Sam Vaknin Interview - Excerpts Part 23 - Narcissist Self

Written by Sam Vaknin

For someone like me - this is an impossible world to live in. I am intelligent, forever curious to learn more about seemingly unnecessary things. I am intolerant of ignorance and stupidity in all its forms. While in the 1960's I could have survived somehow - today it is very difficult to even breathe. EVERYONE is stupid. University professors don't read books. Authors don't spell correctly. Freight forwarders know little about customs procedures.

Soldiers are too afraid to fight (hence "smart bombs" to replace soldiers). It is a total degeneration of all civilization.

Every time I come across a reminder of this - I MUCH PREFER my computer and books to ANY human. This is why I LOVED it in jail. Together with the army (another kind of jail) - it was the best period of my life. I didn't have to deal with humans.

4. The Good Enough Mother

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The critical question is, of course, not whether she can be a good mother to her teen off-spring, but whether (to use Winnicott's phrase) she has been a "good enough mother" to her children when they were younger. Most theoreticians agree that the critical ages are 4 months to 6 years. It is then that most (not all, but most) of the long term damage is done.

She is crying for help the only way she knows how. She is playing on the fact that her father feels threatened by her exploding sexuality. She maximizes this threat by behaving promiscuously or by seeming to do so. It is her way of saying: "Daddy, I am hurting so terribly! Please help me!".

The FIRST thing he must do is VALIDATE this pain of hers. Ignoring it, denying it, belittling it, transforming, it, redirecting it, projecting it - is WRONG. It will (and does) have adverse effects.

The SOURCE of the pain, at least at this stage, is IMMATERIAL.

She must know that there is one place - ONE place - in this ominous, dangerous, capricious, arbitrary universe - one place where she is accepted and loved unconditionally AS SHE IS. One place where she DOES NOT have to play slut or gay or strip herself to gain attention, credence and an ear. She must be listened to and believed. She is in pain. If someone is bleeding - will a doctor postpone all treatment until he finds the instrument that wounded the patient?

5. Vindicating One's Self-Loathing

She is looking to victimize herself and thus validate the judgement instilled in her that she is worthless, lowly scum.

BUT

She is also testing the world to see: is it really as bad? Are all people vicious exploiters, devoid of conscience?

In psychological parlance: is everyone a "bad object"?

She is employing Projective Identification (PI) and Splitting (S).

These are two primitive defence mechanisms (defence against pain usually inflicted by a mother).

PI is when she tries to force people to conform to her view of them. If she thinks someone is a bad object she does her damnedest to provoke him, invoke anger, and a sense of threat and danger in him, motivate him to BE a bad object. Finally, when the inevitable reaction comes, she feels vindicated ("you see, I was right all along, everyone IS rotten, including my Daddy").

Splitting is the separation of the good aspects of an object (a person) from his bad aspects. If the person is seen as bad - the good aspects are tossed aside and often attributed to someone else (projection). Then the person remains "all bad".

She does not need things one can measure or count (time, money, possessions). She needs love, caring, sharing and support. Some of us are less gifted at giving these to others - because we never received them ourselves. This is the tragedy of mental disorders. Like some genetic curse, they are handed from one generation to the other, oblivious to all good intentions and fervent promises made.

6. The Narcissist as a Meaningful Other

The child modifies his behaviour in order to secure the Narcissist's continued love, so as not to be abandoned.

This is the root of the perniciousness of this phenomenon:

The narcissist IS a meaningful, crucially significant figure ("object") in the Inverted Narcissist's (IN) life.

This is the narcissist's leverage over the IN. And since the IN is usually very young when she makes the adaptation to the N - it all boils down to fear of abandonment and death in the absence of care and sustenance.

I don't think inverted narcissism is as much a wish to gratify one's narcissist (parent) - as the sheer terror of forever withholding gratification from one's self.