Israel Psychologists' view on Obama

[goofin]

Dr. Sam Vaknin is an Israeli psychologist. Interesting view on the new president.


Dr Vaknin has written extensively about narcissism.

'narcissism'--noun. exaggerated self-admiration; exaggerated self-love



Dr. Vaknin States "I must confess I was impressed by Sen.Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such quasi-"religious" impact on so many people. The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming. Obama is not an ordinary man. He is not a genius. In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects." Barack Obama is a narcissist.


Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of The Malignant Self Love believes "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist." Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism. He understands narcissism and describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person. When he talks about narcissism everyone listens.


Vaknin says that Obama's language, posture and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest and nearest suggest that the Senator is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves. Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of People's Temple, the man who led over 900 of his followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder their own children was also a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao,Kim Jong Ill and Adolph Hitler are a few examples of narcissists of our time.


All these men had a tremendous influence over their fanciers. They created a personality cult around themselves and with their blazing speeches elevated their admirers, filled their hearts with enthusiasm and instilled in their minds a new zest for life. They gave them hope! They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their doom.




When you are a victim of a cult of personality, you don't know it until it is too late. One determining factor in the development of NPD is childhood abuse.


His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant (two years old). Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident. Then his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia , a foreign land with a foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white) grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979. She died of cancer in 1995.


One must never underestimate the manipulative genius of pathological narcissists. They project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around them. Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service. The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own inverted image. He creates a cult of personality. His admirers become his co-dependents


Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their personal objective. They are focused on one thing alone and that is power. All other issues are meaningless to them and they do not want to waste their precious time on trivialities. Anything that does not help them is beneath them and do not deserve their attention.


If an issue raised in the Senate does not help Obama in one way or another, he has no interest in it. The "present" vote is a safe vote. No one can criticize him if things go wrong. Those issues are unworthy by their very nature because they are not about him. Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations.


The University of Chicago Law School provided him a lot longer than expected and at the end it evolved into, guess what? His own autobiography! Instead of writing a scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which he had been paid, Obama could not resist writing about his most sublime self. He entitled the book Dreams from My Father.


Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was still nobody. So did Stalin. For a narcissist no subject is as important as his own self. Why would he waste his precious time and genius writing about insignificant things when he can write about such an august being as himself? Narcissists are often callous and even ruthless As the norm, they lack conscience. This is evident from Obama's lack of interest in his own brother who lives on only one dollar per month.


A man who lives in luxury, who takes a private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and who has raised nearly half a billion dollars for his campaign (something unprecedented in history) has no interest in the plight of his own brother. Why? Because, his brother cannot be used for his ascent to power.


A narcissist cares for no one but himself. This election is like no other in the history of America . The issues are insignificant compared to what is at stake. What can be more dangerous than having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world? I hate to sound alarmist, but one is a fool if one is not alarmed. Many politicians are narcissists. They pose no threat to others...They are simply self-serving and selfish.


Obama evidences symptoms of pathological narcissism, which is different from the run-of-the-mill narcissism of a Richard Nixon or a Bill Clinton for example. To him reality and fantasy are intertwined. This is a mental-health issue, not just a character flaw. Pathological narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent.


It is this disguise that makes them treacherous.


Today the Democrats have placed all their hopes in Obama.


But this man could put an end to their party. The great majority of blacks have also decided to vote for Obama. Only a fool does not know that their support for him is racially driven. This is racism, pure and simple. The downside of this is that if Obama turns out to be the disaster I predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites.


The blacks are unlikely to give up their support of their man. Cultic mentality is pernicious and unrelenting. They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama's detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites.




The white supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive widespread support. I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960's.




Obama will set the clock back decades... America is the bastion of freedom. The peace of the world depends on the strength of America , and its weakness translates into the triumph of terrorism and victory of rogue nations.


It is no wonder that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castroists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the Guantanamo terrorists and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House. America is on the verge of destruction.


There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological narcissist as president.

[adymond]

I swear I saw the same exact report about Bush. There's no way a clinical psychologist could form a medical opinion about an individual without interviewing the subject.

[Curmudgeon]

Link?






67890

[angus]

This report is very specific to Obama's life events (ie, seeing father only once). How could you have read the exact same one on Bush?

Obama does demonstrate a lot of the inflated sense of self-regard, brittle self-esteem, lack of empathy, callousness and other traits long associated with narcissism as well as ones that go along pretty well with anti-social perosnality, but one can't make a clinical diagnosis without examining the guy as you said. However, I think an expert can make judgments on general tendencies of the guy from external observations.

If Obama were actually some kind of narcissist or psychopath I wouldn't be surprised. Without submitting him to every single DSMIV standard, there do appear to be suggestions of those personality types.

ETA: I don't necessarily see all of those disastrous outcomes mentioned in the article. I really doubt that we've never had a narcissistic or psychopathic president before.

[V65Magnafan]

He may be a narcissist. He may not.

More importantly, I want to know who bankrolled his expensive four years at Columbia and his even more expensive years at Harvard Law School.

[Bug44]

Rep for Dr. Sam Vaknin
Shit he already out spent all others before him! Taking over the auto industry, banking, now grabbing the Medical...
Whats next?

[goofin]

it came posted in a email so i have no direct link to it. i have found another link to the author

http://samvak.tripod.com/

[goofin]

I swear I saw the same exact report about Bush. There's no way a clinical psychologist could form a medical opinion about an individual without interviewing the subject.

Opinion being the keyword, its real easy, hell most of us think democrats as assholes...right?

[FormerUser123]

hell most of us think democrats as assholes...right?

If the shoe fits...

Though, I think most republicans are assholes too. Not the citizens, per say, but the politicians.

[Robert Kayland]

I've been accused of being a narcissist, but I think that's utter nonsense... if I were to identify with anyone from Greek mythology it would be Zeus.