Narcissisism Posts

Can we model institutional gaslighting as a process failure of control?I recently handed my Predictive State Machine version of the Narcissistic Systems Model to the AGI Round Table to be stress-tested, analyzed, and mapped against political economy…

Ever wonder why our institutions excel at blaming the individual instead of fixing the problem? I’ve spent a long time studying this, and I’ve codified it into what I call The Narcissistic Systems Model. When a macro-system fails us, it rarely take…

Do you every feel like you’re surrounded by people who make you despair at humanity? Or, that somehow, despite an obviously increasing number of shitheads, people treat you strangely when you call them out? That feeling, of having an almost total l…

Welcome to part 2 of our series on how to spot a narcissistic system – this time via it’s patterns of tactics. From gaslighting, blame-shifting, triangulation and all the other famous mind games, to their less well-known cousins, like moving goalpos…

Welcome dear reader. This is the first post in a 3 part series on how to recognize a narcissistic system—be that a workplace, an institution, a family, or even a social circle. Why talk about narcissistic systems on a blog on loneliness? Because i…

Do you ever wonder why it seems so hard to connect? Do you repeatedly make the effort, only to be ignored, brushed off, or treated like the very act of wanting connection makes you strange? Why is this so common? And so painful? Today, with the he…

Have you ever left a therapy session feeling worse than when you arrived? Have you ever felt like the therapist really wasn’t getting what was going on for you, or had somehow made you the whole problem? When that happens, it hurts. You can feel wo…

What if your therapist is using the same tactics as a narcissistic parent — and calling it treatment? What if therapy is teaching you to keep your hands burning on a hot plate, and alter your reaction to the fact that you are burning? Today, we're …

Picture yourself in the late 1800s. You’ve been outcast by German society. You’ve been laughed at by academics and spurned by potential lovers. You are now miserable, broke, and ill, but still very, very THINKY. You are, in fact, working on another …

Hello again, dear reader. It is good to have you back! This post is the second in a four-part series on narcissistic values in Western capitalist culture. Why would I delve into the topic of narcissism in a podcast on loneliness? The answer is, beca…

Hello, dear reader. Today, I want to talk about one of the most insidious reasons you might feel lonely, isolated — and like you’re not good enough You might not know this, but those feelings are actually a typical outcome of a certain kind of upbri…

Let me dive right into the guts of the loneliness pandemic. We are not lonely by accident. There is a whole system of values that culminate in our isolation, at least, in western capitalist culture. These values are not just isolated ideas, either. …