Interpellation: People-pleasers, Narcissists Are Not Masochists
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 2023-02-19

Interpellation - a process first described in socioeconomic settings by Louis Althusser - is when one reacts to other people’s wishes, desires, urges, and expectations as if they were one’s own and then acts accordingly.

People pleasers are the reification of interpellation, but it makes an appearance in other mental health disorders such as dependent and borderline personality disorders, psychotic disorders, and anxiety disorders, among others.
Masochists, the self-destructive, psychopathic narcissists, and people pleasers are different breeds even though sometimes they behave in the same ways. They all interpellate others.

Masochists crave hurt and pain and engineer or orchestrate incremental situations whose outcomes are agonizing, mortifying, and humiliating - but never life threatening.

Self-defeating and self-loathing folks act out recklessly, petulantly, and defiantly in order to sabotage their best interests and well being in a decisive, self-harming, self-trashing, and almost suicidal manner.

Psychopathic narcissists puppeteer others and co-opt them into goal-oriented scenarios that appear superficially to be masochistic but are, in reality, either sadistic or self-efficacious, as far as the psychopathic narcissist is concerned.

Finally: people pleasers are conflict-averse and need to be needed. They are self-sacrificial but often enjoy their role and find it gratifying.

Example:

The masochist will push his girlfriend to cheat on him in order to endure exquisite torment;

The self-destructive sort will act the same way but will then proceed to break up with her or divorce;

The psychopathic narcissist will make sure that he is cucked but really in order to get rid of an unwanted and burdensome intimate partner;

Finally, the people pleaser will permit his intimate partner to sleep with others just so as to make her happy.

Don’t expect the mentally ill to respect you. They don’t know how. They have no self-respect, so how could they possibly respect others? Instead, they veer between abject submission and contemptuous defiance.

Don’t expect the mentally ill to not breach your boundaries. They are unboundaried and hurtful because they fail to perceive the separateness of others. Many of them do not possess a functioning self or an undisturbed identity.

Do not expect the mentally ill to observe the rules, obey some code of conduct, or be empathic. They are too busy at survival, self-centred and entitled. Their mental illness is their get out of jail card. Everyone else is to blame for their egregious misconduct (alloplastic defenses).

Two tips from the art of psychotherapy:

1. If action or inaction has outcomes - these consequences are intended, whether consciously or unconsciously.

People are only dimly aware of the full range of their motivations and they often get it wrong.

When they make behavioral choices to act or to refrain from acting, they actually seek and intend the most likely outcomes, even when and if they are not aware of such desired ends - and even when they vehemently deny it.

Example: if you act in a way that imperils a long-held relationship, it is because you want it over, you wish to extricate yourself.

2. What clients say in therapy matters far less than why they choose to say what they say. What content do they select and elect to disclose? What do they omit and why? What words do they employ? Why do so in a particular timing?

The subtext - the hidden, occult text - matters more than the overt text. Speech acts need to be deconstructed to teach us anything meaningful about the client.

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