Welcome to another episode of the Vaknin Psychology Horror Show. My name is Sam Vaknin, I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited and a Professor of Psychology. And I'm churning out videos as though my life depended on it. You know what? It may well be. So, today we're going to discuss anti-narcissism. Anti-narcissism is not what you think. And we're going to connect anti-narcissism to sexual self-trashing. We're going to connect sexual self-trashing to masochism. In short, we're going to have us a joyride in the Disneyland of the human mind. Stay with me. Awake, please. Okay, start with anti-narcissism.  Many people, including Wikipedia, by the way, make this mistake. That anti-narcissism is about suspending the ego. Ego death. I don't know what. It's not about Nelson Mandela. It's not about elevating the community about the self. It's not about subjecting oneself to the greater good. It's not about being an altruist. It's not about being charitable.  Anti-narcissism is actually another form of narcissism. It has a close affinity to covert narcissism. But it precedes covert narcissism as a theoretical construct. And it may have given rise to the clinical diagnosis of covert narcissism, which, by the way, is now an official part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Edition 5, in everything but name. They don't mention the words covert narcissism, but they describe it. Okay, the word anti-narcissism was coined by a French psychoanalyst in 1964. His name was Francis Pash. Francis Pash was a very cantankerous old chap, very grumpy, reminds you of someone, and he was clashing with everyone about how to conduct psychoanalysis, how to cure patients. Should we cure patients? Is therapy a coercive system where the analyst imposes his internal world on the patient, on the client, etc., etc.? So he was fighting with everyone. But one of his more obscure contributions was the concept of anti-narcissism. At the time in the 60s, there was a big debate involving Lacan and others. What is narcissism? What is the role of narcissism in psychological development? Jung said that narcissism is a part of a process called introversion. And that introversion is a crucial phase in the development or constellation of a self. Freud said long before Jung that narcissism is a bad thing. It's very good when you're a baby, but if you remain stuck with narcissism when you're an adult, you remain a baby. So it's not good to be a baby when you're an adult. Having narcissism when you're an adult is called secondary narcissism in Freud's language. And it's considered to be pathological in the Freudian branch of psychoanalysis. So it was this huge debate in the 60s. And in the 60s, the dominant psychological theory was indeed psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis, psychodynamic schools, object relations schools, and so on and so forth. All of the offshoots of Freud and his family are not Freud and others. Pash said that anti-narcism is where the catexis, the investment of emotional and cognitive resources is not inside, is not in the self or the fragmented self, but instead it is externalized. It is thrown out. It's projected. So while the classic narcissists overt and covert, grandiose and covert, all types of narcissists that we know invest their mental resources in themselves. They are, for example, auto-erotic. They are grandiose. They generate fantasies to support the self-image, inflated self-image. They invest a lot of energy in securing narcissistic supply. So while the vast majority of narcissists are self-oriented, even though they don't have a self and they don't have an ego, they're kind of this protoplasmic mass that is goal-oriented and the goal is narcissistic supply. It's very much like a virus. The virus doesn't have a nucleus and yet it is purposeful. The virus has a purpose, has a goal and has a trajectory and mode of operation and action. The same with the narcissists. There's nobody there. There's no sense. There's no ego. But there is an investment in this absence, if you wish, in the empty schizoid core as Seinfeld and others, a country and others called it. So Pash said, well, that may be the majority of narcissists, but there is a small group of narcissists who take this investment, these mental resources, this energy, these emotions, these cognitions, negative emotions, yes, these cognitions. What they do, they divest it. They divest it. They live up on these resources. They throw them away or they give them out and they do this not because they get anything, not because they obtain anything, not because it helps them to secure some goal, not even for narcissistic supply that is generated from the outside. As we shall see a bit later, they do this in order to generate self-supply. But to all appearances looking from the outside, they appear to be benevolent, saintly, altruistic, charitable, helpful, supportive people, loving and caring and compassionate and empathic. And yet this is all an externalization of energy that in the normal run-of-the-mill pedestrian narcissists goes towards buttressing grandiosity. So these narcissists are grandiose, but in a very different way. And they are invested in narcissistic supply, but generated from the inside. The core, the engine of narcissistic supply, in their case, in the case of anti-nausices, the engine is inside and the supply is self-generated. It's the most extreme form of schizoid reclusivity. It's being the loner's loner. It's like cutting yourself off from everyone and everything and becoming a totally self-sustaining, self-containing unit of production and consumption. So their interactions with other people are interactions of giving. It's about giving. It's about helping. And people are very grateful to them and love them and admire them. But this admiration and gratitude don't touch them. They are non-reactive to it. Most anti-nausices are actually schizoid. Then they find human company, including sex, to be very burdensome, very unpleasurable.  So they don't need people. Why do they do this? Why do they help people? Why do they become pillars of the community, saintly figures and so on? Because, as you will see a bit later, it's part of their masochism. We are talking to remind you about anti-nausices. The original thinker, Christopher Bollas, B-O-L-L-A-S, who came up with the unthought known. I recommend to you to seek out the videos, my videos in which I discuss his concept of unthought known. The concept of unthought known is at the core of cold therapy, the treatment modality that I developed. So I'm in great debt to Christopher Bollas and I'm an admirer, unbeknownst to him. So Christopher Bollas introduced the unthought known, but he also introduced an elaboration on Pasha's concept of anti-nausices. He said that anti-nausices is a self-limiting kind of narcissist. A narcissist who refuses to develop himself. A narcissist who refuses declines to leverage his talents and skills. A narcissist who seeks defeat and failure. Not an exaggerated sense of self-importance via success, but an exaggerated sense of self-importance via defeat. It's like they're broadcasting to the world, look how total and perfect my failure is. They revel in the impeccability and totality and absoluteness and perfection of their defeats. It's like the only thing they are truly good at is failing. The only thing they succeed in is failing and their only expertise is defeat. Everyone is proud. We are all proud of things we are good at. They are proud of their failures because they are good at failing. We are all proud of our expertise or knowledge or scholarship. They are proud of their defeats because their experts at defeat. This is the core of their grandiosity, their own humiliation, their own deterioration, their own degeneration and decomposition and disintegration, their own failure and defeat. Their own ending up at the bottom of the ladder on the scrap heap of their own personal history. Alone, bereft, homeless if possible. As he said, Bolas, Christopher Bolas said, this anti-elaborative person stues in his own juice and adamantly refuses to nurture himself. So the antithesis deep inside is actually hostile, is actually sadistic. But he covers up for this core, this seething volcanic core, this mayasma of emanations of hatred, loathing, envy. He covers all of this up with a self-effacing facade of care, compassion and consideration for others. Does it remind you of something? Yes, that's the antecedent of the covert narcissist. That is the first formulation and the first construction of the idea of a covert narcissist, a shy, fragile, vulnerable narcissist, narcissist who doesn't dare, narcissism who doesn't dare to speak its name, the homosexuality of the zoo of narcissism, the hidden propensity, the hidden proclivity, the hidden orientation. So the anti-narcissist is what we would call today the covert narcissist. It's a narcissist, but with one variation, the covert narcissist actually seeks success, fantasizes about success, about power, about sex, about money, about access, about contacts, about fame, about celebrity. So the fantasies of the grandiose narcissist and the fantasies of the classic covert narcissist are the same. But the anti-narcissistic covert narcissist, his fantasy is self-degradation, dispoiling, demeaning himself, denigrating himself, debasing, humiliating himself, falling apart, disintegrating, failing at everything, being defeated, being trodden upon, being trampled on, these are his fantasies and they are of course masochistic fantasies. So the anti-narcissistic covert narcissist is a masochist. Simply, when covert narcissism teams up with masochism, we get the anti-narcissistic covert narcissist. Another great mind who I quote very often is Andrei Green.  So Andrei Green got involved in this fraca, in this debate and he also contributed to our understanding of anti-narcissism. But before we go there, let's summarize what we know. They are grandiose narcissists and classic covert narcissists. These people are revolved around grandiosity, both the grandiose narcissists, covert narcissists, classic narcissists, and the covert narcissists of all types, somatic, cerebral, you name it, all of them revolve around securing narcissistic supply so as to uphold a sense of grandiosity and an inflated self-image. Now, the covert narcissists secure supply in underhanded passive-aggressive ways or via another narcissist, in which case it is an inverted narcissist. The grandiose narcissist just goes at it. There in due, he takes the initiative, he extracts narcissistic supply from his human environment. There's a third type, the anti-narcissistic covert narcissists, masochistic covert narcissists. That is a type of narcissist who does not seek to uphold this grandiosity on the very contrary. He wants the kind of supply that will put him down, humiliate him, prove him to be a loser, display in full view his defeats and failures, self-flagellation, self-torture, self-humiliation. That's the third variant. And Greg Green said that anti-narcissism is negative narcissism, negative narcissism that seeks to self-destructively abolish any vestige of ego. In other words, seeks to abolish the true self. The anti-narcissist is actually, because you remember, the classic narcissist has a schizoid core. Schizoid core is a vacuum chamber. It's a vast emptiness encased in a rigid shell. And on this core, there are layers and layers like an onion. There are layers and layers of grandiosity, exploitativeness, lack of empathy. Put all of this together and you have a narcissist. So there's all narcissists have an empty schizoid core. The anti-narcissistic, the anti-narcissistic narcissists, the anti-narcissist covert narcissists, the masochistic narcissists has only the core. He doesn't have these onion layers. He has only the empty schizoid core. So he seeks annihilation. His existence is emptiness. He exists only when he does not exist. For him to exist is to not be. Hamlet, to be or not to be, to not be. To exist is to not be. Unbeing or not being is the essence, the quiddity and the quintessence of the anti-narcissistic, masochistic narcissists. The covert, the second type of covert narcissists. The emptiness, he guards the emptiness like a hallowed treasure. He nurtures it, he cultivates it and he feeds this emptiness with self-annihilation, self-destruction, self-defeat, self-trashing, as we will see in a minute. This way, he renders himself one with a schizoid core. He is at ease. He is at peace. His anxiety is ameliorated. His depression disappears. The reason for egodistony, for anxiety and for depression in narcissism is the gap between the narcissists and internal constructs such as the ego ideal. So, the narcissist is in constant dissonance between himself as he is and internal constructs which expect him to be different, call upon him to be different. It's the same with the anti-narcissistic, masochistic covert narcissists. The anti-narcissistic narcissists is an emptiness. That's his core. That's who he aspires to be. Ultimately, he wants to merge with his real essence, like all of us do. All of us want this. And he is no exception, but his essence is an absence. To become an absence, he must self-destruct. Ironically, self-destruction, in the case of the anti-narcissistic covert narcissists, self-destruction is self-construction. Annihilation is the only form of existence, the only way to guarantee existence. And being is the only shape of being. When the anti-narcissistic narcissists destroys himself to smithereens, ruins himself, defeats himself, fails and disintegrates, it is then that he becomes one with his empty schizoid core, which is nirvana, total sense of calmness, no dissonance. When you're one with your essence, that's happiness. That's ironically mental health. So as André Green writes, anti-narcissism is negative narcissism that seeks destructively to abolish the vestiges of the ego. And André Green suggested that there is what he called dual narcissism. Dual narcissism. He said that one type of narcissism has to do with the life force, with the drive to life, with the libido, with the eros in Freud's language. And another type of narcissism has to do with the death force, Thanatos or Destrudo or Moutido in psychoanalytic parlance or lingo. So he said one narcissism associated with life force, one with the death force, and he called it the duality of narcissism or dual narcissism or positive narcissism versus negative narcissism. He says positive narcissists, they want to reach unity. They want to reach unity. Negative narcissists, they want to reach zero. They aim with nothingness. So the positive narcissists wants to become one. The one. God. The totality. Perfection. Omni shields. Omni potens. Omni in Latin means everywhere. Everything. And the negative narcissists wants to become nothing. He wants to become zero. He wants to vanish. It is by vanishing that he exists. Absence is his essence. His internal experience is that of absence. Now you cannot, who is doing the experiencing? If there's nobody there, no self, no ego, no nothing.  The various internal objects. Like every narcissist. The anti-narcissistic narcissists has internal objects, introjects, voices of important people in his life, mother, father, teachers. All kinds of personality constructs without the personality. Influential people, et cetera. So he has numerous internal vestiges of emotions, strained cognitions. They're all there in that space. And they're the ones who are introspective. They're the ones who observe the narcissist and give him marks. You almost made it. One more push and you're zero. One more push and you're nothing. The concept of Andre Green is very much like Francis Pash, actually. Francis Pash said that anti-narcissism is something that is characterized by object and direction. And Andre Green is saying the same. Anti-narcissist object is zero or nothingness and his direction is inward. So this leads us to questions of masochism. And I debated with myself because I'm the only one I consult. I need to consult with the most intelligent person I know. So I debated with myself how to approach the subject of masochism. But not masochism in a classical sense. The sexual masochist or the psychological masochist. But masochism is a feature, is a figment, is a dimension of narcissism. And I thought I would begin by something that all of you would understand. And that is sex. Well, almost all of you. And that is sex. Let's talk about a type of behavior that can be divided into healthy and masochistic. But from the outside, observing the healthy version and observing the masochistic version, you may be forgiven if you make the mistake of thinking they are one and the same. So let's talk about the difference between promiscuity and sexual self-trashing. Let's start with the fact. The number of sexual partners of both men and women until age 31 seems to have risen dramatically over the past 13 years. Some studies say that the number of sexual partners had tripled, but only for a small minority of people. The average is skewed by the hyperactivity of a small minority.  But there is a huge difference between promiscuity and sexual self-trashing. Both of them, by the way, are kind of narcissistic activities. That's why promiscuity is intimately associated with borderline personality disorder, with histrionic personality disorder, with psychopathic personality disorder. Self-trashing is also a narcissistic activity. It's like, let me see how low I can go. The lower I go, the more perfect I am. I'm perfect in trashing myself. It's like an art form. Self-trashing becomes an art form. And the person who self-trashes herself is an artist, and she's proud of how low she can go, how deep she can sink, what horrible and disgusting things she does. And you know when you stand aside, and you see two people. One of them is promiscuous. One of them is self-trashing person, self-trasher, I will call them. You can't tell the difference. They behave, they look, they act, they make choices, they make decisions which look absolutely identical. Not the same, identical. But the psychological background is dramatically different. These are two types of grandiosity. Dramatically different types of grandiosity. Self-trashing is always compulsive. Promiscuity is not compulsive. Promiscuity is impulsive. Sometimes promiscuity is situational, but it's never compulsive. Self-trashes, people who self-trash sexually cannot help themselves. They have to self-trash, because self-trashing is not about sex. It's about finding your own identity. It's about merging with the empty schizoid core. Self-trashing is about disappearing, about not being. About obtaining peace and calm by vanishing. By merging with your empty schizoid core. About reducing your anxiety. So promiscuity is an active role. It is often experienced by promiscuous people as an empowering lifestyle. A choice, a conquest. Promiscuity boosts the participant's self-esteem and restores their sense of their inner locus of control. To cut a long story short, they feel in charge. Promiscuous people feel in charge. Self-trashing in contrast, in contradiction, self-trashing is not the same. Self-trashing is masochistic. It is self-punitive. It is self-punitive. Self-trashing is chiefly intended as an anxiolytic, anxiety ameliorating or anxiety reducing medication. It's an antidepressant. Self-trashing is self-medication. The person who self-trashes sexually, she self-medicates via temporary self-loathing, sexual self-annihilation. It's like she says, the only way to get rid of my anxiety and depression is to not be, to not be for a while.  In self-trashing, the preliminaries, flirting, courting, dating, talking, dancing, socializing with others, all these preliminaries are perfunctory, minimal, or in most cases non-existent. Sex for the self-trasher, for the sexual self-trasher, sex is the first move, not the second and not the culmination of any process. The self-trasher actually ends up bedding, going to bed, with unattractive mates, as a way to further despoil and degrade herself. She typically engages in kinky, reckless or extreme sexual acts in the first few minutes with unknown strangers. Alcohol and drugs frequently precede both promiscuity and self-trashing, but their use is different. The promiscuous person uses substances, alcohol, drugs, to disinhibit themselves, to get over shyness or social mores or values. They want to overcome these and do things they would not normally do if they were sober. This process is called disinhibition, and promiscuous people disinhibit themselves with alcohol and drugs. Self-trashing people leverage alcohol and drugs to numb themselves, to numb themselves, to put themselves to sleep. They want to reach the point of unconsciousness. They want to have a blackout. They don't want to experience the sex or to remember it in detail or the circumstances surrounding it. They want, even in the act of self-annihilation, to self-annihilate. They want, even as they vanish and disappear, in the arms of the total stranger who is abusing their body and preying on them, even in this act of vanishing, they want to vanish. They want to drink and they want to get stoned or high in order to not be, even before, the ultimate act of not being, which is sexual self-trashing. Not being is a light motive. It's the main common denominator in connecting feature and thread in the personality of the self-trash. The self-trash is actually an anti-nazisistic narcissist, and there is a lot of grandiosity in this. Because the self-trash says, I control my destiny. I'm going to decide. I'm going to act. I'm going to defy society. It's a bit psychopathic. I'm going to defy society, my parents, my upbringing, my values. I'm going to fly in everyone's face. I'm going to disappear. I'm going to vanish.  Society tells me to succeed. I'm going to fail.   It's a grandiose act. It's a defined act. And finally, promiscuity is egocintonic. Self-trashing is always egodistonic.  Many self-trashes report shame, regret, anger, disappointment and guilt, emotional blunting and an increase in anxiety and depression after the act. So I gave you an example of the regular narcissist, the grandiose overt classic narcissist in action. That would be promiscuity, especially if the narcissist is psychopathic. And the anti-narcissistic, covert masochistic narcissist, which would be the self-trashing narcissist in sex. But this is part, of course, of a bigger picture. The bigger picture is masochism. Masochistic personality disorder made its last appearance, last lamentable appearance, because I think it was a mistake to get rid of the sadistic and masochistic personality disorders. And in this, I have bigger lights to support me, Theodore Miller. Anyhow, masochistic personality disorder made its last appearance in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Edition 3, text revision. It was removed in the DSM-4 and 5. So, some scholars, as I mentioned, Theodore Miller, regard the removal of masochistic personality disorder as a mistake. And they had lobbied for many years to reinstate masochistic personality disorder in future editions of the DSM to no avail. It didn't work. So let's talk about masochism. Because masochism is a critical element in the grandiosity of the anti-narcissistic, covert narcissist. The masochist had been taught from an early age to hate herself, to consider herself unworthy of love and worthless as a person. Consequently, he or she is prone to self-destructive, punishing and self-defeating behaviors. Though capable of pleasure and possessed of social skills, the masochist avoids or undermines pleasurable experiences. He also transforms them into unpleasurable experiences. Example of self-trashing in sex. The masochist does not admit to enjoying himself. Seeks suffering, pain, defeat, failure, hurt in relationships, in situations. The masochist rejects help. He resents those who offer help. She actively renders futile attempts to assist or ameliorate or mitigate or solve her problems and predicaments. These self-penalizing behaviors are self-purging. They intend to relieve the masochist of overwhelming pent-up anxiety. The masochist's conduct is equally aimed at avoiding intimacy and the benefits of intimacy, companionship, support. Masochists tend to choose people and they tend to select circumstances that inevitably and predictably lead to failure, to disillusionment, to disappointment, to mistreatment. Conversely, they tend to avoid relationships, interactions and circumstances that are likely to result in success or gratification. They reject, disdain or even suspect people who consistently treat them well. Masochists find caring, loving persons sexually unattractive. Now of course you notice all these are elements of grandiosity. This masochist holds other people in contempt. They consider themselves somehow superior because they can tolerate pain and suffering. They are strong people. They consider their defeats and failures not as defeats and failures but as sublime choices. They are above the madding crowd. They are not in the rat race, you know? And so the masochist typically adopts unrealistic goals and guarantees under achievement. Masochists routinely fail at mundane tasks even when these are crucial to their own advancement and personal objectives. Even when they adequately carry out similar assignments on behalf of other people. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual gives this example. Masochist helps fellow students write papers but is unable to write his or her own paper. When the masochist fails at these attempts at self-subotage, he reacts with rage, depression and guilt. The masochist is likely to compensate for her undesired accomplishments and happiness by having an accident or by engaging in behaviors that produce abandonment, frustration, hurt, illness or physical pain. Some masochists make harmful self-sacrifices and called for by the situation and unwanted by the intended beneficiaries or recipients. The Projective Identification Defense Mechanism is frequently at play. The masochist deliberately provokes, solicits and incites angry, disparaging and rejecting responses from others in order to fill on familiar territory, humiliated, defeated, devastated and hurt. So this is the core actually, the engine, the nuclear engine in the submarine of anti-nasochistic narcissists. These are narcissists who are essentially masochistic. And so the narcissists, even classic narcissists, can sometimes revert to the masochistic variant. So as I said in my previous videos, in my lecture in McGill University, in similar international conferences, presentations are made to numerous international conferences. By the way, there's a playlist here on this channel with 40-something presentations to international conferences. You're well advised to have a look. So I said in all these presentations and lectures and so on that the narcissists, there's no type constancy. Every overt or grandiose narcissist can become covert and vice versa. Now there's nothing new in this. It's even included in the diagnostic and statistical manual. So there's nothing new in this. But what I'm proposing is that the narcissist is also capable to transition to the anti-narcist masochistic position. When the narcissist is angered and stressed by a lack of narcissistic supply, some narcissists direct the fury inwards. So when there is deficient narcissistic supply, when the narcissist transitions to a new pathological narcissistic space, when he loses his audience, his sources of supply, in all these situations where supply is lacking and he does not have a regulatory second source of narcissistic supply, also known as a regulatory source of secondary narcissistic supply, also known as intimate partner, when all this is missing, narcissists is furious and he directs this fury, some narcissists redirect this fury inwards. This process is called internalization. And when they direct it inwards, they are actually angry at themselves. They feel that they had failed to secure a narcissistic supply. Their failures, they feel they had been defeated. So they seek to punish themselves for this failure to obtain supply, for this defeat in the battle and the competition for supply. And this masochistic behavior, this self punitive behavior has the added benefit of forcing the narcissist's closest, nearest and dearest to assume the roles of rescuers, saviors or dismayed spectators or the role of persecutors, whichever way to pay the narcissist the attention that he craves. So masochistic behavior is very goal-oriented by denigrating yourself, defeating yourself, punishing yourself, torturing yourself, self-trushing, consuming drugs. All these behaviors which are self-destructive by doing this ostentatiously for everyone to see, you attract natural rescuers, saviors, family members. Loved ones, ex-loved ones, friends. And so you attract, in other words, narcissistic supply. You attract attention. Masochism is a strategy to obtain supply. Self-administered punishment often manifests as self-handicapping masochism, a narcissistic copout. By undermining his work, by destroying his relationships, by subverting his efforts, the increasingly fragile narcissist avoids additional criticism and sensory negative supply. Self-inflicted failure, self-inflicted wounds, these are the narcissist's ways of broadcasting. I'm wounded now.  Don't add to my predicament and my conundrum and my bed situation. It's all the narcissist doing.  Everything to the narcissist is a strategy to all types of narcissists, including the anti-narcissistic narcissist. Masochistic narcissists keep finding themselves in self-defeating circumstances, which render success impossible. And so as Milan says, they do this, they place themselves in situations where success is impossible in order to make an objective assessment of their performance improbable. They act carelessly. They withdraw in mid-effort. They're constantly fatigued, bored or disaffected. And so they passively, aggressively sabotage their own lives. Their suffering is defined. And by deciding to abort, they reassert their control and omnipotence. The narcissist's pronouns and public misery, the narcissist's broadcast self-pity, ostentatious, conspicuous self-pity, self-pity party, these are compensatory. And again, as Milan says, they serve to reinforce his self-esteem against overwhelming convictions of worthlessness.  He has attained the upper, upper, higher moral ground. These self-inflicted wounds, these defeats and failures, are in other words self-generated narcissistic supply. Self-supply. Watch the video I made about self-supply. As paradoxically, the worstly anguish and unhappiness of the narcissist, the more relieved and elated and euphoric such a narcissist feels. Because finally, he had come back to the womb. He had ceased to exist. And finally, he had found his perfect, ideal source of supply and audience. Yes, the greatest fan of all, himself. Today, your favorite topic, sex.  Now BDSM is a very confusing catch-all phrase because it includes SM. SM means sadism and masochism or sadomasochism.  And I will try to help you disambiguate a bit. Both laymen and scholars confuse sexual submission and masochism. They think that a sexually submissive person is a masochist. A sexually submissive person is also known as a sub-rebotom in the parlance of this community of BDSM and assorted characters. But sexual submission is not the same as masochism.   I'm not talking about sadistic rape, but I'm talking about consenting adults. Consenting adults who participate in these practices, enjoy them, get aroused by them and seek them actively. But there are important differences. Submission and domination are usually intradayadic practices. In other words, they take place in couples. They involve intimate partners. Submission and domination are rarely conducted in public. In other words, they are not exhibitionistic. Exhibitionism is a totally different behavior, totally different complex of traits and behaviors, which is not necessarily attached or attendant upon submission and domination, actually very rarely. Submission and domination take place in couples, among intimate partners, not in full view of others, and they involve the ritualistic and rigidly boundary exchange of pain and power between the parties. That's very important because the parties are actually intimate partners. There is a lot of compassion, a lot of affection, a lot of attachment, a lot of bonding between the partners. Everything they do to each other, which actually involve an exchange, an exchange of power, a power gradient, a power symmetry, involves an exchange of pain, a pain giver and a pain receiver. All this is highly ritualized. They follow strict steps. They have words which they can use to immediately seize everything they're doing. These are called, these are red words. They are rigidly boundary. They know each other. They know what is acceptable, what is not acceptable, what they can do to each other and what they are not allowed to do to each other. And these boundaries are strictly observed. The dome and the sub collaborate as equals. Actually many would tell you that it is the sub, the allegedly ostensibly submissive partner, who is in control of the whole interaction. The sub dictates to the dome how to behave and what to do to her. I'm saying her because the majority of submissive people are actually women, not all, but the majority. Sexual arousal in BDSM is the outcome of the suspension of the bottom's autonomy.  She submits. It's very similar to hypnosis. It's the same, more or less the same psychodynamic of hypnosis. She becomes an extension of the dome. She is a kind of outlier skin of the dome. She and the dome merge and fuse in some ways. There's an outsourcing of potentially self-harming decision-making to a loving, compassionate or caring partner, the dominant partner, the dome. So while theoretically and technically, especially if the dome is not experienced or a bit sadistic or dysregulated, there is risk. Choking, for example, ends very often, very badly. Even harmless practices such as slapping and spanking sometimes end in blotchet and bruising. So the decision-making in BDSM is potentially self-harming. It is this affinity to self-harm that is actually the cause of the arousal. There is also an element of degradation and humiliation, self-dispoiling and self-trashing. But overall, BDSM is a ritualized extended fantasy, a role-play, nothing much more than that. At the end, the two parties snap out of it and go back to being utterly normal people. I mean, BDSM is normal, but I mean to being utterly conventional people. BDSM is also frequently followed with vanilla sex, regular sex, missionary, otherwise sex.  It's not the main dish, it's the dessert. Masochism is an entirely different thing.  Masochism also usually involves public exhibitionism, because there is a strong element of shame, of egocintony, of dissonance, there's a lot of ambivalence, and this is exactly the foundation of the sexual arousal. The masochist needs to degrade herself, to humiliate herself, to debase, to self-objectify and to self-trash in front of an audience, so she is very likely to be also an exhibitionist. Masochism is sometimes embedded in a fantasy of intimacy with a partner, and the partner can be real, or the partner can be imaginary, so many masochists convert their masochistic experiences into a figment of some overriding, overarching fantasy which involves love or friendship or a relationship. It's of course a fantasy, and very often the partners in the fantasy are not aware that they are involved in the fantasy. They just happen to be there, and the masochist projects the fantasy onto them. Physical pain and physical dispoiling are the forms of arousal of the masochist, and some masochists are into humiliation or transient choreographed healthlessness, but the majority of masochists are more body-oriented, they are more somatic, so the locus of the arousal is in the physical pain. Now this is not the case in BDSM, in BDSM the emphasis is not about pain, it's about the relegation and delegation of one's free will, it's about submission, it's about giving up control, it's not about the pain itself. The pain in BDSM is just an indicator and a reminder of this abrogation of self-discipline, self-control, autonomy and agency, while in masochism sometimes there is full control. Sometimes the masochist is fully in control of a situation, but she just wants to get hurt. She wants pain, she seeks pain, physical pain, and she couples it with exhibitionism in rare occasions, with degradation and humiliation.  The emphasis is on the word torture, Kraft Ebbing and others had described sadism and sadistic practices in sex in the 19th century. So sadism is when the sadist is aroused by causing pain to another person, by inflicting pain on another person. And that person could be, usually is, an intimate partner, but not always. Observing the agony, observing the writhing, observing the physical changes, observing the uncontrolled dysregulated reactions to pain, observing the disintegration, the tears, all this turns on the sadist. And never mind if the pain is actually egocintonic. In other words, never mind if the victim, if the recipient of the pain likes the pain. Never mind if the partner is a masochist and she actually climaxes, she has an orgasm when she is tortured. It doesn't matter, it's the infliction of pain that matters. And the ineditable, ineluctable physical, physiological reactions to pain. Even if the outcome, the final outcome is arousal and orgasm on the part of the recipient of the pain, on the part of the masochistic partner, the sadistic partner is still gratified. Never mind how momentary and how fleeting the pain, it still cause for extreme arousal. The pain in sexual sadism need not involve humiliating the partner and does not usually involve public exposure. But if the partner is averse to public exposure, is against exhibitionism, if the partner does not seek humiliation, then of course subjecting her to humiliation and to public shaming and to public degradation are forms of torture.  But if the masochist is averse to public degradation and public humiliation, if she happens to be not exhibitionistic, the sadist will exhibit her, he will degrade her publicly. And if she is not into humiliation, the emphasis of the sexual sadist would be on humiliation.   Many sexual sadists engage in their practices with totally non-masochistic partners.  But these kind of arrangements don't last long.  There are even communities and underground communities with extreme practices like blood drinking and so on. So they gravitate towards each other. They find each other in special clubs, in special venues. But though the BDSM community also has special venues and special implements and special practices and special rituals, BDSM is a much more benign form. It involves sex tangentially. It's not about sex. It's about submission and domination in ways which do not bridge the boundaries of the intimate partners involved.  There, the bridge of boundaries, physical boundaries, mental boundaries, emotional boundaries and behavioral boundaries, this bridge of boundaries is actually at the core of the sexual practice and the reason what gives rise to the ultimate sexual arousal and orgasm. Now, don't try any of this at home. You're not old enough. People often confuse masochism with self-destructiveness. Masochism is not self-destructiveness. Masochism is opposite of self-destructiveness. Masochism is self-love. Masochism causes you pleasure. Because you love yourself, you're masochistic. It's the way to get pleasure. So, masochism is a form of self-love. Narcissism doesn't love himself because, first of all, there's no self. And he had been taught from early age that he is not lovable. He doesn't deserve to be loved. So, he also doesn't love himself. And, therefore, by definition, the narcissist can never be a masochist. Masochists are people who seek pleasure via pain, but they seek pleasure. They want to have fun. And the narcissist hates himself or at least doesn't love himself enough. They want to have fun. And the narcissist hates himself or at least doesn't love himself enough to seek pleasure in any way. The narcissist's sadism and masochism, appear from the outside, are actually instrumental and functional. One of them is to control people, motivate them, control them, and so on. There's nothing to do with classic sadism. There's no joy from the pain. The pain doesn't give pleasure. It's just a way of asserting control, establishing social order, obtaining results.  And it's therefore not sadism. Sadism must have a component of emotion. The sadist loves to hurt people. He loves to cause pain, gives him pleasure to cause pain. That's not the case with narcissists. Narciss doesn't derive pleasure from causing pain. He derives pleasure with what he can make people do using pain. Pain is an instrument. And he derives pleasure with what he can make people do with his money also. He doesn't love money. They love what money can allow them to do to people. And they don't love pain, or enjoy pain, or inflict pain. They love how they can use pain to motivate people. It's about the narcissistic supply. These are tools. Sadism is a tool. Money is a tool. Being famous is a tool. Being feared is a tool. So these are all tools to obtain narcissistic supply. So it's not sadist in any psychological definition. And he's not a masochist. But he's self-destructive. Not all narcissists, but vast majority are self-destructive. And it appears from outside like masochism. When the narcissists will seek masochism in sex, or in discipline, or when the narcissists will seek pain, or hurt, wherever it is, there's nothing to do with masochism. It has to do, again, with obtaining goals or fulfilling functions. So discipline will remind him of love and intimacy. If he's masochistic in a relationship with a woman, it will fulfill other functions. Maybe the woman wants it. It's always goal-oriented, or functional, or instrumental. It's never pleasure for the sake of pleasure. There's no such thing with the narcissists, by the way, in anything. Not only sex. So I think the correct terms for the narcissists are instrumental pain and self-destructiveness. And they move between these, when are they this and when are they this. They are self-destructive when they are collapsed. When they cannot obtain narcissistic supply, they want to self-destruct. The main reason they want to self-destruct has to do something with punishment, of course, because it confirms that they are bad and unworthy and so on, so they deserve to be destroyed. But I think on a much deeper level, when the narcissist does not obtain supply, he feels that he does not exist. And self-destructiveness is exactly like self-mutilation, like cutting. It's a way to prove to himself that he is alive. So if you do something really self-destructive and you end up in prison, trust me, you feel very alive in prison.  It's this threat, this challenge, this horror, this destruction that wakes you up. Narciss needs to wake up when he doesn't have supply. He is gradually, he is like the battery is running down. He's gradually, all the functions are like this and he's like these dolls that run out of battery. And he needs to charge a battery and a way to charge a battery is self-destructiveness. If he failed, he cannot get supply. There's only other way left is self-destructiveness. He self-destructs, he feels sufficiently animated and he feels again alive. Ironically, after self-destruction is when the narcissist is more productive. I wrote eight books in prison in 11 months. First I went to prison. When I felt dead, I needed prison to wake me up. I was in prison. I wrote eight books. I wrote my lignis self-love in prison among other books. This was my period of my maximal productivity never before, never after. And it's very common with Narciss. The next type of BDS is submissivity, under-ordering or dominance. Here the different types of fetishes are born, and the introduction, the service, self-destruction. For example, leg fetish, insomnia therapy, goddess, cheese, chicken, chicken breast, or food. I'm telling you this, I think it's the dominant, so-called Narcissist, who takes care of the family, or takes care of the workers, and all of them. How can it be seen that someone's service is the one who makes a lot of money, talks a lot, exposes his time, who still has food. He exposes his goods, he doesn't have any decisions, he doesn't have any rights, he only has responsibilities, where he is helpless, where he is helpless, where he is helpless, where he is physically helpless. Can it be that this is the real cause of his self-destruction, or if he needs it? It's the Narcissist experiences a part of himself that he has no access to and that he denies, and that he represses, via someone else, in a safe environment, it's ultimately safe, by not existing. In these settings, the Narcissist stops to exist. Someone else has the will, someone else dictates, someone else decides, the Narcissist finally can rest. To be a Narcissist is completing, it's very energy consuming, and you need to control everything, especially yourself, but also the world, and everyone around you, everything is a threat, everything is frightening, it's very tiring. At some point you want to rest, but to rest, to really rest, you need to have trust. The Narcissist is paranoid, he needs a co-pilot. He needs to say, listen, I have to have a shot, I have to sleep for 20 minutes. In these 20 minutes, would you mind to take control of the airplane? So he transfers the control, he transfers the wheel, and he can now relax, he can rest, he can sleep in a way, mentally sleep for these 20 minutes, but if he doesn't transfer total control, then the whole exercise is undermined, sabotaged. He needs to really sleep mentally, when we sleep we don't exist, we don't control the environment, we don't make decisions, we don't, when we sleep. It's a state very similar to sleep, and in order to sleep, he needs to transfer all functions, and all decision making powers. If he transfers only some functions, and some decision maker, then he needs to stay awake to control the rest. It's binary state, it's total, it's either or or zero or hero, nothing in between. And so when he finds someone he can trust, or may not be so anyone, that he can trust, he engineers the situation with zero risk in effect. The situation is safe. It's a zero risk situation, but still allows him to go to sleep. He cannot go to sleep in the corporate headquarters when he's with the board of directors. He cannot go to sleep. He cannot say for example in the board of directors, John would you mind taking over? I want to sleep for 20 minutes. He cannot do this. He cannot do this with his wife. He needs to control all the time what she's doing, what she's not doing, because love is pain, pain is threat, threat is paranoia. So he needs all the time to be control, all the time to be monitoring, all the time to be, he's cheating on me, he's stealing from me. And then he needs to manipulate her, and then he needs to take supply from her, and then he needs to, you know, so he cannot sleep. And indeed narcissists suffer, majority of them suffer from extreme insomnia and some sleep disorders, very well known. So he cannot really sleep. So he needs a space where there will be an activity where life will go on, but in a totally safe, secure manner, and something that doesn't matter to him really much. He's not going to lose a lot of money, like in the board of directors, he's not going to lose his wife, you know, what can he lose? Nothing. So, he comes to the dominatrix and he says, I want to sleep. Now you take over, take over the world for 20 minutes. And he knows that when he wakes up after 20 minutes nothing has happened. There's no, no damage, no race, no cost. It's cost-free, except a few euros. It's cost-free. It's a cost-free situation that allows him to so he creates this haven, this enclave. Now many people do that, not only narcissists, healthy people. So you have, for example, in very busy cities, people who suddenly go to a temple, a Buddhist temple, and all they do is they sit on the floor and meditate for 20 minutes. And that's their safe environment. And these people run mega corporations, major banks, government agencies and so on, but they need these 20 minutes of going to a safe space where they can hand over control, rest, sleep, relax, knowing that nothing bad will happen. And then 20 minutes later they go back to being whatever, the tyrants as you call them. This is essentially this this part is kind of meditation, yoga, relaxation technique. These are the well-known behaviors, but there's a group of behaviors which are equally self-defeating and self-destructive, but very pernicious and subtle. The first subgroup is what I call self-punishing, guilt-purging behaviors. These are intended to inflict punishment on the narcissist and to instantly relieve him of his overwhelming anxiety. Self-punishing, self-purging behaviors are very reminiscent of compulsive rituals. The narcissist feels guilty. It could be an ancient early childhood guilt, sexual guilt, social guilt. In his infancy, the narcissist internalized the and introjected the voices of meaningful and authoritative others such as parents, role models, and peers. These voices told him consistently and convincingly that he is not good, but he is blameworthy, deserving of punishment or retaliation, or corrupt. The voices constantly judged him. The narcissist's life is thus transformed into an ongoing trial. The constant constancy of this trial and never adjourning tribunal that is the punishment. It is a Kafkaesque process meaningless, undecipherable, and never-ending. It leads to no verdict. He is subject to mysterious and fluid laws and regulations and he is presided over by capricious judges. Thus, the narcissist masochistically frustrates his deepest desires and drives, obstructs his own efforts, alienates his friends and sponsors, provokes figures of authority to punish, demote, or ignore him, actively seeks and solicits disappointment, failure, or mistreatment, and relishes them. He incites the narcissist incites anger or rejection, bypasses, or rejects opportunities, or engages in excessive self-sacrifice. In their book Personality Disorders in Modern Life, Theodore Millen and Roger Davis describe the diagnosis of masochistic or self-defeating personality disorder. It is found in the appendix of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III Revision, but is excluded from the next edition, DSM-IV. While the narcissist is rarely a full-fledged masochist, many a narcissist exhibit some of the traits of this proposed personality disorder. Another subgroup of disorders is what I call the extracting behaviors. People with personality disorders are very afraid of real, mature intimacy. Intimacy is formed not only within a couple, but also in a workplace, in a neighborhood with friends, while collaborating on a project. Intimacy is another word for emotional involvement, which is the result of interactions with others in constant and predictable or safe propinquity. Patients with personality disorders, especially narcissists, interpret intimacy as co-dependence, as emotional strangulation, as imprisonment, as snuffing of freedom, a kind of death in instalments. Narcissists are terrorized by intimacy. To avoid it, the self-destructive and self-defeating acts are intended to dismantle the very foundation of a successful relationship. Their career, a project, or a friendship. Narcissists actually feel elated and relieved after they unshackle these chains. They feel that they are broken through a siege, that they are liberated, free at last. Then there are the default behaviors. All of us, to some degree are inertial. We are afraid of new situations, new opportunities, new challenges, new circumstances, and new demands.  These often entail abrupt breaks with the past and some self-defeating behaviors are intended to preserve the past, to restore it, to protect it from the winds of change, to self-deceptively skirt promising opportunities while seeming to embrace them. Narcissists do this a lot. Finally, there are the frustrating, negativeistic, and passive-aggressive behaviors which I've discussed in another video I recommend that you watch it. I've received a letter from a narcissist a few years ago. This letter encapsulates, summarizes wonderfully the state of sabotaging yourself, oneself constantly. The state of being your worst enemy. I've seen the enemy, and it is I. The letter says I find it difficult to accept that I am irredimably evil, that I ecstatically, almost orgasmically, enjoy hurting people, and that I actively seek to inflict pain on others. It runs so contrary to my long cultivated, eternally nurtured self-image as a benefactor, a sensitive intellectual, and a harmless hermit. In truth, my sadism meshes well and synergetically with two other behavior patterns my relentless pursuit of narcissistic supply, and my self-destructive, self-defeating, and therefore masochistic streak. The process of torture, humiliating, and offending people provides proof of my omnipotence, nourishes my grandiose fantasies, and buttresses my false self. The victims' distress and dismay constitute narcissistic supply of the purest grade. It also alienates them, turns them into hostile witnesses or even enemies and stalkers. Thus, through the agency of my helpless and helpless victims, I bring upon my head recurrent torrents of rub and banishment. This animosity guarantees my unraveling and my failure, outcomes which I avidly seek in order to placate my inner chastising and castigating voices, a Freud called the Sadistic Superigo. Similarly, I am a firstly independent person. This is known in psychological jargon as counterdependent. But my independence is a pathological variant of personal autonomy. I want to be free to frustrate myself by inflicting mental haddock on my human environment, including and especially my nearest and nearest. I want, in this way, to secure and incur inevitable ire. Getting attached to or becoming dependent on someone, in any way emotionally, financially, hierarchically, hierarchically, politically, religiously, legally, or intellectually means surrendering my ability to indulge my all-consuming urges, to torment, to feel like God, and to be ruined by the consequences of my own evil actions. Enough said. My name is Sam Vakny. I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisit. Most narcissists enjoy an irrational and brief burst of relief after having suffered emotionally, after having endured a narcissistic injury, or after having sustained a loss. It's a strange reaction. One doesn't usually react with relief or with elation. But narcissists do. It is a sense of freedom and unshackled. Having lost everything, the narcissist often feels that he has found himself, that he has been reborn, that he has been charged with natal energy, able to take on new challenges and to explore new territories. This elation is so addictive, that the narcissist often seeks pain, humiliation, punishment, scorn, content, as long as they are public and involve the attention of peers and superiors, being punished with the tormenting inner voices of the narcissist, which keep telling him that he is bad, corrupt and worthy of penalty. And this is the masochistic streak in the narcissist. But the narcissist, as we well know, is also a sadist. Or we eat a bit of an unusual sadist. The narcissist inflicts pain and abuse on others. Or supply callously and offhandedly he abandons them, discards people, places, partnerships and friendships, unhesitatingly. Some narcissists, though by no means the majority, actually enjoy abusing, taunting, tormenting and freakishly controlling others, a phenomenon known as gaslighting. But most of the narcissists, most of them, do these things absentmindedly, offhandedly, automatically and often even without good reason. What is unusual about the narcissist's sadistic behaviors, premeditated acts of tormenting others while enjoying their anguished reactions, is that they are goal orientated. Pure sadists, non-narcissists, pure sadists, have no goal in mind except a pursuit of pleasure. Pain to them is an art form. Remember the Marquis de Sainte? The narcissist on the other hand haunts and hunts his victims for a reason. He wants them to reflect his inner state. It is all a part of a mechanism called projective identifications. Narcissists torture and torment in order to yield results. Once these results are secure, the narcissist usually seizes, not so the classic sadist. When the narcissist is angry, unhappy, disappointed, injured or hurt, he feels unable to express his emotions sincerely, directly and openly. Since to do so would be to admit his frailty, his neediness and his weakness which he would never do. He deplores, narcissists deplores his own humanity. He hates the fact that he has emotions, that he has vulnerabilities that is susceptible, gullible. He resents and rejects his own inadequacies and failures.  He achieves this by mentally torturing other people to the point of madness, by driving them to violence, by reducing them to scar tissue in search of outlet closure and sometimes revenge. He forces people to lose their own character traits and adopt his own instead. In reaction to his constant well-targeted abuse his victims become abusive, vengeful, ruthless, lacking in empathy, obsessed and aggressive. They, in other words, mirror the narcissists faithfully and thus relieve him of the need to express himself directly. Having constructed this writhing hall of human mirrors, the narcissist withdraws. The goal achieved, he lets go. As opposed to the classical sadist, the narcissist is not in it indefinitely for the pleasure of it. He abuses and traumatizes, humiliates and abandons, discards and ignores insults and provokes, only for the purpose of purging his inner demons. By possessing others, the narcissist purifies himself cathartically and exercises his demented self. Yet, when this is accomplished the narcissist acts almost with remorse. An episode of extreme abuse is usually followed by an act of great great care and by malicious apologies. The narcissist's pendulum swings between the extremes of torturing others and then empathically soothing the resulting pain. In Congress behavior, these sudden shifts between sadism and altruism, abuse and love ignoring and caring, abandoning and clinging, viciousness and remorse, the harsh and the tender these are perhaps the most difficult to comprehend and to accept. These swings producing people around the narcissist emotional insecurity, an eroded sense of self-worth, fear, stress and anxiety. This is called walking eggshells. You never know when the next eruption will occur. Gradually emotional paralysis ensues and the narcissist victims come to occupy this same emotional wasteland inhabited by the narcissist himself. They become his prisoners and hostages in more than one way and even when he is long out of their lives. My name is Sam Baknin and I am the author of Malignode's Serf Love Reversal. The masochist has been taught from an early age to hate herself and to consider herself unworthy of love and worthless as a person. Consequently she is prone to self-destructive punishing and self-defeating behaviors. Though capable of pleasure and possessed of social skills, the masochist avoids or undermines pleasurable experiences. She does not admit to enjoying herself. She seeks suffering, pain and hurt in relationships and situations. She rejects help and resents people who offer help. She actively renders futile attempts to assist or ameliorate or mitigate or even solve their problems and predicaments. And these self-panelizing behaviors are also self-purging. They intend to relieve the masochist of overwhelming pent-up anxiety. They are cathartic. Masochist conduct is equally aimed at avoiding intimacy of its benefits, companionship and support as it is at punishing herself. And so masochists tend to choose people and circumstances that inevitably and predictably lead to failure, disillusionment, disappointment and mistreatment. Conversely they tend to avoid relationships, interactions and circumstances and people that are likely to result in success or gratification. They reject, disdain or even suspect people who consistently treat them well. Masochists find caring, loving people, loving persons sexually unafracted. The masochist typically adopts unrealistic goals and this way she generates underachievements inevitably. Masochist routinely fail at mundane tasks even when these tasks are crucial to their own advancement and personal objectives. And even when they adequately carry out identical assignments on behalf of others. The diagnostic and statistical manual gives this amusing example. Helps fellow students write papers but is unable to write her own paper. So when the masochist fails at these attempts at self-sabotage she reacts with rage, depression and guilt. She is likely to compensate for her undesired achievements and happiness by having an accident or by engaging in behaviors that produce abandonment, frustration, hurt, illness or even physical pain. Some masochists make harmful self-sacrifices uncalled for by the situation and unwanted by the intended beneficiaries or recipients. The projective identification defence mechanism is frequently explained with masochists. The masochist deliberately provokes solicits and incites angry, disparaging and rejecting responses from others in order to feel unfamiliar territory in her comfort zone. When she is humiliated, devastated, hurt and defeated she feels good. Left of some baton in this pandemic I am the author of Malignant Self-Love Narcissism Revisited I think and also a professor of psychology in various countries around this ever-shrinking globe. Today we are going to discuss a very interesting phenomenon sexual masochism especially among borderline people with borderline personality disorder also in general. Sexual masochism wears many very surprising disguises. It's difficult to spot actually. Many behaviours that appear to be psychopathic are actually masochistic. Now I've dealt with masochism in my previous two videos there's one video about the masochistic anti-nausisist and there's another video where I discuss fantasies and there I expound on masochism citing and quoting early literature because masochism is one of the most well-documented phenomena.  Ironically he named his book Psychopathia Sexualis in order to deter prurient, porn consuming people. He wanted the book to be read only by the learned, by scholars by academics, by clinicians. He thought if he gave his book a Latin a title in Latin the great unwashed masses will not bother to buy it. Regrettably for him and fortunately for us it became a bestseller. People were buying thousands of copies and making good use of these copies during the night. It became the first pornographic hit literature. Ok, anecdotes aside let's delve straight into the subject as usual I'm going to take you on a circuitous route before we get there I would like to answer one of your questions people ask me about switching. I describe switching in borderline personality disorder when the borderline faces humiliation rejection abandonment, real or imagined or anticipated she switches. A self-state comes out this is a psychopathic self-state it is intended to protect the borderline from hurt and pain and the psychopathic self-state has all the hallmarks of a psychopath it's disempathic, it's defined it's impulsive, it's promiscuous etc etc, reckless etc etc but people ask me about switching in actual psychopaths because you see the borderline psychopath or borderline psychopathic self-state is actually a secondary psychopath it's a psychopath who may well behave as a psychopath as psychopathic traits make psychopathic choices and decisions but still maintains access to empathy some sort of empathy and to positive emotions typical primary psychopaths have neither so what about switching in psychopaths? people had written to me to describe situations where the mask dropped suddenly behind the mask into a hideous obnoxious creature people even described it in terms of demon position lacking a better vocabulary more appropriate vocabulary having no access to clinical literature they resorted to religion and so yes in the case of narcissists and psychopaths there is no switching they don't switch I mean the narcissist has self-states but as opposed to the borderline personality disorder the switching in the narcissist is much more gradual and incremental and basically imperceptible and sometimes the narcissist is overwhelmed by moods and by negative emotionality and then here for example rages but the rage is directly attributable to the self-state then in action and position so the switching in narcissists occurs but it's it's subterranean it's underground it's subversive and then there's an eruption and a startling transition to another behavior or another mood not so with the borderline the borderline you see the switching happening borderline one disappears and borderline two appears the secondary psychopath takes over the secondary psychopath has a a different body language so the secondary psychopath that takes over the borderline has a different face actually the face changes the face morphs it's like morphing in computer software the face changes dramatically sometimes to the point that some borderlines are not recognizable almost when they switch to the secondary psychopathy phase so the face changes body language changes and the same happens with psychopaths but in psychopaths there is no actual switching what happens in psychopathy is the psychopath as well as the grandiose narcissists which today we think may be one and the same both psychopaths and grandiose narcissists have a mask they present to the world a dazzling array of masks and when the masks are rendered ineffective inefficacious they drop the mask they don't bother to keep it on they don't care enough about people to keep on the mask so they simply drop the mask and then you see behind the mask the person behind the mask is the real person so if you catch a psychopath in the act or if a psychopath unexpectedly displays some weakness frailty vulnerability the psychopath then drops the mask you see psychopaths are capable of shame self shame self directed shame so when they are caught in the act red handed or when others witness some kind of weakness or failure or vulnerability or failure of themselves at that point they don't have the mental energy to maintain the mask and it drops let me summarize it for you the borderline switches visibly perceptibly discernibly switches between two self states each of these self states has a different body language a different appearance a different facial features it's like it's a total change and it's like a new person that emerged and usurped hijacked and kidnapped the original borderline that is switching in borderline switching in narcissism happens it takes time, it's incremental it's subterranean, it's underground but then it suddenly erupts and the narcissist rages or becomes insanely envious or acts out in some way so in narcissism there is no visible discernible switching and usually the narcissist maintains his body language and facial expressions throughout even when he had actually switched to another self state the narcissist has much more continuity at least bodily continuity than the borderline although some people describe that the narcissist becomes hideous and frightening and sinister when he transitions between self states it's still the narcissist identifiable narcissist in the case of a borderline sometimes you can't tell, it's the same person now psychopaths don't have switching they don't switch they have masks and when they are exposed when you see through them when they are caught in the act when they are when their vulnerabilities and weak underbelly weak parts are exposed they feel ashamed and they drop the mask similarly the promiscuity of psychopaths is very different to the promiscuity of borderlines psychopaths self-trash in the sense that they are promiscuous off-handedly their promiscuity is off-handed like absent minded a hazard totally impulsive indiscriminate it's like an afterthought the psychopath sex is like an afterthought it just happens and then it's gone and then he has no memory of it or doesn't care to remember it and it's like drinking a glass of water not a memorable event of course there are no emotions no empathy, no connection, no nothing it's a form of self-trash but because psychopaths perceive their promiscuity as negative their promiscuity is egosyntonic they actually love to be promiscuous there is not much trauma involved and they don't perceive their promiscuity as self-trashing even when they self-trash extremely so even in situations where a lot of self-trashing is involved bottom of the barrel self-trashing the psychopath would not perceive it as self-trashing he would perceive it as agency the psychopath would say I wanted the sex I initiated the sex I controlled the situation I selected the partner it was good, I loved it, I was excited so then the psychopath reframes his self-trashing or herself trashing in a way that would be egosyntonic okay we'll come to all this a bit later it leads us of course to sexual masochism sexual masochism and by the way also emotional masochism all types of masochism their forms of self-trashing now self-trashing is very common with in borderline personality disorder clickly, harvey clickly in the mask of sanity in 1942 described numerous incidents of self-trashing with what he called psychopaths many of them were not psychopaths they were actually grandiose narcissists but he called them psychopaths they didn't know any better in the 40s so in 1942 he describes women for example who pick up groups of strangers and have groups of strangers and have sex with them at the drop of a hat on a dime with no rhyme or reason even a bit in a bit of a racist note he he says disapprovingly that many of these strangers were blacks so he's like shocked that the white woman could pick up a gang of black workers and have sex with all of them simultaneously and he describes another incident of a woman who had an uninterrupted, interminable series of one night stands with total strangers we just pick them in a bar and go with them and have sex with them and he attributes this kind of impulsive sexuality to psychopathy and he is the first to note among the first to note that psychopaths actually don't care there's nothing invested in the sex it's a totally physical right it's the gratification of a physical impulse it's release in a way masturbating with others but the psychopaths choose to have sex in circumstances which involves essentially self trashing so there is surprisingly sexual masochism in psychopathy both borderlines and psychopaths actually feel bad when they feel good and feel good when they feel bad what would make healthy people feel very bad makes the psychopath happy, elated euphoric what would make normal people feel very bad when the borderline is in her secondary psychopathy state would make her feel very much in control very much validated and empowered so situations choices decisions, events sexual encounters that would make every healthy person feel seriously bad about herself or himself these kind of situations or events or people or circumstances would make the psychopath and the borderline secondary psychopath feel very good they feel very good when they should have felt bad and yes of course this is inappropriate effect one of my previous videos I have dealt with reduced effect display and inappropriate effect I encourage you to watch it there is a disconnect between the borderline's emotions and her actual acting out decompensating behavior there's a disconnect between the psychopath and anything internal the psychopath is a total shell so these people engage in sexual masochism and sexual self thrashing but the psychopath and the borderline would make it as such until possibly the morning later the case of the borderline but during the act they perceive the act as actually a form of agency a form of control of empowerment, of validation of agency of self efficacy so they feel good about it feeling bad being trashed leads them to sexual arousal and sexually aroused by situations that would create deep shame and guilt in healthy people and so they find themselves in four types of sexual contexts and all these four types lead to trashing and trashing leads to sexual arousal sexual arousal leads to a sense of empowerment validation resilience, strength euphoria and good feelings so these are the four situations number one dispoiling it's when the borderline or the psychopath give their bodies away they simply give them away they select random strangers many of them sexual predators and then they recklessly give themselves at the complete disposal of the predator and the predator can do with their bodies as he wishes he can denigrate them he can humiliate them he can dispoil them he can beat them up he can inflict a physical damage he can hurt them in a variety of ways emotional and physical he can rape them he can sexually assault them he can abuse and extreme the dispoiling the more egregious and extreme the sexual sadism of the predator the more the psychopath and borderlines are sexually aroused when they find themselves in very dangerous situations for example in uncontrollable group sex or subject to a clear dangerous sadistic predator alone in a room drunk unable to extricate herself at that point the sexual arousal is maximal it seems that sexual arousal in borderlines and psychopaths is intimately connected with a sense of pending doom imminent annihilation self elimination self eradication the borderline and the psychopath are therefore sexually aroused by the presence of death they are as Freud used to call it fanatic they have a death wish they are motivated by the death drive not by their life force not by eros or libido but by motido and estudo the opposite the mirror image so borderlines and psychopath when they engage in sex they engage in destructive sex self destructive sex sex that is guaranteed to violate them morally to destroy them mentally to inflict and afflict them psychologically to cause pain to cause hurt and sometimes to injure them bodily this is the type of sex that brings them to orgasm and to climax it's of course a form of sexual masochism as described in the 19th century mid 19th century actually second third last third of the 19th century by kraft ebbing so it's a very well documented and very old phenomena colloquially also describes dispoiling in his masterpiece so dispoiling it's the first situation that borderlines and psychopaths find themselves in second, cheating both borderlines and psychopaths are notorious for cheating they cheat a lot now cheating in some cases in some cases is compulsive so it's a serial cheater who cannot control herself or himself and they cheat but that is a totally different psychodynamic it doesn't have to do anything with self thrashing it has to do with couple dynamics and so on and I deal I deal with these issues in other videos but there is a form of cheating that is intimately connected to sexual masochism it's connected to sexual masochism because it's the cheating takes place in shameful disgraceful circumstances the cheating takes place in a way that is socially frowned upon, socially unacceptable the cheating negates and conflicts with social mores and values or even with the values of the individual so borderlines and psychopaths engage in the kind of cheating that confirms or supports the view that they are bad, immoral objects so in the morning after the typical borderline would feel shame and guilt the psychopath would not feel ashamed would not feel guilty but the psychopath would feel seriously bad like I'm a bad person I'm an immoral person I'm an evil person there would be no emotional resonance to these statements the psychopath is not saying I'm an evil person and I'm ashamed of it I want to change, no the psychopath actually takes pride in being an evil in mean and nasty, an immoral person but still it's an ego-dystonic statement I'm evil, I mean it's an ego-dystonic statement so the cheating is a way to transition into dissonance cheating is a way to torture yourself to denigrate yourself, to demean yourself in other words cheating is another way another form of self-trushing and so cheating leads to sexual arousal the act of cheating, the very act of cheating breaking fruit breaking morality negating the contract you have with your intimate partner for sexual exclusivity the very act is defined that this very act is conchumacious in your face I'm going to do whatever I want to do, I'm a free person I have a free will and no one will tell me what to do it's a defined act so in this case cheating is a form of self-trushing this is the cheating leads to feelings of shame and guilt in the borderline or to affirmation that psychopath is a bad unworthy object and that in itself arouses sexually creates sexual excitation in the borderline and the psychopath and this is the second type of behavior that cause sexual arousal via masochism the next type of behavior is substance abuse of course is a form of self-trashing it's also a form of suicide slow-mo suicide if you consume substances long enough, you die it's very simple and so, or you end up seriously incapacitated so substances substance abuse, alcohol, drugs pills, opioids abuse of substances is a form of masochism it's a form of masochism but it creates sexual arousal because in borderlines and in psychopaths self-trashing, masochism causes sexual arousal so psychopaths and borderlines when they consume substances when they abuse substances they are simultaneously sexually aroused that's why there is such a intimate, powerful intense connection and correlation between substance abuse and promiscuous behavior in borderlines and psychopaths the chain is very simple self-trashing leads to sexual arousal abusing and consuming alcohol and drugs and pills is self-trashing so it leads to sexual arousal and to sexual acting out sexual reckless acting out self-endangering, risky so in borderlines and psychopaths they reach both borderlines and psychopaths, reach maximum sexual excitation maximum sexual arousal when they consume alcohol and drugs this is not the case for the vast majority of the population in healthy people the consumption of alcohol and drugs actually suppresses the sex drive in the long term ironically alcohol for example is a suppressant it's not a stimulant it's a depressant but in borderlines and psychopaths alcohol and drugs have the exact opposite effect because they are intimately linked to psychological self-trashing here I am, killing myself damaging my body destroying my mind ruining my brain how exciting, how sexually arousing how wonderful I want to have sex let me find anyone eligible or not, appropriate or not let me just find anyone to despoil me to abuse me to humiliate me and statistically torture me in sex and then heaven I'm in heaven this is complete that's a sequence now very often borderlines and psychopaths are in committed relationships and they may even have the best intentions in the world they may even seriously vow and promise and pledge to themselves as well that they will never cheat or never find themselves in compromising situations with others but substance abuse is likely to drive them to do exactly this self egodistonic dissonant cheating and self-trashing sexual self-trashing brought on by substance abuse now since majority of people with borderline personality disorder and majority of psychopaths abuse alcohol and drugs and pills and opioids on a regular basis actually as a major clinical feature of these disorders these people are very likely to cheat as a form of self-trashing and they are very likely to engage in very risky reckless sadistic humiliating demeaning sadomaso sex to the point of physical risk practices such as choking for example okay so this is the fourth way the third pathway I'm sorry this is the third pathway to self-trashing sexually arousing self-trashing masochistic sexual arousal and there's a fourth way choosing inappropriate mates borderlines and psychopaths are notorious for this their mate selection is all awry it's skewed they consistently choose the wrong mates but of course they choose the wrong mates because they're wrong only the wrong mates are right for the borderline and the psychopath because wrong mates, inappropriate mates are likely to cause strife, conflict pain, hurt, abandonment when you choose an inappropriate mate you are in for a ride a ride into into agony in other words choosing an inappropriate mate is a form of self-trashing and because it is a form of self-trashing initially when the psychopath and borderline choose the wrong mate they are highly sexually aroused they realize unconsciously that they are choosing someone who will end up hurting them will end up harming them will end up causing them enormous pain or will end up negating their their defiance will end up clashing with them if they are psychopaths will end up confronting with them in other words if it's a borderline she realizes that the inappropriate intimate partner will cause her a lot of pain via rejection, abandonment and tribulation if it's a psychopath the psychopath chooses an inappropriate mate because he or she realizes that sooner or later it's going to degenerate into an all-out war into a conflict and psychopaths thrive in conflict because conflict involves inevitably damages self-inflicted damages conflict involves in other words self-trashing so to choose an inappropriate mate an inappropriate intimate partner is a surefire way it's a guaranteed way to hell and hell is where borderline narcissists thrive it is there that maximum torment is assured it is there that the ultimate forms of self-trashing are available so let me repeat the four techniques, the four strategies of self-trashing that cause sexual arousal in secondary psychopaths known as borderlines and in primary psychopaths so these are the four ways of self-annihilation self-eradication, self-elimination self-trashing self-humiliation in psychopaths and narcissists number one sexual despoiling sexual torture sexual torment, sexual sadism sad or mazo being humiliated in sex being forced to do disgusting things or revolting things participating in the kind of sex where one is totally objectified like for example gang rape or gang gang bang or group sex and that starts very early on I've heard of instances of women age 12 participating in gang bangs and so so it's not it's not an adult thing so despoiling despoiling can of course be also psychological but in the borderline and the psychopath they immediately transition from psychological despoiling to sexual despoiling sex is the lingua franca sex is the ultimate vocabulary of the borderline and the psychopath they use sex as a language they communicate via various manifestations of sexuality so number one strategy leading to self-trashing leading to sexual arousal is sexual sadism, despoiling and sad or mazo number two strategy cheating cheating causes the borderline to feel shame and guilt cheating causes the psychopath to feel like a bed and worthy object both are dissonant they create dissonances so they are a form of self-trashing but both borderlines and psychopaths find cheating irresistible it's very exciting and arousing sexually number three strategy substance abuse abuse of alcohol and drugs it's the ultimate form of self-trashing because it leads to disability and death consequently because it is a form of self-trashing because it's a masochistic act to drink to excess, to inject drugs to swallow, to gorge down on pills to consume opioids to the point of overdose that's the ultimate act in self-trashing it's almost suicidal so of course it's intimately linked in the mind of the borderline and the mind of the psychopath with sexual arousal every time the borderline drinks heavily every time the psychopath pops a few pills they become sexually aroused it's an atypical reaction actually it doesn't happen with healthy people but with borderlines and psychopaths the consumption of alcohol the abuse of drugs and other substances leads inexorably to sex because they are aroused by the thought that they are destroying themselves and the fourth strategy is much more long term it is selecting inappropriate partners inappropriate mates people who are incompatible with the borderline and the narcissist can get selected as spouses or intimate partners so the borderline and psychopath have a very bizarre form of mate selection but they do it on purpose because if you choose the wrong spouse or the wrong boyfriend or the wrong girlfriend you are bound to end up in conflict if you are borderline you are bound to experience abandonment humiliation and rejection if you are a psychopath this is going to end badly in conflict, in war in combat so by choosing an incompatible partner who cannot by definition constitutionally cater to the needs sexual needs emotional needs of the borderline and cannot cater to the needs of the psychopath so by choosing such a partner inadequate, wrong the borderline and the psychopath guarantees self-trashing self-trashing in the form of conflict in the case of the psychopath or self-trashing in the form of hurt and pain in the case of the borderline and of course this would push them to sexual promiscuity and sexual acting out reckless and again self-destructive now all these personality disorders are founded on narcissistic supply or forms of supply not narcissistic but forms of supply so for example in the case of borderline personality disorder the borderline patient her supply is to prevent abandonment if she succeeds to keep her intimate partner if she succeeds to preserve the relationship to maintain object constancy to keep his presence in her life in extreme cases if she is also codependent to merge and to fuse with the intimate partner that is her supply the intimate partner's presence is availability and his obsequious submissive agreement to partake in the fantasies and drama of the borderline and of course the regulatory functions that he provides because he helps the borderline regulate her moods and emotions all these forms of supply to the borderline personality disorder person in the case of the narcissistic supply or sadistic supply in the case of the antisocial or the psychopath sex power these are all forms of supply and all class to be personality disorder people are goal oriented the goal is to secure the supply histrionic personality disorders disordered people derive their supply from their heightened sexuality seductiveness, flutatiousness from serial romantic and sexual encounters from teasing physical exercises pain and state of their body this is their supply narcissists derive their supply from garnering attention both positive, adulation, admiration and negative, being feared not a rioting, if they are sadistic they also derive sadistic supply by humiliating, verbally abusing sexually assaulting other people the borderline patient woman or man they derive their supply from the presence of other people they suffer from separation anxiety they are terrified of being abandoned so the very presence of other people is a form of supply and finally the antisocial personality disorder the psychopath derives supply from accumulating money power, control and having sometimes sadistic fun borderline for instance can be described as narcissists with an overwhelming fear of abandonment because they are grandiose they are careful not to abuse people they do care deeply about not hurting other people but they care about not hurting other people for selfish motivation for selfish reasons they want to avoid rejection and abandonment borderlines depend on other people for emotional sustenance for emotional regulation for mood regulation reduction, amelioration of liability a drug addict is unlikely to pick up a fight with his pusher and it's the same with borderlines borderline is an addiction to the partner addiction to an intimate partner but borderlines also have deficient impulse control exactly like psychopaths or antisocials and so their emotional dysregulation mood liability, erratic behavior lead to abuse they are very abusive towards the nearest and dearest they regret it and they feel shame which doesn't happen with the psychopath and finally I would like to reiterate what's the difference between self-trushing and promiscuity because many people had written comments and had written to me and it's clear that I didn't get the point across self-trushing has nothing to do with promiscuity from the outside they look the same because there's a huge number of intimate a huge number of sexual partners and it's very both behaviors involve impulse control or lack of impulse control and both behaviors are pretty much indiscriminate but they're very different self-trushing is always compulsive promiscuity is rarely compulsive promiscuity can be impulsive promiscuity is a reaction to a situation for example the promiscuous person would react to an opportunity to have sex the promiscuous person reacts to availability cues so a promiscuous person is likely to immediately seek to have sex with someone who signals interest or availability whenever so promiscuous people are opportunistic people who self-trash like borderlines and psychopaths they are compulsive they can't help it they need to self-trash because only when they self-trash they feel alive and only when they self-trash they can regulate their sexual impulses and attendant emotional emotional landscape so self-trashing in borderlines and psychopaths is regulatory and therefore it's compulsive it's not something it's not a choice it's not a reaction to circumstances like an opportunity it's not even about availability of someone because very often psychopaths and borderlines initiate self-trashing it's proactive but self-trashing has many very critical functions in borderlines and psychopaths promiscuity is an active role the sex promiscuous sex is an active role promiscuous people report that they experience promiscuous sex as empowering as a lifestyle choice as a conquest engaging in promiscuous sex usually boosts the participant's self-esteem it provides an inner locus of control people emerge from promiscuous sex gratified elated stronger more resilient happier more ego-syntonic exactly the opposite happens in self-trashing self-trashing is masochistic it's self-punitive it's self-degrading it's self-dispoiling it's demeaning it's passive the main function of self-trashing is to experience finally sexual arousal to experience emotions that are dysregulated and threatened to overwhelm the borderline for example to experience being alive in the case of the psychopath and to reduce anxiety you could say that borderlines and psychopaths self-medicate with self-trashing sexual self-trashing they reduce anxiety by having sex they restore and revive their sexual drive by having sex by having self-trashing sadistic sex by subjecting themselves to sexual mistreatment and assault when they become objectified when they are humiliated and tortured and made to do disgusting things and so on when they find themselves in situations which involve fear enormous risk reckless situations that they feel alive that their sex drive is activated only then do they feel sexual and when they feel sexual they feel in control and at that moment anxiety is reduced self-trashing sex is an anxiolytic it is the exact opposite of promiscuity it is an anxiolytic and antidepressant so the motivation of the promiscuous person is actually to feel better to feel good to feel empowered to feel validated to feel strong to feel attractive to feel desired to feel accepted to feel warm to feel comfort to feel compassion to feel affection it's all positive the emotional background of promiscuity is essentially positive we often confuse and conflate promiscuity with self-trashing the emotional background of self-trashing is 100% negative masochism anxiety depression self-punishment self-defeat self-destruction self-humiliation self-annihilation dispoiling degrading oneself demeaning oneself objectifying oneself it's only only negative it involves extreme self-loathing and an attempt for self-destruction via sex in self-trashing therefore the process that leads to self-trashing is very different from the process that leads to promiscuous sex self-trashing is actually an immediate impulsive act there are no preliminaries there's no courting there's no flirting there's no dating there's nothing the self-trashing party just picks up a stranger and after one hour or two hours goes to bed with him picks up a group of strangers and immediately proceeds to have sex with him after a few drinks so there are no preliminaries there's no getting to know the other party there's no intimacy there's no acquaintance there's no background if the sexually trashing party has a few drinks if she talks a little with her potential sexual partner it's perfunctory it's minimal or even non-existence sex in the case of self-trashing is not the last move it's not the culmination of anything it's the first move the self-trusher the person who self-trashes actually ends up bedding strangers most of them unattractive strangers she doesn't want to have sex bedding sex with unattractive mates or even repulsive people is the ultimate in self-trashing in other words someone who self-trashes would tend to have very bad sex with very disgusting people very repulsive people the more repulsive the better the worse the sex the better because it makes her feel bad about herself it is self-trashing so engaging with unwanted sex engaging in unwanted sex with repulsive people or with people she's not attracted to it's a form of de-spoiling it's a form of degrading herself and of course gender pronouns are interchangeable same applies to men so the sexual trasher the person who sexually trashes typically engages in kinky, reckless or extreme sexual acts and degradation in the first few minutes with totally unknown strangers she would do intimate things super intimate things with these strangers as though they had been in a relationship for 10 years and there is deep love there it's a form it's a manifestation of self-trashing alcohol and drugs as I've said frequently precede both types of sex but the promiscuous use substances to disinhibit themselves in other words the promiscuous person first decides to have sex and then disinhibits herself by drinking the drinking doesn't provoke the wish to have sex it's not the drinking that leads to sex the drinking is just alcohol is just used to free to disinhibit to allow the promiscuous person to engage in sex in the case of self-trashing the person who self-trashes she drinks and she does drugs in order to numb herself to bring herself to the brink of a blackout or to unconsciousness because she can't face what's being done to her in sex the sex is so bad, so ugly so disgusting that she can't face it she has to numb herself out of existence she has to be so drunk that she's essentially unconscious essentially becomes renders herself a total object the promiscuous person never does this the promiscuous person drinks to excess and can do drugs but she does this because she regards the sex as a wonderful thing as a positive experience and she wants to have the sex and so she needs to remove inhibitions she needs to disinhibit promiscuity is ego-syntonic self-trashing is always self-trashing is always ego-dystonic people who self-trash describe the sex as cursory, disappointing objectifying, disgusting unpleasant or uncomfortable many of these people report especially if they're borderline report shame, regret anger, disappointment and guilt, emotional blunting and an increase in anxiety and depression after the act so we've taken a grand tour of sexual masochism in the case of borderlines and psychopaths sexual masochism self-inflicted, sexual wounds sexual sadism, self-dimining self-destruction self-dispoiling, self-degrading is mediated via totally impulsive sex essentially allied and associated with negative emotions the sex makes the borderline and the psychopaths feel bad psychopaths and borderlines have a negative balance of sex they regard sex essentially as bad or even repulsive it's the same with histrionics by the way histrionics are actually hyposexual they have a low sex rate as the irony so all these groups have actually a low sex rate but in order to feel sexually aroused and frankly in order to feel alive they need to self mutilate now the typical borderline cuts or burns herself with cigarettes many borderlines and all psychopaths they self mutilate via sex it is when they are involved in self trashing they feel ironically good where other people would have felt so bad that they would need medication or even commit suicide the psychopath and the borderline revel flourish thrive in this environment the worse the situation the more horrible the degradation and the sadism involved the more extreme the self trashing the more negative emotions are evoked afterwards the more the borderline and the psychopath find the experience irresistible and inexorably gravitate towards it from time to time and they use the strategies that I've mentioned sexual masochism the spoiling, degrading oneself cheating which involves egodistony, dissonance substance abuse which leads to sexual arousal but is in itself also a form of self trashing and choosing inappropriate means which guarantees unfavorable outcomes which are painful and hurtful and conflict ridden and this bad atmosphere is actually extended expanded self trashing within which the borderline and the psychopath feel alive and sexually aroused these people if you observe them the worse of the situation the more they are happy they feel good only when they feel seriously bad and on the brink of extinction either by being objectified by numbing themselves with substances alcohol or by destroying themselves completely today we are going to have an admixture of novel concepts controversial views and plain old fashioned in your face defiance by your favorite professor of psychology blue professor of psychology Sam Bachning the author of malignant self love narcissism revisited and we start with a concept borrowed from neo-Marxist no less neo-Marxist socio-economic theory the word is interpolation it is a process first described in socio-economic settings by one Louis Althusser French understanding a French psychologist and philosopher who ended up in a mental asylum as most psychologists and psychiatrists should okay Shoshanim interpolation in Althusser's work is a different thing and I recommend that you watch the video I have made about Althusser but interpolation the way I use it is when someone reacts to other people's wishes other people's desires other people's urges and expectations as if these were his own I'm going to repeat this when you react to other people's desires wishes, hopes dreams, demands and especially expectations as if these were yours not theirs but your own you are being interpolated so now you know what's happening to you you're being interpolated and then if you act accordingly the interpolation is translated into action so for example someone expects to have sex with you and then you adopt this expectation this expectation becomes yours you experience the other person's expectation as if it were your own you experience the other person's desire, demands urges, drives wishes as if they were your own and you end up having sex with this person even though you want to even though you don't even like that person so this is interpolation it's a form of mind control it's a very subtle state of hypnosis or trance or brainwashing if you wish people pleasers are the reification of this process the reification, the embodiment of interpolation interpolation makes an appearance in many other mental health disorders such as for example dependent personality disorders aka codependency or borderline personality disorder interpolation appears also in psychotic disorders anxiety disorders and to cut a long story short in many other mental health issues interpolation is a way of taking over your mind by forcing you to adopt the expectations and wishes of another person when that other person renders you an extension of themselves narcissists do it very often and so do psychopaths to a lesser extent borderlines now masochist the self-destructive psychopathic narcissists and people pleasers are different breeds they are different kinds of people sometimes they behave in the same ways so it's difficult to tell them apart I repeat masochist people who are self-destructive psychopathic narcissists and people pleasers behaving ways which resemble each other and so they are difficult to tell apart but they all interpolate other people and are interpolated by other people in other words the dominant the dominant interactive process the dominant interpersonal process is interpolation whether active or passive as a recipient start with masochist masochist crave pain they desire to be hurt they want to be hurt the opposite of pain aversion pain averse the opposite of hurt averse the pursue the pursue agony and torment the engineer the orchestrate incremental situations whose outcomes are agonizing mortifying and humiliating but never life-threatening masochism is not about suicide masochism is about staying alive to experience the pain and in a very perverted way a very sick way enjoy it ok so these are masochist what about self-defeating self-loathing self-destructive folk folk what about this kind of people this kind of people act out recklessly petulantly and defiantly in order to sabotage their best interests and their well-being in a decisive self-harming, self-trushing and almost suicidal manner so one could say that self-sabotaging, self-defeating self-harming self-trushing and self-destructive people are at the very end of the spectrum of masochism the same way psychopaths are at the end of the spectrum of antisocial personality disorder these people are exaggerated masochists who's pain is so extreme that it leads to life-threatening situations you could say that self-destructive and self-defeating and self-trushing and self-harming people are suicidal masochists on to the third kind psychopathic narcissists psychopathic narcissists puppeteer others they play with others they brainwash others they co-opt and manipulate others into goal-oriented scenarios that superficially appear to be masochistic but in reality these scenarios are actually sadistic or in the best case self-efficacious as far as the psychopathic narcissists is concerned in other words the psychopathic narcissists would engineer or orchestrate situations that would cause him pain and so superficially on the surface it would appear to be that he is a masochist but actually is not nor is he self-destructive or self-defeating these scenarios these scripts these theater plays organized by the psychopathic narcissists intend to fulfill some goal they're self-efficacious they're ends-oriented the narcissist wants to accomplish something and so he inflicts pain on himself because that's an inevitable cost of obtaining the goal sometimes there's sadism involved psychopathic narcissists enjoy inflicting pain on other people even if it means that they have to pay a price for the pleasures of being hurt that's how twisted the minds of psychopathic narcissists are and finally people-pleasers are conflict averse they need to be they need to be needed they need to be accepted and to belong they are self-sacrificial and so again superficially on the surface one could be excused if one were to confuse people-pleasers with masochists people-pleasers are sacrificial so they endure pain and suffering exactly like masochists but as distinct from masochists they enjoy this role they find it gratifying they pursue it the masochist inflicts pain on himself and also enjoys it but these are isolated occurrences more like a life strategy whereas the people-pleaser simply wants to fit in and to belong and to be accepted and to be loved and to be liked and to be cherished and so the way to do this is to sacrifice one's best interests and to have no boundaries you see the distinction the people-pleaser pursues his or her best interests he's the opposite of a masochist he loves himself or herself but the people-pleaser engages in dysfunctional strategies to realize this self-love by giving up by surrendering submissive by echoing other people by over-sharing by succumbing by being interpolated all the time adopting other people's expectations as one's own let's take an example which I think will disambiguate all this make it very clear and again I'm going to take a very extreme example a masochist would push his girlfriend to cheat on him in order to endure exquisite torment the torture of witnessing his girlfriend with another man if the masochist is a male this torture is delectable is desirable is wonderful is ambrosia is nectar to the masochist soul and yes he wallows in excruciating pain but this pain is a kind of delicacy that masochist pursues relentlessly almost like an addiction so the masochist would send his girlfriend to another man to cheat on him if he is a cuckold for example because it gives him pleasure he transitions through the pain into a state of elation now imagine the self-destructive thought the self-destructive thought will act the same way he will push his girlfriend to cheat on him but then he will proceed to break up with her or to divorce her if he is married in other words the self-defeating self-harming type would push his girlfriend to cheat on him in order to destroy his life in order to devastate himself in order to ruin the institutions to which he adheres such as his marriage he will shatter his life against the rock of pain and infidelity to leverage his partner's disloyalty in in order to accomplish the goal of dismantling his own life the psychopathic narcissist will send his girlfriend to cheat on him exactly like the masochist exactly like the self-destructive thought they all will act all three will act in the same way so that's why looking from the outside is very difficult to tell which is which and what is what but the psychopathic narcissist will send his girlfriend to cheat on him because he wants to make sure that he is cucked he wants to make sure that he is cheated on but he would do this in order to get rid of his intimate partner to get rid of an unwanted and burdensome relationship the psychopathic narcissist will leverage the partner's shame and guilt to get rid of her so it's goal oriented the means justify the end and the cost of the inevitable pain of having to watch your girlfriend with another guy is acceptable this is the only way to ensure or to secure her future absence and without any stalking or demands or recriminations so this is an example of the psychopathic narcissist acting the same way as the masochist do does in the same way as the people pleaser does but for completely different reasons very selfish very interest oriented and finally the people pleaser will simply permit his intimate partner his girlfriend to sleep with others just so as to make her happy the people pleaser would want to please her partner please her partner or his partner by allowing him or her to sleep with other people again we have the same behavior honey you can sleep with this guy but the reason is honey I want you to be happy and I want you to stay with me and I want us to be together if this is the price I have to pay I will do it because I'm a people pleaser same behavior four different explanations pushing your intimate partner to cheat on you the masochist to enjoy the pain the people pleaser to please the partner the psychopathic narcissist to get rid of the partner and the self-destructive type to destroy his marriage or his relationship these are all of course mentally ill people what about respect what about boundaries what about rules of conduct what about codes social and others what about scripts what happens to all these things don't expect the mentally ill to respect you they don't know how they have no self-respect so how could they possibly respect other people instead the mentally ill veer oscillate between abject submission and contemptuous defiance and don't expect the mentally ill to not breach your boundaries of course they will time and again they are unboundary mentally ill people have no boundaries or they have porous boundaries mentally ill people are hurtful they cause pain hurt people hurt people because they fail to perceive the separateness of others many mentally ill people do not possess a functioning self or an undisturbed identity they don't exist actually except for the agency of other people and existing through the agency of other people means you have no boundaries you don't know where you stop and other people begin so do not expect the mentally ill to observe the rules to obey some code of conduct to be empathic the mentally ill are too busy at survival they're self-centered they're entitled their mental illness is a get out of jail card excuses every misbehavior everyone else is to blame for the egregious misconduct of the mentally ill it's known as alloplastic defences so I'll give you two tips from the art of psychotherapy number one if a certain action or some inaction has outcomes these consequences are intended whether consciously or unconsciously people are often only dimly aware of the full range of their motivations and usually they get it wrong but when people make behavioral choices to act or to refrain from acting they actually seek and they intend the most likely outcomes even when and if they are not aware of the desired ends of the consequences of the outcomes even when they vehemently deny any such intention and motivation that's precisely what they want if someone acts in a certain way and there's a likely outcome they want the outcome if someone does not act and there's a likely consequence to not acting they want this consequence don't listen to any denials don't believe any disavowals if someone acts or does not act they want the likely consequences of their choices example if you act in a way that imperils and dangers a long held relationship it is because you want this relationship over you wish to extricate yourself from this relationship you want out this is your way of sabotaging the relationship if you don't act in a certain way and it would mean that the relationship is endangered the same you want it over the second thing I'm going to give you what clients say in therapy matters far less than why they choose to say what they are saying what content do the clients select what do they elect to disclose what do they omit and why what words do they employ and why do they choose these words why do so disclose anything in a particular timing the subtext the hidden occult text matters much more than the overt text speech acts need to be deconstructed to teach us anything meaningful about the client and one of the dominant features of deconstructing speech acts is isolating interpolations the way other people's expectations wishes dreams hopes demands penetrate our minds fashion our choices and decisions and actions and ultimately become an integral part of our identity this by the way is Lacan okay look it up today we are going to discuss what else sex on a Saturday morning so my name is Sam Watnin I'm the author of Malignant self-love complete the sentence narcissism revisited and I'm a professor of psychology and a variety of universities in many many countries all of them touched by covid but it's not my fault I swear it wasn't me okay so today we are going to discuss auto eroticism exhibitionism submissiveness in sex especially BDSM and what's the difference between submission in BDSM and self-trashing which is a behavior typical of borderline personality disorder and psychopathy psychopaths and borderlines self-trash but self-trashing and submissiveness are not the same additionally there are issues of auto eroticism self-infatuation and exhibitionism which brings into the picture narcissism is about being watched being observed you see it's an amazing complex Mary go around let us start auto eroticism is when someone regards himself or herself as her own sex object regarding oneself as someone's self-sex object usually we direct our libido our eros our life force our sex drive we directed it other people and this is a part of object relations our sexuality is other directed but when there are shall we put it gently disturbances in identity problems with personality disability extreme emotional dysregulation lack of core of identity in other words when the person is mentally disturbed when there are serious mental health problems usually instead of other directed libido there is self-directed libido self-directed sex drive the person perceives her body and even more so her mind is very sexual objects the sexual objects the primary sexual objects and this is auto eroticism auto eroticism is narcissistic of course because it is self-referential it is a redirection of life's energy in words it is interacting with internal objects including many internal sexual objects so it is part and parcel of narcissism all narcissists are auto erotic even somatic narcissists are auto erotic as we will see a bit later and auto eroticism often goes hand in hand with exhibitionism exhibitionism is becoming sexually aroused by being observed or watched in the sex act so exhibitionists become sexually excited and aroused and they are observed by other people having sex another person's objectifying gaze gives them the thrills thrills them sexually arouses them sexually this objectifying gaze of the other the observer the spectator the audience this objectifying gaze is at the core of narcissism actually because what is narcissism is about being seen being observed being spectated and so exhibitionism is actually a form of narcissism it is the exhibitionist sees himself or herself through another person's gaze through another person's eyes the exhibitionist objectifies herself by being observed by having an audience and having objectified herself she finds the resulting object extremely sexually arousing and of course the more numerous the observers the better the more the merrier the more numerous the observers the more intense the sexual excitatory state so one observer is good four observers are much better this is why people with autoeroticism the autoerotic mainly narcissists and especially psychopaths these people gravitate almost invariably and ineluctably gravitate to group sex usually with total strangers and they do so even in early adolescence the earliest case I've heard of was 12 years old a girl 12 years old who had group sex with a group of men she had met that day so autoeroticism leads to group sex via the pathway of exhibitionism the nascent psychopath usually at this early age of adolescence it's called contact disorder it's not called psychopathy it's called contact disorder the adolescent with contact disorder the sexuality of that adolescent is founded on autoeroticism and exhibitionism and this adolescent needs to be watched spectated and observed while having sex this kind of adolescent and later adult adult picks up total strangers and has sex in front of them with one of them or all of them in succession they take turns the autoerotic objectify not only themselves but they of course objectify also the partner they use the partner they use the partner's body as a sex toy to masturbate with the partner is a masturbatory aid the partner is therefore objectified and becomes anonymous, impersonal commodified, commoditized interchangable dispensable, disposable and replaceable these are the words which describe the psychopaths or the narcissists so called intimate sexual partner there's no intimacy there there is no sex even this is not a sexual activity this is masturbation with another person's body and whose body is it is besides the point and so the partner's identity is utterly incidental the partner could be anonymous an anonymous stranger encountered only minutes or a few hours before the act it doesn't matter who the partner is the partner is a prop in a theater autoerotic theater production is a prop like on a theater stage a table, a chair, a lamp so it doesn't matter if the partner is a long-term partner an intimate partner so called or a total stranger that you've met in the bar minutes ago the identity of the partner is besides the point casual sex is the autoerotic's staple day-to-day activity and in his committed relationships is sometimes sexless sex with an autoerotic person is an eerie and creepy sensation it is disembodied it's mechanical non-reciprocated infantile, it's lonely usually the autoerotic person avoids eye contact and is so self-focused so in himself that it's like he's absent the autoerotic partner focus exclusively on their bodies and their self gratification to the exclusion of everything and everyone else it's like they're all alone in bed and you just happen to be there as an operation or as an animated dildo or animated sex do the intimate partners of the autoerotic invariably develop sex aversion to the autoerotic to the autoerotic partner because the sex sucks the autoerotic's solipsistic self-focus defiance and oblivion to the partner is also a form of narcissistic injury if the partner of the autoerotic person is a narcissist if the partner of the autoerotic person is also a psychopath in other words if we have two narcissists or two psychopaths both of them autoerotic both of them grandiose the autoeroticism of the partner triggers aggression because it's a narcissistic injury it's like the partner the autoerotic partner broadcasts you are not special you are not unique you are not who you think you are so autoeroticism deflates grandiosity countervins grandiosity it's a challenge in extreme cases autoeroticism can modify the narcissist it definitely provokes the psychopath into rage extreme aggression verbalized or even physical autoeroticism is a trigger to narcissists and psychopaths because it cast them as just one of many the autoerotic partner says you just happened to be there it's a coincidence it's an accident you are not here because you were chosen especially but you are here because I needed something I needed someone I needed a sex toy I had the need you just happened to be there paradoxically precisely because the partner of the autoerotic person is a mere generic and differentiated prop precisely because of this as long as the autoerotic person's needs are catered to within the relationship the autoerotic rarely cheats on the mates I want to explain this the autoerotic person doesn't care who is there to serve as the sex toy the autoerotic person doesn't care who is the prop the autoerotic person doesn't care who is the partner he doesn't care about the identity of the partner he is not emotionally attached to the partner he doesn't care if the partner is a 10 year old partner or if the partner is a 10 minute partner whom he had just met so it doesn't matter who is the partner the partner's identity, personality preferences wishes, character all this is utterly irrelevant to the autoerotic sex act because the autoerotic sex act is making love to oneself not to anyone else it's a form of glorified masturbation with another person's body and precisely because the partner is a generic and differentiated prop as long as the autoerotic partner's needs are sexually communicated to within the relationship there's no reason for the autoerotic to cheat on his partner because what doesn't matter any part, any sexual partner is as good as any other so why bother to replace them the autoerotic person makes love to himself and because he makes love to himself he doesn't truly care who is in bed with him so he has no incentive to cheat it's irrelevant who is in bed with him so cheating is actually low when the autoerotic person is in a committed relationship and when the sexual needs of the autoerotic person are met adequately cheating is extremely rare some autoerotic people are masochistic so it's a more it's a rarer combination it's rare to have an autoerotic person who is also masochistic because autoerotic people are narcissists and psychopaths but it is not as rare as you would think I would guess that about one third of narcissists are actually masochists definitely sexual masochists so if the autoerotic but that's a guess there are no studies that's from anecdotes and my database if the autoerotic person is masochistic he is on the fly sex involves extreme self-trashing so the masochistic autoerotic person self-trashes self-trashes sexually dispoils herself degrades herself and she accomplishes this in a variety of ways she may have sex with unwanted partners sex she doesn't want to have with unwanted partners and it is precisely because they are unwanted that she enjoys the sex this is the irony here self-trashing is about feeling good when you are feeling bad having unwanted sex with an unwanted partner that's almost rape or self-rape that's feeling really really bad that leaves a bad taste afterwards if not regret and shame which are rare among autoerotic people but a bad taste definitely and it is this exactly which sexually arouses and excites the autoerotic masochistic person because it's a way of self-punishing it's self punitive it's an inflection of some kind of damage or disgust of another self by sleeping with someone she doesn't want to sleep with similarly having sex with little known people or having sex with inappropriate partners way too old for example so all this this selection of wrong partners this is a form of self-trashing made selection that is compromised made selection that wrongs to blatantly wrong partners is a form of self-trashing similarly the masochistic self-trashing autoerotic person would tend to pick up sex and to initiate sex or to be responsive to sex in degrading circumstances or in demeaning debasing environments she would go to places dives, joints where with a very bad reputation where she's likely to be picked up by scum or low life people the circumstances, the environment with its horrendous reputation that precedes it this in itself is a form of self-trashing so you would find qualified professionals, pillars of the community decent men and women come night go frequent and attend these haunts and joints just to pick up low life scum criminals, junkies alcoholics and then go immediately to bed with them in a sleazy, fleabag motel off the road, off the highway go to bed with them within a minute or within two hours after a glass of wine so this is a way to self-trash less commonly cheating, although rare among autoerotic people when it does happen it is a form of self-trashing it's a form of self-trashing because when the autoerotic masochistic person cheats sustains, buttresses enhances his self-perception is I'm a bed and worthy object here, I'm cheating I'm really bad and of course feeling really bad makes her feel really good or at least really sexually aroused similarly celibacy celibacy is a form of self-trashing not acting on one's sex drive suppressing it, repressing it torturing oneself by not having sex it's the same purpose, it's a self-destructive technique it's a self-destructive strategy extreme celibacy and abstaining in the face of temptations and seductions and opportunities this is a form of self-trashing actually and again, the sentence is I'm a bed object unworthy of sex so you see a variety of behaviors sex with complete strangers sex with unwanted unwanted partners sex with inappropriate partners sex with total strangers sex in degrading circumstances sex in disreputable environments cheating when it's not called for celibacy all these are actually forms of self-trashing and they characterize they comprise the spectrum of self-trashing behaviors of the autoerotic person the self-trashing autoerotic person abuses substances and drinks becomes alcoholic or abuses alcohol does drugs the abuse of substances is with the aim of disinhibiting herself disinhibiting herself removing social injunctions and social inhibitions which all of us interiorize internalize in the process of socialization during childhood to remove these social inhibitions to behave in socially inappropriate ways shamefully so to speak disgracefully, degradingly to despoil herself she needs to remove these inhibitions and she uses alcohol and drugs similarly some autoerotic people drink to excess to the point of unconsciousness or blackout because they want to numb themselves to socially to their own socially unacceptable misconduct and some kind of unconscious egodistony discomfort with what they are doing they don't want to experience this discomfort and shame and social sanctioning or problem so they numb themselves they simply anesthetize themselves with drugs and alcohol we said that all these everything I've described until now is characteristic of narcissists and psychopaths not of course of the general population narcissists and psychopaths are an imitative surface only there's only the shell there is no depth there's just an empty schizoid core where a person should have been you could say that narcissists and psychopaths are carbon based artificial intelligence simulations glitchy by the way if I may add so it's surface only when you try to probe deeper into the narcissists and psychopath when you try to talk about emotions when you try to have them commit to you or promise something you come across a brick wall there's no way to have any meaningful conversational dialogue with the narcissists and psychopath except when it is imitative mimicry a form of mimicry there's nothing there it's not that the narcissists and psychopath are hiding their emotions when they have negative emotions they're very valuable about it there's just nothing there as Harvey Cleckley noted in his amazing masterpiece already in 1942 the mask of sanity Harvey Cleckley said that these mutations these mutants prefer sexual self-trashing to normal sex they even prefer sexual self-trashing to mainstream sexual trashing known as BDSM you see there's a big difference between sexual self-trashing and self-trashing and BDSM or bondage sadomaso practices in other words there's a huge difference between being a self-trasher and being a sub a sub or a bottom in BD