathic listening and it really opened these real doors to really a lot deeper connection So at the beginning your family might have found it a bit strange this whole new empathy thing Or they didn't want to want to tackle it or accept it and so but Uh, gradually you were able to put Empathy and what you learned about empathy to good use you were able to mediate in certain conflicts or misunderstandings And these had practical effects of resolving the the problems And then you were able even to run an extended empathy circle with With many members of your family more than one You know quite a few members of the family during a get together of the family on 4th of july And it went on for four hours, which would indicate that they were interested and they derived something from it You the conversation was a lot slower than usual because people were actually listening to each other And so yeah, and And you were discussing your upbringing and childhood and so on so forth But you felt that it got all of you closer together Exactly. Yeah, so I feel very optimistic about the empathy as a way, you know Is that it's the same with the narcissism? If you just grew up without being heard without being seen without you know without being felt That you just don't have any other means any other tools You know you just and so we need to so I just see that we need to kind of be doing this at a whole cultural level Is but somewhere we have to start the ball rolling somewhere. We've got to start the empathy ball rolling Somebody's got to start it, you know, so that's what I'm hoping that you know, I can contribute to You know the best I can to kind of getting that ball rolling So your experiences with your family and probably with others Have have made you optimistic. You believe that using Pathic listening and empathy circles and probably many other techniques of which I'm not sure Using these techniques you believe Using this this can lead to A better world can lead to an improvement In people's ability to see and hear each other in the fullest and deeper sense Can lead to more social cohesion and solidarity can lead to to good results Here's a here's a here's a fact you have obtained good results with your family There's no reason whatsoever. I'm going to extend it and apply to much bigger frameworks and and finally to society in general Yeah, I feel fully heard. Yeah, thanks I want to talk about rebelliousness You mentioned you mentioned the you mentioned the sixties in the seventies Um When you have a gap any gap Gap between generations gap between ethnicities Gap between family members any form of gap You are faced with a choice Always it's an inevitable choice You can either Try to bridge the gap By using empathy But putting yourself in someone else's shoes in that that person's shoes And trying to see things from this over point of view and and then you know try to bridge the gap Regrettably most people choose the second way and the second way Is to objectify and dehumanize The other side of the gap the adversary the guy across the abyss, you know By dehumanizing and objectifying The your counterparty This allows you to take to adopt measures which are short term Efficient in the short term They may not be efficient in the long term, but they're very efficient in the short term They're definitely much more efficient in empathy. They're much faster They achieve much more visible results And they settle settle the affairs usually in your favor so When when we're faced with a get with a gap With another generation with another ethnicity with our family members with our neighbors with our colleagues with our bosses You name it when we are faced with a gap with a conflict with a misunderstanding We're very often objectify dehumanize and de empathize or dis empathize Because this is what we need to allow us to act efficiently in the short term Empathy is a long-term view All other tactics and strategies are shortened So you're seeing uh, you kind of the word uh, rebellion kind of came up To you, but you're seeing that when people have a gap There's a gap cultural gap generation gap that in the short term for kind of efficiency you can kind of objectify someone And uh, kind of kind of get your way maybe get something in the short term But empathy takes time and is kind of a long term approach and so You're just kind of juxtaposing that long term empathy versus short term objectification and efficiency We live in an age. Yes, look we live in an age of attention deficits It's an age of sound bites It's an age of instant gratification Which it's an age of what's the bottom line? It's an it's an age that is centered built around the short term You have versions of smartphones coming out every six months now used to be five years or ten years You know every six months sometimes less You have technologies obsolete in a matter of a year um Twitter is 140 characters everything is compressed everything is everything is So the emphasis is on short termism That is a failure of empathy in what in what in the modern world it provides much more solid and stable solutions But it is it definitely requires a lot of investment And it's it's very long it's long term sometimes very long term and so it's there is a discrepancy between the characteristics And typology of modern world and especially technology And the characteristics of empathy and in this sense, I would say that our technology Is this empathic or if you wish narcissistic? So you're seeing our culture our current culture is Kind of geared towards efficiency and there's technology and there's just this constant change Of technology and I kind of looking at what's the immediate the short attention spans You know you just and that that's kind of looking at the immediate And that's kind of the society and technology is kind of built around that and uh If that is kind of like a non empathic because the empathy really takes an awareness of the long term And you have to have that time and space for that empathy to You know and it just takes time and you have to be aware of that All right, I want to make one last comment When you mirror me or when you reflect me It provokes in me new ideas and Things that I might not have Might not have emerged on them by themselves so Reflection mirroring especially probably empathic reflection and mirroring Is is is bound to resonate even with people like me Who lack The most substantial part of the gear most substantial part of the device for empathy detection and amplification So there is there must be even in me The psychopathic narcissists there must be even in me Some dilapidated appendix if you wish some some underused uh organ Which can't probably be Provoked or provoked or enhanced to to empathize more An example is not I empathize via my brain I don't empathize via my heart so because I have cold empathy So I if I do empathize with you, but but it is a fact that you are succeeding to provoke My cold empathy It's still cold. You did not succeed to provoke in me any emotion because I lack that part But you did succeed to provoke in me much higher levels of cold empathy than normal So you're kind of looking inside yourself and saying I was saying oh you're a narcissist But you're you're seeing that something about this reflection is empathic listening Is stimulating some kind of a a deeper level of cold empathy. You're noticing some kind of a change within yourself About having a deeper level of Or a more cold. No, allow me to allow me to correct. Okay, because this is this not accurately reflected My fault. I maybe I'm afraid myself what I meant to say is Um, I don't possess I don't possess the apparatus. I don't possess the The devices the technology the inner technology necessary for warm empathy I would never probably feel An emotional reaction emotionally empathic reaction towards anyone I have cold empathy What you succeeded to do in this conversation Is you succeeded to increase the frequency With which I use or deploy my cold empathy Not to death And you did not succeed to provoke any emotional reason. Uh-huh. You just made me use my existing equipment much more My cold empathy was provoked Much more than usual in this conversation So I think with empathic listening and empathy circles and so on even with narcissists and psychopaths You'll be able to provoke their cold empathy to you'll be able to make their cold empathy work more It's not deeper It's not different. It's not a transformational experience. It's nothing to do with emotions It's just the cold empathy that I do possess and which I use once a day In this conversation was provoked 300 times It's just it's just a frequency You forced me you forced me to empathize with you. It's part of the game. This is the protocol. We understand I must empathize with you because these are the rules of the game that you've said You said Sam sent you must empathize in order to reflect you properly. I have to listen to you I have to you have to resonate with me on some level So it's not an emotional level. For instance, when you told me about your family It had zero emotional reaction But you did force me to listen to you To truly hear you and to reflect you back. So I I I had to use my cold empathy equipment Much more frequently than normal Okay, so you've got cold empathy and warm empathy And you don't have the equipment you're saying the the mechanism for warm empathy But by doing the empathic listening it's really stimulated your equipment for cold empathy And it's like 300 percent or something more That you've kind of stimulated the cold empathy That that you've used the cold empathy more than usual Because of the reflective listening and you're just kind of noticing that then you're you're seeing it It's kind of like an insight to you and you're just wanting to kind of share that insight say oh you have This has had some kind of effect on me And uh, that maybe you know, you're seeing that with empathic listening and empathy circles can have some kind of an effect on On narcissists, but it's not the warm empathy because I shared about my family You just didn't have any feelings about that but you had kind of more of the cold kind of empathy that that was stimulated Yes Okay, well, I we've gone for about an hour and a half. We didn't talk the whole time So I'm not sure how much time you have. I don't want to keep you over or if you're needing to get to bed or whatever Um, I have dinner actually dinner. So Um, I think that might have been a good closing for now. I'm willing to try more of this, uh Empathy it's a very interesting. It was a nice it was an intense dressing Response that you had about your experience with this so far. So Yeah It surprised me as well. Okay. I I did not think that I thought that I am the master of my cold empathy that I deploy my cold empathy When an if needed on a case-by-case basis and only when I want to Pierce someone's armor to sort of spot vulnerabilities and chinks in the armor As susceptibilities and soft areas where I can penetrate manipulate and exploit So cold empathy for me was a weapon And I thought I'm going to use it only in war you know But this conversation has shown has taught me That cold empathy is an equipment that can be used Um, even when there is no need for me to manipulate or to exploit someone because I have no need to manipulate Or to exploit it Yet I have been using my cold empathy equipment during this conversation And it's a bit perplexing because I always thought of my cold empathy equipment As a weapon in the inevitable war between me and a hostile war Where I have to like a virus like a virus I have to penetrate the membrane of the cell and take over the contents and so on So this cold empathy equipment when you just show me where the Where the holes and port holes and doors are and so but I discovered that it's an equipment That can be used similar to a knife, you know, you can kill someone in life or you can cut food with a knife So I discovered that it's a multi-purpose Piece of equipment. It's not limited to warfare. Okay. So you learned with kind of in the empathic Listening that we've been doing You've learned something more about your cold empathy that the cold empathy is not just Like a virus looking for the chinks in someone else where you can go and kind of get into it and you know, kind of take over But that the that you can actually use Which is kind of like the like a knife for for damage, maybe but then There's in battle. There's a sense of battle there that goes on But you can actually use it more like a scalpel or like a it's a positive Maybe even I don't know if that's a if you're meaning it's a it's a positive Like a mirror you can use it like a mirror And so you've really learned something new about your you've learned had a new insight about your cold empathy and and the new use Yes, new use new use new use The new way to use it you you discovered a new way to use your cold empathy Yeah, uh-huh Well, great. Well, um, you know, we can end the conversation here Then, you know, maybe if you have some other insights, we can actually continue exploring Just one thing We can if you wish we can dedicate another session. It's another time. Uh-huh. We can dedicate another session to How that what can be done with with the Because narcissists and psychopaths according to me do possess empathy So how can this end up? How can this empathy all be eat cold empathy? How can this empathy be leveraged? For one behavior mitigation and behavior modification um and two Maybe to achieve socially acceptable goals because I'm a psychopathic narcissist yet What I'm doing in the last 16 years Is both socially acceptable And I'm being told beneficial to many people because I write about narcissism and This and people read my textbooks or books So they claim that I've helped them. So here here I am Uh leveraging something which essentially is malignant and sick and so on leveraging it to good use I think similarly cold empathy Can be leveraged to good use socially speaking And can be leveraged to good use as far as the narcissists and psychopaths are concerned to modify And mitigate their more pernicious behaviors the more problematic because the alternate victim of a psychopath Is the psychopath? It's the psychopath who ends up on death row. It's a psychopath who ends up impoverished Uh excommunicated Isolated The ultimate victim of narcissism psychopath is the narcissists and it's the psychopath So if the narcissistic psychopath or the psychopath or whatever it's they if the not the narcissists were to learn how to leverage He's called empathy to modify this be discounted productive self-defeating self-destructing behaviors There will be a great achievement And I want I want to dedicate some thought to this before we have the next session if we do it's up to you I want to dedicate some thought to it And then we can discuss maybe how to use cold empathy as opposed to the garden variety, which is warm How can we how can use this? Apparent this this sick kind of empathy the cold empathy to achieve these goals to help the psychopath and the narcissists on the one hand And to help society on the other Can be done. Okay, so you're seeing we can have another conversation Which is works for me. I'd love to do and but it would be to look at the narcissism and narcissists and psychopath Uh That they are actually harming themselves the ultimate victim of narcissism and psychopath The is themselves and that how can we really look at kind of leveraging The experiences that they have for kind of in some kind of a positive way. How can we leverage that? Uh that cold empathy to kind of to support the the psychopath the narcissist And it maybe even can be a benefit in some way to a society and you're actually saying that we What you've done has sort of been it some people say that what you're your narcissism and psychopathy and writing about it And articulating it has actually been a benefit to society people tell you that at least So you would like to spend some time kind of thinking about it And then we could have another conversation and kind of kind of explore that topic Yeah, okay, well, let's do that then uh, I'm for that Okay, oh, this is really a lot of fun. Like this is really for me. It's very interesting because I was kind of wondering about that empathic listening and what would be the role Of empathic listening with psychopathic and narcissism. So this has been a great learning experience for me as well Thank you for me too. So thank you sam Thank you, right. Have a great day there and sorry about the wake ups early. Yeah, that's okay I had my coffee my whole pot of coffee Okay, take care great talking to you. Bye