Sam writes and speaks about
psychopathy & narcissism. He's the author of
Malignant Self
Love: Narcissism Revisited. He describes himself as a person devoid of empathy.
"I do not possess empathy: I am a thrice-diagnosed psychopathic
narcissist."
Narcissists and psychopaths lack empathy. This deficiency renders them
emotionally and cognitively crippled. They exploit, manipulate, and abuse
other people because they are unable to relate to them otherwise.
He says there are two type of empathy, one is 'cold empathy', it's
metaphorically like a library of books with no emotion. Psychopaths &
Narcissists have this quality of empathy but do not see (or care) how their
actions affect others.
:50 Would you like to introduce yourself, your background?
Sam
twice diagnosed with malignant narcissis
m
Wears
many hats, but most relevant to this interview has written a series of
books on personality disorders and narcissism, including book:
Malignant Self-Love
1:47 How do you define empathy?
Serious debate ongling whether learned or not. Is it learned or
innate? Children display empathy, so born with something, but full
fledge empathy is a process of socialization.
Empathy has two elements
Cold empathy – intersubjectivity – cognitive - the ability to identify
moods, emotions, feelings, affects in other people. No emotional
component. Depends on a common dictionary that cannot be confirmed.
Probably learned. Depends on introspection (and projection).
Emotional arousal – recognized what is happening to someone else &
react emotionally. Likely innate. Babies smile at their mothers,
children display similar emotions to others around them.
We cannot know if what one person experiences as a certain feeling or
a color etc. is what another experiences as are the same thing.
We all have private languages and project our own emotions onto each
other.
08:42 You mentioned the emptional and affective, that
happens through mirror neurons…? [Edwin mirrors Sam’s picture]…
That’s an action, not an emotion. Empathy is putting you in another’s
shoes emotionally. Doesn’t have anything to do with empathy.
Mirror a gesture or action – Edwin feels emotion associated with
that. Sam says Edwin cannot know what he (Sam) was feeling when photo
taken.
Sam: no way to prove that. “Mimicry and gimmickry” won’t prove that.
Dualism – are reports of the same emotion or pain – are they really?
Correlation is not causation
Changes in brain – seem connected to pain – so what? Doesn’t mean the
experience is the same.
Edwin
is confusing “between”.
Phenomena “co-occur” – that’s it
Sam:
When Edwin uses the word pain, hunger or happiness, and then I do.
There’s no way of proving that we’re experience the same thing
Edwin
gives example: Monkey reaching for something and a neuron would
fire. When money saw someone reaching for a peanut that same neuron
fired.
Sam: “Next question?”
18:18 Do you have a metaphor for the two kinds of empathy?
Cold empathy: library system (Dewey decimal)
Emotional arousal: debate, Carl Rogers not that we empathize, but want
to avoid pain in ourselves – feeling guilty and blameworthy. Metaphor
– Mirror
Psychopaths & Narcissists have the library and not the mirror. They
are hyper sensitive and hyper intuitive – they have the library
function, watch catalog, dissect and classify. Don’t have the
emotional complement – someone else’s plight predicament.
Sam diagnosed with borderline – not a full-fledged psychopath.
Mainly interested in people’s vulnerability and how to get to know
someone intimately. No trace of emotional arousal, recognition. No
sympathy.
People are instruments of gratifications, extensions, and tools to
obtain benefits. Needs to learn how to manipulate the person to gain
the utility.
People are sources of narcissistic supply. Is a junkie, drug addict.
To force people to pay attention to me I need to learn how to
manipulate them, what makes them tick and then get them to tick.
You have to empathize with people in a cold way in order to do this.
But not in a warm way.
Emotions have no utility, so I don’t use them.
24:47 What’s the difference between Psychopathy and Narcissism?
Unclear. Psychopath is extreme form of narcissism. N is more
restrained re. Antisocial behaviors.
25:53 What do you want to extract from people?
N wants to extract N supply – attention. Regulate self worth and
support grandiose fantasies. Has view of him as omnipotent,
omniscient, etc.
P wants tangible – money, power. Attention regulation, not so much.
If I were an alien I couldn’t interact with people as I do. P is a con
artist or scammer – cannot defraud people without being able to
understand people.
Want
to control – “body snatching”
Is a life and death situation? Falls apart without it.
We’re discussing empathy, not control or narcissism.
There is some empathy there – cold empathy.
Everyone is like a text. If you’re deprived of reading skills you
cannot read text. N’s and P’s can read, but don’t care.
31:44 How do we build a culture of empathy with N’s and P’s?
Hopeless because they are structurally unable. No emotional
arousal. Equipment damaged beyond repair at an early age. You can
modify social behaviors to limit damage. They are beyond developing
empathy skills.
Society is becoming this way, and N & P have no reason to change. It
pays to be a N or P in modern society.
Business environment is utterly psychopathic, army, foreign affairs.
All of human society – Western part and East becoming more Western.
N could be headed off by training at an early age. P no.
Narcissists and psychopaths lack empathy. This deficiency renders them
emotionally and cognitively crippled. They exploit, manipulate, and
abuse other people because they are unable to relate to them otherwise
On Empathy
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.-
11/11/2005
The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1999 edition) defines empathy as: "The
ability to imagine oneself in anther's place and understand the other's
feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early
20th century, equivalent to the German Einfuhlung and modelled on
"sympathy." The term ...
Normal people use a variety of abstract concepts and
psychological constructs to relate to other persons. Emotions are such
modes of inter-relatedness. Narcissists and psychopaths are different.
Their "equipment" is lacking. They understand only one language:
self-interest. Their ...
The Demise of Empathy in Business and the Workplace
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.-
5/3/2012
Empathy is at the foundation of both altruism and collaboration. Thus,
while it does consume scarce resources, empathy confers important
evolutionary advantages both from the individual's point of view
(cooperation) and from the species' (altruism.)
I. Cold Empathy: an intersubjective agreement as to the mental content
(especially emotions) of two or more human subjects;
II. Warm Empathy: the emotional response to Cold Empathy.
Cold Empathy is an act of taxo...
Psychopathic Narcissists: The Uncanny Valley of Cold
Empathy
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.-
8/22/2011
Cold Empathy evokes the concept of Uncanny Valley, coined in 1970 by the
Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori. Mori suggested that people react
positively to androids (humanlike robots) for as long as they differ
from real humans in meaningful and discernible ways. But the minute
these contraptions
Cold Empathy of
Psychopathic Narcissists
hat is cold empathy? Psychopathic narcissists are not exactly human in
the sense
that they lack feelings and empathy towards others. This makes other
people feel revolted and fearful.
