@@juliannprouty2215Only insofar as a choice of mask is concerned. He may choose a mask that is less harmful to others, but this is an on-paper choice, it is never with emotions. The MOST important central feature of narcissists is that they do not feel guilt-- they are incapable of it.
@@karlheinz5858 Sociopaths can feel guilt in many cases. Central to psychopathy is disordered learning and absence of all genuine affect outside of the rudimentary basics within the moment. In other words, psychopaths do not experience feelings upon remembering something and will most often appear disinterested when recounting a horrific criminal act in a forensic interview. James Fallon (neuroscientist who accidentally discovered he was a psychopath-- non-violent, of course) has a great book on the topic. Dr Robert Hare's writing is another great source. "Sociopath" (ASPD) is not as clear a construct as many think. It could be anywhere between psychopathy/narcissism/borderline-- the central feature is lack of remorse and HIGH impulsivity. ADHD is a VERY common comorbidity, as evidenced by effective clinical responsiveness to dexamphetamine such that violent impulses become reduced, likely due to increased mPFC activity following appropriate dosing parameters. Many of those with ASPD can actually feel guilt, though it is usually lost in their scrambled nest of impulses.
What’s interesting to me is that narcissists often see other narcissists tactics very clearly You want to know what a covert is up to…check with another narcissist that knows them. I believe there is a recognition among them.
After watching many of Professor Vaknin’s videos, this one clarified so much for me. I got rid of my pathological hope and got divorced. Healing is taking a while, but my life has gotten so much better🙌🏼
I am in the same proces,after 15 years and two kids with covert narcistis wife i am in proces of diticg my hope. My health and my kids are not worth it to sacrafise myself and them to the oltar of the patological quasi religion of a narcisist. greetings form the city where sam and lidia lives:))))
@@maligjokica same for me. Just started the divorce process. Hope that you are feeling better and all is going smoothly with your divorce. Sending Love & Hugs from France. ❤
Wow this hit me 🙏🔥 I was definitely kind of guided today to this video. It feels a bit like that for the first time I got it, I got the part about the mirroring and who I am that made me fall for it . Followed by the most destructive years ever. I am still a damn people pleaser (it’s really like being doomed with it - it just runs like a Programm) and probably looks is gonna kill me (cancer). I can definitely say for sure the loudest death forcing voice in my head is my mother. There was no separation between us. Especially when I cared for her and moved back home at the age of 33, I merged into her life as if I would stop existing as a separate being. She died 6 years ago - but it’s her harsh “you’re too stupid for any thing” voice that’s still making me freak out emotionally. Thank you 3 for the Great interview 💎
I am enjoying this conversation so much. It is a different side of Professor Vaknin and he looks so happy too. What a perfect arrangement and obviously a deep lasting friendship between the two.
Yes, very helpful to recognize and say, "this voice in my head is not mine. I've experienced this the voice of that person and my mother's somehow go hand in hand
I'm just coming to terms and accepting allot of this information and what is going on with me and my wife. We've been married for 16 years and this is an extremely hard time for me. But this channel is one of the very few, maybe the only one out of many I can resonate with. It's also the most emotionally impactful for me. Thank you Professor Vaknin.
I am in the same spot, (15 years and two kids with covert narcistis wife). My health and my kids are not worth it to sacrafise myself and them to the oltar of the patological quasi religion of a narcisist. Its very soulcrushing to be in this state and only God ,close friends and family can help, so dont give up your frineds and extended family no matter what your wife say abouit them and trying to destroy your social conections outside your marige. greetings form the city where sam and lidia lives:))))
@@Nope-ru1rd very fascinating indeed. Professor Sam Vaknin breaks down narcissism, and distinguishes each type, in a way that makes sense. Very informative.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I'm Japanese (though born and raised in the U.S.) and I'm currently living in Japan, and I have been formulating, albeit in it's infancy that Japan is a narcissistic society myself. But I had felt alone in thinking it this way and I hadn't seen other people (including those who thinks so too in the replies) so plainly put till seeing it here. The reason is that I've come to think this, is because the abuse I felt from narcissistic abuse, so much permeates it's culture to the point that both the act of abuse and it's symptoms can't even be described in Japanese because it is so normal or a part of life being Japanese. By being Japanese, I mean, the active participation in being Japanese. A difficulty I have met countless of times trying to explain to Japanese people, including my parents. Something I've only been able to begin identifying and understand through the vocabulary in English. *Revisiting this comment a few minutes into the interview at 5:10 that the language had to be invented to explain this makes complete sense that I find myself in impossible situations trying to explain this.
Such a concise explanation of narcissism. Two of my siblings are narcissistic. I see the mother wounds. My mom parentified my sister. She raised my sister to never leave her and as a surrogate spouse. They were enmeshed. My sister never found her own identity and was unable to separate from my mother. My sister never held a job, got married, etc. She stayed with my mom til my mom’s passing. My sister became pathologically envious of us, her siblings because we went on to have our own lives. She has played the victim her entire life. She blamed my mom and her siblings for being stuck with my mom. Her whole life she has had a mentality of entitlement that we all owe her for sacrificing her life to look after our mom. All the time, she could have left but says my mom emotionally crippled her from doing so and we didn’t stay back to rescue her. My brother, on the other hand, was doted on and my mother had weak boundaries with him. My mom was more concerned with my brother liking her that she gave in to his tantrums and fawned over him. Now he has struggled w narc rage and broken relationships. He has zero contact with the majority of our family after destructive patterns of behavior where after many chances, we’ve all had enough. I often wondered why out of five siblings, my brother and sister were this way and I see the way they connected with my mom was different than the other 3 including myself.
''For a child not to become a narcissist later is to teach him how to care of himself/ herself, to enable the child to connect with others (because narcissists don't connect with anyone). Connect with others because people are also part of the environment and in this engagement exercise fairness. In social settings it's normal that there are ''fights'' natural in competition. And of course the child should fight for himself/herself. The parents should teach their children how to fight, it's not like ''okay you should not fight''. Oefff this part got to me, when Lidija mentions how the child should learn to fight: The parents should teach the child how to PRESERVE what they think of them (positive introjects) that was validated by the parents and the others until then..'' It's like coming full circle to what prof. Sam Vaknin was saying prior. So if you have negative introjects, the voices of your parents in your head nagging you, invalidating you by many means possible, and you have less of the good voices you are screwed , so to speak. You won't advocate for yourself when in the social milieu where naturally competition arises. You will want to avoid connecting with people. Or in cases where there are no options to avoid people, you will resort to some sorts of defences as mentioned by prof. Sam. Amazing conversation.
This talk is very helpful, I recognized that many people I met in the past as bosses, friends, potential partners reminded me of my mother, now they no longer come around ms me learned about it
This is exactly what has happened in my culture in New Zealand. I watched it happen in my family. Everything Became about business in New Zealand. Parents broke up, both of them are working, everything is about buying back houses and cars and fancy clothes. Much more important than children, or caring about each other. People will just stand all over one another to make Money. That is such a very important point that she is commenting on in this video. I have just watched the Mercilus nature of this transformation of our country.
Anyone reading this please realize this is not an accurate perception of New Zealand. We have a very strong welfare system, for low income earners and superannuation for over 65's, regardless of how much and individual earned. There is a free medical system and a community services discount. We are a bilingual country with a Treaty of Waitangi. Our environmental and biosecurity laws are some of the strongest on the planet.
Thank you for sharing Lydija and THANK YOU for rescuing the book. It gave us a lexicon and vocabulary to begin to understand and map this landscape. And some of us are lucky enough to get out somewhat intact.
Change the old stories that keep coming up. It's fun, uses your imagination, and is quite healing, and lots of work at first. Once you stay on top of it it lessens, and changes to the new stories you've implanted. Thank you Sam and friends❤
Amazing 🤩 thank you 🙏 for explaining it again. I am grateful for your informations, helping me working my way through all of the features of healing trauma and surviving dysfunctional family structures. You bring a lot of clarity to me… to learn to discern introjects from my own inner voice and to trust my intuition 💫
Thank you and Mrs. Lidija and your guest! I always learn something new or gain a deeper understanding.. these videos are very much appreciated ❤much love 💕
In case any viewers wonder, like I had, about the relation of this video to the one Prof. Vaknin uploaded yesterday, here we see the whole interview including the first ~42min cropped from yesterday's. I'd intended to rewatch anyway, as I do many of these videos. Thanks Lidija, Sam, and Enkhbayar!
I absolutely agree that capitalism has the ability to create a narcissistic society, but I think it is more complex than that. Without checks and balances and people of integrity, this will happen in any society. Socialism just keeps a tighter grip on the checks and balances... which is why it functions better with human behaviour. In socialism greed is less likely to grow... but greed is everywhere. Thank you for this insight. I understand how populations that are in socialist societies perceive those in capitalist societies. We are not so different in our perception of one another. I find that fascinating. I will note that we should all be cautious of our society blind spots. Greed is at the top everywhere, in all societies.
I personally think that Lidijas suggestion to look into oneself and do smth with things we are good at (like publishing) is rather existential: find your own sense of life in this chaotic world, do smth you are good at, not for millions, but for self-fulfillment. What do you think?
There is a answer....the Bible. It says the LOVE of money is the problem not money itself. The individual would share out of morality not selfishness. Forcing people to do things makes them want to protect themselves and their property. Ultimate selfishness is the few suppressing the masses for their own need to control. That sound psychopathic narcissisism.
Now, you are becoming one of my favorite "wisdoms" out there. Belive it or not Sam, there is one cave in Canary Islands when a couple of Bulgarians lived ( yes - a cave) and left, years ago, a book of such Sam Vaknin, a book of minor editor, with "Babel tower" in frontpage and an actually a set of articles about balkans and ottoman hertige and psychic conflict of balkanic area etc. Sam Vaknin... was the author (I was not sure until now) , and now when you mentioned North Macedonia, than I am sure it was you yourselve in Canary Islands Cave....
Living an authentic life, not being moulded or forced that is what she is talking about in this video. Could you both write another book about what would heal the situation? I think it is so important to discuss this topic in more detail because it hits on what makes someone have to create a false self to survive in this competitive bullying world of everyone chasing money and putting that first. It is destroying the planet as well because it is at its expense. It is a matter of values and what we are taught matters. Even the parent that won’t let their child individuate is wanting some sort of sense of self and using the child. Or trying to cope by parentifing. Perhaps that happens more because mothers are on their own more, trying to survive, couples started to divorce for the first time. Maybe that is why we have more narcissistic people. Woman wanted more equality.
I've been searching for something greater than hope for a pretty good while now. Thanks for enduring the more tortuous moments of the mind, and expressing your experience. I think you, (Sam Vaknin), are pretty much on the cutting edge of the thing.. but don't get excited.. the cutting edge is not the fun portion of any blade.
How do you distinguish between if it’s the Psychopath vs. the Narcissist trait of whether it’s future faking vs.the fantasy if I am dealing with a Malignant Narcissist who has traits of both? Which do I believe?
Sir, i need help... my person has NPD issue, but i don't want to leave him... i get hurt by his actions everytime, but i care for him. What should i do so that i can live my life with him ?
Does "identity," exist only between people? (good to see the collaboration). I liked the brief assessment of governmental failure, (facing the prospects of "no hope"). I want to ask about the deepest core belief, (all the intellectual coping aside), "good," or "evil," or both.. and can we stand knowing the two will always be equal and must be, (or there will be no electricity). Because, if it is up to everyone to become an individual, (if the job of government could be limited to the "honoring contracts" between individuals), will there always be competition between two men? Because I see what you are doing as "self-mastery," (which most people seem to refuse to do or are too frightened to look, or quit when they are momentarily overwhelmed).. My experience with alcoholism leads me to the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous who defined his problem as an "inability to form an true partnership with another human being."
