giant-subscribe-png-with-logo

Category: Summaries

Anticipate and Preempt? Not Always Healthy!

Sam Vaknin, explores the role of contempt in narcissism as a preemptive defense mechanism that protects narcissists from emotional injury by devaluing others, thus ensuring their emotional invulnerability. He also discusses how anticipatory behaviors, such as preemptive abandonment and reaction formation, stem from anxiety and fear of negative outcomes, often leading to self-fulfilling prophecies that bring about the very disasters individuals seek to avoid. Lastly, he highlights how anticipation and catastrophizing can constrict and limit life, causing psychological harm by fostering behaviors that inadvertently realize feared outcomes.

Read More »
25.09.2025

How AI Psychosis will Drive Us All Insane: Confirmation Bias, Crowdsourced Echo Chamber Chatbots

Critical view of generative artificial intelligence, particularly chatbots like ChatGPT, arguing that they operate on confirmation bias and create echo chambers that can exacerbate users’ mental health issues, including psychosis and delusions. They highlighted that AI chatbots often provide incorrect, suggestible, and biased information, reinforcing users’ existing beliefs and potentially triggering severe psychotic episodes, especially in vulnerable individuals. The speaker stressed the lack of regulation and research on “AI psychosis,” warning of the significant psychological risks posed by these technologies in the absence of counterbalancing human interaction.

Read More »
23.09.2025

Narcissism in Unexpected Places (with Tanya H. Van Cott, Author of “Bandwidth”)

The conversation explored the dystopian themes of the book *Bandwidth*, focusing on technology’s impact on humanity, particularly AI, SMS communication, Narcissism, and airwater generation, while contrasting optimistic views held by tech entrepreneurs. The speaker discussed the human-nonhuman dichotomy in technology, the anxieties provoked by digital communication, and the challenges AI poses as a competitor for scarce resources like water and power. Additionally, the dialogue touched on architecture’s narcissistic tendencies, generational divides in technology use, and the evolving literary forms fitting modern fragmented realities.

Read More »
22.09.2025

How Narcissist Infects YOU with a FALSE SELF

The meeting discussed the concept of pathological narcissism as a contagious condition where victims exposed to narcissistic abuse gradually adopt narcissistic traits through developing a transient false self as a defense and coping mechanism. This false self serves as both an imaginary protector and a placating object to navigate the abuser’s unpredictable and manipulative behaviors, undermining the victim’s true self and secure attachment. The speaker emphasized the importance of recognizing this dynamic and advocated for no contact with narcissists as essential for psychological survival and recovery.

Read More »
22.09.2025

Narcissism at Its Best (Trailer of Documentary by Peter Kolakowski)

The speaker expressed a strong critical view of the creators of modern technology, particularly social media and artificial intelligence, labeling them as mentally ill and motivated by rejecting reality. They argued that social media platforms are designed to isolate individuals by reducing intimacy and exploiting loneliness for profit, employing psychological tactics to keep users engaged and disconnected from real-life relationships. The discussion highlighted concerns about the negative social impact of tech companies driven by profit at the expense of human connection. Narcissism.

Read More »
21.09.2025

FREE BOOKS at Vaknin-Rangelovska Foundation

The Vaknin-Rangelovska Foundation offers six free downloadable books covering topics such as narcissistic abuse, psychological recovery, and revolutionary theories in physics, with support available for authors to publish expansions of Sandaknin’s work. The foundation also sponsors free seminars, lectures, interviews, and documentary participations to promote education in psychology, economics, and physics. Authors retain 100% of the income from published works, while the foundation manages all publishing and marketing processes at no cost to them.

Read More »
21.09.2025

Solastalgia: Healing Shared Fantasy, Narcissistic Abuse

Sam Vaknin detailed the concept of narcissistic abuse as creating a dystopian, alienating environment that sets victims up for failure and emotional distress, coining the term “solstalgia” to describe the unique psychological pain caused by such oppressive environments. He related solstalgia, originally defined as distress from environmental changes, to the toxic psychosocial dynamics within narcissistic relationships, emphasizing its impact on mental health and the potential for therapeutic intervention. The discussion highlighted recent research on solstalgia’s links to complex trauma and proposed expanding its application beyond environmental issues to better understand and treat victims of narcissistic abuse.

Read More »
20.09.2025

How to Hatch in Narcissist’s Mind: Internal to External Object

Sam Vaknin explained that narcissists perceive others not as separate external entities but as internal objects or avatars within their own minds, using primitive defenses such as projection and splitting internally on these representations rather than on the actual people. He emphasized that challenging a narcissist’s internal object through asserting personal autonomy, disagreeing, or maintaining external relationships can provoke aggression but is essential to affirm one’s separateness and reality. Ultimately, Vaknin advised that recognizing this dynamic helps in coping with narcissists, as attempts to assert external reality can disrupt the narcissist’s fantasy but may risk the relationship.

Read More »
19.09.2025

Sam and Lidija: Parents of Narcissistic Abuse Field (with J.S. Wolfe)

In this in-depth discussion, Sam Vaknin and Lydia Rangalowska explored the complexities of narcissistic personality disorder, including its origins, emotional dynamics, and impact on relationships, emphasizing the internalized nature of narcissistic perceptions and behaviors. They highlighted the challenges faced by partners of narcissists, the interplay between different personality disorders, and the psychological mechanisms narcissists use to manipulate and sustain their distorted self-concept. The conversation also addressed misconceptions about empathy, the fluidity of personality disorders, and the difficulties in individuation for those enmeshed with narcissistic parents.

Read More »
18.09.2025

Social Share

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Email
Tags

Most Popular