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The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook

The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook

Isla Traquair 79 Episodes Sep 17, 2026

Isla Traquair, an award-winning investigative journalist, uncovers the truth behind a shocking exposé featured in the new documentary Narcissist's Playbook. A respected professor of psychology who claims to help people recover from narcissistic abuse is revealed to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. The series follows the investigation from first contact to the final confrontation, with real interviews from those at the heart of the case, international experts, survivors, and diagnosed narcissists. It is the fourth installment in The Storyteller series, following three number-one true crime podcasts.

Episodes

S4 Ep22: EP 22 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep22: EP 22 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Sep 17, 2026 4068 TRIGGER SA - When "yes" means "no" - This was the title of Joyce Short's famous TEDx Talk in which she details her personal experience of SA. As the founder of the Consent Awareness Network, Joyce and colleague Nina Lucas deliver one of the most important messages of this entire series. CAN defines consent as "Freely Given, Knowledgable and Informed Agreement" by a person who has capacity to reas
S4 Ep21: EP 21 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep21: EP 21 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Sep 15, 2026 3659 Claire's Story Part 3 - In the final episode of Claire's story, she explains how Sam Vaknin knew which buttons to push to further destroy her mental health. Everything she had told him when she first approached him in a suicidal state, he used against her further compounding her desire to end it. Triangulation and discard drove Claire to the edge, but thankfully she found the strength to expose h
S4 Ep20: EP 20 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep20: EP 20 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Sep 10, 2026 3079 Claire's Story Part 2 - In Sam's own words and explicitly stating he is speaking about himself, he tells his audience that "only severely mentally ill, broken, damaged traumatised women will succumb" to his psychology and sexuality. Succumb means to lose the determination to oppose something, accept defeat. It can also mean to die or suffer badly from an illness. The illness in this story is Sam's
S4 Ep19: EP 19 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep19: EP 19 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Sep 8, 2026 4814 Claires's Story Part 1 - Two weeks into the podcast's release, the victim who had reached out to Ann and brought the women together, sent a text to investigative journalist Isla Traquair offering to take part. Sam Vaknin's tailor-made abuse had left it's mark on her and it wasn't until listening to Ann's story, did Claire decide she was ready to talk. But her main motivation was to help stop her
S4 Ep18: EP 18 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep18: EP 18 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Sep 1, 2026 4367 Old wounds - Australian director Ian Walker had to leave a hotel in the middle of the night and fly home from Europe due to the abuse he suffered while filming Sam Vaknin for the documentary I, Psychopath in the late 2000s. When Isla Traquair reached out to him in 2025 to inform him of her investigation, seeing Sam Vaknin's name on the email brought back awful memories. In this fascinating interv
S4 Ep17: EP 17 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep17: EP 17 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Aug 30, 2026 3914 The Wolf - there's no coming back from this explosive episode as the fake professor Sam Vaknin damns himself with his own words. For a man who claims to have an IQ higher than Einstein, he's been incredibly careless. There is no more hiding in plain sight. We see him, we see his lies, we see his stupidity and like he feared, the outcomes will be horrible. Following the recording of this episode,
S4 Ep16: EP 16  - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep16: EP 16 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Aug 30, 2026 4042 Herculean Task - Sam Vaknin appealed to the filmmakers to focus their documentary on differentiating between the credentialed and the non-credentialed and goes as far to say it should be a crime to talk about narcissism online unless you are licensed. Investigative journalist Isla Traquair took on that challenge and in what is one of the most crucial episodes in the entire series, she unravels th
S4 Ep15: EP 15 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep15: EP 15 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Aug 30, 2026 1726 The horrors come to light - Richard Grannon was left grappling with his new reality after learning the details of the allegations of abuse against his former business partner. He's also shown written proof that Sam Vaknin knew he was infecting his patients with a cancerous strain of HPV. As a result of these revelations, Richard contacts the filmmakers and asks to be removed from the documentary
S4 Ep14: EP 14 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep14: EP 14 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Aug 30, 2026 2787 Collateral - having returned to Sam Vanknin's sphere, Richard Grannon found himself detaching again from the chaos of the malignant narcissistic following further professional challenges. But not before Sam obtained collateral on him and played a therapy patient and Richard like puppets. This was the catalyst for their public fall out and the beginning of the collapse of Sam's house of cards. For
S4 Ep13: EP 13 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep13: EP 13 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Aug 30, 2026 3370 Betrayal - Richard Grannon describes how his world fell apart when he discovered the man he'd been working with for seven years had been accused of sexually abusing therapy patients and had been accessing women through their seminars designed to help victims of narcissistic abuse. Richard reflects on the fact he too had been groomed and brainwashed by Sam Vaknin with devastating consequences. For
S4 Ep12: EP 12 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep12: EP 12 - The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Aug 28, 2026 2438 The Destruction Package - "There is an infinite power in eradicating another person. A God-like power." This was Sam Vaknin's intention with every target he set his sights on. In this episode former patient Ann explains how her mind and later her body were hijacked by the fake professor. You will also hear parts of a recording of a "therapy"session in which he splits a patient and sexualises the
S4 Ep11: EP 11 -The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook
S4 Ep11: EP 11 -The Storyteller: Narcissist's Playbook Aug 28, 2026 2739 The lure - Sam Vaknin tells tall tales and it's these fantastical stories about his life which create intrigue and admiration for his victims. Triumph over adversity, branded a genius as a child but then abused, going to prison and coming out a reformed man who works as a healer, educator and activist. He's a wolf pretending to be a saint while still being a wolf. You'll also hear the nuances of

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