Re: Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?
Thanks for the addendum, Filachi! No need to apologize; on the contrary, that's just the kind of info I was looking for.
I was aware of the two key issues you mentioned: that's to say, Vaknin's lack of formal qualifications and his domination of the Web on the topic of narcissism. Both of those are clear risk factors, but if he is spreading misleading information around, neither of those in and of itself tells us what exactly might be "wrong" with the content of his teaching.
Your mention of "narcissistic supply" is a good example of something we find people talking about on the Web so commonly that anyone might take it for a officially recognized factor in the narcissistic personality, without realizing it's an invention of Sam's. Whether it's controversial I simply don't know, since I have no idea what other experts on personality disorders have to say about it.
Including that one and the concept of "inverted narcissism," so far I've counted about five issues that are or could be under dispute between Vaknin and others. But the first two seem to be largely points of contention between Vaknin and other narcissists!
One is the complaint from a few narcissists that Vaknin paints too black a picture of narcissists in general, and even "incites hatred" of them. I may possibly be excused for thinking that's not a matter of overriding importance!
Another is the incurability (or otherwise) of NPD, another point that Tony C. Brown raised. That's the only issue Brown actually named as a cause of conflicts and bannings on forums where Vaknin has posted.
However, I strongly suspect this isn't so much a conflict with Vaknin as with the people who often infest any "abuse"-related "support" forum--whether or not it's about "narcissism"--in order to indulge their Compulsive Rescuer's Urge to Meddle and Break Up Marriages, or CRUMBUM. The CRUMBUM crowd takes "rescuing" to the point of obsession, with their insistence on trying to "rescue" anyone at all from a relationship they see as "abusive" irrespective of whether it's appropriate, and whether or not their target even wants to be "rescued"!
The CRUMBUM crew routinely preaches (in defiance of reality) that virtually no "abusive" partner (narcissistic or not) ever reforms, to justify their claim that there's never any future in staying with such a partner. Certainly that's the doctrine that prevails on femfree's forums among others. There, the fact that NPD in particular is (1) serious and (2) incurable is used to justify a rigid policy of "no contact" with a narcissist. Anyone who challenges the notion of incurability threatens the CRUMBUM agenda. If there have been conflicts, bannings and the like on Vaknin-related forums (apart from the mismanagement and other dysfunctionality found on many similar forums), pace Tony Brown I suspect the CRUMBUM crew rather than Vaknin himself has been behind much of that.
But at least two other issues seem to me to have been influenced by Vaknin's own narcissism. One of these is his concept of "inverted narcissists."
It's fair enough for Vaknin (or anyone) to point out that "the victims of narcissists have rarely become victims randomly." That does need saying, when there is some reason why the majority of those victims gravitated toward a narcissistic partner in the first place. If the victims don't examine and deal with those factors in their own personality, they're likely to continue ending up with abusive partners of some kind. Many do just that, time and again. But the precise nature of those factors is something else again.
While Vaknin does make valid points on this topic, he also takes it too far, in several ways. He misrepresents some of the reasons partners stay with narcissists, for instance by attributing it to "masochism"--or even to "latent narcissism" of their own! Above all, he's far too specific about these partners' supposed motives by labeling many of them "inverted narcissists" (which he calls "a sub-species of codependent"), when their real reasons for staying with a narcissist can be much more varied. According to the Bob Goodman interview, Vaknin even caps that off by suggesting victims of narcissists are just as much "doomed" to their fate as narcissists themselves. I'm sure this could be unhelpful to partners and ex-partners of narcissists if it misleads them about the nature of their own personal issues--or worse, leaves them thinking they're incurable when they're not.
Behind this whole concept of "inverted narcissism" I'm guessing there's a lot of narcissistic projection on Vaknin's part. After all, the typical narcissist's position is that "the whole world is about ME, or anyway an extension of ME." ("And if it's not, it jolly well ought to be, so there!") Instead of seeing partners of narcissists as a diverse group with many reasons of their own for staying with people like himself, Vaknin sees them as "tailored" to the needs of people like him--as if they were put here on earth expressly for his own "narcissistic supply." If he's the Key, they're the locks that were made to fit it! And if their condition is also "incurable," that only mirrors his own. Besides, if they were "doomed to their fate" in the first place, if it was all preordained, that must help to relieve him of guilt (if he has any) for anything he might have done to such people. All this sounds like a wonderful fantasy for a narcissist, but it probably reflects the narcissist more than it reflects reality.
Thanks for the addendum, Filachi! No need to apologize; on the contrary, that's just the kind of info I was looking for.
I was aware of the two key issues you mentioned: that's to say, Vaknin's lack of formal qualifications and his domination of the Web on the topic of narcissism. Both of those are clear risk factors, but if he is spreading misleading information around, neither of those in and of itself tells us what exactly might be "wrong" with the content of his teaching.
Your mention of "narcissistic supply" is a good example of something we find people talking about on the Web so commonly that anyone might take it for a officially recognized factor in the narcissistic personality, without realizing it's an invention of Sam's. Whether it's controversial I simply don't know, since I have no idea what other experts on personality disorders have to say about it.
Including that one and the concept of "inverted narcissism," so far I've counted about five issues that are or could be under dispute between Vaknin and others. But the first two seem to be largely points of contention between Vaknin and other narcissists!
One is the complaint from a few narcissists that Vaknin paints too black a picture of narcissists in general, and even "incites hatred" of them. I may possibly be excused for thinking that's not a matter of overriding importance!
Another is the incurability (or otherwise) of NPD, another point that Tony C. Brown raised. That's the only issue Brown actually named as a cause of conflicts and bannings on forums where Vaknin has posted.
However, I strongly suspect this isn't so much a conflict with Vaknin as with the people who often infest any "abuse"-related "support" forum--whether or not it's about "narcissism"--in order to indulge their Compulsive Rescuer's Urge to Meddle and Break Up Marriages, or CRUMBUM. The CRUMBUM crowd takes "rescuing" to the point of obsession, with their insistence on trying to "rescue" anyone at all from a relationship they see as "abusive" irrespective of whether it's appropriate, and whether or not their target even wants to be "rescued"!
The CRUMBUM crew routinely preaches (in defiance of reality) that virtually no "abusive" partner (narcissistic or not) ever reforms, to justify their claim that there's never any future in staying with such a partner. Certainly that's the doctrine that prevails on femfree's forums among others. There, the fact that NPD in particular is (1) serious and (2) incurable is used to justify a rigid policy of "no contact" with a narcissist. Anyone who challenges the notion of incurability threatens the CRUMBUM agenda. If there have been conflicts, bannings and the like on Vaknin-related forums (apart from the mismanagement and other dysfunctionality found on many similar forums), pace Tony Brown I suspect the CRUMBUM crew rather than Vaknin himself has been behind much of that.
But at least two other issues seem to me to have been influenced by Vaknin's own narcissism. One of these is his concept of "inverted narcissists."
It's fair enough for Vaknin (or anyone) to point out that "the victims of narcissists have rarely become victims randomly." That does need saying, when there is some reason why the majority of those victims gravitated toward a narcissistic partner in the first place. If the victims don't examine and deal with those factors in their own personality, they're likely to continue ending up with abusive partners of some kind. Many do just that, time and again. But the precise nature of those factors is something else again.
While Vaknin does make valid points on this topic, he also takes it too far, in several ways. He misrepresents some of the reasons partners stay with narcissists, for instance by attributing it to "masochism"--or even to "latent narcissism" of their own! Above all, he's far too specific about these partners' supposed motives by labeling many of them "inverted narcissists" (which he calls "a sub-species of codependent"), when their real reasons for staying with a narcissist can be much more varied. According to the Bob Goodman interview, Vaknin even caps that off by suggesting victims of narcissists are just as much "doomed" to their fate as narcissists themselves. I'm sure this could be unhelpful to partners and ex-partners of narcissists if it misleads them about the nature of their own personal issues--or worse, leaves them thinking they're incurable when they're not.
Behind this whole concept of "inverted narcissism" I'm guessing there's a lot of narcissistic projection on Vaknin's part. After all, the typical narcissist's position is that "the whole world is about ME, or anyway an extension of ME." ("And if it's not, it jolly well ought to be, so there!") Instead of seeing partners of narcissists as a diverse group with many reasons of their own for staying with people like himself, Vaknin sees them as "tailored" to the needs of people like him--as if they were put here on earth expressly for his own "narcissistic supply." If he's the Key, they're the locks that were made to fit it! And if their condition is also "incurable," that only mirrors his own. Besides, if they were "doomed to their fate" in the first place, if it was all preordained, that must help to relieve him of guilt (if he has any) for anything he might have done to such people. All this sounds like a wonderful fantasy for a narcissist, but it probably reflects the narcissist more than it reflects reality.
Mechanima - you probably already know! ;D
