Title: Malignant Fantasy Defense and Its Outcomes

Biography:

Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited" and other books about personality disorders. His work is cited in hundreds of books and dozens of academic papers: He spent the past 6 years developing a treatment modality for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Over the years, with volunteers, it was found to be effective with clients suffering from a major depressive episode as well.

Abstract

Fantasy tends to metastasize. It coopts and hijacks every resource available to the individual: emotions, affect, cognitions, memories, psychosexuality, and even one’s identity. It is addictive and anxiolytic. It is safe. It buttresses the fantast’s grandiosity (self-idealization). Actually, each of these dimensions of personality and functioning is mediated via the fantasy, colored and distorted by it. Gradually, all direct contact with and inner experience of one’s psychological world is lost. A robotic zombie emerges from within the fantastic space, regulated by its narrative.