'The purpose of defense mechanisms is to stop you from changing. So that after the trauma or the break-up or the loss you are still you. More sad/ashamed/impotent/enraged/depressed is fine as long as you're the same guy. This is what makes treating narcissism particularly difficult: the pathology's Number 1 characteristic is identity preservation. "I want to change." Nope. You want to be happier, sure, more successful, feel love, drink less, but you want to remain you. But that won't work. The identity you've chosen blows, ask anyone. Change is only possible when you say, "I want to stop making everyone cry." The first step isn't admitting you have a problem but identifying precisely how you are a problem for other people. But I'll save you the trouble, you'll fail at this, too, because of the Number 2 characteristic of narcissism: inability to see things from the other's perspective. All psychological defenses have a common structure: that two legitimate but contradictory beliefs are held simultaneously, one consciously, one unconsciously, alternating variously. That way all possibilities are covered. Change is neutralized. -- Is the name 'Heart Attack Grill' meant ironically? The waitstaff are dressed like sexy nurses and doctors, which is meant ironically, i.e. what they provide (fatty food) runs counter to the sartorial expectations. But the name is... not ironic, it's literally correct – right? Wrong. The name Heart Attack Grill is ironic, because the expectation is that you won't get a heart attack there, and the reason you know you won't get a heart attack at the Heart Attack Grill is – and this is where you need to judge the strength of your soul – exactly that it is called Heart Attack Grill. That's why it is safe to eat there.' -- I'm OK if you're not OK

'Why do people rationalize? A need to *feel* (not be) consistent/authentic.' -- "Sometimes we bend the truth in our minds, so that from our own perspective, it feels like we've continued to believe something that is consistent all along." -- 'Three options for cognitive dissonance: Change Attitude; Change Behaviour (sometimes can't always do this); Justify/Minimize conflict.'

'The mistake many with that problem make is thinking that the problem is "themselves" and they need more introspection, or more insight, or more "brain hacks." You need less of those things. What you need are goals with concrete steps that you force yourself to boringly take. I'm not against introspection, I am against masturbation. I'm against edging. The critic wants to be able to contemplate, to go to therapy and discuss and introspect and what he will do there is talk about himself, think about himself, identify patterns in his life, things that have held him back – and nothing will change. So then he will tell me that he has "a really good therapist, she really pushes me!" The therapy becomes an elaborate narcissistic defense, the promise and appearance of progress while protecting an at best artificial and at worst non-existent identity. "I want to learn why I am this way." Then what? Will learning why you made those choices be what changes your choices? You're still eating junk food, aren't you? You're eating it while you're learning how bad it is. "But... why am I this way?" That question is a narcissistic defense. It doesn't want an answer, it wants you to keep asking the question. "I'm a good person, I just am making bad choices." Wrong. You're not a good person until you make good choices. Until then you are chaos. And you know it.'

"If you get rid of the government, then the costs of violence are imposed directly upon the person who wants to use the violence." - "Intellectualism is a defence against inflicted falsehoods as a child." - "People get that morality has been used to control them as children, and as soon as they try to treat morality as morality and make it universal to their society as a whole, they're attacked as immoral, as uncaring, as brutish and wrong... It's crazy. People's brains are fried... they have been crippled, mentally." -- How many fingers, Winston?

'For the Avoidant, external disruptions of the autoregulatory state are experienced – to a greater or lesser degree – as a shock to the nervous system. First there is the sensory intrusion aurally, visually, or tactically by an approaching person which may be experienced as startling, followed by a social demand to state shift from an autoregulatory‐timeless (dissociative) mode to an interactive‐realtime mode. One is more energy‐conserving and the other more energy‐expending. For the distancing group, both are experientially non‐reciprocal, meaning neither state involves expected rewards from another person. In autoregulation, no other person is required or wanted. However, during the initial shift to interactive‐realtime mode the other person is viewed as demanding with no expected reward or reciprocity. -- To make this clearer, picture a mother‐baby relationship that is dismissive‐avoidant (mother‐ baby, respectively). The avoidant baby has reoriented away from interactive play with the mother to solitary play with toys. Mother’s departures are less upsetting and her returns are less exciting. Her approach, however, is also less appreciated due to a chronic lack of attuned, reciprocal play. The mother’s approach may be met with anger because it is not experienced so much as a reunion as it is an unwanted invasion of his time and space. If the baby could talk he might say, “I’m busy here, what do you want?”'

'The human mind keeps track of situations that we have encountered in the past to help us deal with future situations. The unconscious memory, without our knowing, helps us understand and deal with situations in the present that we have dealt with in the past. Parataxic distortion and our unconscious mind make us act the same way in current situations as we did in past without even realizing it. When a person uses parataxic distortion as a defense mechanism it is to protect one from the feeling or consequences from a past event. These events are stored deep inside the brain and kept open to be drawn from if needed. A person may not even remember a certain event but will act a certain way to protect from an outcome with the use of parataxic distortion. The use of distortion at this level is always pathological and makes coping with reality possible for the individual. The grossly reshaping of reality in order to cope with internal struggles makes an individual seem irrational and insane to people of the outside world. Parataxic Distortion as a defense mechanism starts in childhood and continues through adulthood if not properly treated. The major problem with using this distortion as a defense mechanism is that the individual will create a non-realistic world that nobody can help with or understand.'

'Narcissists idealize potential new sources of narcissistic supply and later devalue and discard them. Cycles of over-valuation (idealization) followed by devaluation ... They reflect the need to be protected against the whims, needs, and choices of others, shielded from the hurt that they can inflict on the narcissist. The ultimate and only emotional need of the narcissist is to be the subject of attention and, thus, to support his volatile self-esteem and to regulate his sense of self worth. The narcissist is dependent on others for the performance of critical Ego functions. While healthier people overcome disappointment or disillusionment with relative ease – to the narcissist they are the difference between Being and Nothingness. The quality and reliability of Narcissistic Supply are, therefore, of paramount importance.'

'As far as their fans are concerned, celebrities fulfil two emotional functions: they provide a mythical narrative (a story that the fan can follow and identify with) and they function as blank screens onto which the fans project their dreams, hopes, fears, plans, values, and desires (wish fulfilment). The slightest deviation from these prescribed roles provokes enormous rage and makes us want to punish (humiliate) the "deviant" celebrities. But why? When the human foibles, vulnerabilities, and frailties of a celebrity are revealed, the fan feels humiliated, "cheated", hopeless, and "empty". To reassert his self-worth, the fan must establish his or her moral superiority over the erring and "sinful" celebrity. The fan must "teach the celebrity a lesson" and show the celebrity "who's boss". It is a primitive defense mechanism – narcissistic grandiosity. It puts the fan on equal footing with the exposed and "naked" celebrity.'

'After trying to present his parents with a rather condescending and manipulative colored-pencil drawing he had made of the three of them standing outside their house with big smiles on their crudely rendered faces, Sean told reporters in a trembling voice that can only be described as immensely irritating that he didn't "know who to talk to" about the situation with his parents, as though blabbing his mouth off about the lives of others were ever a wise idea. "Why is this happening?" whined the little shit for what felt like the 5,000th time this week, his pouty voice reaching levels of annoyance that would make even the most levelheaded adult want to pick up a chair and throw it across the room in sheer exasperation. "Is it my fault?" "I should just run away," added Sean, positing his first sensible thought in years. "Maybe that would make everything better."'

'...the human brain at birth is not fully developed. The abilities a person's brain develops depend on experiences in the first three years of life. Studies on abandoned and severely mistreated Romanian children revealed striking lesions in certain areas of the brain and marked emotional and cognitive insufficiencies in later life. According to very recent neurobiological findings, repeated traumatization leads to an increased release of stress hormones that attack the sensitive tissue of the brain and destroy existing neurons. Other studies of mistreated children have revealed that the areas of the brain responsible for the "management" of emotions are 20 to 30 percent smaller than in normal persons. In the absence of positive factors, affection and helping witnesses, the only course open to the mistreated individual is the disavowal of personal suffering and the idealization of cruelty with all its devastating after-effects.'

"People become relativists because they're raised by a crazed absolutist: somebody who is an absolutist but completely irrational like a fundamentalist Christian, or a Nationalist, or somebody who is culturally prejudiced in some fundamental way. They're crazy AND they're absolutist. And there's no possibility of overturning crazy absolutism [because an irrational absolutist can't rationally differentiate a true absolute from a false one], so the only room that the child can find in that kind of mental environment is to say everything is relative. You can't oppose the crazy absolutism with rational absolutism [because having denied rationality, an irrational absolutist can only resolve disputes using violence, and you're just a small child], so you just retreat into a general fog hoping to hide from the irrational dogmas raining down on you. Relativism is an emotional defence mechanism that results from the imposition of irrational absolutes like religion, culture, statism and so on."

'Projective identification ... designates a psychological process in which a person engages in the ego defense mechanism projection in such a way that their behavior towards the object of projection invokes in that person precisely the thoughts, feelings or behaviors projected. Projective identification differs from simple projection in that projective identification is a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby a person, believing something false about another, relates to that other person in such a way that the other person alters their behavior to make the belief true. The second person is influenced by the projection and begins to behave as though he or she is in fact actually characterized by the projected thoughts or beliefs. This is a process that generally happens outside the awareness of both parties involved, though this has been debated.' -- Predations upon those of a guilty conscience. Hence the grifters motto: You can't cheat an honest man.

'Two kinds of protection: #External Protection: Some protectors try to keep an exile from being harmed by other people, e.g. an enraged protector that wants to prevent an exile from being controlled. These protectors see an exile as being vulnerable and unable to protect itself. Consequently, they will take whatever actions they think are necessary to keep people from harming it. #Internal Protection: Some protectors try to protect you from feeling the emotion an exile carries, such as an intellectualizer that keeps you in your head to numb emotional pain. These protectors close you down or distract you to block out the pain or trauma that an exile feels. Or they may try to provide you with comfort or pleasure or self-esteem, to override the exile’s suffering. External protectors care about the exile and want the best for it, so they protect it from the world. Internal protectors think that the exile is dangerous because it might flood you with pain, so they judge it and push it away.'

@02:08:23 -- “It’s really important to break apart that which is us and that which is inflicted upon us. We internalize what we should externalize (abusers): we internalize the dark side of the people who abused us and imagine *we* have a dark side. And then we externalize what we should internalize (projections): we project out onto the world those abusers which live internally inside our minds.” -- Quote: “The feelings that we get that are overwhelming to us are never our own feelings; they are the feelings of other people.” — Stefan Molyneux -- [IFS: An internal protector protects you from the dark pain of an exiled internalized abuser?]

@00:46:00 -- “We internalize all personalities around us. There is no boundary possible – ever – for the internalizing of external personalities. It is an automatic process. If you spend any significant time with somebody, there is no way to avoid internalizing their personality. This is why it is so important to be discriminating in who you spend your time with. The reason that the unconscious gets so contradictory and so split is because when we are in situations where our own intentionality is attacked, we have to repress our own preferences, and we also have to internalize and repress the intention of others that our intentions should never be expressed. This results in significant splitting within the personality.” -- Quote: “The feelings that we get that are overwhelming to us are never our own feelings; they are the feelings of other people.” — Stefan Molyneux

The "Sheeple" as a poison container for parental/sibling trauma: "If you come up with an ideology that is fundamentally impossible for, and opposed to, reality and human nature and the necessities of our biological development... why would you set up something like Anarcho-Communism? which not only is it impossible in the world but you can't even do it in your own life—at least you can do Anarcho-Capitalism/voluntary association and peaceful relations in your own life—but you can't do no property in your own life... So I think that is a way of doing 'I'm too good for this world,' where you set up this ideology of 'virtue' that is more about pomposity and hatred than it is about the desire to motivate others to be good. You set up this standard of 'virtue' which is impossible and distasteful and weird for people—and then what happens is, you get to be angry at them for not [reaching] your lofty 'moral' standards and so you get to vent all your disgust onto the world."

"Uncorking the volcano."

'The genesis and evolution of humiliation.'

'Dissociation can be a response to trauma or drugs and perhaps allows the mind to distance itself from experiences that are too much for the psyche to process at that time. Symptoms of dissociation resulting from trauma may include depersonalization, psychological numbing, disengagement, or amnesia regarding the events of the abuse. It has been hypothesized that dissociation may provide a temporarily effective defense mechanism in cases of severe trauma; however, in the long term, dissociation is associated with decreased psychological functioning and adjustment. Other symptoms sometimes found along with dissociation in victims of traumatic abuse (often referred to as "sequelae to abuse") include anxiety, PTSD, low self-esteem, somatization, depression, chronic pain, interpersonal dysfunction, substance abuse, self-mutilation and suicidal ideation or actions. These symptoms may lead the victim to erroneously present the symptoms as the source of the problem.'

'The scientific evidence underlying the near-universal resistance to reason and evidence. If you want to change the world, you first must understand the unconscious barriers to thinking.' -- '"None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," Western said. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaledoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then get massively enforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."

'When a disputant allows himself to be sidetracked by irrelevancies, ignoring his opponent's logic and evidence. He cannot grasp the whole of the issue - or the principle underlying it - so he focuses on some small part (usually just one word) and directs his rebuttal to an attack on that tiny bit which is all he can perceive. Some Ad Hominem arguments probably have the same source: He can't see your ideas so he directs his rebuttal at your person. Or will simply start talking about something he CAN understand - the result being a jarring change-of-subject in the discussion. These responses are not consciously deliberated, but result from his inability to perceive the focal idea of the discussion. His only alternative to one of these responses would be bovine immobility unless he possessed a sufficient degree of intellectual acumen to realize his lack of comprehension, and a sufficient degree of self-esteem to admit to it.'

'We humans are uniquely fortunate that ambivalence pervades everything we experience, think, feel and intuit, or we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have. Within the scientific realm dealing with tangible objects, we have become very accustomed and skilled at managing and using contradictory possibilities and options. In fact that’s how science has progressed. It’s the art of putting things together that previously weren’t supposed to be married, and taking apart things that were supposed to remain together. But when it comes to dealing with ambiguity in the intangibles of human life—we suddenly lose it! We stumble into ambiguity-illiteracy. We try to make reality caveman-simple, of which good and evil is the best example; in making the most important decisions of life we have only two options instead of a thousand or more. Violence is one of the principle outcomes of simple-mindedness. Ambivalence is the key skill necessary for the creative management of multilayered comprehension.'

'Ambivalence is a state of having simultaneous, conflicting feelings toward a person or thing. Ambivalence is experienced as psychologically unpleasant when the positive and negative aspects of a subject are both present in a person's mind at the same time. This state can lead to avoidance or procrastination, or to deliberate attempts to resolve the ambivalence. When the situation does not require a decision to be made, people experience less discomfort even when feeling ambivalent.' -- Wikipedia: Cognitive Dissonance: 'A powerful cause of dissonance is an idea in conflict with a fundamental element of the self-concept, such as "I am a good person" or "I made the right decision." The anxiety that comes with the possibility of having made a bad decision can lead to rationalization, the tendency to create additional reasons or justifications to support one's choices. Dissonance can also lead to confirmation bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other ego defense mechanisms.'

'#Level 1: Pathological (delusional projection, denial, distortion, splitting) #Level 2: Immature (acting out, fantasy, idealization, passive aggression, projection, projective identification, somatization) #Level 3: Neurotic (displacement, dissociation, hypochondriasis, intellectualization, isolation, rationalization, reaction formation, repression, regression, undoing) #Level 4: Mature (altruism, anticipation, humour, identification, introjection, sublimation, thought suppression)'

"Cognitive therapy and its variants traditionally identify ten cognitive distortions that maintain negative thinking and help to maintain negative emotions. The process of learning to refute these distortions is called "cognitive restructuring".