Sam Vaknins Suggested Topics

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FOR BUSINESS
FOR THERAPISTS
FOR STUDENTS and LAYMEN

Credentials
Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited and other
books about personality disorders. His YouTube channels about these topics
garnered 15,800,000 views and 52,000 subscribers in 6 years. He also served
as economic and financial advisor to governments and firms and as co-owner
and manager of various business interests in several countries on 4 continents.
Interviews with major media throughout the world and citations in
academic literature: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/mediakit.html
Sam Vaknin bio/resume/CV: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/cv.html
FOR BUSINESS
Topic 1: Countering obstructive and negativistic passive-aggression in
the workplace
Collectives - especially bureaucracies, such as for-profit universities, health
maintenance organizations (HMOs), the army, and government - tend to behave
passive-aggressively and to frustrate their constituencies. This misconduct is
often aimed at releasing tensions and stress that the individuals comprising
these organizations accumulate in their daily contact with members of the
public.
Additionally, as Kafka astutely observed, such misbehavior fosters dependence in
the clients of these establishments and cements a relationship of superior (i.e.,
the obstructionist group) versus inferior (the demanding and deserving
individual, who is reduced to begging and supplicating).
Passive-aggressiveness has a lot in common with pathological narcissism: the
destructive envy, the recurrent attempts to buttress grandiose fantasies of
omnipotence and omniscience, the lack of impulse control, the deficient ability to
empathize, and the sense of entitlement, often incommensurate with its real-life
achievements.
No wonder, therefore, that negativistic, narcissistic, and borderline organizations

share similar traits and identical psychological defenses: most notably denial
(mainly of the existence of problems and complaints), and projection (blaming
the group's failures and dysfunction on its clients).
In such a state of mind, it is easy to confuse means (making money, hiring staff,
constructing or renting facilities, and so on) with ends (providing loans,
educating students, assisting the poor, fighting wars, etc.). Means become ends
and ends become means.
Consequently, the original goals of the organization are now considered to be
nothing more than obstacles on the way to realizing new aims: borrowers,
students, or the poor are nuisances to be summarily dispensed with as the board
of directors considers the erection of yet another office tower and the
disbursement of yet another annual bonus to its members. As Parkinson noted,
the collective perpetuates its existence, regardless of whether it has any role left
and how well it functions.
As the constituencies of these collectives - most forcefully, its clients - protest
and exert pressure in an attempt to restore them to their erstwhile state, the
collectives develop a paranoid state of mind, a siege mentality, replete with
persecutory delusions and aggressive behavior. This anxiety is an introjection of
guilt. Deep inside, these organizations know that they have strayed from the
right path. They anticipate attacks and rebukes and are rendered defensive and
suspicious by the inevitable, impending onslaught.
Topic 2: Managing the Difficult Employee
Narcissistic, psychopathic (antisocial), schizoid, paranoid, and passive-aggressive
(negativistic) employees disrupt team work, bully co-workers, and subvert
corporate culture and the workplace environment. Teach employers how to
identify such workers and how to cope with them effectively.
Topic 3: Managing Organizational Change and External Shocks
Organizational change and external shocks provoke in employees and
management alike a host of emotional reactions and trigger a raft of
psychological defense mechanisms. Properly managed this release of normally
counterproductive energy can be channelled positively and yield smooth curves
of organizational transformation and reinvention.
Topic 4: Inter- and cross-cultural sensitivity training
The theory and practice of working in foreign markets: skills for developing intracorporate cultural sensitivity programs.
Other Topics
5. Crowdfunding and alternative finance

6. How to get the maximum benefit out of working with consultants and
outside professional advisors (lawyers, accountants, experts, etc.)
7. The lean organization
Outsourcing core functions as a management method.
8. Intrapreneurship and corporate employee incentive programs
9. How to transform your employees into in-house entrepreneurs
10. Leveraging diasporas and alumni
Diasporas and alumni are underutilized business assets. Learn how to
leverage them to the benefit of your business.
11. Big data, data mining, and dynamic archiving as business assets
FOR THERAPISTS
1. The narcissist and psychopath in therapy
2. Essentials of Cold Therapy
3. Cluster B (Personality) Disorders in the DSM V versus the DSM IV-TR
4. Pathological Narcissism: a culture-bound syndrome or a clinical entity
5. CPTSD and other post-traumatic conditions
6. The role of cognitive biases in Behavioral Finance and Behavioral Economics
FOR STUDENTS AND LAYMEN
1. Narcissistic abuse and trauma: coping and survival strategies
2. The narcissist in the workplace: difficult employees, bosses, clients, and
suppliers (additional target audience: business owners)
3. How to not raise narcissistic children
4. Narcissistic cultures and societies and their impact on individual narcissism