Narcissism with Sam Vaknin

Full Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IritJMUivE Common phrases that narcissists use: I love you (dual mothership in shared fantasy) You have changed (coercive snapshotting, devaluation-separation) I am … (grandiosity) They are (projection) … This is wrong (useless, inefficacious) I don’t remember having done/said that, it doesn’t sound like me at all, the truth is this (dissociation and confabulation) If you refuse, it means that … (coercive control) Why can't you decode the narcissist's speech? In the lovebombing phase of the shared fantasy, the narcissist introduces you to his dead inner child (True Self) and to his bad object (the introjects that hate him). This way he induces in you maternal reflexive bonding and pity for him. Do not fall in this trap ever again! Knowledge is power! Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Why Do We Love Pets? The presence of pets activates in us two primitive psychological defense mechanisms: projection and narcissism. Projection is a defense mechanism intended to cope with internal or external stressors and emotional conflict by attributing to another person or object (such as a pet) - usually falsely - thoughts, feelings, wishes, impulses, needs, and hopes deemed forbidden or unacceptable by the projecting party. In the case of pets, projection works through anthropomorphism: we attribute to animals our traits, behavior patterns, needs, wishes, emotions, and cognitive processes. This perceived similarity endears them to us and motivates us to care for our pets and cherish them. But, why do people become pet-owners in the first place? Caring for pets comprises equal measures of satisfaction and frustration. Pet-owners often employ a psychological defense mechanism - known as "cognitive dissonance" - to suppress the negative aspects of having pets and to deny the unpalatable fact that raising pets and caring for them may be time consuming, exhausting, and strains otherwise pleasurable and tranquil relationships to their limits. Pet-ownership is possibly an irrational vocation, but humanity keeps keeping pets. It may well be the call of nature. All living species reproduce and most of them parent. Pets sometimes serve as surrogate children and friends. Is this maternity (and paternity) by proxy proof that, beneath the ephemeral veneer of civilization, we are still merely a kind of beast, subject to the impulses and hard-wired behavior that permeate the rest of the animal kingdom? Is our existential loneliness so extreme that it crosses the species barrier? There is no denying that most people want their pets and love them. They are attached to them and experience grief and bereavement when they die, depart, or are sick. Most pet-owners find keeping pets emotionally fulfilling, happiness-inducing, and highly satisfying. This pertains even to unplanned and initially unwanted new arrivals. Could this be the missing link? Does pet-ownership revolve around self-gratification? Does it all boil down to the pleasure principle? Pet-keeping may, indeed, be habit forming. Months of raising pups and cubs and a host of social positive reinforcements and expectations condition pet-owners to do the job. Still, a living pet is nothing like the abstract concept. Pets wail, soil themselves and their environment, stink, and severely disrupt the lives of their owners. Nothing too enticing here. If you eliminate the impossible, what is left - however improbable - must be the truth. People keep pets because it provides them with narcissistic supply. Continued here: https://samvak.tripod.com/animal.html Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

WATCH Self-supplying Narcissist: Miracle Cure? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yyab_olkfp0 The narcissist self-supplies in order to avoid collapse and dysphoria or depression. This delusional solution renders him autoerotic and cerebral. Plentiful external narcissistic supply results in resilient, ever more counterfactual siege and betrayal (but not shared) fantasies and residual libido rendering the narcissist somatic. Narcissist’s Free, Reserved, and Residual Libido https://samvak.tripod.com/msla7.html Techniques of self-supply: Future orientation (future generations will appreciate my legacy, I will be proven right) Exclusive, privileged, or superior referents (only geniuses can understand my work) Self-referential transcendence (I am hyper moral, strong, gifted, a martyr or victim) Self-audiencing (journaling, self-documenting, self-appraisal) Self-referential ideation and attribution (everyone envies me, my ideas are influential and pilfered) Contemptuous withholding (they don’t deserve me or my output, I am alone because no one is on my level) Paranoid ideation (I am the focus of malign intentions and attention). Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

"We have a Jewish guest, from Israel today" - he hesitated - "He will say grace for us. In Hebrew." The hall reverberated. My host impelled me forward. A sea of crimson skullcaps as they rested foreheads on locked, diaphanous digits. I uttered the Jewish prayer slowly, improvising some. The alien phrases recoiled from the masonry, bounced among the massive trestle-tops, ricocheted from the clay utensils, the crude-carved cutlery, the cotton tablecloths. A towering Jesus bled into a candled recess. The abbot led me to a chair and placed a bowl of nebulous soup in front. He stuck a wooden spoon right in the swirling liquid and went away. I ate, head bowed, maintaining silence, conforming to the crowd's ostentatious decorum. The repast over, I joined the abbot and his guests in the procession to his office. He recounted proudly the tale of my most imminent conversion. They looked aghast. One of them enquired how I found Jesus. I said I hadn't yet. The abbot smiled contentedly. "He is not a liar" - he averred - "He doesn't lie even when lying leads to profit". "Perhaps the profitable thing to do is to be truthful in this case" - one bitterly commented. Continued here: https://samvak.tripod.com/jesus-en.html Short Fiction About Narcissists and Psychopaths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtLdPsCsQPc&list=PLsh_y_ett4o3haxsa62BXUwz8mB6eXWur Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Watch my videos translated into Portuguese by Mirna Liz: https://www.youtube.com/@Narcisismocommirnaliz or https://m.youtube.com/@UCjewwqOlsfXtkeumkesSWAg Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

LIES that victims tell themselves: I was chosen for my qualities (truth: you were chosen for the 4 Ss) The narcissist was obsessed with me (nope, obsessed with the shared fantasy – you were fungible, a thing, a commodity, a puff of smoke) The best revenge is to have a good life, it will drive the narcissist insane The narcissist keeps obsessing about me (only for revenge or hoovering – or in order to pose as a victim and attract new “mothers” into the shared fantasy) The narcissist regrets having lost me (this was the aim of the whole exercise: separation-individuation) I did nothing to deserve this and I have contributed nothing to this happening (splitting: narcissist all bad, I am all good or innocent) I have learned so much and this experience has taught me a lesson Therapy will empower me, heal me, and set me free (taking action will)   Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Growth, like progress, is a culture bound Western ethos. In Japan, growth is collectivist, in the West, it is individualistic. Growth is desirable, a goal (teleology), and linear-derivative. Not always true. Infantilism is a positive adaptation in certain environments, for example. Growth is cyclical (Freud). There is no end goal, it is about survival (evolutionary). Growth is not the same as skill acquisition, personal autonomy, agency, independence. I am not a mental health practitioner. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Narcissism looks very different from the points of view of the narcissist and his intimate partner. Originally posted here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyMfu0XCGRc Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

My mother instructed us severely: "If daddy's youngest brother calls, don't answer. Nor he neither his wayward sister are part of our family. Your father excommunicated them forever and cursed their lineage. They have disgraced us. Now they are perfect strangers." I liked my uncle - boyish and outgoing, hair long, and smooth, and often brushed and dried, his clothes the latest fashion from abroad. He was a seaman. His visits smelled of outlying cities and sinful women thin-clad in bustling ports. He carried stacks of foreign bills stashed in his socks and bought my mother foreign, costly fragrances (she buried them among her lingerie until they all evaporated). At the bottom of his magic chest lay booklets with titillating tales of sizzling sex and awesome drug lords. I waited for his visits with the impatience of an inmate. He was the idol of my budding willfulness and nascent freedom. I resented our forced estrangement. And so began my mutiny. Lured by the siren songs of far-flung lands, of sexual liberation, and of equality, I traveled to my grandma's home, an uninvited guest. My uncle, whose name now we could not pronounce, was there. We strolled the windswept promenade of Beer-Sheba, kicking some skeletal branches as we talked. He treated me as an adult. Continued here: https://samvak.tripod.com/redemption-en.html Short Fiction About Narcissists and Psychopaths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtLdPsCsQPc&list=PLsh_y_ett4o3haxsa62BXUwz8mB6eXWur Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Common phrases that narcissists use: I love you (dual mothership in shared fantasy) You have changed (coercive snapshotting, devaluation-separation) I am … (grandiosity) They are (projection) … This is wrong (useless, inefficacious) I don’t remember having done/said that, it doesn’t sound like me at all, the truth is this (dissociation and confabulation) If you refuse, it means that … (coercive control) Why can't you decode the narcissist's speech? In the lovebombing phase of the shared fantasy, the narcissist introduces you to his dead inner child (True Self) and to his bad object (the introjects that hate him). This way he induces in you maternal reflexive bonding and pity for him. Do not fall in this trap ever again! Knowledge is power! Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Can you trust a narcissist? Is s/he fake or authentic? Cognitive distortion, shared fantasy, lack of empathy, no external objects or emotions, entraining, projective identification - how can you trust someone like that? Whether to trust a narcissist or not depends on his locus of grandiosity: an inner speech constellation of introjects that resemble a conscience and afford self-regulate as well as impulse and behavioral controls in accordance with a cognitively distorted, fantastic, inflated narrative of self-perception. If the narcissist’s fantastic, inflated self-image is about his trustworthiness, reliability, truthfulness, morality, altruism, giving and contributions to the community - then you can trust such a prosocial communal narcissist. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

WATCH Videos in Contemporary Sexuality Playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68rvgSHhqqY&list=PLsh_y_ett4o1HB7NNs1-qBqk6bU6D8PUe Collapse of traditional gender roles and gender vertigo (Barbara Risman) exacerbated by sex fluidity Caricatured, performative, exaggerated masculinity adopted by both sexes (Lisa Wade, Sczesny) Toxic masculinity emphasizes dominance, goal orientation, defiance, possession, and hierarchy (fake alpha male) over team work, leadership, sharing, compassion, and empathy (true alpha male) Toxic masculinity goes hand in hand with Darwinian (jungle) capitalism, urbanization, consumerism, and spectacle. These are all zero sum games which emphasize escapism within artificial counter-realities. Both toxic masculinity and jungle (Anglo-Saxon) capitalism are founded on relentless and ruthless ambition and adversarial competition. Spectacle thrives on negative emotions, self-preoccupation, self-promotion, and make-believe fantasy - the hallmarks of narcissism. Even justice becomes a retributive reality show with defendants as gladiators. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

NPD much like old conception of MPD unintegrated system while BPD like modern conception of DID (OSDD). Both are dissociative, post-traumatic conditions with external regulation of ego functions, affects, and moods. WATCH Is Borderline Multiple Personality? (BPD and OSDD) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl9RHGxS3yM WATCH Narcissism: Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJWwfaJPS5w WATCH Narcissist's Multiple Personas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxo4gjG8GpM Main role of compensatory False Self is to protect the True Self which is shy, fragile, and vulnerable. True Self no longer psychodynamically active, but False Self is inertial, believes that narcissist will die without it. So, False Self is anxiolytic and aimed to prevent regression to borderline emotional dysregulation. Like all mental constructs, False Self is self-preserving (aka resistances). False Self regards therapy and intimacy as not only threats (hurt, pain, heartbreak, hostile takeover), but also as competition: they offer emotional self-regulation and a coherent sense of self-worth, obviating the needs for narcissistic supply and grandiosity, the False Self’s main functions. Cathexis in the False Self is diverted to therapist or partner and this generates envy of both outsiders and self as good object. Therapy and healthy (non-dependent) intimacy (friend, lover, child, parents, mentors, etc.) also push towards the emergence of a core identity to replace the False Self. This newly emerging identity feels imposed and external. It constitutes a repeated narcissistic injury (vulnerability rather than omnipotence). False Self fights back by inducing the twin anxieties (insecure attachment style), amplifying aggression and grandiosity, impairing reality testing via the shared fantasy, leading to paranoid and psychotic ideation thus undermining therapist or intimacy partner. Paranoia is also a form of self-supply. WATCH Narcissism as Theatre: More on the False Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdFexohftNg WATCH Narcissist's False Narrative and False Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTUsmliZl-g WATCH Loving Gaze, Adulating Gaze: False vs. True Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlBevrfwabM Borderline’s False Self is different to the narcissist’s although it is equally grandiose and reliant on others for external regulation. WATCH YOU: Trapped in Fantasy Worlds of Narcissist, Borderline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHa1hsxglPU WATCH Loving the Borderline in Her Fantasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isDXioOEztE WATCH Borderline Seeks Fantasy but Flees to Reality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxAM0Yt-a-Y WATCH Borderline vs. Narcissist Idealization Fantasies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luegzfzClCY Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

There are 4 conditions to any self-transformation and personal growth: self-awareness, empathy, emotions, motivation. Self-love is a healthy self-regard and the pursuit of one’s happiness and favorable outcomes. It rests on four pillars: 1. Self-awareness: an intimate, detailed and compassionate knowledge of oneself, a SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, others’s roles, and threats 2. Self-acceptance: the unconditional embrace of one’s core identity, personality, character, temperament, relationships, experiences, and life circumstances. 3. Self-trust: the conviction that one has one’s best interests in mind, is watching one’s back, and has agency and autonomy: one is not controlled by or dependent upon others in a compromising fashion 4. Self-efficacy: the belief, gleaned from and honed by experience, that one is capable of setting rational, realistic, and beneficial goals and possesses the wherewithal to realize outcomes commensurate with one’s aims. Self-love is the only reliable compass in life. Experience usually comes too late, when its lessons can no longer be implemented because of old age, lost opportunities, and changed circumstances. It is also pretty useless: no two people or situations are the same. But self-love is a rock: a stable, reliable, immovable, and immutable guide and the truest of loyal friends whose only concern in your welfare and contentment. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Projective identification causes the victim to modify her/his behavior by adopting as theirs the narcissist’s shame and guilt. WATCH Narcissist Entrains Codependent, Borderline: Brainwash, Regulate, Repeat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHAeew65frU Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

The shared fantasy involves the narcissist and another person (intimate partner, friend, offspring, even co-worker). But is it founded on having daddy issues? And how does this square with my principle of dual mothership? WOMEN: care, protection, approval, acceptance, understanding, support, validation, adoration, attention, worship, reality testing, unconditional love. MEN: pampering, safety, regulation of sense of self-worth (grandiosity), unconditional love. Both genders: “dead” father affects socialization and anxiety regulation, “dead” mother no separation-individuation. Or: extremely close, perhaps even disproportionately close, relationship with their fathers or mothers. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Narcissists are externally indistinguishable from full-fledged human beings. But they have no core or stable identity. Your uncanny valley alarm system doesn't go off because it is damaged. The narcissist proceeds to penetrate your defenses and leverage your vulnerabilities in order to convert you into a clone of himself, his traits and behaviors (this is known as CPTSD or complex trauma). Narcissism is contagious. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Substantial minority of narcissists encourage - NOT COERCE!- their partners to be unfaithful via casual sex, swinging, group sex (threesomes). Victims often misinterpret the narcissist’s encouragement as a wish or a command and seek to gratify the narcissist by acquiescing. Narcissist is rarely a cuckold. WATCH Cuckolds, Swingers (Lifestyle), and Psychopathic Narcissists: Death of Intimacy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alGmDyjvRZM Betrayal fantasy and devaluation: discard the partner by shifting the blame. WATCH How Narcissist Betrays YOU to Become Himself (Compilation) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesOO1R2YbI Loyalty test (bait). Dare, see if I care, power play (following triangulation). Uphold view of other sex as untrustworthy and whorish. Sadism: defile the partner by witnessing her/his debauchery and self-prostitution (just WITNESSING!) Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

My grandpa was visiting a pharmacy, replenishing her medications, when my grandma died. With the dignity of the indigent, he never bargained, never raised his voice. Packed in small, white, paper bags, he rushed the doses to his wife, limping and winded. This time the house was shuttered doors and windows. My grandma wouldn't respond to his increasingly desperate entreaties. He flung himself against the entrance and found her sprawled on the floor, her bloodied mouth ajar. As she fell, she must have hit her head against the corner of a table. She was baking my grandfather his favorite pastries. Her eyes were shut. My grandpa knew she died. He placed her remedies on the floured and oiled table and changed into his best attire. Kneeling beside her, he gently wiped clean my grandma's hands and mouth and head and clothed her in her outdoors coat. His business done, he lay besides her and, hugging her frail remains, he shut his eyes. My uncles and aunts found them, lying like that, embraced. Full story: https://samvak.tripod.com/agala-en.html Short Fiction About Narcissists and Psychopaths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtLdPsCsQPc&list=PLsh_y_ett4o3haxsa62BXUwz8mB6eXWur Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Employment requires hierarchy and team work, so leads to repeated narcissistic injuries and a very high risk of narcissistic mortification Narcissist attempts to restore grandiosity: bullying, collusion (conspiracies rather than coalition building), noncreative disruption and destruction, oneupmanship, passive-aggression or rage Preempt abandonment, injuries, mortification: defection, whistleblowing, subversion, virtue signaling, competitive victimhood, litigiousness Emphasis on appearance, not substance (shared fantasy): entitlement, shortcuts, IP and other crimes (mainly white collar), headline knowledge and faked expertise, plagiarism or undue credit, misrepresentation and inflation, grandiose big picture and disdain for details (bean counting), procrastination and perfectionism. WATCH Narcissistic Boss or Employer: Coping and Survival Tactics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_YdgSy77xY Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

The same brain circuitry is responsible for processing space and memory. Infant amnesia vs. childhood amnesia Flaw in spatial processing and language processing caused by trauma and abuse (hiding and being entrained) results in: 1. Inability to tell external from internal (psychosis, narcissism), hyperreflexivity 2. Impaired ability to form memories 3. Impaired reality testing 4. Grandiose magical thinking (referential ideation, paranoia, psychotic megalomania, erotomanic delusion) 5. Identity diffusion and disturbance 6. Arrested development (infantilism) LITERATURE Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World by M. R. O'Connor, St. Martin's Press, 2019 Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Decline in cognitive functioning owing to stress and anxiety. Dementias are like mortification because they involve public shaming in front of significant others. Concealment strategies including confabulations that resemble gaslighting. Narcissist’s grandiosity challenged, especially omniscience and perfection. Withdrawal and avoidance unsustainable strategies. Depression and grief. Loss of independence challenges omnipotence, exposes vulnerability. Frustration breeds aggression, agitation, impatience, alloplastic defenses (blaming others). Paranoid ideation and rage. Defiance and contumaciousness (refusing medical treatment). Role of secondary supply (recounting past glories), selective memory (island of stability preferred). Suicidal ideation. LITERATURE Deví Bastida J, Genescà Pujol J, Valle Vives S, Jofre Font S, Fetscher Eickhoff A, Arroyo Cardona E. Disorder of the personality: a possible factor of risk for the dementia. Actas Esp Psiquiatr. 2019 Mar;47(2):61-9. Epub 2019 Mar 1. PMID: 31017274. Poletti M, Bonuccelli U. From narcissistic personality disorder to frontotemporal dementia: a case report. Behav Neurol. 2011;24(2):173-6. doi: 10.3233/BEN-2011-0326. PMID: 21606578; PMCID: PMC5377953. Austin J Clin Neurol 2015;2(7): 1057. Narcissism Vulnerability as Risk Factor for Alzheimer´s Disease- A Prospective Study By Daniel Serrani, Department of Psychobiology, Faculty of Psychology, National University of Rosario, Berutti 250 bis, Rosario, Santa Fe (S2000QBE), Argentina Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Narcissism cannot be reduced to specific genes or to pinpointed neural pathways or activities. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is all-pervasive: narcissism IS the narcissist. Categorical criteria phased out in favor of dimensional alternative model. Additionally, we are transitioning from a static to a dynamics model (no type constancy) and from an ego-syntomic to an ego-dystonic (compensatory) model. Heritability not gene specificity. Hereditary contribution in BPD, AsPD (psychopathy). LITERATURE DiLalla, L.F., Diaz, E., Jamnik, M.R. (2020). Toward the Dark Side: Temperament, Personality, and Genetics Related to Antisocial Behaviors. In: Saudino, K.J., Ganiban, J.M. (eds) Behavior Genetics of Temperament and Personality. Advances in Behavior Genetics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0933-0_7 Cascio CN, Konrath SH, Falk EB. Narcissists' social pain seen only in the brain. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2015 Mar;10(3):335-41. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsu072. Epub 2014 May 23. PMID: 24860084; PMCID: PMC4350489. Benedek M, Jauk E, Beaty RE, Fink A, Koschutnig K, Neubauer AC. Brain mechanisms associated with internally directed attention and self-generated thought. Sci Rep. 2016 Mar 10;6:22959. doi: 10.1038/srep22959. PMID: 26960259; PMCID: PMC4785374. Borráz-León JI, Spreitzer A, Scrivner C, Landers M, Lee R, Maestripieri D. Cortisol reactivity to psychosocial stress in vulnerable and grandiose narcissists: An exploratory study. Front Psychol. 2023 Jan 6;13:1067456. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1067456. PMID: 36687967; PMCID: PMC9852882. Czarna, A.Z., Wróbel, M., Folger, L.F., Holtzman, N.S., Raley, J.R., & Foster, J.D. (in press). Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Evolutionary roots and emotional profiles. In T.K. Shackelford & L. Al-Shawaf (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions. Oxford University Press. Liveslye, W.J., Jank, K.L., Jackson, B.N., Vernon, P.A.. 1993. Genetic and environmental contributions to dimensions of personality disorders. Am. J. Psychiatry. 150(O12):1826-31. Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Narcissists always claim to be victims, play the victim's card, sometimes convincingly. Codependents and people-pleasers use control from the bottom and victimhood. But so do narcissists. Many of them claim to have been devalued and discarded. How to tell which is which? Splitting (I am all good, they are all bad) Non-discrimination (every girlfriend, spouse, business partner victimized them) Self-pity Ostentation coupled with goal orientation: celebrity, money, sex Alloplastic defenses and an external locus of control: no responsibility or blame as a defense against shame and guilt (none of this was my fault, I am not responsible, I contributed nothing to my predicament) Denial of misconduct or proportionality of response, grandiose morality, claims of coercion or brainwashing Never apologize Automatism (never reflect and analyze) Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3