That concludes general questions. The next item of business is First Minister's Questions, and at question number one, I call Douglas Ross. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Earlier this week, Rishi Sunak announced a £4.2 billion contract to build five Type 26 frigates on the flight. This is a decision that will protect and strengthen our Scottish shipbuilding industry. The UK Government contract will support 1,700 jobs at Govan and Scottsdon alone, with a further 2,300 jobs in the wider supply chain. Will the First Minister join me in wholeheartedly welcoming this huge investment in Scottish jobs and our economy by the UK Government? Yes, I do welcome this announcement and I welcome the recognition of the skills, talent and expertise on the River Clyde. Of course, while those are responsibilities that continue to lie in the hands of the UK Government, albeit with Scottish taxpayers contributing to the cost of them, it is absolutely vital that Scotland benefits fully. I do welcome the decision and I would also take the opportunity to congratulate BAE. I have campaigned over many years for the future of Govan shipyard, which used to be in my constituency and is now in the constituency of Humza Yousaf. While I do welcome the award of this contract, I am duty bound to note that the original proposal back in 2010 was not for five new vessels, it was actually for 13 new vessels. It was said then that all of that work would be undertaken on the Clyde. Yes, let's welcome it but let's not rewrite history in the process. I'll take that as being about as good as it gets for the First Minister, supporting decisions by the UK Government, because this is a massive boost to Scottish shipbuilding and is only possible because we are part of the United Kingdom. Well, they don't like it, but an investment of this scale in engineering and manufacturing jobs would not be possible if the SNP got their way. If the nationalists ever managed to separate Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom, these Royal Navy ships would almost certainly be built elsewhere and the highly skilled Scottish jobs lost. Don't just take our word for it. Earlier this week we heard from Keith Hartley, a Professor of Economics and a Defence expert. He's advised the United Nations, the European Commission and the European Defence Agency. He said and I quote, I don't see a future for a Scottish warship building industry in an independent Scotland. First Minister, he's right isn't he? Before I go into the detail of that, let me just make the general point that I've made in this chamber before. If Douglas Ross wants to have a debate about the benefits or, as he would say, otherwise of independence, then I'd really welcome that. Let's have that debate and then let the people of Scotland decide the outcome in a referendum. If Douglas Ross was really confident in his arguments then he'd have the courage to have this debate, not just in the safety of the parliamentary debating chamber but out there in towns and villages and communities all over Scotland. I do believe that the expertise and the skills of our shipbuilders on the river Clyde are world class and I believe that they would compete successfully for work across the world, regardless of the constitutional future of Scotland. That's the confidence that I have in our shipbuilding industry. Before Douglas Ross tries to argue against that, some of the work that was announced this week for Harland and Wolfe, for example, the UK Government at one point intended to hand all of that overseas and compete the contract internationally. The point is kind of made on that matter. Of course, an independent Scotland like independent countries all over the world and an independent Scotland as a full member of NATO would have naval capabilities of its own. Capabilities that can and would be served and improved upon by our world-renowned shipbuilding industry and expertise. The difference between me and Douglas Ross is that I have confidence in our industry in all circumstances. He clearly doesn't. Douglas Ross, who should the public trust on the economics of shipbuilding? A First Minister who can't build a single ferry for £250 million or a defence expert who's advised the United Nations? Of course, the First Minister has to deny the facts because the independence movement is sinking. It's absolutely sinking. She is a separation creek without a paddle and we know that there wouldn't be any major ships built as she got her way. Douglas looks at her, her own appalling record on failing to build essential ferries for Scotland's island communities. The UK Government has delivered seven ships here in Scotland during her time as First Minister. Over the same period, how many have the SNP Scottish Government delivered? Douglas Ross regularly, and rightly challenges me on the delivery of the ferries, but he should perhaps be careful what he wishes for in terms of the exchange that we are having today. Of course, the vessels that he is lodding today, and I have welcomed the announcements around, back in 2013 the UK Government said that the first of those vessels would come into service around 2020. Earlier this month it was reported that the first Type 26 wouldn't come into service until October 2028, eight years after the proposed date. Members, let's hear one another please. Let's turn to cost because the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, has also said this in cost, that over the lifetime of the programme the cost would be £233 million more than forecast. Perhaps Douglas Ross should turn some of those questions to his colleagues south of the border if he wants to come here and make a big issue of those things in this chamber. If Douglas Ross really believed what he has just said about Scotland's independence movement, he would be desperate for an independence referendum. The fact that he is running scared of an independence referendum proves him wrong. Secondly, while I welcome those announcements for the Clyde this week, the fact is that most people across Scotland right now, and indeed the UK, who are watching television, will be watching the Chancellor on his feet in the House of Commons announce significant deep real terms cuts and tax rises. That's the price of Tory government and that's why an increasing number of people in Scotland want this country to be independent. Douglas Ross. Anyone watching the Chancellor's autumn statement will look at what that is delivering, rather than the narrative from the fibbing First Minister who has been caught out so many times, because the narrative from the Chancellor today is a UK Government that is increasing benefits and pensions in line with inflation, that is increasing spending on health and on education, that is delivering £1.5 billion of extra support to Scotland and is investing in the future of our economy. The First Minister had a very, very long narrative, but zero answers. That's what I'm desperate for in here, is finally an answer from Nicola Sturgeon. The reason she didn't answer is because her Government, in the same time that the UK Government has delivered seven warships, has delivered one ferry. Seven warships compared to one ferry. Now the UK Government will build another five frigates here in Scotland, but we don't know when the SNP will actually deliver and complete a ferry. Her failure is having a real impact on people and the livelihoods right across Scotland. Almost, yes, really Cabinet Secretary, because almost half of all businesses... Members, excuse me, I'm simply not having members shouting at one another across the aisles. Can we please hear one another when we're speaking? The Cabinet Secretary is not just shouting at me, she is shouting at the island communities who are crying out for support from this First Minister and this Government, because before I was interrupted by the Cabinet Secretary, I was going to say half, half of islands and islands businesses said that ferry cancellations are posing a risk to their future. Just this week, we've heard from islanders who are again enduring food shortages. The First Minister might not want to admit that her shipbuilding record has sunk the case for independence, but will she at least accept that her Government's failure to replace lifeline ferries is doing massive damage to our island communities? First Minister? Yes, I have said on many occasions that the impact on our island communities of the delays to the ferries is deeply regrettable, which is why the Government with Fagustin's shipyard is focused so much and so hard on delivering these ferries. Douglas Ross comes here and lods five type 26 frigates, and he is right to do so. I've welcomed that announcement, but he tries to make a comparison with ferries. I think that he probably, before doing so, should have reflected on the fact that the first of these type 26 vessels will come into service eight years after it was planned to do so and at a significant cost overrun. If he wants to trade these things, he should at least understand the fact that he's basing his argument on it. Secondly, I've already talked about the impact on our island communities and I repeat that, but what is having a significant impact on the lives and livelihoods of people across Scotland is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is currently setting out in the House of Commons. If Douglas Ross wants to talk about interruption to food supplies, for example, across the whole of the UK, caused by Brexit, then perhaps we might focus on that. Or the £55 billion black hole at the heart of UK finances largely caused by a combination of Brexit and Tory economic mismanagement that the Chancellor has just said is being filled by tax rises and spending cuts, more than half of it by spending cuts, so budgets for this Government set at a time when inflation was 3 per cent, now being eroded by inflation at more than 10 per cent. That is having a devastating impact on people, on businesses, on public services across our country. When we consider all of that, Presiding Officer, it is no wonder at all that Douglas Ross did not want to come to this chamber and talk about any of the harm that Conservatives are doing to people across Scotland. Before I move on to question 2, I would prefer if members would please avoid language that suggests that other members are being deliberately untruthful, and I call Anna Sarwar. Presiding Officer, this week the British Medical Association in Scotland sounded an alarm about the state of GP practices across the country. They say that practices are struggling with vacancies and GPs are, in their words, exhausted, burnt out and cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Do you agree with BMA Scotland and accept their criticism that this Government is not doing enough to tackle the GP crisis? Let me come on essentially in a second to what we are doing to tackle the situation with GP services in particular. Yes, I do accept what the BMA says about the pressure on our GPs. The NHS as a whole is under very significant pressure, greater pressure perhaps than at any time in the history of the national health service. That is true for those who work in our acute sector, and it is also true of those who work in primary care, including GPs. I absolutely accept those comments of the BMA. That, of course, is exactly why. Starting from a base where we already have proportionately higher staffing in the NHS in Scotland than other parts of the UK and proportionately higher funding for our NHS, we have a target of recruiting over the next few years 800 additional GPs in headcounts. So far, since 2017, we have recruited 277 of them. In addition to that, we are supporting the wider primary care teams. In recent times, we have recruited over 3,000 primary care multidisciplinary team members to help with the pressure on GPs. NHS Pharmacy First has provided almost 3 million consultations across its network, so we continue to take action to support GPs, but to support the wider teams in which GPs operate, and it is right and proper that we do so. The First Minister says that more GPs are being recruited, and she says that she is listening to what the BMA has to say about the pressures that they face, but she is clearly not listening to what they have to say about the recruitment crisis that we have in this national health service that predates the pandemic. To talk about the 227 new GPs recruited, the BMA is saying that we are 1,000 GPs short right now. That means unbearable pressure on existing GPs, and it means that many patients are unable to access a GP. On the First Minister's target of 800, we are well short, and the BMA has made it clear that missing the target would mean, and I quote again, disastrous for Scotland and our patients. At the same time, the First Minister has decided to cut the budget for primary care by £65 million. Those cuts mean taking away the ability to recruit the health professionals that GP practices need to support their patients. Dr Bewist has this to say that this cut threatens to undermine practices at the exact moment when we should be doing the opposite. Will the First Minister reverse this cut, truly listen to the BMA and support Scotland's NHS staff? I don't like the budget situation that the Scottish Government faces, but the hard reality is that this year our budget has been eroded to the tune of £1.7 billion because of inflation. It's effectively a fixed budget. We have no levers to increase the revenue available to us within this financial year, so we have to make very difficult decisions. We have been open with the chamber about those decisions, and if any member of the chamber thinks that we should take different decisions, they can come and put that case to us. What they can't do is magic up more money for this financial year. That's a reality that Anna Sarwar's colleagues in Wales openly recognise. They are facing tough decisions as well, and they are making clear that, without additional funding from the UK Government, those tough decisions are inescapable. That is the reality that we face. None of us is like it, but we cannot escape it. We have more GPs per head of population than other parts of the UK, but we want to grow our GP workforce, which is why the target I have spoken about and the progress against that target is so important. That is the redesign and reform work that we are doing in terms of the wider primary care teams. None of those things are easy, and the impact on patients of the pressure on our NHS, I think all of us acutely understand. We will continue to support those who work in our national health service. We will try to recruit from overseas as much as we can, something that inexplicably Labour seems to have set their face against. We will continue to take the steps to support our NHS in those tough times, because that is what they deserve and what the people of Scotland expect from us. Anna Sarwar The First Minister wants to pretend that she has not been in Government for 15 years and has been in charge of setting the budget for the NHS for 15 years. Those problems predate the budget and the inflation crisis, but I recognise the inflation crisis, and that is why, when the Deputy First Minister came to this chamber two months ago with the emergency statement, we said then that we would work constructively with the Government if they opened up the books. They have failed to open up the books, rather hiding and playing politics, where I am doing right by the people across this country. Those decisions have consequences. The Deputy First Minister called the cut of £65 million for GP practices, which are already short-staffed under pressure as a reprioritisation. Let's call it what it is. It's a cut that's having a devastating consequence for staff and for patients. At the same time as cutting GP practices, the health secretary tells people to go to their GP instead of going to the A&E. Another case of the SNP telling NHS staff to do more with less, leaving patients waiting longer to be seen, longer to be diagnosed and longer to be treated. The SNP has been in charge of our NHS for 15 years and there is a crisis in every part of it. In our GP practices, after accident emergencies, in our hospitals, staff are crying out for help, patients are dying. Does the First Minister accept that this is the worst it's ever been, all happening on Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf's watch? Nothing I have said today or at any time takes away from the fact that management of the NHS is the responsibility of me and my Government. I absolutely accept that and take that responsibility seriously. Is the pressure on the NHS greater than it has been at any time in the history of the NHS? Yes, it is. That has been significantly exacerbated by the pandemic but there are other factors at play there as well. The changing demographics of our populations, for example. So these are significant challenges that Governments have to work through. The fact of the matter is though that while management of the NHS is our responsibility, the amount that we are able to invest in the national health service is determined by funding decisions that are taken at Westminster, the kind of funding decisions that are being set out in the House of Commons as we speak. Labour's Health Minister in Wales, the fact is, our hands are tied by the amount of money that we get from the UK Government. That's the situation we are in. How is it that Labour in Wales can recognise that but Labour in Scotland is so blind to the reality because they're so thrilled to defending the Conservatives at the expense of setting out the reality? In terms of primary care funding, of course, the primary care improvement fund is still increased in value to £170 million. We have opened the books. The Deputy First Minister has made two statements in this Parliament setting out the savings that we are required to make because of inflation to balance our books. Anybody who wants to say that we should be doing that differently can come forward and say that. What they cannot do is deny the reality. Even within that reality, we have proportionately higher funding for our national health service in Scotland than in other parts of the UK, including in Wales, where Labour is in government and higher staffing levels. That's the measure of the priority that this Government gives to the national health service and always will give to our national health service. I intend taking general and supplementary questions after question 6. Can I ask those members who have pressed for a supplementary, please don't repress? However, if you do want a supplementary that refers to questions 4 to 6 on the paper, please press at the relevant point. I call Alex Cole-Hamilton. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. To ask the First Minister when the Cabinet will next meet. First Minister. Tuesday. Alex Cole-Hamilton. I'm very grateful for that reply. Presiding Officer, we see the cost of Conservative incompetence measured out in the budget today. It will be punishing for families and public services alike. Those on the lowest incomes are most exposed. That includes many working in our social care sector. The First Minister is asking all of them to wait four years for the wrong solution. Organisations are now lining up to condemn the creation of the deceptively named national care service. This week, Barnardo was the latest to warn that the huge spend required risks diverting resources away from front-line services. Presiding Officer, they are right. The cost of this vast and unnecessary bureaucracy is up to £1.3 billion already and rising. That's before the Scottish ministers trigger a massive VAT bill through centralisation. If the First Minister has £1 billion to spare, then every care worker in Scotland can think of better ways to spend it. Will she withdraw the bill today and put that money into services and staff? First Minister. Alex Cole-Hamilton, as is his right, has opposed the national care service from even before the parliamentary scrutiny began. That is his position, but he shouldn't stand up here and say it's because of comments that have been made in the course of the parliamentary scrutiny so far. We will listen carefully to that and it's important that we allow that process of scrutiny to continue. The national care service is about ending a postcode lottery in adult social care that all of us accept is not acceptable. It is about better valuing those who work in our social care system. That's what we want to do. Of course we will listen to the comments that are made in the course of the parliamentary scrutiny of the bill. In time, of course, we will continue to take action to address the challenges in social care. We've committed to increase spend in social care by 25 per cent by the end of the Parliament. Of course we are increasing the wages of those who work in social care. We will continue to take that action as we will continue to progress the bill through Parliament, listening carefully to the comments that are made along the way. Question 4, Kenneth Gibson. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government anticipates impact will be in Scotland of today's autumn statement. The Chancellor had only really begun the detail of his statement when I left the office to come to the chamber, so I've not yet had the opportunity to see all of the detail. We will assess the impact of that fully. However, I think it is clear from what we know indeed from what the Chancellor had indicated before getting to his feet today that the UK Government is repeating the mistakes of the past, austerity, which they appear to be reintroducing, does not work and will have significant consequences for people, for businesses and for public services. Those plans are likely to worsen the extreme pressures already being faced as a result of inflation and rising interest rates. We have called for an alternative approach that avoids prolonging a recession that the Bank of England forecast and the OBR confirms today, as I understand it, that the UK is currently in recession. I hope that that alternative approach is listened to. However, of course, the UK is almost unique amongst wealthier countries in reintroducing austerity. It's the wrong approach and it will have a significant adverse impact on people and public services across Scotland. I thank the First Minister for that reply. On the morning of the last disaster story budget, former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney told the Financial Times that in 2016 the British economy was 90 per cent the size of Germany. It's now less than 70 per cent. Following that budget, £65 million, almost £1,000 for every person in the UK, was needed to stop a pensions fund collapse. Does the First Minister agree that the economic incompetence of successive UK Governments is why household incomes have languished since 2008, failing to keep pace with inflation as we face swinging cuts to public spending and ministerising taxes? Can she advise us of the alternative to UK stagnation that will deliver a more prosperous, equal and fairer Scotland? Kenny Gibson is absolutely right to talk about the impact of Tory mismanagement. What we are hearing from the Chancellor today are tax rises and spending cuts. More than half of the black hole, according to the Chancellor, is going to be filled by spending cuts that will have a significant impact on our public services, including the national health service. We also know that, although there are global factors at play, much of that is caused by UK-specific factors. Brexit is a long-term and permanent drag on the UK economy. The effects of that are catastrophic. Of course, Tory mismanagement through the many budget that I know the Scottish Conservatives now like to pretend never happened, are exacerbating that impact. It is people, businesses and public services who are paying the price of all of that. Finally, there is an alternative to Tory mismanagement of our economy, its self-management of our economy, otherwise known as independence. Michelle Thomson pointed out that research has proven that far from working the UK Government austerity programme after the 2008 financial crisis resulted in one of the lengthiest and slowest recoveries, yet the UK Government seemed determined to repeat the same mistakes. Does the FM agree that, given the economic evidence proves that smaller independent states recovered best, it is actually the only sensible choice to follow their path and gain full control of our economy? First Minister. Absolutely. What we are experiencing right now is what happens when we allow others to take decisions for us instead of taking these decisions for ourselves. No matter how the Tories try to dress up today's statement, all of the spin that they will use, what they are doing is reintroducing austerity. They are doing that at a time when our public services haven't yet properly recovered from the last period of Tory austerity. That is the reality and there is no denying that by the Conservatives. The countries across the world, of course, go through difficult times and some of those issues are global, but most countries do better when they control their own destinies and their own future and that too will be true when Scotland does become independent. Question number five, Pam Gossel. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government supports the introduction of a domestic abuse register. First Minister. I am aware of the consultation on a proposed domestic abuse bill and certainly take the opportunity to confirm that we will consider any proposals that would further our commitment to do more to support victims of domestic abuse and of course we will consider that when the consultation has concluded. It will be important of course to look at how any proposals would interlink with implementation of Equally Safe, a strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls, but certainly we are open minded to any reasonable proposals that come forward. Pam Gossel. I thank the First Minister for that response. The consultation for my bill, which would introduce a domestic abuse register, closes on Monday. That bill proposal would help to protect victims of this appalling crime. Here is an example. I have spoken to one woman who told me she suffered numerous acts of violence and awful physical abuse for years. Her abuser has allegedly attacked five other women. She believes that my proposed bill could have prevented some of those women from going through a horrific ordeal. Will the First Minister agree to meet with me and this brave woman to hear why a domestic abuse register is necessary? First Minister. Of course we will listen and meet when appropriate with anybody who wants to put forward those suggestions. I absolutely understand why somebody in that situation would consider that a proposal like this would make a difference. The Justice Secretary, of course, did meet with Pam Gossel, I believe at the end of August, to discuss the launch of the consultation on her proposed domestic abuse bill. We will consider those proposals when the consultation has closed, which I know it does shortly, and the proposals in that consultation have been properly analysed. We are open minded to that. Of course, the Disclosure Scheme for Domestic Abuse, the Police Scotland Disclosure Scheme, is in place right now. That has an important impact, but none of us, absolutely none of us should be complacent about domestic abuse or the need to do more to protect victims and potential victims of domestic abuse. I hope that the member will take those comments in the spirit that they are intended to signify a genuinely open mind. We have a number of initiatives in place, many of them under the ambit of Equally Safe that are about protecting women and girls. We need to consider carefully any proposals to ensure that they fit with that, but our minds are open and we will have further discussions as appropriate. Pauline McNeill. Almost 80 per cent of women prisoners in Scotland have a history of significant head injury, but mostly through domestic abuse. The University of Glasgow has shown that in research, 66 per cent of female inmates have suffered repeat head injuries and for many years, 89 per cent of participants said that domestic violence was the most common cause. It is concerning that many might return to their abusers or release from prison. Can I ask the First Minister what further action the Scottish Government can take to consider that specific point about female prisoners who had a history of being victims of domestic abuse while they are in prison, but, importantly, when they are released from prison? I am certainly happy to give further consideration to that point and to look carefully at the research that underpins Pauline McNeill's question. I think that it is the case and it is also well understood that many women who are in prison will be victims of abuse and will be vulnerable in many respects. There are similar vulnerabilities, of course, for many men who are in prison as well, but we are rightly focusing on the issue of women right now. The number of women in prison has reduced over recent years, of course, and we want to see that trend continue so that those who do offend are treated appropriately. The points about the support for women who have suffered domestic abuse while they are in prison but also upon their release from prison is important. We will certainly undertake to give the points that Pauline McNeill has raised today proper consideration and come back to her when we have had the opportunity to do so. Question 6, Richard Leonard. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the report Health Inequalities in Scotland by the Fraser of Allander Institute. The report confirms what I suspect most of us already know is that socio-economic inequalities drive wider inequalities, and that is exactly why this Government is using the powers and resources that we have to tackle that within the limits, of course, that we operate within. We are doing that in a range of ways, for example through social security, including the Scottish child payment, through provision of free childcare, free school meals, concessionary travel, free prescriptions and investment in affordable housing. We are doing that and this is just a statement of fact. We are doing that with one hand tied behind our backs without the full powers to tackle poverty, and while we are shackled to a Westminster system and Tory government, which has caused economic chaos and savage reductions in real terms in our budget. I hope that today we hear something different from the Chancellor, but as I said earlier on, I fear that the continued or reintroduced austerity that we are hearing today will deepen these impacts but also strengthen the case for more of these decisions and more of these powers lying in the hands of this Parliament. Richard Leonard. This week's report confirmed that almost half of Scotland's personal wealth is owned by just 10 per cent of households and that there is a direct link between extreme wealth inequality and health inequality. Does the First Minister accept that the Scottish Government has the power to redistribute land ownership and wealth that does not use that power? That the Scottish Government has the power to abolish the regressive council tax, introduce a land value tax, make land and building transaction taxes much more progressive but has failed to do so? That a wealth tax set and administered by the Scottish Parliament through an order of council could be pursued but she has decided not to. When will the First Minister use the tax powers that the Scottish Government has got to reduce Scotland's extreme inequalities of wealth and to fund our public services properly and progressively? I agree with a lot of what Richard Leonard has said. I suspect to agree with more of it than Anna Sarwar, whose face was pretty impassive as Richard Leonard recounting all of these policies, which I suspect are not Scottish Labour policies. The fact of the matter is that if it is Scottish Labour's policy to replace the council tax with a land value tax, I will be happy to hear that and hear the detail of that. The fact of the matter is that with our limited tax powers, of course, we do have a more progressive system of tax, so income tax, which is our main tax power, far too limited in terms of the overall sweep of tax powers, then if you earn more in Scotland, you pay slightly more and if you earn at least, you pay slightly less tax than you would elsewhere in the UK. Richard Leonard wants us to be able to consider and introduce a wealth tax, and he really needs to argue for the powers to lie in this Parliament to do exactly that, so we will always favour progressive taxation, but we need more powers over taxation in this Parliament to give effect to that. What we have done this week, of course, is both increase the value of and extend the reach of the unique Scottish child payment, putting money directly into the pockets of those at the lowest end of the income spectrum and lifting children out of poverty. A shining example of how we can use powers when we have powers in the hands of this Parliament. Thank you. We move to supplementary questions, and I call Stephanie Callaghan to be followed by Miles Briggs. Presiding Officer, as the First Minister has just mentioned, the Scottish child payment has been increased to £25 and extended to under-16s this week. That has been described as a watershed moment by anti-poverty campaigners, but does the First Minister share my frustration that, while this Scottish Government is using the limited powers that it has to support people, those efforts are frequently undermined by the actions of the UK Tory Government? First Minister. Yes, that is not just a matter of opinion, that is a matter of fact. So, while we are putting £25 now a week into the pockets of the lowest income families per child, the Tory Government in power right now, not that long ago, took £20 a week away from the poorest through the clawback of the universal credit uplift. So, that is just a fact, but we will continue to act to use the powers we have. This week was a watershed moment. The Scottish child payment, that payment does not exist anywhere else in the UK, and it is an example of what can be done when we prioritise lifting children out of poverty and investing in their future. As anti-poverty campaigners have said this week, if the Scottish Government can do that, then why on earth can't the UK Government follow suit? To be followed by Paul King. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In the early hours of Monday morning, a war memorial in front of Edinburgh City Council in what was a mindless act of vandalism and absolutely appalling insult towards our fallen war heroes. This is both shocked and angered local community here in Edinburgh, and I hope those who are responsible will be held to account in due course. Sadly, those attacks on war memorials are increasing in Scotland. That is why my Scottish Conservative colleague, Megan Gallagher, is bringing forward a bill to impose tougher penalties on those who attack and deface war memorials. Can I ask the First Minister if she will agree to consider Scottish Conservative proposals around this issue, and what update can she provide with regard to the investigation around Monday's incident? First Minister. Firstly, yes, we will consider any proposals that are brought forward. I have not seen the detail of those proposals yet, but when they do appear, we will give them due consideration and that is certainly important to do. In terms of the attack on the war memorial in Edinburgh, less than 24 hours before that despicable attack took place, I amongst others was privileged to lay a wreath at that war memorial in remembrance of those who had made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country and to allow us to enjoy the freedoms that we take for granted today. What happened in the early hours of Monday morning is almost beyond words, absolutely despicable, sickening and disgusting. It is beyond my comprehension, I am sure it is beyond the comprehension of any of us in this chamber, how anybody could attack a war memorial at any time of the year, but particularly just hours after remembrance Sunday. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on an on-going police investigation, obviously that is for the police to take forward, but where I will end those remarks in agreement with the member is that I really do hope that those responsible for this despicable attack are identified and face the full force of justice. Thank you, Presiding Officer. On Sunday international teams will begin to compete for the biggest prize in world football, but they will do so in a state that denies the rights of LGBT plus people, suppresses the rights of women and has demonstrated quite clearly in regard for the lives or wellbeing of migrant workers. Only a few weeks ago, Qatar's World Cup ambassador branded being gay as damage in the mind. Senior figures of the SFA will be attending World Cup events on the day the tournament kicks off. LGBT plus people, many of whom are passionate football fans, are allies and stands across the country, the tartan army, the STUC and Xander Murray of Gallifery Dean Rovers, of whom I think we should all be immensely proud to have voiced concern and disapproval of the World Cup and have called on the SFA to think again. The SFA has said that it is, and I quote, supportive of all measures to improve human rights conditions in Qatar. Does the First Minister believe that our football governing body attending this World Cup can send any other message than the validation of the human rights record of Qatar and what message does she think it sends particularly to LGBT plus people in Scotland? First Minister. Firstly, as the World Cup gets under way later this week in Qatar, I think it is a really important moment for all of us, regardless of party, regardless of anything else that might divide us, to stand in solidarity with the LGBT plus community in Scotland, in the UK, in Europe and right across the world. I hope that that will unite all of us today. In terms of attendance or otherwise of SFA officials, that is a matter for the SFA. Governments should not intervene in decisions that sports governing bodies take, but I would certainly hope that anybody attending the World Cup in Qatar in any capacity would take the opportunity to express solidarity with our LGBT plus community. I think that that is what is even more important over the next few weeks than sport that we take the opportunity to stand up for human rights and the dignity of those in that community and that we unite around that sentiment today and right throughout the period of the competition in Qatar. Natalie Dawn, to be followed by Alexander Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Figures published this week show that the number of young Scots aged 18 to 24 sanctioned by the DWP has nearly doubled since 2019. That's over 2,500 young people being denied vital support in the midst of a cost of living crisis. Does the First Minister share my view that this is immoral and that the welfare system should be there to support people not penalise them? Natalie Dawn is absolutely right to raise this issue. These figures are really alarming. They are DWP figures and they show that the universal credit sanction rate is more than double the pre-pandemic level with over 42,000 sanctions being applied across all claims in July this year. The data also shows that sanctions are applied most to young people between the ages of 18 to 24. Despite substantial evidence showing that sanctions simply do not work and that they have long-term detrimental effects, this UK Government's sanctions policy is pushing more people into hardship and doing that during a cost of living crisis. I take the opportunity today to call in the UK Government to urgently review its sanctions policy along with the other punitive policies within the universal credit system such as the five-week wait, the two-child limit, the benefit cap and focus instead on supporting people rather than punishing them when they are already struggling so much. Alexander Stewart. First Minister, you are aware of the difficulties that are facing the 4th Valley hospital, with five consultants leaving in the space of two weeks and the facility being described as a war zone and toxic environment. The health board say that any concerns raised by clinical or other staff groups are taken seriously and there is no attempt to cover up, but the reality is that I continue to have to make representation to the board as further whistleblowers come forward seeking assistance. They are saying that the culture within the hospital regarding bullying continues and there is no meaningful change by the senior management. First Minister, this is frankly a shocking situation to occur in any hospital so what action can be put in place to ensure that the facility is safe and fit for purpose? The safety of any hospital is of paramount importance. Let me make two points and I know the health secretary is engaged fully on these issues. Firstly, when a whistleblower raises a concern that must be treated with the utmost seriousness and thoroughly investigated. Secondly, the chief operating officer of NHS Scotland has met the fourth valley chief executive to discuss the concerns raised. The Scottish Government is supporting fourth valley to develop a robust cohesive action plan for improvement and national planning and performance oversight group met earlier this month to discuss next steps and I know the health secretary will continue to keep members updated. Thank you, that concludes First Minister's questions. Point of order, Liam Kerr. Thank you, Presiding Officer. On Tuesday the 15th of November I asked Tuesday the 15th of November I asked Minister Lorna Slater When did ministers first become aware that they were using a figure that to quote Scottish Government officials hadn't been properly sourced? She responded Ministers became aware of the issue on Tuesday the 8th of November. Emails in the public domain reveal that civil servants actually wrote to at least two Ministers in October 2020 saying quote the 25% estimate has never to my knowledge been properly sourced. So the information provided to Parliament by Minister Slater two days ago does not apparently accord with the facts. Parliament has been misled again. On Tuesday I also quoted the ministerial code at section 1.3C on how ministers who mislead Parliament should respond. To the best of my knowledge the only correction to the record has been by the First Minister after I called her out on her previous use of misleading energy consumption statistics. None of those who misled Parliament on the 25% claim have apparently acted. This is a Government which appears to hold the ministerial code and the honour and privilege of office in utter disdain. The implications of ministers consistently and brazenly misleading this Parliament are huge as are the implications of ministers not acting in accordance with the ministerial code having done so. I am concerned that a perceived lack of integrity in Scottish ministers in not abiding by our processes and codes risks bringing this Parliament into disrepute and risks undermining your position as Presiding Officer. Is there any way therefore that you can preserve the trust placed in us in this Parliament by ensuring Government ministers abide by all aspects of the ministerial code particularly section 1.3C? Thank you. The member will be aware that the ministerial code is a matter for the Scottish Government but it is clearly of paramount importance that members, including ministers, give accurate and truthful information to the Parliament correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Now this chamber I believe is fully aware that the Parliament has a corrections procedure to be aware how that works. The current mechanism that is available to me through standing orders reflects the procedures and practices that have been agreed by the Parliament itself. If there is a view that they should be revisited this matter should be raised with the SPPA committee. That concludes point of order Alex Cole-Hamilton. Thank you very much. I seek your guidance on the procedures surrounding the correcting of the official report after what we have just heard. What we have just heard from Liam Kerr is frankly astonishing. The energy minister at the time and the current trade minister were informed that this statistic of 25% had no basis in 2020. It is important that Parliament gets the proper facts. At the same topical question exchange on Tuesday 15 November the minister said that the figure relating to Scotland having 25% of Europe's offshore wind potential was first set out in a 2010 publication. It is now outdated. The First Minister's spokespeople have also said that it was calculated accurately at the time. How can the Scottish Government confidently say that the figure was correct in 2010 when civil servants told them in 2020 that it had, and I quote, and as Liam Kerr said, never been sourced. Put simply, Presiding Officer, nobody knows where this figure came from. In truth, this statistic has always been made-believe. So to suggest that it is outdated would sound to any reasonable person that it had been true at some point. Presiding Officer, in an attempt to excuse the original falsehoods I am concerned that the Government are now creating fresh falsehoods to cover their tracks. Can I seek your guidance on what mechanisms exist to correct the record on whether you have been approached by the Government on this point, that rather being outdated, this statistic was never accurate to begin with? I thank Mr Cole-Hamilton for his point of order. I have already ruled on this issue in relation to my response to Liam Kerr. It is the case that the procedures that are in place have previously been agreed by this Parliament. The corrections mechanism exists, and I am sure that members understand what that is. The member has made his points on the record. That point of order, Russell Finlay. Thank you, Presiding Officer. On Tuesday you provided a statement to Parliament in response to a woman being ejected because of the colours of her scarf. You apologised and explained that this had been an error but we still do not know why this happened to an innocent member of the public. I would like to ask you, Presiding Officer, if any form of investigation is being done into this sorry episode. A key question would be that any members or parliamentary staff order or indeed encourage the security staff to act in this way. I thank Mr Finlay for his point of order. Some of the matters the member raises are not matters for the standing orders and therefore are not matters for me to rule on from the chair. I made my views on this matter very clear in my statement to the chamber on 15 November and I would refer the member to the official report of that date. We will now move on to members' business. There will be a short suspension to allow those who are doing so to leave the chamber and the gallery.


And you had brought up the weight management and I was wondering if you're exercising and you're eating well But you're still having that weight around the middle. What would what would you suggest that someone do and again? We're talking about adrenal fatigue We're talking about controlling stress and we mentioned a number of things to help the control stress Okay Let's see. How about supplements for a vegetarian with weight loss any ideas for someone not eating meat? Yeah There are a number of companies that have Vegetarian formulas right a certainly not the bovine because bovine you can't do it You cannot do it no matter what you say, right? But certainly there are many many companies on the market that have these vegetarian formulas well, there's also people out there who Want to lose some weight, but maybe you're not great with exercising or controlling their lifestyle and what they eat Is there anything that can help those people? Yes, they have to make a concerted effort to do the exercise and control portion Right and to eat right. There's no such a thing as a free lunch and that's that's a double entendre if you will There's no such a thing as a free lunch if you're going to maintain your weight You're going to maintain a healthy lifestyle. You have to eat healthy and exercise now, of course We talked about conditions which require your physician to to sort of examine certainly whether it be You have cardiovascular disease or diabetes All right, these are several conditions of which certainly your doctor has to make decisions as to the type of lifestyle changes to be made and also what type of exercise is most appropriate for you


If you'd like, I can make you the host since you know how to program things better. I think actually I'm recording now. Okay. I see. I believe I'm recording. I hope I'm recording. Hope brings eternal. Yeah, if not, I am happy to send mine. Absolutely. Let me just record at least the sound on my iPhone. We now have multiple backups of this historic session. So, yeah, I'm all yours. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. I can't thank you enough. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show and we're privileged. Thank you for having me. So, this may be a little bit less conventional of the type of interview that you're used to. I've read your book. It's phenomenal. Thank you. Your life is very interesting. The way that you've grown up is very interesting. You've been through quite a lot in your life. The podcast that we're launching, the approach is actually less oriented on the pathology of narcissism and cluster B personality and more oriented on self-accountability of the victim. Our approach is that we would love to teach people as it unfolds about cluster B personality and then how to recognize the aspects of cluster B in order for them to recognize their own attachment styles and other things that would affect their choice in those that they surround themselves with. That's quite a tall order. Yeah. And having you, you're actually our debut episode and we're so honored to have you because you actually coined the term narcissistic abuse as well as basically the original language of narcissism itself. Yeah, and that's all true. Yeah. And that's amazing. I have so many questions for you on that and I wanted to start by just kind of jumping in with the thought that I'm curious what your thoughts on the fact that the term narcissism or the diagnosis of the public of narcissism is so overused. I feel like we've noticed a lot in our interviews that if there's any sort of fighting in a relationship, people tend to blame the other person as being a narcissist. And I feel like a good approach would be to ask you how to recognize the early signs of cluster B personality when becoming involved with someone, whether it be professional, romantic or otherwise, and also how would someone disassociate themselves with that relationship? Or is it a good idea to disassociate yourself? It's a good idea not to have a relationship to start with. Seriously. But first of all, a bit of a historical context. The sociologist Campbell said that we have transitioned from the age of dignity and reputation to the age of victimhood. We tend to self-define via various dimensions of victimhood. Victimhood became a proxy for identity politics. So today when you try to make sense of your life, when you try to make sense of your society, environment, historical processes, when you try to predict the future, when you try to gain a modicum of certainty and determinacy and stability and sense of safety, the most handy metaphor is victimhood. So you would ask yourself, who has been victimizing? Surely everything bad that's happening in my life is not my fault. It must be someone else's fault. So in this sense, victimhood is actually an extension of narcissism. It's an alloplastic defense. Now alloplastic, we distinguish between two types of defenses. A defense is a way to falsify reality so that you can render it more palatable, more acceptable, so that you can survive in reality by falsifying it, by lying to yourself, by self-deceiving. So this is a good definition of defense, and we have two types of defense. We have alloplastic defenses and alloplastic defenses. Autoplastic defenses is tending to blame ourselves for everything that's gone awry or wrong. You know, it's my fault. I should have behaved differently. I should have done things differently. And alloplastic defense is a tendency to blame others for every mishap, every misfortune, every defeat and every failure. It's never your fault. You're never guilty. You're never to blame. You have had no contribution to the situation, to the adverse circumstances in which you find yourself. It's all 110 percent other people's fault. And this is a good description of victimhood. Now the cluster B victimhood movement is no exception. People define themselves as victims of cluster B personalities, dark personalities. And so it's a handy metaphor. And it's what we call hermeneutic device. In other words, the kind of thing that helps you make sense of reality and imbue it with meaning. In this sense, it's a religion because that's exactly what religion does. Religion is a morality play between good and evil. And religion also helps you to make sense of the world and to feel that you are meaningful, not meaning less, but meaningful. And so there's this new religion of I'm a victim of a narcissist. I'm a victim of a psychopath. I'm a bigger victim than you are. No, I'm a bigger victim than you are. My abuser has been the worst. You don't know what you're talking about. My abuser has been the worst. And then there's this ridiculous, then glorious competition of who's been more victimized and whose abuser has been more menaceous and monstrous and so on and so forth.  I'm kidding you're not. And super nova empaths and so on and so forth. And it's really bad out there. It's bad out there because this is a debasement of the coinage of language. It's a corruption of language. When we corrupt language, we corrupt our ability to act in the environment and on the environment efficiently. Language and self efficacy are interlinked. If your language does not reflect reality properly, if it falsifies the information about your environment, then you're likely to make bad decisions, wrong choices and pay a very heavy price. So we are corrupting language. We're labelling, we're slapping the label of narcissists on everyone we disagree with or don't like. And we are casting ourselves as victims when actually what has happened is that we have been victimized. Now imagine that you have been mugged. You're on a foreign trip and you've been mugged in a dark alley. I don't know what you might be doing in a dark alley, but okay, you were there and you have been mugged. Now you're not going to define the rest of your life as the victim of a muggy. You're not going to say, if you ask who are you, you're not going to say I'm the victim of a muggy. But when you are victimized by a narcissist, you are going to say I'm the victim of a narcissist. It became an identity. No one is the victim of a narcissist. There's no such thing. There are, however, people who have been victimized by narcissists. Many people have been victimized by narcissists. So this is the first thing to disentangle an event or a series of events or a period in your life from who you are. That's not who you are. That's not your identity. Number two, it takes two to tango and in Argentina, even more than two. So it's never 100% someone else's fault and 0% your contribution. That is not true. This division into angels and demons, all good and all bad, this has a name in clinical psychology. It's called splitting. It's an infantile defense mechanism, which is very typical of narcissists and borderlines, by the way. So victims have adopted this narcissistic defense mechanism. And now victims are splitting narcissists. They're saying, the narcissist is all bad. And by contradistinction, I must be all good. All 100%, not 99%. 100%. I have done nothing to deserve this. I've contributed nothing to my predicament. It is a force of nature that befell upon me. I have been the victim of a natural disaster. I'm a magnet. What can a magnet do? A magnet is a magnet. I'm a magnet. I attract this kind of people. I am empathic and compassionate and more generally amazing. And that's why I keep attracting such people to me. It's a form of self-aggrandizement. And a falsification of what had really happened.  You don't know how to select mates. You have childhood wounds that resonated with your abuser and allowed your abuser an axis of entry into your life and mind and soul. So you're vulnerable. You're broken. You're damaged. You need to fix yourself. You need to heal yourself. Thereafter, you made a series of conscious premeditated decisions to remain inside an abusive relationship, even though you had already become aware that you are being abused, et cetera, et cetera. You are responsible. You should be held accountable for what had happened exactly like the abuser. You had contributed to it. You had made it happen. Now, that is not victim blaming or blame shifting or whatever you want to call it. A victim is a victim and an abuser is an abuser. And there is no, there's no moral middle ground. There's not like a gray area. No, an abuser is, abuse is irredeemable, unacceptable, unjustifiable behavior period, misbehaving, misconduct. And a victim is a victim. But the circumstances, the synergy between abuser and victim, that is a common enterprise. It's a joint venture. It's an undertaking by two. In narcissism, this is known as the shared fantasy. It's known as a shared fantasy because it is shared. That's why it's known as shared fantasy and not as the narcissist fantasy. It's shared. So this is the first step to healing. Self acceptance, actually, because when the victim says I had nothing to do with it, it's not my fault. What she's actually saying is I am not accepting myself as I am. This is self rejection. This is a diminishment of self awareness. This is self deception. In short, that's an abuser thing to do. The victim abuses herself by denying her involvement, her agency, the power she has had throughout the process and never used. By doing all this, she is perpetrating abuse and perpetuating the abuse. And so these are the first steps. And then there are a series of other steps in the healing process. If you want, we can discuss a bit later. This is so insightful. I so appreciate you delving into a slightly esoteric viewpoint because I feel like a lot of platforms out there dehumanize the cluster B personality. And I agree that self accountability is where true power lies. And I'm curious about, I would actually love for you to delve into that. And I have a question for you about that, because in your case, you are an anomaly to me because I think we have agreed to not discuss my private life. Okay, that is fair enough. I just wanted to mention cognitive behavioral therapies. So self recognition in cognitive behavioral therapy, when it comes to both the victim and the narcissist is to me very self accountable. And it's admirable, but it's also hard to recognize your own actions in order to press down that path. And I'm wondering how one would go about, other than what you had just mentioned, as far as a victim or as far as taking that approach, how would one go about their own accountability factors early on in the relationship? Because I feel like trauma bonding or I feel like the charming aspect early on in the cluster B personality relationship is intoxicating. And it's very easy to go down that rabbit hole in a want of love, in a want of a relationship. And it ties into codependency. But I think that it's hard to step outside of oneself in order to recognize that there's a problem lies within. And I'm wondering what your personal recommendation on an approach for that would be. How does someone like, quote unquote, wake up to the fact that they are accountable or that they're paralyzed from within? Well, bad things happen. When bad things happen, you're involved. You have contributed. There's no exception to this rule.  So this is the warning sign. Bad things keep happening to you, especially if they are similar, similar in nature. This is known as repetition compulsion in psychology. If they're similar in nature, you are either doing something wrong or something is wrong with you. In both cases, you're right. I think this cannot be done independently, autonomously, alone. You would need help and you would need professional help to do this. We all are constitutionally unable to see ourselves as we are. This is the meaning of defense mechanisms. We all have psychological defense mechanisms whose role is to prevent us from coming face to face with ourselves. Because the truth of ourselves is, in the vast majority of cases, intolerable and unbearable. So all of us falsify or reframe reality all the time. And this is a pretty benign process. It becomes a problem when we lose touch with reality. When the extent of the defenses is such that we bid farewell to reality and we enter the realm of fantasy.  And then what happens is, because we are no longer in touch with reality, again, the clinical term is impaired reality testing. When we are no longer in touch with reality, then we make decisions which are counterproductive, self-defeating, self-handicapping and even self-trashing or self-destructive. Why does this happen? Why do we devolve into self-destructiveness and self-defeat? The minute we lose touch with reality. Possibly because that's the only way to wake up. I think it's very frightening to lose reality. And so we need to wake up.  And so you need help to see yourself as you are and then to do something about it. Because we are built as human beings, even healthy human beings. We are built to be detached from reality to some extent. And in the case of victims of cluster B personality disorders, these are usually people who are delighted to give up on reality. Reality to them is unbearable. They're lonely. They're bored. They're anxious. They're depressed. They abuse substances. They're hopeless. They're sad. Something is wrong which renders reality so unacceptable and so burdensome, so unbearable that any substitute to reality is considered better. So here comes the dark personality or cluster B personality and says, I have a full-fledged alternative to reality. It's a virtual reality. It's my reality. It's fantasy. It's Disneyland. And all you have to do is play by my rules, assume a role that I will assign to you. And then do your thing, fulfill your function. And then in return, I'm going to provide you with a dual fantasy.  I'm going to love you unconditionally.  I'm going to allow you for the first time in your life to actually love yourself because you will see yourself or you will have seen yourself through my gaze. And in my gaze, you're going to be ideal. You're going to be perfect.  You're going to be super intelligent. You're going to be the most amazing woman that has ever lived through my gaze and only through my gaze. I have a monopoly of this. You want to feel that way? You want to feel that there's never been a woman like you before? You need to do this through my gaze. And so it's a monopoly. And the whole thing is the shared fantasy.  And you love each other unconditionally. Love. It's not love, but it's a simulation of love unconditionally. And then you're in the womb. You're back in the womb. You're back in your early childhood. It's a second chance at an early childhood. In the vast majority of cases of partners of cluster B personality disorders, their childhood has gone awry. It was not a good childhood. It was an unhappy childhood. The mother probably was what is called in psychoanalytic literature a dead mother in the sense that she was emotionally absent, depressed, selfish, instrumentalizing, parentifying wrong mother, but not good enough mother.  And in order for you to experience this childhood, you need to infantilize yourself. Because how can you be a child again? If you're an adult, you need to be an adult.  So you need to shed all your adulthood devices and costumes. And you need to become a child again. You need to infantilize.  This time, a perfect child. Simply a perfect childhood. And you will see yourself through my eyes and it will be the most amazing sight to behold. And you will fall in love with yourself and everything will be great. And you will not need to be in touch with reality anymore. I will take care of reality for you. I will be a reality testing. I'll protect you and shield you and provide for you. It doesn't, when I say woman can be a man, the genders are interchangeable. About half of all narcissists are women. And about one quarter of psychopaths are women. The numbers are growing. And women will probably overtake men in cluster B personality disorders by the end of this decade. It's becoming, because women are more and more masculinized. So this used to be masculine disorders. And so this is the Faustian deal. All you have to do is give up on your adulthood, on your autonomy, on your agency, on your contact with reality. You have to agree to the mediation and interface of the narcissist. You agree to reside in his fantasy and never to exit. And you agree to play a role. It's a role play. And that's the deal. It sounds horrible. It sounds a little like prison, but it doesn't feel like prison. It feels like childhood. That's what it feels like. From the cluster B personality perspective or from both? Both, actually. Okay. Okay. Because I do see your point that it can centrally agreed upon contract to join the shared fantasy. I've been in that position and I understand that. And it's actually enjoyable during that phase of the narcissistic cycle. And that leads me into another question. And thank you for that incredible insight, by the way. That is very new to me and so insightful. You had brought up the idealization of cluster B. And as far as psychology research defines the cycle, it only contains three aspects, which I find interesting. It's idealization and devaluation and discard. But there are aspects of the situation. I'm not sure what other terms to use for it. Like gaslighting that, at least in my case, didn't occur during idealization and also did not occur during devaluation. It was sort of like an in between category, not necessarily a subcategory. And I wonder if you feel like psychology has not fully defined the cluster B. No, not psychology. There's a huge mix up, huge mess owing to self-styled experts online. Even people with PhDs in psychology, they are not experts in personality disorders, cluster B personality disorders. And they've never published anything for cluster B personality disorder. So the overwhelming vast majority of so-called experts online spew nonsense all the time. That's a very sad state of affairs. I would say that well over 95% of all the so-called information online is misinformation. Now, originally in clinical literature, only idealization and devaluation were described. I'm the one who added the discord phase. So then it became a trilateral situation, idealization, devaluation, discord. And then I added a fourth phase, which is replacement or hovering. The idealization phase is part of a log bombing strategy. It is intended to capture you and captivate you. It's intended to give you everything I've just described, the feeling that you're a child again, that you have a new mother, that you're accepted unconditionally and loved unconditionally, that you are perfect, almost godlike, and so on and so forth. And so this is captivating, it's intoxicating. In short, it's addictive and you become addicted. And this is the idealization phase. In the idealization phase, the narcissist creates a snapshot of you and internalizes it. He takes a photograph of you, mental photograph, and then he internalizes this photograph, a process known as interjection, identification interjection. And so then he has this photograph of you in his mind, and he photoshopped it. The photoshopping is the idealization. From that moment on, the narcissist continues to interact with the snapshot, not with you, never with you. Narcissists are incapable of interacting with external objects. They convert external objects into internal objects and then they continue the interaction with the internal object only, exclusively, never with you. Now, this creates a problem. The internal object is usually, not always, but usually static and idealized. And human beings are neither, they're not static, they're dynamic, and they're not ideal, they're very far from ideal. And this creates severe discrepancies between the idealized natural, in the narcissist's mind, the introject, the internal object. And you, as his intimate partner, there is a divergence, there's contradiction. Sometimes you're independent, autonomous, agentic, make your own decisions, have your own friends, go on trips, disobey the narcissist, criticize him, disagree with him, all these challenges the internal object. And so, this creates a lot of frustration and fear in the narcissist, because you are threatening the stability of his internal world. The narcissist is trapped inside his mind. And in this landscape, there are hundreds of internal objects, all of them idealized, all of them static, and the narcissist interacts with these objects. If you were to challenge one of these objects, it's like a house of cards, the whole thing will fall apart. Everything I'm describing is more or less, more or less applies to the golden light, not fully, does not apply to the psychopath, which is one, one of the reasons I think that psychopathy is actually not a mental illness at all. But we will leave it aside for a minute. So, so then the narcissist begins to regard you as a threat. The more you deviate from the internal object, the more you undermine the internal object, the more you challenge the introject, the less idealized you are in reality, the more threatening you are, the more menacious you are to the narcissist. So you'll be, you're becoming the enemy, you're an enemy.  So gradually he begins, begins to hit your guts. And you are never capable to fully conform to the internal object. It's impossible. So it's inevitable, the evaluation is inevitable. The narcissist, sorry. I was just going to say for, for everyone that they're, that they're involved in. Yeah, no exception, because there's always an idealized snapshot, idealized photograph of you. And you can never measure up to it. You can never conform to it. Because you're alive. You're alive. You're changing, making decisions. So you can never conform to it. So there's always this clash. You begin to represent eternal conflict, dissonance, clinical term is dissonance, you create dissonance. So the narcissist begins to hit you. The narcissist has a second reason, second very powerful reason to devalue you. The not, the narcissist converts you into a maternal figure.   And this is the dual mothership principle.  The narcissist wants to separate from you and individuate children between the ages of 18 months and 36 months separate from mommy. They say goodbye to mother and they explore the world. This process is known as separation, individuation, becoming an individual. The narcissist, the borderline and so on, they never succeeded to separate from mommy because the mother did not allow them to separate for a variety of reasons.  She didn't allow them to separate. So the narcissist reenacts this incomplete separation. He says, oh, I found a new mommy. Maybe now I can separate finally. Maybe now I'm going to get it right. I failed with my original mother, failed to separate from her. Maybe now I'll succeed to separate from her. So he needs to devalue you also for this reason. Okay. The narcissist has two powerful motivations to devalue. First of all, you keep frustrating him by deviating from the idealized snapshot in terminology. And second reason you're his mother and he needs to say goodbye to you in order to take on the world and become an individual. So devaluation is inevitable. There's nothing you could do about it and there's nothing you have done to make it happen. It's nothing to do with you. And this is great, great solace, I think for victims. Yeah, that, that does clarify a lot. And to expand on a certain aspect of that, I'm curious as to what your thoughts are as to why, why that disattachment to the maternal figure is, is more important emotionally, psychologically, or, or, or otherwise, than the continuation of the loving feeling or being in a relationship where they feel because I've seen that a lot, I think a lot of victim anger stems from that the victim wants desperately to give love. They, and they desperately want to be loved. And you already explained portion one that they won't truly be loved authentically because it is, it is a snapshot image. But as far as longevity and commitment, I think a lot of victims, they try harder, they try harder and harder to please them so that they'll stay, not understanding why that cycle of separation is more important than the commitment, than the want to be loved. There's a lot of grandiosity in the, in the victim's attitude and behavior. First of all, the victims believe, the victim believes that she has power over the situation. It's like, it's up to me. It's up to me. I'm in control. If I put additional effort into it, it's going to change the whole, the whole situation. That is, of course, a grandiose solution. It's a bit like I'm godlike. I, I can change these dynamics and make them different and so on. Second thing, victims want to feel special. They want to feel that they have been chosen by the narcissist or the borderline. They want to feel that they're unique. And the truth is that at least as far as the narcissist is concerned, because the narcissist interacts only with internal objects, who you are is utterly besides the point. You are replaceable, interchangeable.    You're nothing. You're fungible. This is something victims cannot countenance. They cannot accept this. It demolishes them. I think this is the worst aspect of being the victim of a narcissist. Having realized how insignificant you were, you were the narcissist insignificant other, not significant other. And this insignificance challenges the victim into a narcissistic defense, a grandiose defense. So the narcissist says, it's not true that I was not special to him. I'm a very special person. I have enormous empathy. I'm compassionate. I'm amazing. I'm beautiful. These are grandiose narcissistic defenses. This is the vector of contagion of narcissism. Narcissism is infectious.  You do become narcissistic defensively. This is reactive narcissism. To defend yourself from further pain and further hurt and further humiliation and so on, you then have to deceive yourself into believing that you are, for example, invulnerable, that you maybe are omnipotent. You don't care or maybe you're super special or super galactic empath and so on and so forth. And some victims remain stuck. They develop narcissistic and even psychopathic behaviors and traits. They develop borderline-like emotional dysregulation. And that's why borderline personality disorder is indistinguishable from complex trauma, CPTSD. So most victims suffer CPTSD, suffer from complex post-traumatic stress disorder. But CPTSD in clinical setting is almost indistinguishable from borderline personality disorder. So victims become narcissists and psychopaths and borderlines just by being exposed to narcissists, borderlines and psychopaths. It's defensive, it's reactive, but it could be a long-term thing, a long-term issue. For example, most victims have a severely diminished capacity for empathy, inability to trust other people so they become paranoid. Emotional dysregulation, I mentioned, they're overwhelmed by emotions. Moodlability, ups and downs in terms of mood. These are all features of cluster B and yet we find them among victims, among all victims, actually. So let's see. Yeah, I can record them. Okay, great. Great. Thank you. So what would be your next question? So I wanted to ask you, so another issue that I find to be prevalent among those trying to recover after the discard phase in the relationship cycle is that they want, I think they want to forgive the cluster B and they also want to forgive themselves because there is a self-guilt dynamic as far as wondering why they didn't leave, why they were so bonded, which I think that you clarified greatly on the why's on that. I wonder what your personal take is on the approach of forgiveness? Also, if it's possible to forgive without an apology, also why cluster Bs have a hard time with self-reflection to apologize? No, cluster Bs, cluster B personalities by definition are divorced from who they are and they are divorced from reality. In the case of narcissists, they have a grandiose, inflated, fantastic self-image which they need to protect against all countervailing information. Apologizing is admitting to an error to a mistake. Apologizing is admitting to having done wrong. Apologizing is admitting to having been imperfect. So that undermines the narcissists grandiose. Self-perception is very unlikely. In the case of a psychopath, the psychopath has no morality and no conscience and no empathy and so on and he sees no reason to apologize. If you were victimized by him, if he victimized you, it's your fault. You should have been more careful.  You deserve everything that he has done to you. As concerning the borderline, the borderline wants her intimate partner, his intimate partner, to regulate her emotions and her moods, to stabilize her, to act as a safe or secure base. So she wants her intimate partner to externally regulate her. And when the intimate partner inevitably fails, because this is a full-time job, the intimate partner cannot have a life of his own, is dedicated to the service of the borderline, day and night and in between. And since this is impossible, it sets up the partner for failure. When an inevitable failure occurs, the borderline would blame the partner, not herself. There is no place for apology because all these personalities create narratives, self-justifying narratives. And they have alloplastic defenses. They blame others for their own misbehavior and bad decisions and failures and defeats, including the disintegration of their relationships. It's everyone's fault except theirs. And this is what many victims do. And that's another example of contagion, another example of how narcissism spreads. Victims adopt the same position. It's not my fault. I had nothing to do with it. I was an angelic victim. I'm perfect. I'm immaculate and so on and so forth. That's a narcissistic position. And so there's no place for apology. Forgiveness is, forgiveness has two components. One component is self-directed and the other component is other directed. To forgive others is much easier than to forgive oneself. And often accomplished. We move on. The vast majority of us move on. And we learn to forgive, not in the active sense, like, I understand you. My heart goes out to you. I pity you. I have mercy on you. And so I forgive you. No, that's not typical forgiveness. Typical forgiveness is to say, I've moved on and you're no longer important in your life. You're no longer meaningful. You are not a carrier of meaning. You're insignificant. So this is other forgiveness. And because you're insignificant, I don't want revenge. I don't want justice restored. I don't want any of this. I don't want anything further to do with you. Period. You're insignificant. So that is what we mean when we say forgiving others, effectively. It is almost impossible to forgive oneself if one has elevated grandiose narcissistic defenses. For example, if you consider yourself inordinately smart or intelligent, it would be very difficult for you to admit that you have acted stupidly. If you consider yourself irresistibly attractive, it would be impossible for you to admit that your charm did not extend to a particular individual. So when we can't forgive ourselves is because we impose impossible unrealistic demands and expectations on ourselves. We are actually being narcissistic. We're saying we are special. We are unique. We are super handsome. We are amazingly intelligent. So how come did this happen? How did I allow this to happen? It's a challenge to this self-image of fantastic perfection. That's why self-forgiveness is very difficult.  You need to admit all these things. You need to admit that you're less than perfect. And those who are capable of doing it, heal. That's healing. Healing is this dual forgiveness, rendering your abuser insignificant and rendering yourself less than perfect. If you're capable of these two feats of these two accomplishments, then you are capable of healing. Regrettably, the vast majority of people are not capable of healing because they're not capable of either. They go on a vengeance spree. They become vengeful. They seek to restore justice as if they were in charge of cosmic justice. So they remain attached to the abuser, at least emotionally. They remain attached to the abuser via this lack of forgiveness. And they can't forgive themselves because that would mean that they are less than perfect than they have an image of perfection of themselves.  They are unhealthy dynamics. In addition to all this, cluster B abusers install in your mind a voice. They implant in your mind an app, like an app on a smartphone. In other words, they force you to create an introject. They force you to create an internal object in your mind that represents them. So you have an internal object of your narcissistic abuser. You have an internal object of your borderline partner. And this internal object remains with you long after the physical separation from your partner.  It speaks to you. It criticizes you. It puts you down. It's your enemy. It's an enemy. It's a harsh inner critic. And it's with you.  It's a parasitic, parasitic infection. And you need to deprogram yourself. Exactly like after a cult. Cult members are deprogrammed. You need to deprogram yourself. Because being with a narcissist or a borderline is being a member of a cult. So you need to deprogram yourself. And then you need to separate from the narcissist or the borderline. Because when you're with a narcissist on the borderline, you are inside a shared fantasy. And inside this shared fantasy, you merge with a narcissist. You fuse. You become one. This is a process called enmeshment and engulfment. You become enmeshed with a narcissist.  You need to separate from the narcissist. First thing is to silence the inner voice that represents a narcissist in your mind. Or the psychopath or the borderline, doesn't it? Second thing, you need to separate from the narcissist. You need to do exactly what a child does at age 18 months. You need to separate from mommy.  You need to separate from your mother. And again, to become an individual, to rediscover yourself, your authentic self. Because your self is contaminated now. The narcissist has contaminated yourself by isolating you from reality and from social support networks, from your family, from your friends, from your job. By doing this, the narcissist has taken over your identity, your core identity, your feeling of who you are, and has redefined it in his own image. And you need to recapture your authentic self prior to the narcissist. Now, all these tasks cannot be done alone. You can't accomplish them on your own. You need help with these things. So professional help. Okay. And therapy is what's like therapy would be a good point in your perspective. Like that would be a good start for coaching in some cases, sometimes just a good friend or a very wise, very wise granny. But you need external help. This cannot be done from the inside. If you convince yourself, if you were to convince yourself that you're capable of doing this on your own, this is proof that you are contaminated. This is a narcissistic grandiose statement. To say, I don't need anyone. I can do this on my own. That's the narcissist speaking, not you. Wow. Okay. This is so interchangeably ironic that a victim of cluster B and cluster B themselves have similarities in their behavior patterns. I think people tend to forget that cluster B personality disorders are the outcomes of abuse. Oh my goodness. Okay. Okay. It's interesting. These people are victims of abuse. Okay. They have chosen solutions which are antisocial, dysfunctional, evil, but they are victims of abuse. When a cluster B person, when a narcissist abuses his intimate partner, it's one victim of abuse, abusing another victim of abuse. That's why they resonate. That's why they bond. That's why there is trauma bonding. The narcissist trauma bonds with a victim's trauma. It's the bonding of the traumas. They recognize each other. It's like a secret handshake. They come from the same, from identical environments. Only they chose different solutions. Some of them chose as children to become submissive and so they become codependent or people-police. Some of them chose to emulate the abuser. They said, I'm going to be the abuser. I'm never going to be the victim again. From now on, I'm going to be the abuser. That's the narcissist and the psychopath. Some of them are unable to regulate their reactions to the abuse. Their emotions took over, drowned them, overwhelmed them, and so on and so forth. These people became the borderlines. What's common to all cluster B personality disorders and all victims of cluster B personality disorders is that they're all, without a single exception, victims of abuse. Okay. Wow. That is, wow. I have never, ever heard it tied in that way. That is new information. It gives insight, I think, into the idea that I think a lot of cluster B behaviors are not necessarily diabolical. As you're saying, they are defensive. That allows for a little bit more forgiveness. I think there is a little bit of caution tape placed over that though in being careful as to placing forgiveness and understanding and recognizing and realizing that you cannot change someone else. You cannot love someone. We can pity captive animals at the zoo. You know, there are tigers at the zoo. We can pity them, these tigers. But we would never enter the enclosure. Never mind how much we pity them and how much we understand them, and how much we sympathize and empathize with the tiger, with the poor tiger who has been taken away from Africa, from his freedom as limited, his pacing, his pacing, his cage, his fur, his fur is falling apart.  But we would be seriously foolish to enter the enclosure and pet the tiger. So we can objectively look at the narcissist and the borderline and say these are unfortunate.   These are people whose brains operate differently like borderlines and psychopaths. These are people who regulate themselves from the outside. The narcissist requires narcissistic supplying to survive, to regulate a sense of self-worth, to fill a line. The histrionic needs attention. The borderline needs control or safety from the outside.  Narcissism, cluster B, is not about presence. It's about absence. There's nobody there. These are voids. These are black holes. And so we can observe them and we can feel great pity and heartbreak at who they might have been and would never be. At the potential, the wasted potential, the tortured children who had become this, and yet we will be extremely unwise to get any nearer and to try to establish a bridge or a bond or an attachment or a connection or a relationship with these people. Regrettable as it may be, these people should be isolated, not actively, not in prison, but isolated socially. They are not good people, but not because they choose to be bad people. Well, psychopaths do sometimes, but narcissists don't borderline them. They are not good people because this is who they are constitutionally. The same way a virus is not a good entity, not a good creature. You can say, yeah, but a virus doesn't have decision-making powers. A virus doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. Well, a narcissist, the ability to make independent decisions, to control his impulses and borderline the same, control impulses and so on, is severely limited and his ability to turn reality from fantasy is non-existent. So it's very much like a virus. It's on automatic pilot. Actually, if you talk to borderline patients, many of them will tell you repeatedly, I feel like I'm on automatic pilot, on autopilot. So these are semi-conscious entities comprised mostly of absence.  Okay. Stay away. So statistically, they are who they are. They're not going to necessarily recognize that a change needs to be had, or even if they did recognize that there is not a motivating factor to change. Is that correct? Or is it just? Sometimes they're very modulated to change, but they're impeccable to change. Okay. Okay. Except borderline, except borderline personality disorder. In borderline personality disorder, first of all, we have an effective therapy, which is not the case, and not the case with any other personality disorder. So we have dialectical behavior therapy, which was developed by a borderline. And so we have dbt. That's very effective. And borderline ameliorates with age, so that after age 45, the majority of borderlines lose the diagnosis and can no longer be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. So the prognosis for borderline is very good, actually. But you have to be patient. Wait a long time. Okay. Wow. That's insightful. Okay. I wanted to end on a quote from your book and just ask you to clarify the ending of this. So you said, in the narcissist world, being accepted or cared for, not to mention loved is a foreign language. One might recite the most delicate haiku in Japanese, and it would still remain utterly meaningless to a non-speaker of Japanese. Wow. This does not diminish the value of the haiku or of the Japanese language, needless to say, but it means nothing to the non-speaker. Narcissus damage and hurt, but they do so offhandedly and naturally as an afterthought. They are aware of what they are doing to others, which I was curious about, but they do not care. And they truly do not care. They truly do not care. Caring requires empathy, requires the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and presume, assume how that person might be feeling. Mind you, none of us has access to another person's mind. If you cry and I cry, I would have to rely on your self-reporting as to why you're crying.  I don't have access to your mind. It's all of Assad, even among healthy people. It's all of Assad, which an extreme reliance on self-reporting. With a narcissist, there's nothing behind the facade and very often there's no facade. There's nothing behind the facade. And definitely there's no ability to experience deductions. So for example, the Nazis can see you crying. And then the Nazis will say, in 6,143 previous cases, when I saw people crying, they self-reported as sad. So if she's crying, there's a 99.9996% probability that she's sad. Okay. Now I know that she's crying and she's sad. That's where it ends. The narcissist cannot elicit, cannot provoke in himself an emotion that is supposedly the equivalent of your emotion. In short, the narcissist has cognitive empathy, reflexive empathy, collectively known as cold empathy, but he has no emotional component. He cannot resonate with you. He can make deductions the same way an artificial intelligence robot might do in the near future.  But he doesn't have a corresponding internal state in himself, because he has no internal. He has no interiority. He has no internal anything. There's nothing there. I don't know how often I have to repeat this, because it defies language. There is nothing and nobody there. It's a shell and there is nobody and nothing there.  It's a machine very, very, very similar to artificial intelligence. It simulates human behavior and human speech, not perfectly, and that's why people feel ill at ease with the narcissist. They feel uncomfortable with the narcissist, because his simulation is not 100% accurate. It's like there's, there are glitches, glitches and bugs. Something is off. So it's a programmable artificial intelligence robot who simulates human beings with varying degrees of success, and that's where it ends. That's all. So it's, it's statistical and mathematical. It's, it's strategic instead of diabolical. It's mechanical. It's mechanical. Okay. Okay. By the way, many, many healthy people, they have sex the same way. In sex, in sex, this is common.  They saw it in pornography, they read about it, and they simulate it. They go through the motions, you know, but actually there's nothing there. There's no, nothing behind the sex. So with the narcissist, it's not only sex, but everything. Okay. Okay. Everything is a simulation.  I'm, I'm beyond grateful for this. I'm so grateful for the time. I'm so grateful for the insight and, and I'm so excited to have you for, for our lunch episodes. So thank you so much again. Thank you. And I wish you great success with, with everything you're doing. Thank you and same to you. Take care. It was nice talking to you. It was nice having you. Thank you. Don't give me your permission to upload it to my channel. Yes. Please do. And I apologize for the additional editing. I, I'm so sorry. Don't worry. Don't worry about it. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye.