Talk:Sam Vaknin

Suggestions copied from User talk:Penbat
Few suggestions: (1) Vaknin is Associate Editor of Global Politician (http://globalpolitician.com/editors.asp); (2) More info about Vaknin's alleged Ph.D. and other issues here: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/rebuttal.html; (3) Vaknin started the "Obama is a Narcissist" craze with this article: http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-o see: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=obama+narcissist  Radio interviews with Vaknin about Obama http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/obama.html (4) Vaknin's 31 free books: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/freebooks.html http://www.scribd.com/samvaknin (5) Vaknin's media kit with loads of useful info http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/mediakit.html (6) Nikola Gruevski is now Prime Minister of Macedonia. Vaknin co-authored a book with him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Gruevski (7) Recent Vaknin photos http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/narcissismphotos.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5ff67be2-b636-11df-a784-00144feabdc0.html  http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article2439812.ece  77.28.23.20 (talk) 23:15, 30 October 2010 (UTC) 01:08, 31 October 2010 (CET)

Penbat: excellent, well-balanced entry on a very difficult topic/personality, huge kudos! Two minor fixes and one observation. Fixes first: (1) Nessin Avioz should be:  Nessim Avioz; (2) Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia AND to Gruevski. Observation: Vaknin definitely did not invent the phrases "narcissistic supply" or "malignant narcissism", but he popularized them. Just google "narcissistic supply" and see what I mean. He did coin many narcissism-related phrases that are currently widely used. Examples: cerebral vs. somatic narcissist; inverted narcissist (long before Rappaport coined his narcissist c-dependent); pathological narcissistic space; emotional investment prevention mechanisms; and many more. Example of such phrases being used (with attribution to Vaknin) in a scholarly publication: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38412589/Unadulterated-Arrogance. That's it. Otherwise: awesome work, congrats! 77.28.8.66 (talk) 14:05, 6 November 2010 (UTC) 15:04, 06 November 2010 (CET)
 * It would be useful, in principle, to include an analysis of how Vaknin's ideas on narcissism compare with others. However this will be difficult to do. --Penbat (talk) 15:37, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, who first used the expression "narcissistic abuse" ? --Penbat (talk) 20:31, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

No question that you are right that Vaknin did not invent the phrase "narcissistic supply". It was first mentioned in passing in an obscure work in 1938. But look what Vaknin did with it! He developed a whole theory of narcissism around it: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/msla6.html also http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq76.html He used narcissistic abuse as early as 1997 (on his Geocities website - see on Wayback machine). His Yahoo mailing list is called narcissistic abuse and was formed in July 2001 (actually he had an earlier forum on ListBot) http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/ So, I think he coined this phrase. Hope this helps! Btw, Los-Angeles Chronicle (typo in article).77.28.19.4 (talk) 16:20, 12 November 2010 (UTC) 17:20, 12 November 2010 (CET)
 * I personally think that Vaknin has come up with some excellent ideas on narcissism. He picked up the ball and ran with it. Somebody somewhere must have written an objective critique or analysis of Vaknin's ideas on narcissism that could be summarized and referenced here. Do you know of one ? Without being able to easily delineate Vaknin's ideas in terms of others makes it more difficult to include Vaknin's ideas in other articles such as Malignant_narcissism, Narcissistic rage, Narcissistic supply, true self and false self, Abuse and Abuse --Penbat (talk) 16:41, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Problems with verifiability and original research in this article
This is a BLP article and needs to be held to the highest standards. I have pointed out that there are problems with verifiability and original research in the criticism section, but the tags have been deleted. I have restored them because the problems have not been addressed. Here are the specific difficulties.


 * Criticisms had been made that Vaknin's work on narcissism lacks academic credibility- this needs a citation
 * "Vaknin responds with a long bibliography of consulted academic works and cited references to Vaknin's work from publications by academics. He also lists testimonials of his work. None of this is supported in the references given.
 * Vaknin's work is acknowledged and respected by academics in the field although Vaknin's work can still be criticized for lack of inline references to other works.Needs a citation for this claim.

I doubt any citation will be forthcoming. A Google Scholar search would indicate that Mr. Vaknin's cornerstone work "Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited" has been cited 44 times. Only three of these citations are from peer-reviewed psychological or psychiatric journals, and each of these citations have received fewer than 5 citations each. Unfortunately, the only citation I can make (other than inviting readers to review the Google Scholar search) would be to my own blog. :-)

--Slp1 (talk) 19:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 *  For example he claims to have originated the expression narcissistic supply but it was first mentioned by Otto Fenichel in 1938 and by others since then. It is not possible to delineate and separate Vaknin's original ideas from the ideas of other academics which he has used. This is obvious original research. A reference is needed making this point about Vaknin, not a 1938 reference in which the point an editor wants to make is proved.
 * I really wish you had looked into this more carefully before writing chapter and verse about this. You just had to dig deeper. I can quite easily refute your points with the many available sources. But obviously you want chapter and verse back so expect a reply probably significantly longer than your lengthy post in a day or two. --Penbat (talk) 19:24, 13 November 2010 (UTC)


 * That's great if you have reliable sources for these points. That's all I am asking for. And you don't need to respond in detail here, unless you really want to, since the point is to fix the article. I am sure that you know that these need to be high quality sources  that make the specific points written, not sources that corroborate the argument. Otherwise it is original research.  For example, you need a reliable source pointing out the issue with Fenichel and Vaknin and the terminology, and a web discussions aren't enough. BTW, it is a bit of an assumption to say that I haven't dug deeper, and in fact the assumption is quite incorrect. I looked for something to support this specific point and didn't find anything. Hopefully you know better where to look.  --Slp1 (talk) 19:39, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you had just looked yourself more carefully you would have probably found the supporting citations yourself. Grrrr. Anyway give me a day or so.--Penbat (talk) 19:52, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Please read what I said. I looked for them and I could not find them. I will certainly give you a day or two, however.--Slp1 (talk) 19:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Response to User:Slp1
The entire "Controversies and rebuttals" section is covered by a ref to http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/rebuttal.html at the start of the section. The link is called "Sam Vaknin: Setting the Record Straight" so he is clearly aiming to correct perceived criticisms of himself and his work.

In http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/rebuttal.html#narcissism Vaknin says: The very language used today to describe the experiences of victims of narcissists and psychopaths ("no contact", "narcissistic supply", “devalue and discard”, and so on) was invented by me in the mid-1990s.

In http://samvak.tripod.com/faq76.html Vaknin says: This currency is what I call Narcissistic Supply.

However this information contradicts the information in narcissistic supply which says the expression was first used by Fenichel 1938 and Kernberg in 1974 both with cited references. It looks like what Vaknin has done is popularise the expression and develop the concept but not invent it.

In the section called "My Work on Pathological Narcissism and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)" and following text at http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/rebuttal.html#narcissism Vaknin provides a long list of points supporting the credibility of his work from just about every angle. About the only angle not covered is that some pages lack inline references. Analyzing the pages of http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com:


 * some pages mainly cover the work of others such as:
 * http://samvak.tripod.com/narcissismglance.html
 * http://samvak.tripod.com/faq64.html


 * some pages just have further reading recommendations such as:
 * http://samvak.tripod.com/journal72.html
 * http://samvak.tripod.com/narcissismbipolar.html


 * some pages have some inline citations such as:
 * http://samvak.tripod.com/faq66.html


 * some pages have no citations such as:
 * http://samvak.tripod.com/faq38.html

In http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/rebuttal.html#films Vaknin says: I definitely have antisocial tendencies – but I am not a psychopath. --Penbat (talk) 21:27, 14 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello. Thanks for all the work that you have done on this. Reading this, I now understand that you meant the initial reference  to cover parts of the following points, so the section and its sourcing makes more sense.
 * However, the above is still original research. I'm sure you are absolutely right about the citations use. And I imagine that if you were writing an essay for a psychology course, this kind of research, and analysis would be welcomed and applauded.  But not here, unfortunately.  We do not analyze primary sources (such as Vaknin's webpage) in this fashion.  If no book, scholarly article, newspaper article or other reliable source has commented about his lack of citations, then WP doesn't either.
 * The same goes for the other points; if the only person who has noticed the conflict between Vaknin's claim and the "truth" of the origin of the expression is WP's Penbat, then it doesn't matter how right you are, (and it seems you are), it can't be included. Ditto with the problems about "lacks academic credibility", "is acknowledged and respected by academics in the field" "It is not possible to delineate and separate Vaknin's original ideas from the ideas of other academics which he has used." etc.  We need secondary sources saying more or less exactly this.
 * In other words, this article needs to be based on secondary sources. If no reliable secondary source has mentioned these criticisms, and they are actually just the critiques of the internet and blogosphere, then we can safely ignore them and the responses Vaknin felt he needed to make. In constrast, the "I am not a psychopath" part can be included, because we do have at least one reliable source (the CBC) which claims he is, (and indeed that he has accepted the label).
 * I am going to remove the Criticism and rebuttal section per BLP, due to the concerns with OR and verifiability that I have detailed above. Per BLP, this should not be restored without getting consensus for its return. I think if you read the policies you'll understand where I am coming from.  But if you still don't agree, the places you might want to try and get other opinions are WP:NORN or WP:BLPN.  --Slp1 (talk) 22:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion of Sam Vaknin's quote on Wikipedia
An unregistered user has added a (quite lengthy) quote from Sam Vaknin on Wikipedia to the article. At first I have summatily reverted the edit; now I am asking for the third opinion on whether or not (and if so, how) it should be included in the article. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 21:03, 24 November 2010 (UTC)


 * not sure if you have noticed i reverted it a few days ago as Undue Weight [] so you have my support. I just left in the webpage link as a ref.--Penbat (talk) 21:10, 24 November 2010 (UTC)


 * In response to the Third Opinion request, I concur with the removal. Figureofnine (talk) 19:23, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Additional info, may not merit inclusion, up to you, just trying to help
Great entry. A few things, may not merit inclusion, up to you, apologies if I am off-base: (1) Vaknin was also advisor to Ministry of Trade of Macedonia 1999-2000 when Gruevski was Minister of Trade. See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/4685209/The-Exporters-Handbook; (2) Vaknin served as member of Macedonia's Healthcare Reform Committee 2008-10 See: http://sc-healthreform.org.mk/webmk/sam_vaknin.html; (3) Vaknin's IQ was found to be 185 and he attended Israel's prestigious Technion in Haifa from age 9 to age 16. The well-researched (and decidedly anti-Vaknin) documentary film "I, Psychopath" contains these facts, verified in situ by the producers and director; (4) Vaknin held senior positions in the business empire of the secretive Jewish tycoon Nessim D. Gaon (in his "Noga" and "Aprofim" companies in Geneva and New-York) - more details in his bio http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/cv.html ; (5) By now, Vaknin's work in all fields is cited in thousands (!) of books. If you search Google --->Books--->Sam Vaknin and also Shmuel Vaknin you get 4000+ results!!! This applies especially to his work in international affairs, economics, and philosophy. Similarly, his work on narcissism is cited in scholarly publications and books - hundreds of them according to Google Scholar (see example: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38412589/Unadulterated-Arrogance). An example of how his work in Logic is having an influence in the design of computer networks: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38546033/Enterprise-Architecture-Definition ; This huge number of citations, as far as I know, means that he "is acknowledged and respected by academics in" many fields, not only in the field of personality disorders. Hope this helps! Great job. Liran 77.28.13.128 (talk) 17:12, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for ideas. I will think them through but no great rush.--Penbat (talk) 17:20, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, thank you. I will look into the references at some point; but I should mention that from what I can find Vaknin is not actually widely cited in academic books, on the subject of narcissism at least. See my comments here.  The article you cite introduces him as writing as from experience, which seems fairly par for the course for those who do mention him.  Unfortunately, the journal the article is in is one that has a poor reputation in  academia and in WP.  See this comment from a university librarian.
 * Anyway, thank you Liran for posting your ideas here. It is the appropriate way to go about it, when you have a conflict of interest about the subject. --Slp1 (talk) 23:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Slp1, what do you mean by "conflict of interest"??? I resent your innuendo. I am a Macedonian journalist. Vaknin is very famous and controversial in my country and I have been following him for years. I interviewed him a few times and and, believe me, I am not his friend. Everyone in my country knows that!!! Also, what you say about the "Unadulterated Arrogance" article is completely untrue (don't want to use the word "lie"): the authors cite Vaknin as an expert - repeat: an expert - multiple times. Why don't you bother to read it? Or - if you read it - why do you misrepresent it? It is available on my website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38412589/Unadulterated-Arrogance. Do you have an agenda against Vaknin? Because I see that you have been deleting references to his work everywhere and not only in this article (see the entry on Narcissistic Supply). Liran (Zoran) 77.28.13.173 (talk) 22:39, 6 February 2011 (UTC)  23:35, 06 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry about one thing: for some reason I thought Liran was the name of Vaknin's wife, but I see that it is not. My apologies.
 * No, I do not have an agenda against Vaknin. In fact, you will note that I deleted the controversies section because of problems with sourcing and original research.
 * I stand by my comment that the main academic texts do not cite Vaknin as an expert in the field. The very article you cite introduces him a "sufferer" ("Sam Vaknin authored the book Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited, which is a telling personal story of his own struggle with this problem"). In any case, the article is written by two non-academics, who support the notion of Parental Alienation Syndrome and whose article grossly misrepresents the evidence about the so-called syndrome.  The article is published in a very poorly thought of journal, whose editor-in-chief is a major proponent of the so-called diagnosis, and which other editors have suggested is a very poor source of information for Wikipedia. . All this to say you will need much better evidence than this to show that he is considered an expert in the field by those who matter. I've looked quite hard, and the evidence simply isn't there in the high quality sources. Perhaps you will have better luck.Slp1 (talk) 23:22, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * you disappoint me Slp1. I thought you had a handle on understanding Vaknin. Apart from being interviewed alongside other experts in the field of narcissism in several high profile newspapers, i have lost count of the number of books on narcissism that cite Vaknin. Most recent books on narcissism seem to and the last one i bought by Thomas (which i have right in front of me) cites him twice. --Penbat (talk) 23:58, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Enough with the personal remarks, both of you. Scott is a self-published book, and therefore unusable as a source, as I pointed out ages ago, when I analyzed all the sources you provided to date. It is also a memoir about her experiences, a long way from being the sort of academic, scholarly source we need.  Do you have any suggested sources to offer? Slp1 (talk) 00:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Why was this reverted?
Hey. I'd like to know why the edits I made to this article - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sam_Vaknin&oldid=412418346 - were reverted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.144.126.160 (talk • contribs) 23:52, February 6, 2011
 * I didn't remove them, but I agree for the most part with their deletion. Thanks for asking, though, it was the right thing to do. Your edits were often quite problematic for a biography of living person; including making commentary and points that seemed to be original thoughts and points about the guy, and not in a positive direction. Please read the important policies and guidelines above, as well as WP:V, and WP:NPOV. However, I also agree with some of them, as you have probably seen. If having read things a bit you want to edit the article some more, can I suggest more liberal use of edit summaries to explain what you are doing and/or some comments here to explain your reasoning.  --Slp1 (talk) 00:40, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I accept that what I wrote was often times not neutral. I apologize for that. But I consider it NECESSARY to include the information that he has no formal education in psychology, and that his claims to be a narcissist or to have invented the term "narcissistic supply" are wrong. Otherwise the article will be biased in his favor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.144.126 (talk • contribs) 00:59, February 7, 2011
 * That's okay. I've actually just independently added what his degree was in; as far as the narcissistic supply invention thing is concerned, read some sections above, where I explained to Penbat why we need other people in reliable sources pointing out the thing about Otto, not just WP editors making this discovery. It's what we can original research. PS please sign your posts on talkpages with 4 tildes or the little pencil button in the toolbar above the edit window --Slp1 (talk) 01:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Orchestrated vandalism
The Sam Vaknin article is being vandalized by an organized group. See their page where they coordinate the attack: http://www.psychforums.com/narcissistic-personality/topic48396-110.html. Zoran (Liran) 77.28.13.173 (talk) 23:18, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, that was just me, one person. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.144.126.160 (talk) 01:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, it seems to be only one person, and it appears that s/he is engaging in discussion here, so that's a good start. But I agree that trying to get help on that website was not appropriate. Slp1 (talk) 01:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm noticing that the article's quality is getting better again. Thank you. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.144.126.160 (talk) 01:13, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I just added this:

while others have alleged that it is actually dangerous to listen to him. (http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/narcissism/malignant_narcissism.html)

and the ref-tag wouldn't work, no idea why, so I just put the source into the text so it would be visible. Somebody should probably fix this. --87.144.117.34 (talk) 17:55, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia section
I've tagged the Wikipedia section as lacking in 3rd party sources. There's no indication that anyone beyond the subject finds his writings on this topic interesting. If no 3rd party sources can be found in a reasonable time I'll delete the material. The subject has opinions on many topics, but if no independent source takes note of them neither should we.  Will Beback   talk    21:27, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

My recent edits
I've tried to tidy this a little: before and after.

I removed the WP section as self-referential. I also removed the education as the details were unclear. His cv said he was born in 1961 but started technical college in 1970, and as this isn't explained or mentioned by secondary sources (that he went to college when he was nine), I just left it out. Also, the PhD certificate says he "majored" in physics, and people don't major when doing PhDs, so again I left it out because it was unclear. I also left out his description of his parents, which seemed a little unfair; even though they're unnamed, they and others know who they are, and they may still be living. Otherwise, I just tidied the writing, and added some details from secondary sources. I also added an infobox. SlimVirgin TALK| CONTRIBS 14:27, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Running a website on narcissistic personality disorder
The article opens with the following line:

Shmuel Ben David "Sam" Vaknin (born April 1961) is an Israeli writer.[1] He is the author and publisher of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited (2001), editor-in-chief of the website Global Politician, and runs a website about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).[2]

Here the personality disorder is lined to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

Obviously, Sam Vaknin does not run this page. Additonally the quotation [2] leads to:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0E1EFD385C0C7A8EDDAE0894DA404482&pagewanted=2

which has nothing to do with running a web site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.58.169 (talk) 07:42, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Some things missing about Vaknin
Some things that I think are important to mention:

(1) From 2008 Vaknin was member of the Steering Committee for the Advancement of Healthcare in the Republic of Macedonia http://sc-healthreform.org.mk/

(2) Vaknin wrote more than 40 books. About 25 are listed in the library of congress. His book "requesting my loved one" short fiction in hebrew won prestigious prize in israel in 1997. See: http://www.ybook.co.il/htmls/author_728.aspx?c0=16326&bsp=13286 and in Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Sam-Vaknin/e/B000APLOFK/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 http://www.amazon.com/Bakashah-me-ishah-ahuvah-Prozah-Hebrew/dp/9654483416/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

(3) Vaknin view of wikipedia had great influence. Simple google to discover more than 60 interviews with important global media, for example Tiempo Magazine (Spain), August 2009, Wire, Globo Brazil. See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38401414/Wikipedia-Spanish Also Vaknin say that he corresponded with Jimbo Wales for months! Same about Vaknin opinion that Obama is narcissist: Vaknin was interview on every talk show in USA and his article quoted in 60,000 blogs and articles, including in print media (Whistleblower http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=97201 ). Not to mention this is strange.

(4) Sister of vaknin is Sima Gil-Vaknin, chief censor of Israeli Defense Force

(5) Not fair to mention Vaknin parents without giving them possibility to object and defend their actions

(6) In film I, Psychopath (which is film strongly against Vaknin) is confirm after research in Israel that Vaknin IQ was measure 185 and this is why he went to study in Technion (university in Haifa) when was 9 only.

(7) Years 1993-6 completely missing, best to look in his cv: http://samvak.tripod.com/cv.html

Zadanliran (Zoran) 77.28.14.186 (talk) 12:35, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Corrections (wrong info and broken URL)
1. Your article say: "In I, Psychopath Vaknin meets the requirements for psychopathy using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist."

This is not true. Vaknin scored 18 and the cut-off for psychopaths is 30 (http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Hare-Psychopathy-Checklist.html). The director Walker even asks Vaknin how Vaknin reacts to the facts that he was not diagnosed as a psychopath and it is Vaknin who insist that he is a psychopath, even tho he flunked the test! Later Vaknin wrote articles about the PCL-R that it is not accurate because it should have diagnosed him as a psychopath and it didn't!

2. Correct URL:

From 2008 Vaknin was member of the Steering Committee for the Advancement of Healthcare in the Republic of Macedonia

Link should be:

http://sc-healthreform.org.mk/web/

zadanliran (Zoran) 77.28.18.75 (talk) 08:08, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It is wrong that he scored at 18 out of 40 in the film, because they used another version of the pcl there, the didn't use the PCL-R with the 30-point-cutoff, they used PCL:SV, with an 18-point-cutoff. In that test, he didn't score 18 out of 40, he scored 18 out of 24 (twenty-four!!!) and thus definitely met the criteria for beeing a clinically diagnosed psychopath. (By the way, if we convert the value 18/24 into the 40-point-test, we will get exactly 30, which again is the psychopathy-cutoff. (18/24 = 3/4; 3/4*40=30). Just saying.). I don't know why he makes that mistake, I expect him to know better and I could just guess if that isn't an attempt to manipulate... Don't know, but a self-proclaimed psychopath would be capable of manipulating in that manner, I guess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.81.187.115 (talk) 20:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Where did you get this "information" from??? It is NOt mentioned in the film "I, Psychopath" and both Vaknin and the hostile director Walker insist that he was administered the FULL test zadanliran (Zoran) 77.28.18.75 (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Vaknin
Self-published works by Sam Vaknin have been used as sources for various articles related to narcissism. The issue of whether those should be regarded as reliable for Wikipedia purposes is being discussed at Reliable sources/Noticeboard‎. Editors are invited to give their views.  Will Beback   talk    21:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

In the film he SCORED as a psychopath - ending that 18-point-myth
Some people seem to repeat the argument vaknin wasn't diagnosed as a psychopath in the documentary "I, Psychopath" and they argue, Vaknin only scored 18 where the cutoff for psychopathy was 30, which is not correct. In the film, they used a so called screening version of the PCL (PCL:SV), where the total score is not 40 but 24, and the psychopathy-cutoff thus is located at 18, not 30. So, with a result of 18 out of 24 (twenty-four, NOT forty!!!) he was a clinically diagnosed psychopath. In both PCL-versions, the cutoff for psychopathy is 3/4 of max score (18/24 and 30/40), so if we convert his 18 point result into the 40-point-scale we will finally get the 30 points which is the PCL-R cutoff for psychopathy. (Conversion is done by (18/24)*40=30). So it is right what's written there in the article, he MET the requirements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.81.171.124 (talk) 20:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Where did you get this "information" from??? It is NOT mentioned in the film "I, Psychopath" and both Vaknin and the hostile director Walker insist that he was administered the FULL test zadanliran (Zoran) 77.28.18.75 (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Another film with Vaknin participation
Specimen (Radio-Television Suisse) http://www.rts.ch/video/emissions/specimen/4888054-moi-narcissique-et-cruel.html  Full program http://www.rts.ch/emissions/specimen/4769386-ce-qui-nous-rend-mechants.html

Why is there no special Wikipedia entry for "I, Psychopath"???

Zadanliran (Zoran) 77.28.14.186 (talk) 12:35, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Vaknin YouTube Channel
Vaknin has YouTube channel on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder with 4.3 million views and more than 12600 subscribers. More important to mention than his website, IMHO.

http://www.youtube.com/samvaknin

Zadanliran (Zoran) 12:35, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Vaknin's influential works in philosophy and physics
Vaknin's Google Scholar page: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Yj7C8wOP-10J

Vaknin has a Ph.D. from California Miramar University (in philosophy). His dissertation (thesis) is titled "Time Asymmetry Revisited" and is available from UMI and the Library of Congress. His work on time-space influenced many young physicists. Recent example: “Upper Time Limit, Its Gradient Curvature, and Matter” by Eytan H. Suchard (Journal of Modern Physics and Applications 2014, 2014:5) http://scik.org/index.php/jmpa/article/view/1317/640

Vaknin maintains a repository of his philosophy essays here: http://philosophos.tripod.com Some of his work influenced other philosophers and thinkers. See this example where his work on definitions affected this group of computer scientists: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38546033/Enterprise-Architecture-Definition

This Wikipedia entry does not reflect a lot of the info available on the talk page for this entry. Few people know that they can find additional info on the talk page, so this is a great pity. 77.29.87.135 (talk) 12:09, 15 December 2013 (UTC) Zadaliran (Zoran)

chronons
Theres quite a lot of text on Vakin research work on chronons in that article. Im not sure how to reference that from here except to reproduce all that text here. There maybe a better solution but this will do for now.--Penbat (talk) 20:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Phd validity
Sam Vaknin clearly states on film at the end of 'I, psychopath' ... "the Phd was aquired in a diploma mill, diploma mill in the United States means a place where you buy your degrees. So it's a diploma mill, not a real Phd". With this in mind the section mentioning his Phd work should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.215.244.101 (talk) 15:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I believe that it was a valid PhD but anyway whether it was or wasnt a valid PhD is incidental. Vaknin produced a credible body of work on chronons (see Chronon) which was substantively referenced as being an important and significant body of work by Suchard in his work (see Chronon) laying out the latest thinking on chronons. Suchard himself refers to Vaknins work as being PhD work. Vaknin also includes the PhD on his CV (see http://samvak.tripod.com/cv.html ). Here he says "The rumour that I had obtained my degree from a diploma mill is maliciously (and libellously) false......" http://samvak.tripod.com/rebuttal.html . --Penbat (talk) 16:11, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I do not agree that it is incidental whether or not his PhD is valid, seeing as the page states that his work on chronons was a PhD thesis. It is misleading to include this work under such an introduction. I see the references to Vaknin and Suchard's work have been removed from the Chronons page for good reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.39.53.18 (talk) 13:07, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Vaknin has a Ph.D. from California Miramar University (in philosophy). His dissertation (thesis) is titled "Time Asymmetry Revisited" and is available from UMI and the Library of Congress. See: California Miramar University, available on Microfiche in UMI and from the Library of Congress http://lccn.loc.gov/85133690 77.28.20.77 (talk) 11:51, 5 June 2014 (UTC)  Zadanliran (Zoran) 12:35, 05 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree that this should be subjected to more scrutiny. The article states that the dissertation was written in 1982. But the university cited appears to have been founded in 2005. — Preceding unsigned comment added by O5o7 (talk • contribs) 09:48, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

It appears that nobody has ever verified the validity of the PhD thesis. Nearly nowhere is this thesis even referenced – barring Suchard, whose work (e.g. 1806.05244 on arXiv) lacks all rigor and is equally solitary. The Library of Congress does list Vaknin's paper as a dissertation thesis, but is this seriously a strong enough basis for Wikipedia to state the PhD as fact? ... If this listing is the strongest evidence, one should write exactly that. --2A02:8071:195:2C00:0:0:0:52 (talk) 19:06, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * In fact, the criticism at the top of this section from 2014 already says it all. For convenience, here is the video recording of Vaknin admitting to the PhD being bought at a diploma mill (though maintaining that it is a technically valid PhD): YouTube. In light of this, the section in the article is completely untenable.--2A02:8071:195:2C00:0:0:0:52 (talk) 19:14, 28 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Since when is an obscure and controversial documentary film a source for Wikipedia?


 * As to your vandlism: Vaknin and the director of "I, Psychopath", Ian Walker, are avowed enemies, as the documentary makes abundantly clear. Vaknin and Walker are having numerous aggressive fights on camera! Vaknin and others pointed out repeatedly that the segment you are referring to was added AFTER the film was first released and involves malicious editing of Vaknin's words.


 * Vaknin was actually calling attention to the swindlers who run diploma mills!


 * Walker, the hostile and Vaknin-hater "director", took Vaknin's words out of context to create the impression that Vaknin was referring to his own PhD which Vaknin denies even in that segment!


 * Vaknin says clearly and repeatedly: "I have a PhD, I worked 2 years for it, there was a campus, my doctoral dissertation was peer reviewed, it is available in the Library of Congress" and so on. The concluding sentence in this fake segment is Vaknin's statement about diploma mills PhDs IN GENERAL - NOT about Vaknin's PhD in particular!! It was clearly cut (the film "jumps" suddenly) and added to create a false impression!


 * It is very clear when you watch it: The director cut an unrelated sentence into the film maliciously to give a false impression.


 * This "I, Psychopath" an old canard that keeps creeping up as you would have seen had you bothered to read this page thoroughly and had you done minimal research online.


 * What you did to the article was total vandalism. Zadanliran (Zoran) 77.28.14.186 (talk) 12:35, 01 March 2021 (UTC)

Independent coverage of Cold Therapy?
Has there been any independent writing (ideally, a study of effectiveness) about Cold Therapy? I'm thinking we should either mention it in the article or mention the absence of it. —C.Fred (talk) 19:30, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Dead links in References
Footnotes [12] and [13] are dead. The links are below, respectively:

http://www.analyst-network.com/profile.php?user_id=79

https://www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/941

Furthermore, I could find no archived versions of either of these pages or anything suggesting that the website "analyst-network.com" has ever existed. 170.52.76.106 (talk) 01:56, 3 January 2023 (UTC)