Sam Vaknin

Shmuel Vaknin (more commonly known as Sam Vaknin) was born in April 1961 in Qiryat-Yam, Haifa, Israel. He is primarily a journalist and author, writing extensively on various subjects such as history, philosophy, politics, finance and mental health.

Vaknin has been living in Skopje, Macedonia, since 1996 and is married to Macedonian Lidija Rangelovska, the owner of Narcissus Publications who publish much of his work.

Early career
Vaknin worked in the City of London, and was a self-made millionaire. Aware of relationship difficulties with his fiancée, as well as his mood swings, and in 1985 he sought help from a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Vaknin did not accept the diagnosis at the time. Vaknin's engagement broke up, and he moved to back to Israel, becoming the owner of Israel’s largest stock exchange brokerage house. He was President of the Israeli Chapter of the Unification Church's Professors for World Peace Academy.

In 1995, in Israel, along with two other men, Dov Landau and Nissim Avioz, he was found guilty on three counts of stock fraud and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment and a fine of 50,000 Shekels (about $12,000). He served his sentence in a prison near Tel Aviv, and in 1996, as a condition of parole, agreed to a mental health evaluation, which noted various personality disorders. According to Vaknin "I was borderline schizoid, but the most dominant was NPD", and on this occasion accepted the diagnosis as "it was a relief to know what I had".

Until a few weeks prior to the September 2002 election, Sam Vaknin served as advisor to Macedonia's Ministry of Finance.

Journalism
Between 2001 and 2003 Vaknin was Senior Business Correspondent for United Press International, he has also written extensively for Central Europe Review about political issues in the Balkans, as well as for the Middle East Times.

From 2007 to date, Vaknin is an Associate Editor of Global Politician with responsibility for articles on Central and Eastern Europe, and International Business and Finance. He also writes regularly for other publications such as the International Analyst Network and the Los Angeles Chronicle.

Publications
Vaknin has written about 30 books including:
 * "Bakasha me-Isha Ahuva" - "Requesting my Loved One", Yedioth Aharonot Miskal-Prose, Tel-Aviv, 1997
 * (with Nikola Gruevski) Macedonian Economy on a Crossroads, Skopje, NIP Noval Literatura, 1998. ISBN 9989610010
 * "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited", Narcissus Publications, Prague, 1999
 * "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East" Narcissus Publications in association with Central Europe Review/CEENMI, 2000
 * Russian Roulette - Russia's Economy In Putin's Era (2003) ISBN 9989-929-31-9

Vaknin and narcissism
Vaknin has a prolific online presence writing on topics mainly relating to narcissism and to a lesser extent psychopathy. Vaknin's work on narcissism is respected and acknowledged by leading academics in the field and journalists. Vaknin claims to be a self-aware narcissist, which is unusual as narcissists normally lack self-awareness of their condition, and he is therefore able to give a rare "insiders view" perspective.

Vaknin extends the concept of narcissistic supply and introduces further concepts such as primary narcissistic supply and secondary narcissistic supply.

According to Vaknin, narcissists are either cerebral or somatic. They either generate their narcissistic supply by applying their bodies or by applying their minds. Vaknin considers himself to be a cerebral narcissist.

Vaknin considers codependents of narcissists to be 'the Watsons of this world, "provide the narcissist with an obsequious, unthreatening audience...the perfect backdrop"'. He identifies them as "inverted narcissists".

True self and false self
Vaknin has highlighted the role of the false self in narcissism. 'The False Self replaces the narcissist's True Self and is intended to shield him from hurt and narcissistic injury by self-imputing omnipotence....The narcissist pretends that his False Self is real and demands that others affirm this confabulation', meanwhile keeping his real imperfect true self under wraps.

For Vaknin, 'the False Self is by far more important to the narcissist than his delapidated, dysfunctional True Self'; and in contrast to the psychoanalysts he 'do[es] not believe in the ability to "resuscitate it [TS]" through therapy'.

Barack Obama
Vaknin introduced the claim that Barack Obama is a narcissist in 2008, and since then that idea has been widely adopted by other commentators who criticise Obama and his policies.

Film appearances
In 2007, Vaknin appeared in the Channel 4 documentary Egomania.

In 2009, Vaknin was the subject of the documentary film I, Psychopath, directed by Ian Walker.

Wikipedia
In 2006, Vaknin questioned the validity of the online, freely-editable encyclopedia Wikipedia. He claims that it is not an encyclopedia, is anarchic and lacking in the proper screening of contributions and facts that ensure quality. Due to all of this, Vaknin claims that Wikipedia will implode on itself. Criticisms include the capability of editing by anyone, regardless of the level of knowledge or expertise that person has in the subject together with issues of copyright and anonymous editing by Wikipedia themselves. His comments have reportedly attracted the interest of Wikipedia's hierarchy.