we're actually in the same building, we're just in a different space at the moment. We're going to be talking about something quite practical, what student representatives look like at Flinders with a particular focus on a level of student representation that I think is quite unique to Flinders. I'm the student representation and development officer. I work within the Student Association. Lee-Wen is my colleague. She works in a support role at FUSA, the Student Association, but also was a topic rep, a student rep originally and has sort of moved into this role, support role as well because we as you see that's part of our model is we like to continue to kind of build the capacity of our reps to kind of invite them into the workplace and then you know we get the benefit of working alongside former student reps as well as colleagues. So I just want to acknowledge country. We begin today by acknowledging the Ghana people and the land in which we're presenting is the Ghana land. We respect their spiritual relationship with country and acknowledge Ghana people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Ghana people today. We extend respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here and to Elders past and present. So a bit of a snapshot of student representation at Flinders. So we undertook a review of student representation back in 2017. So quite a few years ago now and as you would imagine if you did a review at some of your institutions we did find a fair lack of engagement and support for student reps. The kind of general thought was that students were maybe a bit apathetic and not great contributors on boards and committees that maybe students had roles. There was a student rep but they didn't really turn up or they didn't really speak very much. I mean of course there were always exceptions to this but that was sort of generally what was in place. There were positions for students on boards and committees and not really that much else going on. So from that review we produced a series of recommendations looking at the structure, looking at support and training, looking at recognition opportunities and things like that because it was really clear that there was just the kind of very basics in place but not much else. So we really needed to look at how we were going to improve, how we did things at Flinders and luckily there was like real enthusiasm for that work. Good news is since that review was conducted and the recommendations were presented there has been quite a lot of change and significant progress within our institution. So some of the highlights are that we now have a comprehensive network of more than 360 student representatives. It differs each year but up to 400 student reps in place across colleges and I should say and no no language is different in every university. We use the language of colleges. We have six colleges so that might be what you would call a faculty. I don't know if anyone else uses colleges but say it's a faculty. We don't have schools so after that review that we did we actually changed from faculties and schools just to six colleges so that's what we're talking about now. So that network of reps that doesn't include the elected student representative council so you could add another 20 students to that number of reps. So as you can see we kind of went from a handful of reps maybe like that'd be under 100 to over 360 and they're in place to directly impact the quality of teaching and learning and the student experience. So every university and college committee has at least two student representatives. That was also something that came out of the review that there shouldn't only ever be just one student. There often would be that lonely student that's sitting on a board and a committee but we found that it's best if there's at least two students to support each other but also to just to share the workload and also why not have two students as often like lots and lots of academics sitting around a table. So there's it's sort of understood now if you're going to have student involvement in a committee or board or a workshop that you have at least two and that's the very minimum I think and that often is more. Also following that review all reps receive training and support so a lot of the reason why we you know you look at why were the reps not so involved the why they were a little bit disengaged. A lot of the time they just didn't really understand what their role was. They weren't empowered to they didn't feel empowered to kind of speak up or understand that their perspective was really valued and that they they were equals around the table. So training really helps with that. So we have training targeted training in place for the different different types of reps across the university which we run out of the Student Association and we also make sure that reps are rewarded through our extracurricular recognition program called Horizon. All students get a certificate of recognition signed by the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Students but we're also moving towards official recognition on transcripts, academic transcripts and things that have more currency to students as well. As a whole like student reps across the university are not paid positions as you can understand more than 360 that's a lot. Student Council do have some payment attached with some sort of rec honorarium. It's not an hourly pay or anything like that. But yeah we also sort of talk to reps about how the experience that they're getting from being a representative is valuable in itself as well. So those relationships that they build particularly have some currency but yeah reward and recognition is really really important. So I think there has been a general culture change around listening and responding to students at the unit within the university and it's sort of routine for students now to be involved in reviews, planning, decision making, all that type of thing as well. There's always room for improvement though. So that's sort of a snapshot of where we're at at the university. This is quite an ugly chart but I'm sorry I couldn't go to our four overworked media team at the moment and asked them to make it look prettier. So this is what it is but it might it's something I can speak to at least. So there are multiple channels and opportunities that exist for students to engage in governance and decision making within the university and this is one particular way. So this is thinking about where those boards and committees exist and how students can be involved. So it's a very traditional model of student representation I understand but I think there's still a place for it in our universities. So we have student representation at both topic level and course level. We don't have topic reps across the university. One unique feature of our university is just how unique and each of the colleges are in the way that they want to do things. I think we will be moving towards more of a consistent model but the way things have been set up here is that each college does things slightly differently to kind of meet their own needs and to fit in with sort of what works best for them that particular college. So at some within one college there's topic representatives across the entire college. When I say topic again it's a language issue. I mean class or unit or it's like that subject level. So the very subject so students might be studying say four subjects per semester. I'm talking about every single topic. So it's the lowest level of sort of structure within the university. That's quite unique. I understand it's not in places like New Zealand where class level representation is fairly standard and that's sort of where we picked up the idea from. So we have reps at topic level but then there's also course reps in some colleges. They meet with course coordinators. Topic reps meet with topic coordinators. They then report up to or they participate in a student advisory committee which hopefully then sends a report up to the college education committee which is sort of highest level learning and teaching and teaching board in a college which then moves up to university level committees, education quality, academic centre and university council where there's student representation as well. There are other ways as well for students to participate in decision making and governance at the university but this is what we're focusing on particularly today. So I'm going to talk specifically about topic reps because I think that's quite unique and something that I think you might all be interested in. The main role of a topic representative is to provide an opportunity for staff to work closely with students who are experiencing their topic in real time and it's an opportunity to be responsive to small changes that can be made to improve the student experience and also hopefully the experience of academics too and also inspire maybe some future changes, some bigger changes further down the track. So it's quite a low level kind of small issue discussion but it's in the place where students I think find a lot of meaning or it really impacts them. So if their assessments are confusing or there's something to do with the pace in which the information is being provided to them in lectures or anything to do or any skill that they haven't developed or any question that they have about a topic, the topic rep is there to have that conversation with topic coordinators about you know what the students are thinking. So it gives voice I guess in that way to that quiet student body. Topic reps are also encouraged to be reflective of their own experience as a learner but it's also really clear that we make it also really clear in training that they're not there just to represent their own views they're there to canvas the views of the wider student body as well. So I see it as a very kind of grassroots level of student voice enabling students to have an impact on direct on their direct learning experience. We do see students as experts in their own learning and providing a really invaluable experience. So the idea is that the student views in dialogue with staff will improve the learning experience. I'm going to move on so Lee Nguyen can have a chat one second and I'm just going to share this quote from an academic staff member about just gives you a bit of a reflection on what academics what academics might think of the being part of topic rep program at Flinders. So this academic is talking about it being a good opportunity for staff and students to have a dialogue and I think having that formal role for a topic rep to have that conversation and to discuss issues that maybe other that the student body is raising is really important because often they might be that kind of quiet rumbling or it could just be radio silence for that academic but there are actually issues having this connection point to a rep to have that conversation I think formalizes it and and really helps to have that conversation because I think it really it goes some way to equalizing some of that power dynamic as well because the rep has an official role to play and they and students have indicated that that has made a big difference. So yeah it's all it's all about giving staff a better understanding of the student perspective and what isn't isn't working. So I'm going to hand over to Lee Nguyen to talk about a day in the life of a topic rep. Hello I'm Lee Nguyen. Let me share my personal experience of being a topic representative here at Flinders and Kate has full control of this slide. Yes thanks Kate. So I became a topic representative here at Flinders for a second year biology topic in 2020 that's when the topic coordinator sent our email asking if there's anyone waiting to pull their hand up to be the topic representative for the topic. I did and I was successful and I thought it was a great it's going to be a great opportunity for me to to build a good relationship just for some personal growth as well and it was a really big cohort. We had about over 250 students in that topic and we had four topic representatives for the cohort. In general as Kate mentioned we normally recommend have two representatives for each topic but for a topic that's that size larger than over 100 students will have extra topic representatives for the topic. So we believe that student work better together with their peers and I certainly feel that way. All of us work really close together with the topic coordinator. We work as a breach between the silent student body and the topic coordinator. We're there to enhance the voice in the silent student body and here are my duties and responsibilities and the first of all of course I need to make myself known to the class. I just stood in front of class and introduced myself to everyone. Here I'm the channel. I'm someone you can talk to if you think there's any issues in the class and my major duty and responsibility of this role is to gather student opinions of their views of their learning experience in the classroom. So by doing that we generally just have a general chat have a casual conversation. We believe that's a great start to gather student views. We will have a general chat just before or after class and see how they're going. Just before the mid semester break we did a mid semester checkpoint and we did as a post note survey. So in person we did have that privilege to do such thing in person in that year. So we send out postie notes in the classroom and ask them is there anything you are really happy with the class? Is there anything you think we need to improve on and what are your expectations for us as a topic representative? And then we collect notes with teachers through them and we organize the meeting with the teaching staff or go through those student opinions and we figure out we'll pick up the issues and then try to implement some solutions and we figure out some strategies to go through those issues. Apart from that meeting we also organize regular meetings with teaching staff as well. For us it was a 30 minutes meeting every four nightly just to reflect on what's going on in the classroom, what is working, what is not. So they have a good idea of what's going on in the classroom. As Kate mentioned before we are the experts in our learning experience. We know what's going on in the classroom a lot better. So being this topic representative here at Flinders, obviously it's a highlight of my life at Flinders. At the end of the semester we got told the student satisfaction rate went up to 73% from previous year. So that was a big jump. Big improvement of student satisfaction rate. We were so proud that we were part of that and what we did to actually improve that student learning experience and it showed in hard data. For me personally I've gained so much skills, leadership skills, communication skills and negotiation skills as well and I've built some really beautiful relationships with teaching staff as well as my cohort. I talk to so many students that some of them are not in my normal social group and built some beautiful friendship just by doing this role. And obviously it's not just all rainbows and unicorns there and there are always challenges that are coming with this role. One of the challenges we're facing are the communication challenges and at some time the student will bring up the issue that is way beyond the teaching staff's control so that there are times we couldn't fix the problem. And between all of us of this topic representatives we don't always agree on the same thing but that's okay. Challenges is where collaborations and the growth happen. We always work through our challenges and find improvement through the program. And this is definitely, I had a really great experience being the topic representatives and are you great to see that I'm not the only one that enjoyed being a topic representative and there is a reflection from a different topic rep. Here's my little unicorn there. I was waiting for my unicorn to show up. Okay. Yeah so here is a reflection from another topic representative and obviously it's a reflected that was extremely rewarding experience for this topic rep as well. And something I want to mention here as well and it mentioned student being able to work together to provide my cohort affair. You're calling a student-oriented experience has changed the way I view the hierarchy we have at a university. That's how I felt as well. I really felt that being a topic representative in the classroom empowered the student really give that ownership to the student. So we own the topic as well and not just the teaching staff. We work together. We as a teaching staff really empowered us as a student and we know that we can make changes for the future cohort as well. As I keep emphasizing there was a really great experience for me to be a topic representative here at Flinders and luckily for me my involvement in this program didn't end there when the topic finished. FISA was recruiting new topic representative trainer and I was successful. So I got offered to join in this training the trainer program. It was a great opportunity for a previous topic rep to become a trainer and I was offered this really great training program to get to learn how this program developed why we were on the training sessions in a certain way and I was really always well supported in my role as well. Once I finished the train the trainer program and they sat with me watch me to run the training session before I can I feel ready to spread the wings and then to do this on my own. I always mentioned that to the student in the club in the training during the training session that I am a current student and as a previous topic reps I'm here to share my experiences and challenges and I'm here to help you develop some strategies and hopefully it'll be helpful for you to use in your topic environment as well and I feel through that I'm really connected with new topic representatives just by sharing my previous experiences and I will be able to support them throughout the semester and it's and this is also a paid position I get paid to join the train the trainer program I get paid to prepare the training session of course to run the training session as well which is really awesome because I don't have to choose what to do with my spare time between doing something I'm so passionate about or some other paid works so overall is overwhelmingly positive experience being involved in this topic representation program here at Flinders and I'm still enjoying this every day and now I'm going to pass them to Kate and talk about our challenges and opportunities in the program. Thanks Leigh Ann it's a privilege to be working with you I note that we don't have too much time and there were also some questions in the chat or some conversation in the chat so I'm going to run through these challenges and maybe we can quickly respond to some of those questions that have come up so you know of course scaling up training and support is a big challenge when you're talking about topic level representation I don't have the sense that this is going to roll out across a university but I think that might be a chance to reflect quite soon there's been changes in leadership and this program's been running for a while I think there might be a chance to reflect on maybe focusing topic level representation at first year potentially and then embedding it with course level representation as well because they are different roles. Assisting reps to communicate and connect with their cohort I know that there was a question there about how do we you know do reps report what they're sharing with topic coordinators they should be we we ask them to do that in the training that they should be closing that feedback loop and reporting on what they've discussed so they should be through the learning platform a report back to say this is the sorts of things we discussed and this is what the response was from the topic coordinator so we do ask them to do that but there's more work we can definitely do there I think it I think when we're talking about student reps in general it's always a challenge to to help them assist in how to how to really connect in with their cohort and really hear the the views of students promoting and recognizing the works that reps do so that students know that they have reps and that they can become a rep and that you know this is the impact of having reps that's all very important work that we continuously need to improve but also build something important as well as building the capacity of academic staff to work collaboratively with reps if an academic is pushed for time or disinterested or unsure about what their role is they'll pretty quickly disengage and it's very hard for the student rep to have much impact there so we do need to do more work around communicating with academics as well around the value of working with reps and and what the benefit is for them I should also just want to add as well like student representation sort of student voice work in Australia has traditionally been tied to board concepts of governance measured in terms of student satisfaction and quality outcomes the limitations with this approach is that it's too focused on the endpoint of the student experience as opposed to building formative communities that seek to develop students as stakeholders leaders and citizens so the shift in conversation which is beginning to happen reflects a broader and deeper understanding of student representation that offers genuine and meaningful engagement for due for the duration of students time at our institution so we are definitely looking at students from that perspective as well the student voice from that perspective as well which ties in really nicely to a lot of the conversations that we've been having during these last couple of days as well there's a few questions in the chat I'm going to go back to the start um did you read them out to UK yeah you can help me yeah so the very first question was are issues raised by topic reps reported up to ensure transparency yeah so like I said we do um expect that reps are reporting back on conversations and they will and the good ones will do that with this many student reps in place in topics we can't always guarantee that they're going to do the most fantastic job on the whole I think we do have a really positive experience but we allow for that sort of for reps sometimes not being as good as you might want them to be because next semester is another semester and hopefully there'll be a new group coming through and I think there's an understanding that there will be that variability at times but um it is yeah we do expect that a rep would be reporting back to their cohort thank you for that um the next question is is there any feedback mechanism or loop for students who have provided the insights or feedback to the topic rep I think that's what we just talked about yeah um so we ask student reps to communicate using their online learning platform so it's good for them there's learning online here so there's functions to have chats and to report back and to ask questions through that mechanism oh okay well I said was thinking transparency so you can see if issues adequately just yeah yeah there's definitely topic coordinators who are less than enthusiastic but we push on regardless and that's the nature of this work I think and the last question in the chat is would you say that student voice is becoming embedded through the topic rep scheme as the way things are done or is it still reliant on champions um I see it it says a long term Lee when what do you think do you think it lessen your insights engineering in the college what do you think that that is it's how we do things or you think there's still some challenges there um I think uh with the most of the teaching stuff I work with and the very supportive of this program they think this is the way it's supposed to be done but obviously not for everyone they yeah um that's still challenges for everyone to recognise this programmable we're just thinking that's still which still just I see you say they rely on champions yeah I love champions I'm happy to rely on champions I think this is long term messy work um that um we put these structures in place we give things ago and we I think we just need to be open to reassessing reevaluating and saying okay let's try something new um but I think as long as that student voice and we're getting is there and we're getting the message out that what you have to contribute is important um and that you do you can impact um at your during your time at university um I think that's the main thing so it is continuously a work in progress here


My name is Sandak Nin and I'm the author of Malignan Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited. This is a serious opening because it's a serious video. Today we are going to discuss Love Bombing and Grooming and Narcissists and Sadists and Sadistic Narcissists. And what's the common denominator to all these? You. You are in the crosshair. You just don't know it. It's like being the victim of a sniper. By the time you get to know it, you are usually dead. So today we are going to discuss the techniques that lead into your heart. The way the narcissist, the sadist, the sadistic narcissist, the psychopath. I told you in the last video that I make no distinctions between these allegedly separate mental health disorders. But how these people make inroads, how they penetrate your defenses, how they scan your vulnerabilities, the chinks in your armor, and then home in on these like cruise missiles, heat-seeking your heat, the heat of your body, the heat of your soul.  Everyone is a target. Perhaps this is the dawning realization, especially during this pandemic when people finally had time to sit alone by themselves and think and realize that they are being targeted by narcissists and psychopaths all the time and that they had been targeted since the inception of life. Narcissists and psychopaths are everywhere by conservative estimates. 5% of the population are narcissistic or psychopathic. Possibly 10% if we add in grandiose borderlines and so on and so forth. That's a lot of people. That's one in every 10 people you know. And so you should rise up to their techniques and so on. And today we're going to discuss two of these, love bombing and grooming. Love bombing is the intense flooding with messages of love, attention, admiration, adulation, etc. In short, it is the written form or the visual form of idealization. The love bombing victim of the love bombing target is simply inundated. Drowns in messages, an endless stream of messages which doesn't leave, doesn't let the target think. The aim of love bombing is to deny the faculty of thought, critical thought, critical thinking. It's by occupying the target's entire attention span. Every minute of her time, the love bomber doesn't allow her to sit back and evaluate what's happening. So love bombing has four functions. First of all, to signal to the target the intensity and the persistence of the interlocutor's correspondence of sensible emotions. The higher the number of messages I'm sending you, the more florid, the more florid and effervescent the language. The more it's an indicator in a signal of how deeply I feel about you. It is intended to chart and to document the growing, all-pervasive attachment that the narcissist or the love bomber allegedly feels. A second function is virtual signaling. It is intended to convey the purity and the authenticity, as well as the good intentions of the love bomber. I love you. I adore you. I worship you. I will never hurt you. The third element is gaslighting. The idea in love bombing is to engender, to foster, to create, and then to impose on the target an immersive virtual reality bubble. I repeat, virtual reality bubble. It's not real. And within this bubble there's a cult-like shared fantasy, or even in extreme cases shared psychosis. This is established by the love bomber, and then it takes hold. And it's very difficult as a target to extricate yourself from these agreed upon conventions, rules of conduct and speech, things that are acceptable and not acceptable, things that you're allowed to do and not allowed to do. Gradually, the love bomber constricts your words, narrows it, closes you down, disconnects you from other people. We'll come to it when we talk about grooming. And the fourth aim of love bombing is to induce the target to enter the hall of mirrors where she is idealized. Remember that I consistently suggest that the narcissist does not exist. There's nobody there. The narcissist is a reification, the embodiment, the personalification of emptiness. It's a walking, talking void. It's deep space. When you look into the eyes of the narcissist, you can see forever. There's nothing to stop your gaze. There's nobody there. There's no back wall. It's like infinite regression, regression with mirrors. So the narcissist is a hall of mirrors, and the narcissist invites you in, into this hall of mirrors, and then you look around and you see yourself reflected a thousand times and then a million times. And this is, of course, the essence of idealization.  And so when you enter the narcissist's hall of mirrors, you're idealized and you become infatuated with your own rendition. You become infatuated with yourself. And this is, by far, the most addictive experience imaginable. And it results in something we call operant conditioning. You become like Pavlov's dogs. Every time you receive a message from the love bomber, there is this, there is this aggrandizement. There is this sense of infinite possibilities. There is this atmosphere, ambience of adventure and risk and thrill. And you can't extricate yourself. It's absolutely like a drug. It's a drug. It grants the love bomber with the power to withhold access to this contraption. And because you're already addicted, withholding access induces in you withdrawal symptoms, kind of cold turkey. And so the love bomber acquires, with his love bombing, acquires a tool, an instrument to modify your behavior via intermittent reinforcement.  I'll grant you access to my hall of mirrors. I'll continue to flood you with messages. Messages that make you, make you look imperfect, brilliant, omnipotent, omniscient, etc. The love bomber harps, plays on your own narcissism. In effect what the love bomber does, it gradually transforms you and converts you into a narcissist. It's like a vampire. Love bombing is like this proverbial bite on your neck when you're infected with vampirism. And you're going to live forever. You're going to live forever. And you're going to wander the earth and you're going to see the most amazing things. And suddenly all possibilities are open. You feel a sense of liberation, a sense of infinite capacity, a sense of self-actualization that you had never felt before, before and above, or maybe the first time in your life. You love. You're in love with yourself. The love bomber is nothing but a conduit, a channel. You're channeling yourself through the love bomber. And so love bombing is the narcissist's prime, prime entry strategy. Gradually you will have to develop an exit strategy if you want to survive. The narcissist's entry strategy is love bombing. There is a substantial difference though between love bombing and grooming. And people tend to confuse it, especially self-styled experts and so on online. Grooming is a pathological technique, pathological strategy, which leads to criminalized, antisocial or aggressive violent acts. So a pedophile grooms his targets or his victims. The children is about to abuse, molest or exploit sexually.  A sadist grooms his victims. Grooming leads to acts of extreme egregious abuse, usually including violation of physical boundaries. Love bombing is an entirely different thing. Love bombing is a conditioning technique, a conditioning strategy. You know who is love bombing you? Facebook is love bombing you. Every time you get a like on your posts, that's a love bomb, a mini-bomb, but it's a love bomb. The more likes you get on your Facebook post, the more you are being love-bombed. So the principle of love bombing also underlies social media where there is a exact simulated love via likes, via emojis and so on and so forth. Of course Facebook is not grooming you. It's conditioning you. It's creating an addiction.  The same, narcissists does the same, but there's a big difference between the narcissist and the sexual sadist who is also a narcissist.  And the difference between love bombing and grooming is substantial because grooming is intended to achieve six goals. And remember grooming is mostly done by a person who displays symptoms of narcissism, psychopathy and sadism, a kind of dark triad of a different sort. And again grooming is intended to achieve six goals. The first one is to establish mastery, a power hierarchy, an external locus of control over you. So that you feel that you have surrendered your life, that you have surrendered control of yourself, your decision making processes, everything to the outside, to that person. Number two in grooming, to mold the target into a mindless and obedient role play. So if it's a woman, the sexual sadist would usually, usually would try to mold her into an unthinking or satisfy his sexual fantasies without any limit, without any boundary, without ever saying no. The third function of grooming is to overcome the target's natural revulsion and anxiety. When normal people, when healthy people come across a narcissist, come across a psychopath or the sadist, they have this immediate, intuitive, reflexive unease. They feel discomfited and they don't know why. Something is off-key. Some part of the tune is fake and wrong and they know it, but they can't put the finger in it. And Masahiro Mori, the Japanese roboticist, called it the uncanny valley. He said that when robots would come to resemble human beings very highly, very much, we would begin to feel unease with these robots because they are too human. In the same with Nazis and psychopaths and sadists, they are in essence forms of artificial intelligence. They lack the basics of being human, but they look human. They imitate and simulate emotions, cognitions, reactions, behaviors perfectly, yet we feel that something is missing. We feel that it's a simulation, that it's not real, that it's feigned, that it's a forgery of some kind of counterfeit. So there's immediate revulsion and anxiety. And grooming is intended to overcome these reactions by habituating the target, co-opting or hijacking the target's fantasy life. Injecting, the sadist injects himself into the subject's imagination, fears, hopes, wishes, dreams, fantasies, becomes an integral and an inseparate part of these things. The fourth function is to expose the target to brainwashing, messaging and signaling. Repetition does that, repetition, and then co-opting, pretending to have an unspoken, unverbalized, ambient agreement about some things, even if the agreement is never made explicit. So there are sanctions for breach of, for misconduct, for breach of this unspoken atmospheric agreement. And it's a part of brainwashing, it's intermittent reinforcement. You abide by the rules, you follow the conventions and the more is that we had agreed on God knows when, then I'm going to reward you.  And there are numerous ways to punish silent treatment is the most prevalent. The fifth role of grooming is to push the target, to dismantle her boundaries, to abrogate her values and morals, and to violate her own rules of conduct and her own decisions about her life, her goals, the way acceptable things, non-acceptable things and so on. To transform, to shape shift the target so that she is totally disoriented. Her life becomes a kaleidoscope. She's no longer sure what she believes in. She can't be absolutely certain where her boundaries are and what she is going to do or not going to do under extreme circumstances. And so this is inducing a borderline personality disorder like state where there is identity diffusion like multiple personality grooming does that to you. And the sixth role is to isolate you from family and social network. The more isolated you are, the more dependent you are on the source of the grooming. So put together, grooming creates a shared psychotic space within which the shared fantasy thrives on false promises and false premises. And there's a make-believe role-play. Whenever the woman tries to exit this common territory, this common delusional territory, she's punished. If there is physical proximity, she's punished with sadistic sex, egregious abuse, withholding, outright rejection, humiliation. If it's electronic or digital communication, there's silent treatment, there are mocking messages, there are threats. And finally, the only way open to her is to resort to another man with whom she can create an alternative sanctuary, however fantastic, however brief.  And this creates in the narcissist or sadist or psychopath, modification. And the woman is not perceived as a threat and she's shunned, mission accomplished. The cheating is one strategy. Betrayal, I would say, is a more generalized strategy. Cheating is one strategy, but for example, challenging the premises and the foundations of the shared fantasy. Not agreeing to serve anymore as a source of narcissistic supply, mocking and deriding the narcissist's grandiosity, humiliating the narcissist in public, in front of peers, colleagues and so on.  Betrayal of trust, betrayal of unspoken, unspoken, compacts and agreements, betrayal of expectations, dreams, hopes and fantasies, which at some point are shared. Betrayal of the power hierarchy, challenging the narcissist's superiority, challenging the sadist's access to the body, etc. So all these are exit strategies. Now, the question is how do narcissists decide who to target and how do sadists decide who to target? And there are numerous typologies and numerous explanations. There is the absolutely nonsensical concept of empath. And I have a video dedicated to debunking this media hypoenunity. There is the misinformation, the wrong information that narcissists target only specific types of people and magnets and so on. That's absolutely wrong. Research has consistently shown that the only parameter that interests the narcissist is whether the potential partner can provide narcissistic supply or not. End of story. The narcissist targets autonomous, independent, entrepreneurial, strong women, and the narcissist targets weak, not very bright, under-accomplished women. The narcissist targets co-dependence, any targets, totally healthy women. Narcissist targets everyone. Narcissist canvases and scans. Anyone can provide supply. She's a target and she is targeted. There is no type constancy and no preference for any type of profile. This is a myth and utter misinformation. But the narcissist does divide women to a variety of typologies. I've dwelt upon some of these typologies in other videos and today I would like to introduce yet another one. The narcissist divides all women into homemakers, promiscuous women and promiscuous, glamorous women. And so when he's cheated on, abandoned, betrayed, challenged, mocked, humiliated and so on, when the intimate partner tries to exit the shared fantasy which had become dangerous or ominous or threatening or debilitating or and she has to exit, I mean, she can't stand it anymore. When this happens, most narcissists experience a variety of reactions. And one of these reactions is called narcissistic modification. I've dedicated four videos for recently to the issue of modification. How the narcissist experiences, experiences modification. What is the role of modification? Why narcissists seek modification, et cetera, et cetera. But the thing is that narcissists experience modification only with a homemaker, with a homemaker type of partner. The type of partner the narcissist believes can be a stable, long-term intimate partner who is focused on adulation and services, less on sex. Remember there are three S's, sex, supply, services. The homemaker is focused on supply and services.  So when something happens with her, the narcissist is modified. And then he tries to transform his external notification into an internal one. He says to himself, she's not like that. Or she's not to blame for her misconduct. It's my fault. My abuse and withholding pushed her to the limit. He overlooks any facts to the contrary, including the homemaker, partners, past promiscuity, and a pattern of betrayal and sexual and emotional licentiousness in her past. He idealizes her. So the first target for lovebombing could be a homemaker, a homebody kind of target, kind of woman, which would fit into this narrative, idealized narrative. Another type of woman the narcissist would tend to lovebomb is the promiscuous, glamorous woman. It's a beautiful woman, entrepreneurial, strong on the surface, autonomous, adventurous, risk-taker, thrill-seeking, a bit psychopathic. And with this kind of woman, the narcissist experiences both retroactive and reactive romantic jealousy. In other words, he is jealous of her past intimate partners and romantic partners and one-night stand partners and whatever. And he's jealous of current possible competitors for her love and attention. Owning this kind of partner who could have chosen any man because she is, you know, drop dead gorgeous and rich. So owning this kind of partner upholds the narcissist's grandiosity, makes you feel unique, irresistible, upholds his sense of virility. Narcissists have very strong problems with gender differentiation and gender roles. They are not quite sure how menly they are. They keep testing. So owning such a partner sort of upholds virility and losing her challenges both grandiosity and manhood or manliness. So it's a big blow for the narcissist, but narcissists would tend to love-bomb this kind of target into submission. And finally, there's the promiscuous only partners. Narcissists with this kind of partner is less likely to love-bomb. He's likely to team up with his partner, but love-bombing is usually not a part of the package because he feels nothing and experiences no reaction. First of all, with this kind of partner, cheating is both expected and accepted as a way out of the shallow relationship, which included farm and sex. And because it's kind of a transient stop-gap partner, transient doesn't mean short. It could be years, but it's a stop-gap partner, not the glamorous promiscuous and not the homemaker, which are the stable partners of the narcissist. So with this kind of partner, love-bombing is much less likely. And it is this kind of partner that the narcissist picks up in bars and restaurants and conferences and so on and so forth. So this is the narcissist, but believe me, the narcissist is harmless compared to the next type I'm going to discuss. The worst, most egregious, hurtful and dangerous type of narcissist, really of any person in my view, is also antisocial, psychopathic and a sadist. Such a narcissist is the sad and corrupted outcome of intermittent reinforcement in early childhood, which resulted in a shattering and never resolved narcissistic modification. Let me try to explain. All narcissists start as children, may come as a shock to you, but they do. So some people, some of these children are first idolized, placed on a pedestal, pampered, coseted, admired, exhibited, and they could do no wrong. They are perfection, reified. And so these children are exposed to unconditional parental worship, not love. Unconditional parental worship, but coupled with conditional love. In other words, as long as the child performs, the worship is unconditional and unlimited. It has no boundaries. The parent actually merges with the child, fuses with the child, which makes it very difficult for the child to separate and individuate and have boundaries. But the love is conditional. And then, abruptly, these children are cast aside, pushed off the pedestal, shunned, discarded, mocked, nightmarishly abused in every which manner. Sadistically criticized, ostentatiously hated. And so this incredibly sudden transition from hero to zero, from God to the least low life scum creature on earth. This transition, remember, it happens to a child who is four years old, nine years old, six years old. And this kind of transition is difficult even for an adult. We have studies of chief executive officers, very rich businessmen and famous people who went to jail. Harvey Weinstein types. They were at the top of the world, the pinnacle of their industry. They control the universe. They own the universe. They were masters of the universe. And then they're in jail in the general population. And we studied their psychology. And it is an incredible crisis. It's an existential modification. Now, this is when it happens to an adult. Adult has boundaries, has experience, has much stronger, has much more resilient. Imagine when it happens to a four-year-old, it's absolutely shattering, pulverizing. And so this creates such abrupt pendulum, pendulum shift. It creates antisocial sadistic narcissists. It's a sub-sub-sub species, sub-group, sub-variant, which are by far the most dangerous. Because they unify all the bad qualities of the narcissist, including the lack of reality testing. In other words, the psychotic elements in narcissism, the delusional elements. Combined with antisocial traits and behaviors, including defiance, lack of impulse control, recklessness, callousness, lack of empathy, extreme lack of empathy, coupled with psychological penetration. And with the urges, uncontrollable urges of the sadists to hurt people, to enjoy the pain inflicted on people. So when you put all three together, you can imagine what you get. And these type of narcissists will stop at nothing to recapture the Garden of Eden ideal state that they had started life with. Remember at the beginning? They were put on a pedestal, pampered, spoiled, worshipped. They want to recapture this state. This is their Garden of Eden from which they had been expelled. This was the ideal state they want to go back to. They want to revert to. So in women, these type of narcissists look for an idealizing mother. They want all women to become mother and to recreate the ideal space, the shared fantasy that I mentioned before. And when the partner fails to do this, they try to fix the intimate partner by force, coercively, using among other things, abuse. And so to convert, to transform the woman or the intimate partner into an idealizing mother, this kind of narcissist uses extreme grooming. Do you remember the six roles or six aims of grooming? This kind of narcissist uses grooming to the point of negating the partner's identity and existence, annulling her, vitiating her, and then assimilating the remnants. So they kind of mummify the partner and then digest the partner. The partner becomes not only an extension like with a classical narcissist, but a part of the sadistic anti-social narcissist. And so abandonment in this case would be the equivalent of amputation. You see, the woman, the intimate partner, is absolutely not a distinct entity, but another organ, like skin. And this kind of narcissists, sadistic and anti-social, they generate a shared fantasy space into which they shoehorn everyone else. Not only, everything I'm saying here does not only apply to romantic partners, intimate partners, love interests. It applies to business partners, colleagues, neighbors. This kind of sadistic anti-social narcissist tries to recreate the ideal space, the garden of Eden, where he used to be God, where he used to walk the earth as a divinity, worshipped by these godlike creatures, the parents. He wants to recreate this, and he wants to recreate it in the workplace, in his family, among his neighbors, in the pub. Wherever he goes, he creates pathological narcissistic spaces, physical spaces within which he is trying to restore the primordial state. And any attempt to exit this space, or to challenge this space, or to modify this space, or in any way, shape or form interfere with this space. It leads to extreme aggression, and the aggression can be so extreme that it could end with murder. It could easily transition to violence, especially under the influence of substance abuse. There's a replay, because when the shared fantasy or the shared space in the case of these narcissists is challenged, it's a replay of the original narcissistic modification with mother. It's a replay, it's a reenactment of the unresolved conflict, the unresolved expulsion from the garden of Eden with the flaming swords. It's the most traumatic experience by far in the narcissist's life. And every time a woman, a boss, a colleague, or a peer, or a try to dismantle the fantastic space, the shared fantasies, the shared psychosis, the cult. Every time they try to bring the narcissists, this kind of narcissists, sadistic and psychopathic narcissists back to reality, every time they try to open his eyes to disabuse him of his delusions, they are actually assuming the role of the original abusing mother, the original angel who cast the narcissist out of the garden of Eden into a life of toil and pain. But you can say what determines whether the narcissistic experience is narcissistic modification, or merely narcissistic injury, or even just searing romantic jealousy when his partner misbehaves, for example, with other men, which is most egregious and extreme form of abandonment and betrayal. What determines the reaction? Well, modification occurs when the rejection is total, when it's abrupt, when it's ostentatious in public, and when the narcissist needs his partner the most. It is a stark reminder of the narcissist's power for self-delusion and gallability. When this happens, the narcissist realizes how sick he is, how deformed, how defective, how dysfunctional. It's very painful. It's very painful. It's annihilating. It's a feeling of coming face to face with yourself as a narcissist, is coming face to face with the ultimate in monstrosity. And the narcissist doesn't consider himself a monster, on the contrary, considers himself a superior, irresistibly attractive proposition. And so abandonment and betrayal, recreating the original abandonment and betrayal by mother, they force the narcissist to confront who he really is, or much more precisely, who he really is never and is not. Because the narcissist is an absence, not a presence. He's not an entity. He's a non-entity.   He is an obstruction, not a human being. How horrifying can it be to come to realize this when all your defenses crumble in a process known as decompensation, when all your delusions are taken away, challenged to the point of breaking. So rheumatic jealousy is a normal reaction to the anticipated loss of a partner. Modification is much more than this. And it has nothing to do with a partner. Modification has to do exclusively with the narcissist. And his ultimate and final confrontation with himself, the dual, you know, guns drawn. No one will stay alive.  It's a common misconception. Sexual sadism is not about sex. It's about power. It's about humiliating, trashing, degrading the woman, the intimate partner.  So there are three types of women in the world of the sexual sadist. And only types one and two acquiesce and cater to his sadistic needs. So the first type is a woman who women who are submissive and they are already deeply in love or irresistibly infatuated with the sadistic, narcissistic, anti-social men. And to get to this stage, the sadist uses grooming. And these women require grooming to be brought to this stage. But when they are in this stage, grooming is no longer needed. They are utterly unthinking robots and they would fulfill any and all sexual fantasies of the sadist. The second group of women are promiscuous masochists. You can find them in sex clubs or through private networks. It takes some effort to find them. And there are huge risks involved usually, medical risks, personal risks.  The thing is that women in casual sex one night stands, pickups, pickups in bars, hookups. This kind of women would never agree to realize the sadist sexual fantasies. And they also usually demand reciprocity and equipotence. There's a negotiated power symmetry when you pick up a woman in a bar for a one night stand. So this is not the narcissistic cup of tea. It's definitely not what the sexual sadist is looking for. And so the sexual sadist obtains power in two ways. In the grooming phase, he establishes his mastery. And in the sexual phase, he exercises it. Sadists avoid one night stands, so do narcissists, by the way. Contra, contra to misinformation online. Sadist, narcissists, psychopaths love casual sex and one night stands. But sadists and narcissists, they avoid them because they're likely to be unfulfilling and merely provoke a performance anxiety. And casual sex also invariably ends up in a kind of narcissistic injury because the man is rejected or humiliated or abandoned.   In other words, they convert the sexual energy into non-sexual, socially acceptable activities. Ironically, it's exactly this type of narcissistic sexual sadists who would engage in very prolific love-bombing and grooming because it's a substitute for the sex itself. They don't really need the sex. The power it turns them on, obtaining power over some other person, manipulating another person.  These are the big turn-ons.  They tend to procrastinate, avoid face-to-face meetings and so on and so forth. They only intermittently go for the first type of submissive women or infatuated women. They actually try to avoid this. The problem is that women of the first type, submissive and infatuated, they require an intimate, committed relationship, which most sadistic narcissists are not willing to embark on. Sadistic psychopathic narcissists are looking merely for an admirer, a playmate, a lover to fit into the shared fantasy. I've dedicated a few videos to this. They're looking for a toy because they're children. Most of them are stuck at age four psychodynamically. The equipment they have, the emotional equipment they have, characterizes a child at age four. So they're looking for a toy. And what do children do with toys? Break them, dismantle them, disassemble them, look in the innards, look inside.  They're looking for a toy to dismantle. They're not looking for a wife. They're not looking to become a father. Many sadists, of course, deceive the woman, make false promises to the contrary. And they promise everlasting love. They profess to lust. They say that they're looking for intimacy, a relationship, a marriage, they want to have children and so on. This is standard fair. But they do this in order to secure the three assets, sex, supply and services.  It's more rare. But it does happen, absolutely. I mean, there's no limit to how far they will go. So even when the sadist does find the appropriate submissive, infatuated woman, ultimately, when push comes to shove and he's unable to fulfill his false promises and commitments, the women become angry and disappointed that they end up adopting an exit strategy of betrayal, cheating on him in egregious cases or just humiliating him or challenging him. And this leads to an intricate power play within the relationship where the chairs are, the roles are reversed to some extent and the sadistic narcissist gets a taste of his own medicine and it leads to harrowing modification, time and again. And so many narcissistic, sadistic narcissists ultimately decide that the price, the shared fantasy, is not worth the price and the price is grooming and modification. So they exit the scene. And this is why most sadistic narcissists go through inordinately long stretches of celibacy. They're trying to avoid the modification. Now, I did say in previous videos that classic pure narcissists or narcissists who are comorbid with borderline, in other words, people who have both diagnosis, narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. These narcissists are looking for modification. This modification is the only time they are free of the false self. The false self is disabled, mortally wounded and the narcissist can finally experience his own identity and existence directly, not indirectly, not via the mediation and the filtering of the false self. So they seek it. They seek modification. They seek to be abundant abruptly and so on, but not so the sadistic narcissists. Sadistic narcissists avoid modification because he knows that his brand of sexuality centered around power matrices, because he knows that his psychology getting cheer and joy out of inflicting pain, because he knows that these are unpalatable and unacceptable. He knows that the relationship is always doomed, well in advance. He knows the sequence. He's going to groom an intimate partner, let's say a woman. He's going to make false promises, if need be. He's going to inflict on her pain and hurt, abuse her egregiously, dismantle her, ruin her identity and sense of self, boundaries, everything. De-constellate her, if you wish. Break her like a toy, disassemble her. She's going to tolerate this. She's going to realize these sexual fantasies, no matter how morbid and bizarre, and barophiliac and deviant and sick, so to speak. She's going to comply with them. She's going to do everything. But she expects something in return. This something is a relationship. It could be a committed relationship, could be a marriage, could be a formal relationship or informal, but a relationship of some kind. And when he fails to deliver this, he knows that she's going to betray him. And in majority of cases, she's going to betray him with another man. And she's going to do it in a way that will hurt him back. He knows this. He anticipates it. He expects it. And so, he realizes that the end of the road, there is a life-threatening modification. And so, a sadistic narcissist would try to avoid this. His shared fantasy does not include a relationship with the classic narcissist or the narcissistic borderline. The shared fantasy always includes a real core, real kernel of a relationship, not so with the sadistic narcissist. There's no hint in his mind. There's no hint of a relationship. It's all about power, mastery, slave, slavery. People with atypical sexuality often give up on sex altogether. Some of them do it in order to not hurt innocent people.  So, atypical sexuality very often leads to celibacy and abstinence. Or sometimes they find it difficult. It's finding a partner that requires excessive investment of resources and assuming unusual dangers and risks. Or because the sex is likely to result in psychologically or physically dangerous and bad outcomes to themselves and to others. Atypical sexuality gradually leads to isolation, to isolation, abstinence, avoidance, celibacy. It's self-imposed. It's very sad and very painful. But it's the only way to avoid a price which could lead to life-threatening outcomes.  It's very, very, very close to pornography. The rights virtual, it's not real. And so if you were to talk to a sadistic narcissist, he would tell you this. Like every narcissist he would say, my only goal is narcissistic supply. But as a hybrid, antisocial narcissist and sadist, my exclusive form of supply is sadistic. I call it sadistic supply.  My sadism is grandiose. It gives me the feeling that I possess the power to so badly damage my devastated interlocutors and intimate partners that it proves to me that I'm omnipotent. It elates me. It's like a rush or a high. It is the confluence of fantastic personal inflation buttressed by the visible impulse of my unmitigated relentless and callous cruelty. Such a narcissist would say, I obtain sadistic supply with my aggressive ostentatious and public defiance of everything my targets or victims hold dear and sacred. Their conventions, their plans, their hopes, their dreams, their wishes. First, I collude with their fantasies and dreams. I act the perfect accomplice, perfect mate, false advertising. But then I destroy everything we have built together with cold indifference and glee methodically. As though I were exclaiming, you can never take me for granted, for I am a force of nature. I will punish you. I ruin you for daring to humanize me, to reduce me to the level of mere mortals for being so blind that you fail to grasp my divine superiority in every way. I do not need you. You don't have anything to offer to me. I will prove it to you by discarding you off-handedly. So the sexual set is harps on people's insecurities, vulnerabilities, weaknesses, mercilessly. He pushes their buttons. He triggers them to the limits of decompensation, disintegration and acting out. All other forms of narcissistic supply and all other forms of psychopathic goals, admiration, recognition, sex, money, power, they are secondary, they are subordinate to the sadistic needs, to the need to inflict pain and hurt, to the need to disassemble, break apart the toy of the sadistic narcissists. So this narcissists sacrifices even classic narcissistic supply. Sacrifices goals, undermines his own goals. From the outside he appears to be self-defeating or self-destructive. But he does this in order to obtain the gratification of watching his target, his praise, victim and rival, of inflicting pain and suffering on them, frustrating them, countering their happiness and joy and often in public. You see, the sadistic narcissists self-destruction causes pain to his intimate partner. It's a sadistic ploy. He destroys himself to spite the other. He destroys himself to cause hurt, to cause the other to feel normal sadness and sorrow and unmitigated, unadulterated depression. And so we see counter-intuitive and very perplexing and paradoxical behaviors.  A woman would come on to him. A woman would offer herself and his gratification would not be to take her on her offer.  Her evident pain is far greater, a far greater aphrodisiac, far greater supply than anything sex with her can yield. And similarly, the sadistic narcissists will forgo or sabotage great opportunities and rewards just so as to hurt and frustrate the hopes and expectations of others. Now, there is a very big difference between this and the psychopath's behavior. The psychopath does the same things. He frustrates, he hurts people, he has many self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors. He destroys his own opportunities. He rejects life. He forgoes and gives up the joys of life.  So true. But while the sexual sadist does it in order to be gratified, so actually it's a form of self-love, self-destruction in the case of the sexual narcissistic sadist, self-destruction in the case of self-love. It's a form of self-love. In the case of the psychopath, everything has no meaning, no real motivation, no psychodynamic background. It's kind of a fleeting whim. It just wakes up. He does what he feels. It's kind of a shallow surface phenomenon, the psychopath. He has no depth. He's not dimensions. He's not gratified by, for example, drinking, or by casual sex, or by stealing someone's wallet, or car, or hurting someone, hurting his so-called loved ones, nearest, dear ones. The psychopath does things off-handedly, upset-mindedly, or because he feels like it. And he doesn't have to feel like it very much. It's enough that the thought doesn't affect it. It's like a hair-trigger variant of the narcissistic sadist. And so psychopaths are not motivated by self-gratification. Narcissistic sadists are. It's a very crucial difference how to tell these two types apart. But what happens when you have all three? Psychopath, narcissists, and sadists in the same person, in the same diagnosis? Well, it depends. In some situations, psychopath will take over. In other situations, the narcissist and when it comes to sex, intimate partners, and so on, probably the sadists. And the thing is that in narcissism, exactly like in borderline, in narcissistic personality disorder, the same with borderline personality disorder, the psychopathic dimension is not primary psychopathy. It's secondary psychopathy. First, the narcissist or the borderline are triggered by something. The borderline is triggered by abandonment and rejection or anticipated abandonment and rejection. The narcissist is triggered by a narcissistic injury, lack of supply or modification. First, there's a trigger. Only then the psychopath takes over as a defense mechanism, as a defense strategy. Psychopath then takes over in this case. And the narcissists and borderline act psychopathically, defiantly, without impulse control, without foreseeing or considering the consequences of their actions, without empathy, callously, recklessly, etc. These are all psychopathic behaviors and these social behaviors. But they come second. They are reactive to a primary psychodynamic process in the borderline. Abandonment, anxiety, loss, anxiety, and in the narcissist the need for supply and buttressing grandiosity. So, grooming and love bombing are integral parts of the strategies of narcissists, sadists, narcissistic sadists and psychopaths to acquire targets Hoover in case it's a second attempt. To acquire or Hoover targets who would later become accomplices, co-actors, colleagues, if you wish, in a production, in the theater production of the narcissist's life in the shirt fantasy, in the shirt psychotic space. These are never-never lens like Michael Jackson's, like Peter Penn's. These are the never-never lens in which a deeply wounded, deeply traumatized, sad, profoundly sad and crying child of four years old, wonders. He tries to find the way back to paradise, the way back to heaven. And it's paved with good intentions sometimes. But all he succeeds to do is hurt everyone around him and his prime victim is himself.