OHRID SEMINAR: Narcissist's Selfobject Enemies: Intimate Partners, Friends, Colleagues (May 2026)

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]a difficult day. It's a day that requires con concentration and focus and and if you don't concentrate, you will ruin my shed fantasy. And then I will leave the room in tears and you will never ever see me again.

[00:00:21]So the first concept we need to and I think the foundational concept is selfobject.

[00:00:30]Self-object is a concept that was invented by Hines K. Hines K is is the father of self psychology. Hello.

[00:00:46]Yes, self-concept according to Hines cohort is the way the mind um uses other people but not only people uses people, ideas, beliefs, uses the external reality. The mind annexes or absorbs external reality and makes it a part of the self. So this is why it's called selfobject. The the mind takes an object could be a human being, a person, could be an idea, could be a belief, could be a um an ideology, could be belonging to a specific collective, anything and then annexes it, digests it, assimilates it and it becomes part of the self. So this is self object. It's a critical concept in the shared fantasy because what the narcissist does in the snapshotting process, in the introjection process, the narcissist converts you into selfobjects.

[00:01:47]The narcissist makes you a part of himself. The narcissist regards you as extensions of himself. Not a separate external people, human beings, but as part of self. But wait a minute Vakn you say those of you who are still awake you say but you have repeatedly claimed that the narcissist does not have a self. So how can the narcissist have selfobjects?

[00:02:13]Indeed he cannot.

[00:02:16]So instead of having self objects like every healthy normal human being, the narcissist has a single self object, the false self.

[00:02:35]Whereas normal healthy people, some of you normal healthy people have multiple self objects, hundreds, thousands sometimes self-objects.

[00:02:48]You are able to tell that these self objects are out there. You you recognize the externality of some of these self objects. It's so the relationship is not delusional. It's not a hallucination like in psychosis. In psychosis, the self objects are indistinguishable. The internal self objects are indistinguishable from the external ones. Healthy people have a selfobject.

[00:03:11]So for example, you have a self-object of your husband, but you know that your husband exists regardless of the self-object. In some way, you regard your husband as part of yourself and in some way he is not part of yourself.

[00:03:25]Luckily for you. So in this is in healthy people in in the narcissist there is no such ability because there is no self.

[00:03:35]Since there is no self there's no capacity for the generation of selfobjects obviously and instead the narcissist has a single self object the false self.

[00:03:48]I'm calling the false self a self object because the narcissist perceives the false self as a real self.

[00:03:57]He regards the false self as a true self, as a real self. So the false self becomes part of the self which doesn't exist. Now you are beginning I hope to understand more deeply the concept of absence.

[00:04:13]Let me try to let me try to draw it for you. Okay. as I see some some people glazing over thinking about bread pet you know and all kinds of things.

[00:04:29]So healthy individual has a self and has self objects.

[00:04:39]Mother, husband, father, these are self objects. Other people, ideas, beliefs, these are all self objects. These self objects are external but they are also represented in the self. Okay. So this is X and this is X1.

[00:04:56]They're also represented in the self.

[00:04:58]This is a healthy situation.

[00:05:02]Now the narcissist the narcissist has no self.

[00:05:10]Because the narcissist has no self he has no capacity to create self objects.

[00:05:16]So instead the narcissist creates the false self and the narcissist says this is myself.

[00:05:26]What do you mean I don't have a self? I have a self. This is myself.

[00:05:30]So because the narcissist says this is myself.

[00:05:35]It becomes a part of what should have been a self. There is no self here. But the narcissist misattributes, misidentifies. is thinks that the false self is part of the self even though there's no self.

[00:05:52]Consequently, the false self is the narcissist's only self object, but it is part of an absence, part of a void, part of a black hole.

[00:06:09]Whereas in a healthy person, this would be part of a self. In the narcissist, it's part of an emptiness.

[00:06:20]In other words, the narcissist comes to identify this emptiness, this void as a self. The narcissist self is the emptiness, is the void. And the false self is an element in this void which is misidentified by the narcissist as a self.

[00:06:44]Did you follow until now?

[00:06:46]If you did, then I would appreciate later in the break if someone explains this to me.

[00:06:57]I think a simple way to to describe this, and I hate simple things, simple ways. A simple way to describe it is the narcissist misidentifies his absence as a self. He thinks his absence is a self.

[00:07:10]And then the false self, he says the false self is just part of this. I have a self and the false self is just part of it.

[00:07:18]>> What about the objects?

[00:07:20]>> I'm coming to that. The false self is a part. And then because the false self is a part of this self which doesn't exist and is actually an emptiness. The narcissist becomes the false self because the only thing that does exist is the false self.

[00:07:37]What should have been a self is empty.

[00:07:40]And the only thing that really exists is the false self. So the narcissist becomes the false self.

[00:07:47]What happens when the narcissist comes across comes across other people?

[00:07:57]When the narcissist comes across another person.

[00:08:02]Hello.

[00:08:07]When the narcissist comes across another person, there's nothing here.

[00:08:12]No capacity to create a self object.

[00:08:16]So the false self creates self objects.

[00:08:21]The narcissist self objects belong to the false self. They are part of the false self, not of the self.

[00:08:29]This is very crucial insight. Although you don't feel this way, but I will try to explain why it's crucial.

[00:08:36]The narcissist's false self is fantastic. It's a fantasy. It's not realistic. The false self is a narrative. It's a piece of fiction. It's a movie. The false self is the narcissist god-like existence. In the false self, the narcissist is perfect.

[00:08:55]He is omnipotent. He's omniscient. The false self therefore is not like the self in healthy people. The self in healthy people has reality testing. The self in healthy people assesses reality gauges reality correctly. The false self main function is to divorce reality to reject reality to renounce reality and to drag the narcissist into some kind of fantasy where the narcissist is divine.

[00:09:25]Consequently, when the false self converts people into selfobjects, he needs them to confirm this fantasy.

[00:09:35]Whereas in a normal healthy person when when you convert someone into a self object, you make no demands on that person. No need for any demand. You're in reality. You're both in reality. If I'm healthy and you and you are healthy, if I'm healthy and you're healthy and I'm making you myself object, I don't need to demand anything from you. We have a common reality. We have a common denominator. We don't need to negotiate it. We don't need to talk about it. We both know that we have the same. But if I perceive myself as godlike and divine and perfect and omniscient and and u and omnipotent, which in my case is all true. So if I perceive myself this way and I make you myself object, I need you to confirm this because if I make you myself object and you disagree with this, it would create dissonance.

[00:10:35]If I convert you into a self object which becomes part of my false self and then within the false self you're a dissident within the false self you disagree. You tell me you're not godlike. You're not you're not even handsome.

[00:10:51]In that in that situation this creates dissonance and and all human beings healthy and not healthy seek to avoid dissonance because dissonance leads to anxiety.

[00:11:04]So the the process of converting people into selfobjects within the false self involves conversion.

[00:11:15]You remember that I told you that pathological narcissism is a form of primitive religion like primitive religion. There's a god figure, the false self. And so the narcissist needs you to convert to this new religion. And pathological narcissism is missionary.

[00:11:33]It's like a mission, you know, in Africa, the missionaries were going to Africa and converting the poor Africans into Christianity. Don't ask. So the narcissist is the same. He has this religion with with his god, the false self, and he needs to convert you to believers. You need to believe in this.

[00:11:53]In other words, whereas the process of selfobjectification, creating self objects in healthy people is static, the process in narcissism is dynamic.

[00:12:07]It involves conversion. It involves sometimes coercion. It involves um brainwashing, something known as entrainment. It in it's a process.

[00:12:19]Only when you are ready to accept the new religion, the new faith. Only when you have been converted, only when you confirm to the narcissist that his fantasy is not a fantasy, but it's reality and that his false self is not false. It's completely true. Only then you are ready to be inducted as selfobjects into the narcissist's false self.

[00:12:43]That means that when you are in a shared fantasy and remember all your relationships have been a shared fantasy. When you are in a shared fantasy, you are also parts of the false self. You become parts of the false self of the narcissist.

[00:13:04]Do you Hello.

[00:13:12]Um, bless you.

[00:13:17]Do you begin to understand now why the relationships with narcissists are very intense and the narcissist is very invested in um kind of subjugating you, very invested in enslaving you, very invested in transforming you because you you don't only enter the narcissist life, you enter the narcissist only self, which is the false self. And you don't only enter it as visitors or tourists or but you become the narcissist.

[00:13:50]The minute the minute you encounter the narcissist. Good morning. Good morning in the breakfast room. That minute you have become the narcissist.

[00:14:00]You emerge within the narcissist. You become a part of the narcissist. For 10 seconds, for 10 minutes, for 10 days, for 10 years, however long it takes, you are part of the narcissist. That's why in textbooks you you can read the sentence that people become extensions of the narcissist. They're not really extensions. They're parts. They're moving parts within the narcissist. That also means that the narcissist must control you perfectly because you always have the potential to challenge the false self. as as selfobjects within the false self. You can destroy the false self. You can undermine it. You can challenge it. You can deconstruct it. You can criticize it. You can disagree with the false self. You can mock the false self and ridicule it. You can you have the capacity to your troublemakers, your potential troublemakers within the false self. The narcissist needs to control you like a police state, like a dictatorship. Needs to control you so that you do not think independently.

[00:15:08]You do not ever express an autonomous opinion. You do not have agency. The need to for control has nothing to do with you. It has to do with him. The narcissist needs to control the integrity and cohesion and functioning of the false self. Since he lets you into the false self, you must become parts of the false self that are indistinguishable from the false self.

[00:15:36]You must be homogenized. You must be commoditized. You must be leveled. You must you must lose your distinctive characteristics.

[00:15:47]You must become indistinguishable from each other, replaceable, interchangeable. In other words, you must not be seen. It takes away your visibility. You must become transparent, invisible. Because you are now, now you are not.

[00:16:08]This is the first requirement. When you become selfobjects in the false self, you must relinquish your survival. You must relink relinquish your existence.

[00:16:17]And that's what I mean when I say that it's a death cult.

[00:16:22]For you to become selfobjects, integral parts in the false self, you need to die. Metaphorically, of course. Yes. You need to die. You need to die and be reborn, be resurrected as a self object in the false self, as a part of the false self. It's very very religious.

[00:16:46]It's a religious process. Absolutely.

[00:16:49]One of a May God be with you. What?

[00:16:53]God or me. I mean one of us. One of us.

[00:16:56]Whoever whoever is free right now.

[00:16:59]So um that was a an uplifting religious epiphany. It was epiphany.

[00:17:11]So it's a it's a I'm not going to do it a second time. You're on your own. No god here. I mean with me.

[00:17:18]Uh so it it's a religious thing and that is the reason why narcissism is intractable, why it is untreatable, why it is unbreakable, why it is immutable, why whatever happens to the narcissist year after year, decade after decade, uh partner after partner, disaster after disaster, success after success, never mind what happens. The narcissist never ever changes, never ever changes, never ever improves, never ever devolves, never ever evolves.

[00:17:57]The narcissist is frozen in time. And that's why in my work I say that narcissists are atmporal. They have no no time precisely because of this.

[00:18:07]>> But the fantasy changes >> sorry the fantasy changes the false self changes. The fantasies, the fantasies change all the time, but the false self never changes. Everyone in in every fantasy is immediately converted to elements of the false self. So that's another it's an interesting um it leads to an interesting insight. You may be different people. I mean I think you are you may be different people and of course the narcissist would create different shared fantasies with each and every one of you. But the minute the shared fantasy is created and you are introjected, you are snapshotted.

[00:18:46]The minute you become selfobjects in the false self, you become faceless, transparent, invisible, denuded of special idiosyncratic characteristics.

[00:19:00]You become all the same like so many grains of rice. The false self never ever changes.

[00:19:08]However, yes, please.

[00:19:12]The false self never ever changes. The shared fantasies could be very different. The outcome of the shared fantasies.

[00:19:20]What you become through the shared fantasy, you become commoditized. You become a commodity, grains of rice, grains of salt. You're indistinguishable from each other. And that is important to understand. The narcissist shared fantasy with you feels very special, very individual, very unique, very but it is not. It is an industrial process.

[00:19:44]Do you remember the song by Pink Floyd?

[00:19:46]We don't need no education. You remember that?

[00:19:49]>> So you see the students are going there.

[00:19:51]All the students are going >> and then they're ground they become ground meat. Each and every student on the way to the machine is special is you know they have their own personality parents background and so on so forth and they're also painted a bit differently but when they enter the grinder they emerge as a mass a mass of ground meat that is the false self grinds you into ground meat and then you become indistinguishable from each other you lose your individuality you die.

[00:20:26]When we die, we all become organic matter. We all become indistinguishable from each other. We become warm food if we're lucky. So that's that's the meaning of the false self. It's a meat grinder.

[00:20:56]Only the self can create self objects.

[00:21:01]Only a healthy cohesive coherent self can create self objects.

[00:21:08]When the false self creates selfobjects, when the false self converts you into a a self object, the conversion is mistaken.

[00:21:23]Let me explain what I mean. If I'm a healthy person and I convert you into a self object, the the self object that I create that represents you or that relies on you is grounded in reality.

[00:21:38]I will convert who you truly are. I will convert your characteristics, your quirks, your preferences, your hopes, your dreams, your fantasies, your fears. I will convert you as you are. I have a realistic view of you more or less. And I and the self object will reflect you. Absolutely reflect you.

[00:21:58]Actually the motivation of a healthy person to convert you into a selfobject is because you bring something to that person from reality. You contribute somehow to this person and the self object encapsulates this contribution from reality. So if I if uh for example a healthy person creates a selfobject of his wife, he would create a selfobject of his wife because she has these characteristics and these traits and these advantages and these skills and it can enrich the self. Self objects enrich the self and so but the false self is false. is not grounded in reality is fantastic. So when the false self converts you into a into a self-object, the self object is wrong.

[00:23:00]Does not correspond to you, mistaken.

[00:23:03]It's like a mistake. The self objects created by the false self are all wrong.

[00:23:10]Completely wrong because they are also fantastic. They are idealized.

[00:23:16]They are also counterfactual.

[00:23:20]They also reflect uh the narcissist's wishes and fantasies and dreams but not reality. In other words, the the self objects of the of the false self are not there to contribute to the false self because the false self doesn't need any contribution. The false self is God. God is perfect. God doesn't need anyone.

[00:23:43]There's nothing you can contribute to the false self because the false self knows everything is omniscient is all powerful is omnipotent is perfect is brilliant and so on. What is it that you can contribute to a perfect entity?

[00:23:59]Nothing. Obviously you can't contribute anything to God. It is God that contributes to you. So the the reason for creating self objects in the false self is not self-enrichment or not even self-utility.

[00:24:18]The reason for creating self objects is control.

[00:24:22]The the false self creates self objects because there's no other way to control you.

[00:24:28]And because the self objects are wrong, this creates actually ends up creating dissonance because the external object always conflicts with the self object. The self object is so mistaken that reality always challenges the self object.

[00:24:48]There's always a a tension or a clash between who you truly are, your true characteristics, your preferences, your behaviors, your wishes, your dreams, your fantasies, your hopes, your plans, your friends, your family. All these clash with the homogeneous faceless self object that represents you in the false self. So there's always a clash.

[00:25:14]This dissonance, this tension between reality and the selfobjects in the false self is a key characteristic of the narcissistic pathology.

[00:25:27]Whereas in a healthy person, the self objects are egoonic. In other words, in a healthy person, the self objects are perceived as uh soothing, comforting, in line with the personality, not antagonistic to the personality. In the narcissist, the self objects are perceived as egoistonic.

[00:25:53]They challenge ego congruence, cohesion, and coherence. They undermine because what they do the self objects in pathological narcissism the self objects bring with them reality.

[00:26:10]They contaminate the false self. You must therefore understand I'm sorry to inform you that the narcissist perceives his intimate partners as contaminants.

[00:26:25]He perceives his intimate partners as a Trojan horse. The intimate partner is a fifth column, a traitor. The intimate partner opens the gates of the fortress to reality.

[00:26:39]Now, well done. No noise.