Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or "I, Psychopath"?

[Buddy]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

"a little Nism" is like 'a little cancer'. Once you accept the idea that it's incurable, it only grows from there. Nothing in this universe stays static, from what I see.

 

[Clotho]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Healthy Nism has nothing to do with SV or his forums, I feel that healthy Nism is being misunderstood, healthy Nism is not a cancer, Nism is apart of us all, as human we all have traits of Nism. ;)

Sigmund Freud believed that some narcissism is an essential part of all of us from birth and was the first to use the term in the reference to psychology.

A reasonable amount of healthy narcissism allows the individuals perception of their needs to be balanced in relation to others.

A distinction must be made between ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ narcissism and ‘pathological’ narcissism. We all have to some degree a variety of narcissistic traits which, if they are not too excessive are quite normal and healthy. But the pathological narcissist has a level of delusion that is divorced from reality.

Normal narcissism can refer to a well integrated representation of the self and others, whilst pathological narcissism relates to an impaired intra-psychic structure with grandiose self-representations and a severe pathology in object relations.

_http://www.everytherapist.com/blog/the-secret-to-nurturing-healthy-narcissistic-traits/

Socio-biologists maintain that narcissism is natural for both individuals and groups because self-love is an instinctive, natural-selection trait. That is why all children are narcissists. As individuals mature into adulthood, however, they become less narcissistic because their insecurity tends to diminish as a result of concrete achievements and successes. A certain degree of healthy self-love nevertheless continues into adulthood.

_http://www.lisaescott.com/2009/08/06/pathological-narcissism-spiritual-disorder

Secondary narcissism
According to Freud, secondary narcissism is a pathological condition which occurs when the libido withdraws from objects outside of the self. Freud further claimed that it is an extreme form of the narcissism that is part of all of us.


Narcissism, relationships and self-worth
According to Freud, to care for someone is to convert ego-libido into object-libido by giving some self-love to another person, which leaves less ego-libido available for primary narcissism and protecting and nurturing the self. When that affection is returned so is the libido, thus restoring primary narcissism and self worth. Any failure to achieve, or disruption of, this balance causes psychological disturbances. In such a case primary narcissism can only be restored by withdrawing object-libido (also called, object-love), to replenish ego-libido.

Otto Kernberg uses the term Narcissism to refer to the role of self in the regulation of self esteem.

He regarded normal, infantile Narcissism to be dependent on the affirmation of others and the acquisition of desirable and appealing objects, which should later develop into healthy, mature, self-esteem. This healthy Narcissism depends upon an integrated sense of self that incorporates images of the internalised affirmation of those close to us, that is regulated by the super ego and ego ideal, internal mental structures that assure us of our worth and that we deserve our own respect.

When infantile Narcissism fails to develop in this healthy adult form, it becomes a pathology.

What is Healthy Narcissism?

NarcissismNarcissism
Narcissism describes the trait of excessive self-love, based on self-image or ego.The term is derived from the Greek mythology of Narcissus . Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo .... in the generic sense describes the character trait of self love, based on self-image or ego. In general, narcissism is seen in a more negative manner, related to excessive levels of self-esteem and a devaluation of others. However, this might be too narrow-minded. Healthy narcissism is formed through a structural truthfulness of the self, achievement of self and object constancy, synchronization between the self and the superego, a balance between libidinal and aggressive drives, the ability to get gratification from others and the drive for impulse expression. Healthy narcissism forms a constant, realistic self-interest and mature goals and principles, and an ability to form deep object relations. A feature related to healthy narcissism

Narcissism
Narcissism describes the trait of excessive self-love, based on self-image or ego.The term is derived from the Greek mythology of Narcissus . Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo ....
is the feeling of greatnessGreatness
Greatness or pre-eminence is a concept heavily dependent on a person's world view and biases. The term can be used to emphasise perceived superiority of a person or thing....
. This is used to avoid the feeling of being small.


Healthy Narcissism: a required element within normal development

Healthy narcissism exists in all individuals. Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalysis of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of Psychological repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through dialogue...
says that this is an original state from the individual from where to develop the love object. Freud argues that healthy narcissism is an essential part in normal development. The love of the parents for their child and their attitude towards their child could be seen as a revival and reproduction of their own narcissism according to Freud in On Narcissism: An IntroductionOn Narcissism
On Narcissism was a 1914 book by Sigmund Freud, widely considered an introduction to Freud's theories of narcissism.In this paper, Freud sums up his earlier discussions on the subject of narcissism and considers its place in sexual development....
. The child has an omnipotenceOmnipotence
Omnipotence is unlimited power.Monotheism religions generally attribute omnipotence to only the deity of whichever faith is being addressed. In the religious philosophy of most Western monotheistic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one of a deity's characteristics among many, including omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence...
of thought. The parents stimulate that feeling because in their child they see the things they have never reached themselves. Compared to neutral observations, the parents tend to overvalue the qualities of their child. When parents act in an extreme opposite style and the child is rejected or inconsistently reinforced depending on the mood of the parent, the self-needs of the child are not met.


Healthy narcissism in relation to the pathological condition
Healthy narcissism has to do with a strong feeling of “own love” protecting the human being against illness. However, eventually the individual must love the other, “the object love to not become ill". The person gets ill, as a result of a frustration, when he can’t love the object. In pathological narcissism such as the Narcissistic Personality DisorderNarcissistic personality disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder is a personality disorder defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic classification system used in the United States, as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy." ...
and schizophreniaSchizophrenia
Schizophrenia , from the Ancient Greek Root schizein and phren, phren- is a psychiatry diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality....
the person’s libidoLibido
Libido in its common usage means sexual desire; however, more technical definitions, such as those found in the work of Carl Jung, are more general, referring to libido as the free creative?or psychic?energy an individual has to put toward personal development or individuation....
has been withdrawn from objects in the world and produces megalomaniaMegalomania
Megalomania is a historical term for behavior characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power , genius, or omnipotence — often generally termed as delusions of grandeur or grandiose delusions....
. The clinical theorists Kernberg, KohutKohut
Kohut is a surname, and may refer to:*Alexander Kohut, rabbinic scholar*Heinz Kohut, psychoanalyst*Jozef Kohut, ice hockey player...
and Millon all see pathological narcissism as a possible outcome in response to unempathetic and inconsistent early childhood interactions. They suggested that narcissists try to fill the void left in childhood in their adult relationships . The pathological condition of narcissism is, as Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalysis of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of Psychological repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through dialogue...
suggested, a magnified, extreme manifestation of healthy narcissism. With regard to the condition of healthy narcissism, it is suggested that this is correlated with good psychological health. Self-esteemSelf-esteem
In psychology, self-esteem reflects a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth.Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions ....
works as a mediator between narcissismNarcissism
Narcissism describes the trait of excessive self-love, based on self-image or ego.The term is derived from the Greek mythology of Narcissus . Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo ....
and psychological health, That is, thanks to their elevated self-esteem, deriving from self-perceptions of competence and likeability, high narcissists are relatively free of worry and gloom . Other researchers suggested that healthy narcissism cannot be seen as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, however, it depends on the contexts and outcomes being measured. In certain social contexts such as initiating social relationships, and with certain outcome variables, such as feeling good about oneself, healthy narcissism can be helpful. In other contexts, like maintaining long-term relationships and with other outcome variables, such as accurate self-knowledge, healthy narcissism can be unhelpful.

_http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Narcissism_%28psychology%29#encyclopedia

 

[Redrock12]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Clotho, "healthy narcissism" is a contradiction in terms. No different than "a little cancer is good for you."
As well, having narcissistic traits is like having symptoms of cancer; it doesn't necessarily follow that you have cancer. Being concerned about one's well-being does not a narcissist make. It's when the tumor (of cancer or narcissism) manifests itself.

 

[Laura]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

I don't think there is "healthy narcissism." But there IS Self Esteem. I think the issue here is that it is being pointed out that the "sting" of the term is being removed by using it to describe what certainly must be Self Esteem. That's one of the ways pathologicals gradually divert the thinking of normal people - first by co-opting words and then, gradually, by slipping other meanings in underneath. Lobaczewski calls this process "ponerization."

One phenomenon all ponerogenic groups and associations have in common is the fact that their members lose (or have already lost) the capacity to perceive pathological individuals as such, interpreting their behavior in a fascinated, heroic, or melodramatic way. The opinions, ideas, and judgments of people carrying various psychological deficits are endowed with an importance at least equal to that of outstanding individuals among normal people. The atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to pathological individuals becomes an opening to their activities, and, at the same time, a criterion for recognizing the association in concern as ponerogenic. Let us call this the first criterion of ponerogenesis.

{...}

We shall call secondarily ponerogenic a union which was founded in the name of some idea with an independent social meaning, generally comprehensible within the categories of the natural world view, but which later succumbed to a certain moral degeneration. This in turn opened the door to infection and activation of the pathological factors within, and later to a ponerization of the group as a whole, or often of its fraction.

From the very outset, a primarily ponerogenic union is a foreign body within the organism of society, its character colliding with the moral values respected by the majority. The activities of such groups provoke opposition and disgust and are considered immoral; as a rule, therefore, such groups do not spread large, nor do they metastasize into numerous unions. They finally lose their battle with society.

In order to have a chance to develop into a large ponerogenic association, however, it suffices that some human organization, characterized by social or political goals and an ideology with some creative value, be accepted by a larger number of normal people before it succumbs to a process of ponerogenic malignancy. The primary tradition and ideological values may then for a long time protect a union which has succumbed to ponerization process from the healthy common sense of society, especially its less critical components. When the ponerogenic process touches such a human organization, which emerged and acted in the name of political or social goals whose causes were conditioned in history and the social situation, the original group’s primary values will nourish and protect such a union, in spite of the fact that those primary values succumb to characteristic degeneration, the practical function becoming completely different from the primary one, because the names and symbols are retained. Individual and social “common sense” thereby uncovers its weakest spots. {...}

An ideology of a secondarily ponerogenic association is formed by gradual adaptation of the primary ideology to functions and goals other than the original formative ones. A certain kind of layering or schizophrenia of ideology takes place during the ponerization process. The outer layer closest to the original content is used for the group’s propaganda purposes, especially regarding the outside world, although it can in part also be used inside with regard to disbelieving lower-echelon members. The second layer presents the elite with no problems of comprehension: it is more hermetic, generally composed by slipping a different meaning into the same names. Since identical names signify different contents depending on the layer in question, understanding this “doubletalk” requires simultaneous fluency in both languages.

Average people succumb to the first layer’s suggestive insinuations for a long time before they learn to understand the second one as well. Anyone with certain psychological deviations, especially if he is wearing the mask of normality with which we are already familiar, immediately perceives the second layer to be attractive and significant; after all, it was built by people like him. Comprehending this doubletalk is therefore a vexatious task, provoking quite understandable psychological resistance; this very duality of language, however, is a pathognomonic symptom indicating that the human union in question is touched by the ponerogenic process to an advanced degree.

The ideology of unions affected by such degeneration has certain constant factors regardless of their quality, quantity, or scope of action: namely, the motivations of a wronged group, radical righting of the wrong, and the higher value of the individuals who have joined the organization. These motivations facilitate sublimation of the feeling of being wronged and different, caused by one’s own psychological failings, and appear to liberate the individual from the need to abide by uncomfortable moral principles.

In the world full of real injustice and human humiliation, making it conducive to the formation of an ideology containing the above elements, a union of its converts may easily succumb to degradation. At this time those people with a tendency to accept the better version of the ideology shall also long tend to justify such ideological duality. {...}

Observation of the ponerization processes of various human unions throughout history easily leads to the conclusion that the initial step is a moral warping of the group’s ideational contents. The contamination of ideology can be analyzed by means of its infiltration by more earthly foreign contents, thereby depriving it of healthy support in trust for and understanding of human nature. This opens the way for invasion by pathological factors and the ponerogenic role of their carriers. ... the loosening of ethical and intellectual controls is sometimes a consequence of the direct or indirect influence of these omnipresent factors, along with some other non-pathological human weaknesses. {...}

Any human group affected by the process described herein is characterized by its increasing regression as regards natural common sense and the ability to perceive psychological reality. Someone treating this in traditional categories could consider it an instance of “turning into half-wittedness” or the growing of intellectual deficiencies and moral failings. A ponerological analysis of this process, however, indicates that pressure is applied upon the more normal part of the association by pathological factors in the person of their carriers.

Thus, whenever we observe some group member being treated with no critical distance, although he betrays one of the psychological anomalies familiar to us, and his opinions being treated as at least equal to those of normal people, although they are based on a characteristically different view of human matters, we must derive the conclusion that this human group is affected by ponerogenic process. We shall treat this in accordance with the above described first criterion of ponerology, which retains its validity regardless of the qualitative and quantitative features of such a union. {...}

The main ideology succumbs to symptomatic deformation, in keeping with the characteristic style of this very disease and with what has already been stated about the matter. The names and official contents are kept, but another different content is insinuated underneath, thus giving rise to the well known double talk phenomenon within which the same names have two meanings: one for initiates, one for everyone else. {...}

Doubletalk is only one of many symptoms. Others are the specific facility for producing new names which have suggestive effects and are accepted virtually uncritically...

 

[Filachi]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

With all the info out about "Narcissism", and the increased use of the word, I believe it is confusing to say "healthy narcissism". If Narcissism is defined as excessive self-love, divorce from reality and a devaluation of others, then I don't see why the words healthy and "narcissism" should be used together. Self-esteem is a more apt term, or simply self-love.

In a society that is taught that "I am nothing without (a) god" and that self-sacrifice is the way to a heaven, it may be difficult to accept the healthy concept of self-love. Self love might be mistaken for "selfish" and erroneously labeled as "narcissistic"


While I still believe that I am the center of my little world, and make meeting my needs priority, this does not project in a way that is harmful to others.

 

[Beau]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Healthy Nism has nothing to do with SV or his forums, I feel that healthy Nism is being misunderstood, healthy Nism is not a cancer, Nism is apart of us all, as human we all have traits of Nism. ;)

Yes, well just because it is "a part of us all" does not make it beneficial. Dissociation is a fairly universal trait of humanity and I wouldn't go around extolling the virtues of lapsing into imagination and fantasy. The phrase "healthy narcissism" is pretty much an oxymoron, for all but children.

Heck, just reading that Freud supports this notion should be enough to realize the ridiculousness of the idea. That guy had so much backwards and wrong.

 

[Mountain Crown]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

A little about Sigmund Freud from Dave McGowan:

[quote author=Understanding the F-Word:American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion]And of course I would be remiss were I not to note that the twin pillars of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, were both fascist sympathizers. In 1933 - the year that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party ascended to power - Germany’s influential Journal of Psychotherapy published an article by Dr. M.H. Goering, a cousin of Hermann Goering, urging psychotherapists to make "a serious scientific study of Adolf Hitler’s fundamental work Mein Kampf, and to recognize it as a basic work." The editor of the journal openly calling for the Nazification of psychotherapy was Dr. Carl Gustav Jung.
Sigmund Freud had close ties to the Reich as well, particularly to a man named George Viereck - the illegitimate grandson of the Kaiser who had ties to SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler and was perhaps the most avid supporter of Nazism in America. Viereck ran an extensive pro-Hitler propaganda operation that included having a U.S. Senator on his payroll - Ernest Lundeen from Minnesota - whose hastily scheduled flight out of Washington following the revelation of his connection to Viereck conveniently crashed on August 31, 1940, as such flights are prone to do.
In 1926, Viereck interviewed Freud - whom he had known for many years - on the subject of anti-Semitism, and in 1930 published that interview in a collection entitled Glimpses of the Great. Freud would later state that: "I can highly recommend the Gestapo to everyone." And since wherever Nazis congregate, U.S. intelligence is never far away, it's not surprising that Freud had impressive connections to the 'Old Boys' network as well. Particularly close was William Bullit, who spent several months working with Freud in Vienna and personally escorted the doctor out of the country. [/quote]

His history of Psychology is worth a look: Lies My Psychology Professors Taught Me

 

[Buddy]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

I feel that healthy Nism is being misunderstood...

When Mountain Crown asked you to clarify the term, which was your responsibility to do, you suggested, with a wink, that someone else do the work. Well, we did and found out some interesting things, so thanks for not answering the question!

You say:

Healthy Nism, if you do a search for it you will find out more about. :) We all have Nism in us, it is human nature, we need healthy Nism to have healthy self-confidence, healthy self-esteem. Unhealthy Nism is about hating yourself and using others to feed your self esteem and self confidence. Healthy Nism is truly knowing that everything you need is within yourself, not crushing others, but loving yourself.

But narcissism is, at root, not only a form of dissassociation, but a disconnect from staying focused on objective reality in a certain context. In other words, there is a connection between narcissism and a disconnect from responsibility just like there is a connection between genuine self-esteem and personal responsibility.

The difference to one's emotional self is as clear as the difference between feeling clean after a bath and staying dirty.


If you would like to experience this difference, re-read your own posts that support 'Nism' and then read the quote below from Nathaniel Branden:

[quote author=Nathaniel Branden]

On Self-Esteem

"To begin with a definition: Self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness. It is confidence in the efficacy of our mind, in our abiity to think. By extension, it is confidence in our ability to learn, make appropriate choices and decisions, and respond effectively to change. It is also the experience that success, achievement, fulfillment — happiness — are right and natural for us. The survival-value of such confidence is obvious; so is the danger when it is missing.

Self-esteem is not the euphoria or buoyancy that may be temporarily induced by a drug, a compliment, or a love affair. It is not an illusion or hallucination. If it is not grounded in reality, if it is not built over time through the appropriate operation of mind, it is not self-esteem.

The root of our need for self-esteem is the need for a consciousness to learn to trust itself. And the root of the need to learn such trust is the fact that consciousness is volitional: we have the choice to think or not to think. We control the switch that turns consciousness brighter or dimmer. We are not rational — that is, reality-focused — automatically. This means that whether we learn to operate our mind in such a way as to make ourselves appropriate to life is ultimately a function of our choices. Do we strive for consciousness or for its opposite? For rationality or its opposite? For coherence and clarity or their opposite? For truth or its opposite?"--Nathaniel Branden[/quote]

_http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/info_pages.php?pages_id=14
_http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/work.php


So, is genuine self-esteem an earned quantity from attaining some sense of competence to live, or is it simply 'Nism' that's already there and just needs to be held in check?
Just a little something to think about, fwiw.

--edit: Thanks, Laura, for revealing this ponerization in progress.

 

[Gimpy]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

I don't think there is "healthy narcissism." But there IS Self Esteem. I think the issue here is that it is being pointed out that the "sting" of the term is being removed by using it to describe what certainly must be Self Esteem. That's one of the ways pathologicals gradually divert the thinking of normal people - first by co-opting words and then, gradually, by slipping other meanings in underneath.

Years ago one of my first counselors told me that regard for my well being, and specifically maintaining healthy boundaries with others was not being 'selfish'. He was often frustrated with me. At that time I had the personality of a door mat, and was prone to blow up into angry tirades. It took a few years to figure out that I'd been so brainwashed by an unhealthy home life that I actually thought any time I said "No" to abusive, intrusive behavior by others, I was being a selfish narcissist, because after all, wasn't I raised by a couple narcissists? Had to rub off on me somehow, didn't it? I really thought then that standing up for myself was being no different from a narcissist, and that doing anything to take care of my health and welfare was pure selfishness. Looking back it's ridiculous, but at the time....

Yeesh. I was also quite into the whole Christian fundie life then too. Thankfully, both attitudes sorted out with diligent research on my part. :)


There's a big difference between healthy self esteem, and pathological narcissism. (And thanks to Buddy for the clarification...ya beat me to it! :D )

 

[Laura]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Another good book about Freud is Ernest Gellner's "The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason". This is a PRIME example of ponerogenesis of society by a schizoidal psychopath. A description of the book:

How did the language of psychoanalysis become the dominant idiom in which the middle classes of the industrialized West speak about their emotions? Ernest Gellner offers a forceful and complex answer to this intriguing question in The Psychoanalytic Movement. This landmark study argues that although psychoanalysis offers an incisive picture of human nature, it provides untestable operational definitions and makes unsubstantiated claims concerning its therapeutic efficacy. In a new foreword José Brunner expands on the central argument of The Psychoanalytic Movement. Placing Gellner's work in the context of contemporary hostile critiques of Freud, Brunner argues that these two blatantly different thinkers might also be seen as kindred spirits.

Actually, Gellner does NOT say that psychoanalysis offers an "incisive picture of human nature. It only offers an incisive analysis of SOME humans, most likely pathologicals.

What is really sick is that women came to Freud with stories about having been sexually abused as children, and they WERE sexually abused! It was just as common (or moreso) then, as it is now. Gellner documents the fact that Freud investigated the cases and thought that the women were telling the truth and he wrote a paper about it. He was so roundly condemned by his peers (probably because they were abusing their own daughters) that he backed up, regrouped, and created a theory that children come into this world with an inborn tendency to be sexually attracted to their parents.

In other words, he blamed the victims.

What a lowlife!

 

[Filachi]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

That is interesting that the "father" of psychology, the person that laid the groundwork and set the tone for psychoanalytical school of thought, blamed the victims.

 

[go2]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

And of course I would be remiss were I not to note that the twin pillars of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, were both fascist sympathizers. In 1933 - the year that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party ascended to power - Germany’s influential Journal of Psychotherapy published an article by Dr. M.H. Goering, a cousin of Hermann Goering, urging psychotherapists to make "a serious scientific study of Adolf Hitler’s fundamental work Mein Kampf, and to recognize it as a basic work." The editor of the journal openly calling for the Nazification of psychotherapy was Dr. Carl Gustav Jung.

Dave McGowan’s quote above could lead to misunderstanding of Dr. Carl Jung and his work. The following quote suggests Dr. Jung distanced himself from the Nazis after their pathology became clear. The sentence in bold above, can be misread as Dr. Jung, the editor, demanding Nazification of psychotherapy. He was the editor, not the author of the article in question.

Prior to World War II, Jung became president of the Nazi-dominated International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy. As the Nazis forced their Aryan ideology on the association, Jung became increasingly uncomfortable and resigned. In addition, in 1943 he aided the Office of Strategic Services by analyzing Nazi leaders for the United States.

Dr. Jung earlier recognized the pathology of Sigmund Freud’s work. He left the Sigmund Freud school of psychotherapy, to begin a more human psychology. His work is influenced by the esoteric ideas of alchemy. I think Dr. Carl Jung’s work in psychotherapy is an attempt to avoid the ponerization of psychotherapy from the foundations established by Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Wundt.

Sigmund Freud had a agenda. He hated Christianity, and devoted his life to bringing a “virus” to the West. Psychopathology and psychoanalysis have a long history of ponerization, that recommends careful consideration of its origins and assertions before they are accepted as a useful framework for understanding mental health and human psychological evolution.

_http://www.jewishtribalreview.org/szasz.htm

p. 144, "In a letter to Barbara Low, written in English in 1936, Freud remarks: 'I know that you have not thought that the death of your brother-in-law David [Eder, a psychoanalyst] had left me untroubled, because I had not written at once ... Eder belonged to the people one loves without having to trouble about them ... We were both Jews and knew of each other that we carried that miraculous thing in common, which -- inaccessible to any analysis so far -- makes the Jew.'" As we saw earlier -- in his letter to Abraham in 1908 -- when Freud wants to extol Jews as better fitted for science than Christians, he boasts that 'we [Jews] lack the mystical element.' In this letter to Barbara Low, however, he boasts that being a Jew is something 'miraculous.' The phrase 'inaccessible to analysis' is also worth remarking on. It was one of Freud's favorite terminological inventions, dividing the world into two classes in terms of his own 'science' -- things accessible to analysis and things inaccessible to analysis. Into the latter category he placed not only his own and Eder's 'miraculous' Jewishness, but also the 'genius' of those he respected (the genius of those he didn't respect being reduced, by 'analysis,' to its psychopathological roots.)"

FWIW--The Cassiopaeans mentioned Carl Jung and George Gurdjieff as seminal sources for esoteric work.
My apologies for not having the exact quote.

 

[Mountain Crown]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

[quote author=go2]FWIW--The Cassiopaeans mentioned Carl Jung and George Gurdjieff as seminal sources for esoteric work.
My apologies for not having the exact quote. [/quote]

[quote author=Session July 03, 1999]Q: (A) Okay, if it is sincere, then it means I should answer him. Last question: I was thinking about what is the most
important for me at the present, and I think that I want to understand and implement this concept of densities; to
implement it into physics and mathematics. But, it seems to me that I am completely alone with that. I would like to know
where I should look, because certainly other people have already tried to do it. I don't want to start from scratch if there
is something that I can look at or study before I really jump into this difficult project. Were there people, scientists...
where to look?
A: Study the works of Gurdjieff and Jung, for starters. Also, Vallee is on a similar path, and a little ahead of you. He
would be most approachable, if you can convince him of your sincerity.
[/quote]

 

[anart]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

The documentary 'I Psychopath' is currently available here

 

[purplehaze]

Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Vaknin in "I, Psychopath"
http://blip.tv/file/2268740