 How to think like a narcissist? Why would I want to think like a narcissist you say in unison? first of all because you Presumably want to know what hit you What is this force of nature that had essentially consumed your life for a limited period of time? Traumatize you and is likely to have long-term effects Via the entraining and the introject inside your mind. What is it? That struck you so suddenly and unexpectedly How does a narcissist think? Is very crucial to understanding your thought processes in the wake in the aftermath of narcissistic abuse Number two you need to anticipate the next moves of the narcissist The more intimate you are with the way the narcissist thinks more likely you are to get it right number three There are bits and pieces in the way that narcissists process reality and the world in the way they think Cognitively there are bits and pieces which are useful and you may wish actually to emulate and adopt them Not everything is a hundred percent bad and ugly and evil or hundred percent good and angelic and Unadulterated this is splitting the cotton was thinking. It's a primitive infantile defense mechanism. The world is never Never black and white never good and even the world is gray The world is a mixed proposition So today I'm going to introduce you to the way the narcissist thinks And that's hence the title how to think like a narcissist But some very important service announcements first and foremost I want to introduce you to this beautiful mug With my ugly mug on it. It says in Hebrew Shalom Shoshanim Which is essentially hi there Shoshanim look it up I can't recall who gave it to me a few years ago and I offer my apology, but whoever it was Thank you very much. I'm having my first sip of coffee. Yes coffee. No other liquid from Shalom Shoshanim the Shalom Shoshanim mug with my ugly mug Superimposed I'll try to ignore this part It tastes good Okay the second service announcement You've all been besieging me. I think Legally, you're harassing With the repeated question. How am I supposed to search the channel? Well, YouTube offers several search facilities on desktops and laptops you go to the extreme right of the screen and There is a magnifying glass and you click on it and you can search The channel on a mobile Smartphone you click on the down arrow and there's a menu a downward menu Drop down menu and you can select search But I aim to make it easier for you because I like you from time to time and so I Divided most of the videos on my channel into thematic playlist So if you go to the playlist section You will find your way There there are there's like an index of the website So there's a playlist regarding borderline personality disorder. There's another playlist regarding the shared fantasy There's another playlist regarding abusing relationships and so on and so forth Just find the right playlist and then playlists are much more limited. They contain anywhere between 20 and 100 videos and By title you can find the video you're looking for and finally There's a website vaknin-talks vaknin-talks.com Click on this website. It's in the description and you end up visiting The transcripts of most of my videos They are available online. Then if you scroll down on that website at the bottom you can download an Android app also called vaknin-talks An Android app that allows you to search the transcripts to all my all the videos on my channel. That's it Don't push your luck. Remember who you're dealing with Mwah Who am I? My name is Sam Vakni. I'm the author of Malignance of Love and I'm also the author of narcissism revisited It happens to be one book. I am a former visiting professor of psychology and Currently and for a long time now on the faculty of see ups Commonwealth for International Advanced Professional Studies In Cambridge United Kingdom Toronto, Canada and outreach programming Lagos Nigeria. We've covered the globe We can move into the outer space of the narcissist's mind the big void the quantum vacuum The place where no one dares to tread give up all hope Yeah, who enter the black hole that consumes everything and emits only deadly Enough with the physics metaphors vaknin move on to the topic Okay, to pick here. I come The narcissist has something called dissonant thinking And before I explain what is dissonant thinking I'm gonna give you an example of dissonant thinking sometimes examples are even better than definitions Remember the video yesterday's video a long time ago yesterday. Remember the video? In that video I explain that the narcissist first converts you his intimate partner Into a maternal figure into a mummy stand in and Then he tries to transform you into a transitional object a toy But this is a mission mission impossible. Why? Because the psychological role of the transitional object is to allow the child To safely separate from mother So you the narcissist intimate partner cannot be at the same time his mother and The transitional object that helps him to separate from his mother evidently you cannot be and yet in the narcissist's mind you can and Because he wants to square the circle and demand the impossible He gets frustrated. He gets disappointed. He gets aggressive and he devalues and discards you all because you couldn't be simultaneously to Contradictory things and this is called dissonant thinking but we'll come to it in a minute Before we define dissonant thinking do not confuse dissonant thinking with paradoxical thinking Paradoxical thinking is a cognition a thought marked by contradiction of Typical logical processes. So paradoxical thinking is when I tell you try to think outside the box push the envelope Think paradoxically Think counter-intuitively exit your common sense Defy the rules of logic See where it takes you Now, of course, they are mental health disorders and mental health diseases What paradoxical thinking is common? schizoate personality disorder schizotypal personality disorder even schizophrenia, but These diseases apart these illnesses apart Paradoxical thinking is a very healthy Process it helps you to refrain problems and even get rid of negative beliefs in a positive manner So it promotes creativity personal familial Organizational change paradoxical thinking is a good thing, but it has nothing to do with dissonant thinking dissonant thinking is when you hold simultaneously in your mind to beliefs to wishes to values to demands to seeming facts to Attitudes and so on so forth that conflict with each other are mutually exclusive Contradict and destroy each other to expect your intimate partner to be the mother and also to expect her to Be the transitional object that pushes the mother away is an example of dissonant thinking It sounds a lot like identity disturbance Like one minute you want a and the next minute you want anti a One minute you ever wish and the next minute you have the opposite wish So it sounds a lot like your identity is not stable. There's no core. It's not form. So Some people might say Those of you who are still awake might say what about identity disturbance? It's not the same Identity disturbance is sequential You have one identity It is all pervasive. It is overriding. It is cohesive. It is coherent. It is clear It is immutable for that time and then you change identity You move to another identity and it is as cohesive as coherent and as stable as the previous identity This is identity disturbance and it's very common for example in borderline personality disorder Disonant thinking is not sequential The parts of the identity that conflict The two values the two beliefs the two requirements the two wishes the two fantasies the two dreams the two everything the parts of conflict are Coextant they exist Dynamically subultaneously they exert energy on the personality at the same time They create something called in old psychoanalytic literature of reaction. So The it's as if the personality is broken or split But the parts of the personality the fragments cannot coexist They have to annihilate each other. It's very similar. Those of you who know physics It's very similar to particles and antiparticles Matter and antimatter if you put antimatter and matter together They they extinguish each other. They destroy each other and there's a bit of radiation released So this is it. It's as if the narcissist has a mind an Accelerator capable of holding matter in one part an Antimatter in the other and he says nothing wrong with it If you were to confront with analysis and say, don't you realize that your expectations? your Your your wishes your don't you realize they contradict each other. Don't you realize that you contradict yourself You're contradicting yourself. Don't you realize that there's no way on earth? These things can coexist in a single mind without driving you to insanity Effectively and the Nazis would say no, what are you talking about? I'm the most stable consistent coherent cohesive predictable reliable personal earth What's wrong with you? Can't you see that it all fits together perfectly and The narcissist is able to do this because the narcissist uses a series of defenses Instruments and strategies to cope with dissonant thinking But before we go there we need to define dissonance now dissonance is any clash any internal conflict Between usually equally potent equally strong Dynamics processes thoughts emotions beliefs values requirements and so on so when there's a conflict a clash and there and both parts of the equation are equally powerful and Try to take over That that is a dissonance. So strictly speaking clinically. It's not a defense mechanism Although it exhibits many of the hallmarks of a defense mechanism at any rate a state of dissonance Gives rise to anxiety Because it fosters helplessness You can't solve or resolve the dissonance. It is intolerable so most people use a variety of Psychological defense mechanisms. Most of them are plastic. We're not going to it right now But most people use primitive infantile defense mechanisms to resolve dissonances why Why do people use infantile defense mechanisms? Why don't they use adult defense mechanisms? There are quite a few because the dissonance Causes you as I said Causes you to feel helpless To feel like a baby to feel over over power it overwhelmed By something bigger than you stronger than you threatening so dissonance Regresses you however temporarily Regresses you to an infantile state Which is why you most people react with anxiety to dissonance and so people use very primitive toddler infant baby defense mechanisms such as displacement and rationalization but also splitting projection projective identification and so on so forth so These are the defense mechanisms another way to cope with dissonance is to write a narrative come up with a narrative Narrative which resolves the dissonance narrative that accommodates the two parts of the dissonance and by accommodating them Eliminates or removes the contradiction They are no longer these parts are no longer mutually exclusive, but they are Elements of the bigger picture so for example you have A and B Stand as stand alone's a contradicts B But then you come up with C and C explains both a and B Thereby resolving the dissonance one way of doing it is called reframing which is actually a therapeutic technique used in cognitive behavior therapies and and other types of therapy So When we are faced with dissonance we feel helpless we tend to externalize the locus of control we tend to give up Agency self-control autonomy even free will We tend to say it's not my fault Something made me do it. I was inexorably and irresistibly led to what had happened and so on and so forth so This is a general overview of reactions to dissonance and the most form famous form of dissonance is known as cognitive dissonance and Here we come Again, we revert return to the narcissist The vast majority of people definitely healthy people and normal people cannot survive with cognitive dissonance They mean it the minute they develop a cognitive dissonance. They resolve it They resolve it one way or another. They employ defense mechanisms Or they generate a new narrative or you name it They I have I have videos here on the channel which explain how to resolve dissonances and dilemmas And most healthy people do this This one exception possibly to I'm not quite sure about psychopaths honestly But I know there are studies about narcissists. So I I I can I can teach you more assuredly What's happening with narcissists? narcissists Live in a constant state of dissonance They develop something which could be called cognitive dissonance tolerance tolerance for harboring or entertaining to conflicting views beliefs norms expectations wishes thoughts emotions attitudes Where other people would fall apart? because You know their mind will be blown by such contradictions the narcissist is happy go lucky He simultaneously accepts Two or more conflicting pieces of information or contradictory thoughts and he thinks nothing of it he holds conflicting views values bits of information and These This Dissonances inside his mind. This is not a trivial matter So it's not like a tangential issue or a fringe topic. No because cognitions especially when coupled with emotions They lead to motivation and motivation is An integral part of decision-making and choices and finally actions an internal and inner conflict triggers Primitive infantile defense mechanisms such as denial or splitting of rejection or reaction formation in order to allow the individual To eliminate one part of the dissonance remain with the other part Thereby decide on a course of action and implemented The narcissist Doesn't do this His mind is split He simultaneously holds two beliefs that contradict each other He expounds one view and minutes later who will expound on another view and he will not be able to see Where has he gone wrong or why you are criticizing it? He will confess to a norm or a value or a belief system and then act exactly the opposite and He will fail to see the contradiction. There is a disconnect in the narcissist mind between the dissonant contradictory system and His choices actions and decisions It's as if the narcissist choices actions and decisions are brought on by someone else not by the narcissist Indeed, this is precisely the case Remember that the narcissist Narcissism is a fantasy defense gun or eye Narcissism is about renouncing reality a Reality testing so impaired the Denaucies is clinically kind of psychotic or pseudo psychotic So there is a breakdown a schism in the narcissist mind Let's call it the thinking self and the acting self Whereas in most people healthy and normal people the thinking self dictates The action the thinking self is the acting self The acting self in healthy people is just the next stage the next phase of the thinking self the narcissist With the narcissist is not the same Because the narcissist inhabits his mind is Inwardly oriented never public-facing because the narcissist is unable to perceive external objects and all the time refers to And interacts with internal orders There is one narcissist who is captured is a hostage is a captive of his own internal world So this kind of narcissist is ethereal symbolic a Language narcissists linguistic. It's a narcissist that plays with representations With symbols with internal objects with introjects and with the language that represents them This is the thinking narcissists Then when time comes to act in reality and upon reality The thinking self of the narcissist is Incapable of doing it because it is held captive and hostage Within the narcissist in a space within his mind. So the narcissist acts almost I would say automatically The narcissist develops routines procedures habits That reflect the fantasy The elements of the fantasy the narrative that governs the fantasy reflect Early childhood and resolved conflicts and Choices and decisions and actions that reflect Automatism or reflectivity Reflects us in reaction to the environment. So narcissists actions choices and decisions are triggered from the outside from the environment whereas His beliefs his norms his values his thoughts his emotions are inside his mind They never interact with reality. They never affect reality. They have no interface with reality. I Know how difficult unbelievably difficult. This is to comprehend and I'm wrecking wrecking my mind trying to come up with a simile or metaphor or an Analogy or an allegory of what it is. That's happening. Let's think of it this way Imagine that the narcissist is comprised of two Types one is a philosopher and one is a businessman The philosopher sits in his room Peruses books Browses manuscripts Thinks all day long Analyzes synthesizers, you know, but he never exits room. He never exits the library and All he knows about reality comes from books and Then there's a businessman the businessman is More or less self efficacious Can obtain outcomes is worldly or strikes people as worldly And is able to operate in the external environment however There's no communication between the philosopher and the businessman The businessman is actually a robot an Android a form of artificial intelligence. It is programmed. It is It is code reified It acts. It is it's an app. It says it's a software The businessman acts on the environment, but not because it is informed by any Internal dynamic processes in the narcissist mind, but because that's the way it has been programmed the philosopher is the life of the mind of the narcissist but It has no bearing on reality and on external objects such as you the narcissist intimate partner So narcissists strike people as Robotic in many cases an imitation and County Valley imitation imitation that causes discomfort a Imitation of a human being that causes discomfort and The narcissist fluctuation the ability of mood Um Disregulated thinking this regulated cognition not emotion but cognition. They're a bit borderline So the narcissist gives you the impression of someone who is in control resilient strong well-informed action-minded worldly efficacious Get things done gets things done and so on Until you get to know the narcissist And then you then you realize Whoever it is that's making the choices reaching decisions and Implementing them acting Whoever this person is it's not the narcissist Who is it the false self? We don't really know But there's a breakdown between the inner world of the narcissist and The way the narcissist manifests in his or her environment and when you When you push the narcissist to a corner and you force a narcissist To explain himself in other words when you try to force a narcissist to cope with this predicament of a split a split mind a Mind that is in a constant state of dissonance When you demonstrate to the narcissist something is wrong When you hold two values which are incompatible that's wrong when you have two thoughts Which can't live together can't coexist something's wrong when you force the narcissist to transition from dissonance to consonance When you coerce the narcissist to come up with a reconciling narrative a theory Which seamlessly accommodates? both conflicting points of view data information values beliefs attitudes wishes dreams verbiage when you when you when you tell the narcissist You have to do that. You have to explain to me. How did you say something five minutes ago? Which you are now contradicting How did you profess to believe something and then act exactly the opposite? How I insist on an explanation The narcissist is likely to come up With one of the following explanations or a combination thereof number one What I said a let's call it a a was true then Not a is true now Everything is transient and temporary and in flux. I don't commit myself to anything. I am Pragmatic I'm practical I'm my eyes are open to the world. I am the one who is embedded in reality. You are not Reality is ever-changing. It's mutable. So my views and beliefs and principles of of action and Everything is also in flux Let's explanation of what explanation number two a is the normal Usually I'm a the narcissist says Not a the opposite of a occurred it happened Because you triggered me you provoked me You change the circumstances or the conditions unfairly So I had to resort from a to not a I'm usually a as far as I'm concerned Being not a is abnormal. It's an aberration. It's a curiosity. It's not who I am You made me do it solution of the two explanation of the two explanation of the three You're wrong. There's no contradiction between a and not a They're not mutually exclusive They simply are pieces of a bigger puzzle picture or theory Their contradiction is only apparent because we have no access you have no access You have no awareness of the true and full picture which I in my infinite wisdom can see My knowledge far exceeds yours Even my capacity to know is far superior to yours. You must obey and accept my authority My intellectual authority and even my authority generally speaking so What to you appears to be a contradiction to me Is not Because I have a synoptic panoramic view of everything that's taking place Explanation number four It's not there's no contradiction between a and not a Both of them are true Both of them lead to the same conclusions. You're wrong Why do you keep saying? That I'm contradicting myself or that I'm not the same person from one minute to another or that I've Betrayed my values and beliefs or that my cognitions are mutually exclusive or what do you keep saying this not true a and not a Both true and the lead lead to the same conclusions. So there's no contradiction So for example, if I love you, I Love you. Okay, but I also abuse you. I Abuse you egregiously verbally Okay, you keep saying that loving someone and Abusing someone is mutually exclusive. You can't it contradicts each other if you love someone you don't abuse them And if you abuse them, you don't love them. I disagree says the noses is My verbal abuse is a form of tough love It's intended to educate you edify you make you a better person It is intended to Protect you from risks and dangers out there I'm being harsh with you because you need someone to be harsh with you. It's proof of my love It's my way of showing and demonstrating my commitment to you actually my compassion and affection So this is denial common way that noses is resolve dissonances The last technique that the narcissist uses when you control the narcissist with his contradictions With his constant wavering With his inability to remain stable and predictable and reliable and responsible When you do this The narcissist uses a fifth strategy. He says both a and Not a Valid both of them valid. You're they're both valid points of view. There's nothing wrong in contemplating or considering both of them But only a applies to me Not a applies to other people applies to you and This is of course splitting. I Am all good. You're all bad. I'm all right. You're all wrong So, yeah, I do consider as As a narcissist, I do considers says the narcissist I do consider a and not a simultaneously, but that's because I'm aware of the fact That other people are not a Not a is bad It's a projection and not a should be eradicated in other people in order to restore a To its rightful place as the soul and ethical Alternative this is known as reaction formation. So and as he says You didn't catch me in a contradiction I've been considering a and not a simultaneously Because I'm on a research mission. I'm researching not a and I'm researching not a because I'm a savior I'm a rescuer. I'm a healer. I'm a fixer. I'm Studying not a in order to be able to fight it more effectively Eliminate it in other people because not a is all bad Yeah, I May Emulate not not a I may behave in a not a way or fashion I may even profess to simultaneously hold the view that a and the view that not a And it appears to be that I'm crazy making but I'm not I'm not I'm just exploring this terra incognita of evil and When I've mastered not a I'm going to revert to my natural state, which is a and I'm gonna I'm gonna fight not a wherever I come cross it This is one form. This is cognitive dissonance in Narcissists and narcissists have dissonant thinking they use these five techniques to defend their ability to entertain simultaneously views beliefs attitudes wishes hopes dreams requirements demands statements Emotions and cognitions that can never ever sit together fit together work together Except in the narcissist mind The Nazis it also some car sometimes Is exposed to what we call volitional dissonance It's when we act in ways, which we perceive to be immoral antisocial When we perceive our actions to have been the outcomes of a weak wheel misbehavior contrary to our best judgment When we act in ways, which were not the outcome the outcomes of good judgment excellence of character habits conducive to virtuous life This is how healthy Normal people react When the narcissist is confronted with a volitional dissonance because as opposed to psychopaths as distinct from psychopaths Narcissists do have a conscience However, the conscience of the narcissist is an integral part of the bed object So the conscience of the narcissist is actually a harsh inner critic is Sadistic super ego a group of introject a cluster of introjects That hate the narcissist load the narcissist our enemies of the narcissist one the narcissist is dead so When the narcissist's conscience is provoked When the narcissist realizes that he has misbehaved He has been he has given in to temptation He acted contrary to his best judgment Whatever is done can be deemed easily immoral antisocial perhaps even criminal Whenever he comes across this and his conscience is triggered and maybe not only conscience, but fear of consequences At that moment, there's a volitional dissonance in the narcissist And so he resolves it Applying the five techniques that I've mentioned He says I acted this way Temporarily because I had no choice. I did what I did reactively Because the circumstances have changed the conditions force me to behave that way. It's an aberration. It's abnormal I usually don't act this way or he says The way I acted may appear on On the face of it on the surface may appear to be I don't know immoral antisocial criminal Evil, but it's actually not because if you see the bigger picture If you see a big part the bigger puzzle You realize that I should have acted this way It was the right way to act was the right thing To do But because your knowledge is limited you don't know everything you don't realize how right I was To have done it. Actually it was self-sacrificial the next technique When the narcissist acts wrongly Knows that he has acted wrongly And has conscious pangs or fear of consequences is denial is to say What I've done is not immoral. It's not antisocial It's not Wrong. It's not evil You you you're misperceiving my actions and here I am. I'll give you the story within which My actions make eminent sense and are actually pro-social Highly moral and so on and so forth. And finally there's a defensive thing I acted the way I did Because I needed to elicit some consequences or some outcomes from the environment from other people And I needed to do this because I'm on a on a mission of good So I have I have a task A moral task an ethical task a task which would enhance um enhance public welfare a task which is um condoned by society but sometimes To attain Such outcomes you need to do bad things So to make eggs to make an omelet you need to break eggs to chip To chip a tree, you know, there Woodchips etc. So there's a cost And my actions my immoral antisocial evil actions wicked actions were actually An inevitable price I had to pay In order to attain and accomplish good moral ethical um goals Sometimes a narcissist comes across an emotional dissonance ambivalence He experiences two opposing Emotions both of them by the way negative Narcissists are incapable of accessing positive emotions Because in the narcissist positive emotions are intimately and intricately connected intertwined with life-threatening shame And helplessness. So Narcissists are capable of experiencing only negative emotions, but some negative emotions Can contradict each other And some negative emotions contradict the narcissist cognitive distortions. I'll give you an example envy The narcissist envies someone but to envy someone is to admit That the subject of envy of the the object of envy Is superior to you You envy someone who has who has something you don't have You envy someone who is above your station You envy someone who is more skilled or more talented or more handsome or more intelligent than you are So envy implies inferiority And here's a dissonance between envy and the need to feel superior the cognitive distortion Knows as known as grandiosity. This is an emotional dissonance Again, the narcissist uses The same defenses that I mentioned the same five defenses that I mentioned Number one, it's a temporary state. It's a transient phase Number two, I'm reacting this way. I'm I'm experiencing dissonance Because the conditions And the circumstances have triggered the dissonance. I've been provoked somehow to develop these dissonance But normally it's it's not a normal condition for me. I don't usually experience emotional dissonance number three Both my envy and my grandiosity are parts of a bigger picture a bigger puzzle A plan a cosmic plan in which I'm involved And so I need to accept both of them because I know that I'm never wrong I'm infallible and these two urges these two apparently conflicting drives They are pushing me to an outcome Which would be satisfactory and would gratify My my grandeur would would ascertain and establish a mattress my superiority number number four It's not true that there's a contradiction Both my envy and my grandiosity I directed the same person, but for different reasons or yeah, there's no contradiction there and number five I don't envy anyone and I don't feel grandiose I completely deny that Says the narcissist It's not true You are you you envy me. You're projecting You are grandiose to presume that you could understand me Almost godlike, etc. etc. So these are the defenses for emotional dissonance We have many many other forms of dissonance. There's axiological dissonance When two values Are incompatible So the narcissist can hold values All the values of the narcissist have to do with the extraction of narcissistic supply So the narcissist can hold values that conflict and undermine and sabotage his ability to extract supply There is the ontic dissonance When the narcissist has two duties and two obligations which are contradictory There's attitudinal dissonance There are two contradictory internalized beliefs or attitudes statements or propositions And there's executive dissonance. It's an inner conflict between two mutually obviating or mutually exclusive Psychological functions held to be desirable and necessary Narcissist experiences all these dissonances, but contrary to healthy and normal people He he sees nothing wrong with it. He remains ego dystonic ego symptonic I'm sorry He remains comfortable with the fact that he is so fragmented and broken And that is in a constant state of civil war How to explain this? We start with the body. I don't know how many of you have heard of paradoxical warmth or paradoxical cold Paradoxical warm is a sensation of warmth produced when a cold object stimulates a cold receptor Ironically you feel warm Paradoxical cold is an effect produced in the same nerve endings the thermal nerve endings The nerve endings in the skin are sensitive to both heat and cold They have double peaks Including one for heat that is above the threshold of pain. So when you touch a hot object That fires the hot and cold receptor You sometimes experience chill cold So this is called paradoxical warmth and paradoxical cold similarly There is something called paradoxical motion. It's the global perception of motion of movement In a motion after effect, even though the individual elements in the image do not appear to move So a motion after effect is the perception that a stationary object or scene Is moving Following prolonged fixation of a moving stimulus. Why am I? Why am I referring to all this? These are all of course illusions delusions or even hallucinations Your skin Misreports gives you the wrong information. Your skin says it's warm. It's actually cold It says it's cold. It's actually warm your eyes Your brain Are telling you that there is motion when there is none because you've been exposed to motion before so cognitive dissonance Is more or less the same It is a misreporting It is when we receive Wrong information about some elements Some elements in the environment some elements inside ourselves The narcissist Reserves this by insisting That the paradox Is not paradoxical paradoxes are self or surprising self contradictory statements And sometimes they are true We have all kinds of paradoxes logistical logical semantic semantic and so on so forth So we will not talk we will not discuss the issue of paradoxes right now but Paradoxes in the human mind are very powerful We use paradoxes for example in therapy We tell the patient we tell the client or the patient Do exactly what common sense would dictate Paradoxical thinking remember how we started And we show the absurdity and the self-defeating nature of the client's original intention or original automatic thought This is what the narcissist does He administers paradoxical thinking to himself In a way that enshrines it fixates it Makes it a feature of his mind thereby becoming Or transitioning from paradoxical thinking to dissonant thinking Now what's the difference paradoxical thinking induces insight change When the therapist forces you to think paradoxically You you have a light bulb moment. You end up saying oh my god When the narcissist converts paradoxical thinking into dissonant thinking He is saying there's no paradox here My sense is the common sense What appears to be mutually exclusive is not Using the five techniques that I mentioned And so dissonant thinking Does not lead to insight does not lead to change on the very contrary Dissonant thinking preserves the dissonance It legitimizes It normalizes the dissonance And then the narcissist becomes an inverted human In the narcissist's mind Dissonance is normal You are not normal. You are abnormal. You're mentally ill Because you don't have dissonance Your thinking is linear is one dimensional The narcissist is thinking is synoptic panoramic kaleidoscopic Entertains all the possibilities. It's godlike God is able to entertain paradoxes and dissonances because god incorporates everything Includes everything there is never a contradiction inside the divine body So same with the narcissist Because his mind is infinite And definitely divine There is no possibility for contradiction or mutual exclusion in the narcissist's mind Because he regards this as a superior mode of thinking He regards you as inferior and somehow defective because you cannot entertain paradoxes Paradoxes terrify Dissonance causes anxiety in you You want to resolve it at all costs The narcissist uses what is known in therapy as paradoxical technique Where the therapist Instructs the the client to continue Undesired symptomatic behavior even increase it To show to demonstrate to the client that he has control over it It's known as paradoxical intervention And it engenders in the client a sense of potency a sense of power The narcissist uses the same thing Same technique unconsciously the narcissist says People are criticizing me For my actions. I'm gonna double down People disagree with me. I'm gonna defend my views People say I contradict myself. I'm gonna continue to contradict myself defined in your face I'm going to do it even more thereby Generating a sense of omnipotence paradox paradoxical techniques and paradoxical intention Which is ironically used in the treatment of anxiety disorders They are The pillars and the foundations of grandiosity The narcissist is grandiose Because his mind is not like yours It is capable of entertaining the totality of existence All possibilities All views And all beliefs and all attitudes and all dreams and all fantasies and all wishes and all fears everything never mind If they are incompatible In paradoxical intention, which is a therapeutic technique We tell the the the client to magnify a distressing unwanted symptom someone who is afraid of Something is instructed to imagine the feared situation and exaggerate it even and so on so forth. It's a kind of Mental exposure therapy Narciss keeps doing it all the time And by leveraging these therapeutic techniques, which he has developed as a child unconsciously The narcissist administers therapy to himself It's a kind of self-administered exposure therapy The narcissist's greatest fear Is modification To be humiliated and shamed and exposed in public To come face to face With his true self dilapidated and dysfunctional as it is to realize To be forced to realize his limitations his shortcomings And his innate inferiority thereby triggering His life-threatening shame and the reservoir of helplessness and rage That he had inherited from his early childhood. This is a narcissist's greatest fear So the narcissist is immersed In a prolonged grief reaction stress anxiety And he ministers to himself. He treats himself He is his own therapist And he does this by exposing himself mentally representationally To his greatest fears within a narrative That accommodates his greatest fears as controllable So he says this is my greatest fear I'm not going to embrace it I'm not going to think of it. I'm not going I'm not going to exaggerate I'm not going to imagine experiencing it But I'm going to do it in a way Where I am in control I'm in charge I can turn it turn it on and off it will I decide The parameters the choices the decisions the actions the content the values the beliefs that go into this I I'm going to heal myself I'm going to cure myself of this vulnerability Of being afraid and being ashamed And I'm going to do this by expanding outward It is known as hyper hyper reflexivity in psychotic disorders By expanding outward hyper reflexively And embracing the totality of the world As if it were me I am going to become the world I'm going to become the world and anything and everything in the world Is going to be me Just an extension of me. I'm going to convert all external objects Into internal objects. I'm going to I'm going to assimilate All motivations All human emotions all human cognitions And appropriateness mine And by becoming this perfect being Exactly like god himself I will never be open to the challenges of contradiction mutual exclusivity and the anxiety That rises out of uncertainty indeterminacy And inability to reconcile the irreconcilable By subsuming everyone and everything around me Into my fantasy I actually become perfection And perfection by definition Has no contradiction If you include the whole universe There's no contradiction Contradiction is external always And so The narcissist solution To his dissonant thinking Is psychotic He becomes psychotic over the years And you are coping as the narcissist intimate partner You're coping with his psychosis It is disguised psychosis It is also reversed psychosis whereas the Psychotic can't tell the difference between his internal world and external world The narcissist simply assimilates the external world But it has strong elements of psychosis including hyperreflexivity And so this is what you're dealing with As Otto Kölnberg had observed This is what you're dealing with And it's very important to understand this Because all the attempts to reason with the narcissist To Contract with the narcissist To agree with the narcissist to make agreements with the narcissist To Create therapeutic alliances with the narcissist common goals and agenda This is nonsense The narcissist is not only a child It's a severely mentally ill child It's a psychotic child And this child has been exposed to contradiction early on A mother who was supposed to love him Hated him And tortured him What greater contradiction is there? I ask you And what's the only solution to such condition? But to assimilate mother To become mother And then of course All problems are solved With a magic wand The magic wand Of becoming god himself