How To Talk to Narcissist, Borderline, OCD (with Joan J. Lachkar)
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 2022-03-04

Joan Lachkar is the pioneering author of the groundbreaking, seminal books The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple, How to Talk to a Narcissist, How to Talk to a Borderline, The V-Spot, The Disappearing Male, New Approaches to Marital Therapy, and Common Complaints in Couple Therapy and How to Talk to an Obsessive-Compulsive (2022).  

QUESTION 1

Tell us about your pioneering work and early influences? How did the professional community react to your groundbreaking breakthroughs?

ANSWER:

Henry Dicks and Martin and Bird, theoretical influences mainly from the Object Relations schools (Klein, Bion, Kernberg, Vaknin). I caught a lot of flak, initially. 

QUESTION 2

Depression: Beware not to confuse normal states of sadness, loss mourning with depression (as many therapists do): Sadness is normal and healthy.                            

QUESTION 3

Some scholars suggest that both are post-traumatic conditions (forms of CPTSD). What do you think?

QUESTION 4

You distinguish between different kinds of narcissists and borderlines

QUESTION 5

Let us talk about the Narcissistic/Borderline Couple: Describe for us the Narcissistic/Borderline Relationship: 

What happens when they get together the Bond: The Dance the Drama through their mutual projective identifications

Compare their psychodynamics

(withdrawal/isolation, guilt omnipotence feels superior to others for Narcissist) (shame/blame attack, revenge, abandonment for Borderline)
 
Compare How each gets their V-spot (archaic wound) is triggered

Why People Stay in Painful Relationships

QUESTION 6

How to communicate. “One can never win an argument!”

How to Talk to a Narcissist (Language of Empathology)
How to Talk to a Borderline (Language of Dialectics)
How to Talk to an OCD (addresses the repudiation of emotionality)

Difference between meaningful conversation and evacuating/venting/complaining!

Your Two languages:
 
The language of empathology (abstracted from Kohut the pioneer of Self Psychology)
   
The language of dialectics (abstracted from Klein and Bion) addressing the splitting. 

QUESTION 7

Henry Dicks was one of the first to call attention to the first analytic couple. He referred to the obsessive compulsive and his “love sick wife.” The obsessive-compulsive often love hooks up a histrionic!
 
QUESTION 8

The Ego and Its Dysfunctionality Why Smart People Say Stupid Things
 
Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60F8EC8A-5812-4007-9F2C-DFA02EA713B3

Joan Lachkar, Ph.D, is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in Encino, California, an affiliate member of the New Center for Psychoanalysis, author of The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple, How to Talk to a Narcissist, How to Talk to a Borderline, The V-Spot, The Disappearing Male, New Approaches to Marital Therapy, and Common Complaints in Couple Therapy and How to Talk to an Obsessive-Compulsive (2022).  

Dr. Lachkar is also a psychohistorian has published numerous papers and articles on marital and political conflict in the Journal of Psychohistory, Frontpage, and Family Security Matters, in addition to presenting a paper on "The Psychopathology of Terrorism" at the Rand Corporation.