Everyone has a personality, comprised of strengths and weaknesses
Get to know anyone well enough and you will begin to see that s/he struggles dealing with certain aspects of life, work, and relationships. These weaknesses in someone’s personality can even be so vulnerable that people can have acute episodes of anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric disorders.
In other words, no one is perfect, nor does a healthy level of functioning depend on someone moving closer and closer to perfection over time. This basic truth makes it tricky to differentiate someone with a disordered personality from a flawed, but mostly normal personality organization.
In order to determine if weaknesses in a person’s character meet criteria for a personality disorder, one of two things need to be present: 1. You have a great deal of reliable data about a person’s life across time and context, or 2. You need a great deal of experience and expertise recognizing signs and symptoms of personality pathology.
Distress and impairment are often context-dependent
Narcissists can be extremely high achievers. Obsessive-compulsive Personality Disorder sufferers often perform well in school and save lots of money. Borderline Personality Disorder afflicted individuals can be extremely talented performers and be quite charismatic.
Many other possible strengths and areas of success can and do emerge among people genuinely suffering from one or more personality disorder. So, if you look only at one area of competence, you may miss the underlying personality pathology.
In fact, many people have disastrous personal lives not despite but because they are such fierce achievers in business, negotiation, litigation, etc. Having areas of strength is often a good prognostic indicator, but it does not mean that s/he hasn’t created truly awful relationships, habits, patterns, dependencies, abuse cycles, etc. outside the pocket of tremendous success.
Next time you pass a newsstand or browse through gossip blogs and catch the latest headlines on major celebrities, recall the importance of context in evaluating someone’s personality health.
Gossip and smear journalism is a way we humans balance our competing needs to celebrate idols while regulating negative feelings of envy.
So many of our most celebrated heroes are extremely gifted in one or more areas of life; these same people are also complete dumpster fires in other life domains.
“Symptoms” of personality disorders feel “normal” to the experiencer, by definition
It’s essentially a psychological law that people who have personality disorders feel that their suffering is normal–at least in the sense that they don’t know it’s possible to feel any other way. Sure, many people feel lonely, less than, or defective–but in my experience, this is reconciled with explanations of “well that person is just better at X than me.”
It takes a lot of work and the right kind of help to realize that an impaired personality structure is the source of suffering. Labels like “depression” and “anxiety” do help explain some of the differences in happiness and fulfillment between self and others, but the source of depression and anxiety is often quite perplexing to people with personality disorders. It’s simpler for many to assume it’s “just genetic” or reduced to a “medical” anomaly.
Personality is invisible to most people because they’ve always been that way. People with personality disorders are like people walking around in their own micro-climate. Everyone else might be talking about how hot it is, but the person with the personality disorder will be feeling cold. What conclusion would this person come to in making sense of the differences in subjective experiences they were having?
They likely would either be fundamentally confused about what is cold and what is hot, or believe that their brain just was naturally very bad at distinguishing between cold and hot. They would begin to doubt themselves, not trust their instincts, which would in turn become another way in which they felt alienated from others.
It’s very unlikely, however, that the people in this hypothetical example would conclude that they lived in a different microclimate from others at all times.
Problems with self-identity, and interpersonal functioning (the two hallmarks of personality disorders) can be either unhealthy or healthy in an infinite number of ways
If a man doesn’t want to get married, date, or have a family, does he have schizoid personality disorder? Avoidant personality disorder? Schizotypal personality disorder? Or maybe, that’s just the life he likes and wants to lead.
On the flipside, consider a woman who is a doctor, married to a loving, successful man, and lives the exact life she always aspired to lead. Yet, she’s not content. She feels empty. She doesn’t really feel as if her life is her own, and even feels suffocated by the choices she has made. On the surface, we’d say she has it all. However, her entire identity might be built on a false premise.
The difference between a personality disorder and normal, everyday suffering is not always obvious from the outside. Many trained professionals often miss defining features of a personality disorder if they don’t ask about the right history, recognize the primitive defenses, or get fooled by high status and/or achievement.
This takes a great deal of savvy and experience to navigate. How do you diagnose a PD when everything looks good on the outside and the sufferer doesn’t even have a clue that their experience differs from others in a very profound way?
For these reasons, personality disorders are extremely challenging to identify, diagnose, and treat. Some might even challenge the validity of the concept itself. In my view, personality disorders are very valuable constructs clinically, although they can often hide in plain sight from friends, family, and even people trained to diagnose them.
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They are the beneficiaries of the century-old student-focused Montessori education, which has produced some of the most innovative thinkers on the planet.
Little Bets author Peter Sims wrote in his Wall Street Journal blog, “Ironically, the Montessori educational approach might be the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the school’s alumni that one might suspect a Montessori Mafia.”
“You can’t understand Google unless you know that both Larry and Sergey were Montessori kids.” Yahoo CEO and former Google vice president Marissa Mayer told Wired magazine, “In a Montessori school, you go paint because you have something to express or you just want to do it that afternoon, not because the teacher said so. This is baked in how Larry and Sergey approach problems. They’re always asking, ‘Why should it be like that?’ It’s the way their brains were programmed early on.”
When asked what drove their success, Page and Brin responded, “Nursery school.”
Page elaborated, “We both went to Montessori school and I think [our success] was part of that training, not following rules and orders and being self-motivated, questioning what’s going on in the world, doing things a little bit different.”
Dr. Maria Montessori began her career as an educator working with children who had learning disabilities and were deemed unteachable; the only reason they were taught at all was to try to prevent them from becoming juvenile delinquents. Dr. Montessori noted that the needs, interests, and wants of her students were not respected. When she made the students the center of the learning activities and their inherent curiosity an integral part of their learning process the success was astonishing. Montessori Method teachers are trained to take their students’ curiosity seriously and foster their independence to help them learn for themselves. Learning, according to the Montessori Method, is a joyous, life-long pursuit.
The Absorbent Mind
Dr. Montessori observed that children are ready and eager to learn and that they easily absorb information from the world around them. Her view was that learning takes place all the time. Learning by absorption is indeed both constant and ageless.
Sensitive Periods
This refers to specific times during a child’s development when their capacity for absorbing certain information or mastering specific skills is noticeably increased. Montessori teachers are trained to observe their students and identify such sensitive periods to provide the students with the right resources and tools to support and accelerate their learning. Adult students learn to become aware of such periods themselves, and can ask for the appropriate assistance from their instructors.
Montessori students are encouraged to learn independently.
The Prepared Environment
A Montessori classroom is an environment designed to promote the students’ freedom of choice. The room is well organized, with plenty of learning materials and the appropriate space in which to use them. Students are encouraged to move around the room on their own, allowing their curious minds to guide them as they explore the tools the teachers put at their disposal. Such an environment encourages the students to become active, involved participants in learning. Adult learners tend to create an environment that suits them once encouraged to do so.
Autoeducation
In this fifth principle, the four previous ones culminate in the realization that children, given the right support, can teach themselves. In a Montessori school, environment, authentic freedom of choice, and respect for the students work together to promote a life-long love of learning.
The Montessori Method recognizes three developmentally important age groups: 2–2.5 years, 2.5–6 years, and 6–12 years. Students learn through activities such as exploration, manipulations, order, repetition, abstraction, and communication. The first two age groups use their senses to explore and manipulate materials in their immediate environment. Children in the last group deal with abstract concepts based on their newly developed powers of reasoning, imagination, and creativity.
Montessori Methods seem to be particularly suitable for adults, and the chief reason for that is respect. Quite often, adult education is brought in as a last resort in a government program for the unemployed, or as a company course required for promotion. In either case, most of the students are not attending because they want to, and when they encounter a grownup version of a traditional classroom they balk at the whole idea. What is lacking in such “traditional” instruction is respect for the individual.
Montessori students are taught to be active and involved learners.
The Intersection Between The Montessori Method and Psychodynamic Psychology
Prior to receiving psychoanalytic training, renowned behaviorist Erik Erikson earned a certificate at the Maria Montessori School in Italy. In 1950, he created the 8 stages of psychosocial development during his tenure at the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University.
Echos of Maria Montessori’s philosophy strike frequently in Erikson’s theories about how children learn and the powerful role early childhood development plays later in later.
Why are people who lie to themselves so charismatic?
Everyone lies to themselves. Self-deception (a.k.a., denial) is a necessary defense mechanism.
However, some people overuse denial and/or deploy it as a defense in a rigid, maladaptive way.
So what does charisma have to do with self-deception? To answer this, I’ll rephrase the questions ever so slightly:
What is it about people who believe their own lies that makes them so charismatic?
The answer to this question is quite simple. If someone believes their own lies, then most other people will believe them, too.
Humans are amazingly sophisticated when it comes to interpreting social behavior. We’ll naturally spot any incongruity between what a person says and how they behave. When someone lacks conviction in something, most people can detect the discrepancy between the words and the delivery.
Narcissists are masters at this. They can often speak their grandiose notions of themselves into existence. How can they do this? Remember The Little Engine that Could? Simply believing you can actually can sometimes actually make it happen.
But the question about charisma and lying to oneself is an interesting one. The classic example of this phenomenon is the con man. The con man gets you to pay him because he believes what he says.
Con man is short for “confidence man”. Objectively, we know that the snake oil won’t cure our chronic illness, but the con man’s conviction fools us. We think to ourselves, “I don’t see how this could possibly work, but he really seems to believe it will work!”
And when people decide, no matter what they tell you, they always choose based on emotion. No choice is purely rational. We choose based on feeling trust. We choose based on what feels smartest or safest. We choose based on fear of missing an opportunity (“This snake oil almost certainly won’t work, but what if it does? I’d have to be crazy not to spend $19.99 for something that has even a small chance at curing my lupus!”)
And here’s the kicker: the placebo effect is one of the most potent healing mechanisms out there. So while the snake oil may be little more than a “sugar pill”, it would be an evidence-based conclusion to say that many diseases have probably been cured (or at least helped) by the snake-oil salesman’s magical elixir.
Our emotional mind–that is, the one that actually runs the show–whispers something like the following in our ear:
“If he believes, then maybe I can believe. And if I can believe, then maybe my problems will be solved.”
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5 secrets to a healthy work-life that unlock your creative flow, connect you to your personal power and unleash a transformation of your life as you know it. Sounds like a tall order but stop and consider this: the Japanese invented the word karoshi to describe death by overwork. In the west, we call it work stress and it’s equally dangerous to our health.
Work stress describes the destructive physio-emotional responses that arise when the demands of a job are not aligned with the abilities or needs of the worker resulting in ill health and/or trauma.
According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms of work stress include:
Developing a cynical attitude toward work
Procrastination
Irritability and impatience
Sluggishness
Difficulty concentrating
Dissatisfaction with achievements
Disillusionment
Numbing through substance- or food abuse
Changes in sleep patterns
Unexplained headaches, stomach or bowel problems, etc.
Moving from misery to self-mastery
I help high achievers master their minds so they can have more hours in the day, more energy and peace of mind, more freedom, and fulfillment in all areas of their lives, without burning out.
In the process of co-creating with my clients, one never knows what I’ll be pulling out of the toolkit. My approach rests on Psychodynamic and Evolutionary Psychology, Eastern and Western Philosophy, Brain Science, Organizational Development, and Coaching with a clientele whose differences are vast in terms of age, occupation, gender, and ethnicity. Yet, they’ve tapped into something that is working for them.
Not too long ago I asked myself, what exactly is it that’s taken so many of them from misery to feeling great about their lives?
Discovering your niche
A great life depends on the quality of the fit between who we are and the environments in which we work and live. Otherwise, we feel like fish out of water!
Some of my clients switched companies or industries:
One decided to stop blaming his work and finally bought a new home that he loves and shares with a previously estranged daughter, whom he deeply missed.
Another, unhappy at work and afraid she would never want to live with another person is now happily settled on the other side of the country with a husband, a new job she loves, a promotion on top of that, and plans to make a baby, too.
An executive left his uninspiring mid-level employment to join an exciting new venture team of high-level executives as their partner and CEO.
One picked up his family and moved to New Zealand to practice his craft on the other side of the world.
And then – and this is important – there are the many others who, by taking action on the environment inside of themselves, fell in love with exactly where they are.
How I found my work-life balance
My father was a business owner who died at 42 years old. I was 15. The doctor said he died of a cerebral hemorrhage but, since I was grounded at the time for speaking truth to power again, I was pretty sure he died of me.
It was not until one day at the cemetery when I finally broke down with my mother about how it was ‘all my fault’, that I found out it was not me after all. In her shining moment as a mom, she said tenderly, “No honey, it wasn’t you. It was work.”
After my father died, no one knew what to do with me. There was a good program at Penn’s Graduate Hospital that would pitch in financially with my mother and have me out in a year and a half, so I did that.
My work history began in a hospital laboratory where I worked with blood and urine. I went from there to a cardiac catheter research lab where I worked with electrodes and oxygen monitors. My next job was at the USDA Biological Control Lab where I worked primarily with insects.
But I was always drawn to people, so one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, I got the education and experience needed to do the work I do now.
No surprise, given how little I could do to help my father with his work stress as a child. I knew nothing about it until it was all over.
5 secrets to work-life balance
In my own life and work with my clients, I discovered the common denominators to a healthy work-life balance which I distilled into 5 Steps:
Grounding in the belief that a great life is possible—through a great environmental fit.
Recognizing that fitness requires knowing who we are—the internal environment.
Exploring out-of-the-box alternatives and possibilities—external environment.
Acting on a new environmental vision—there is no success without action.
Tackling the mind’s normal, natural resistance to change—so it doesn’t get in the way.
And, I wanted to put this message in a bottle (book) for as many people as I could because every time I help a child’s mom or dad – or anybody at all for that matter – I know that I am doing what I am here to do and will do for the rest of my life. Talk about a great person-environment fit!
“a constellation of theories of human functioning that are based on the interplay of drives and other forces within the person, especially (and originating in) the psychoanalytic theories developed by Sigmund Freud and his colleagues and successors, such as Anna Freud, Carl Jung, and Melanie Klein. Later psychodynamic theories, while retaining concepts of the interworking of drives and motives to some degree, emphasize the process of change and incorporate interpersonal and transactional perspectives of personality development.”
APA Dictionary
Characteristics of Psychodynamic theory
There is an unconscious
As much as we want to be self-governing, rational beings, we mostly are not. Starting from this assumption allows for a coherent understanding of why people act either irrationally and/or in ways that hurt us more than help us.
Most of the time we don’t have good reasons why we act the way we do. The unconscious mind helps to explain this. Consciousness has influence over things. In fact, the subjective experience of consciousness does an excellent job of convincing itself of its own power.
Underneath the conscious mind though, there is a reservoir of instinct, memory, experience, and evolutionary history. It’s a dark, vast, and mysterious place. There are ways we can learn more about it, and psychodynamic clinicians are trained to use certain tools to decode its cryptic messages.
The unconscious contains all of our evolutionary history. We are capable of expressing profoundly sophisticated behaviors. Spend a few days on a psychiatric ward, and you’ll also see the exact opposite.
When it comes to life and death matters, the older parts of our brains are primary. Instincts, feelings, drives, and reflexes bear the brunt of keeping us alive. Neocortex is quite a bit more advanced and sophisticated. We can do some incredible things with that hardware. At the end of the day though, our brains are like lizards with a macbook pro.
What we don’t know can hurt us
The less we know about the instincts, wishes, and pressures arising from our unconscious minds, the more governed we are by these forces. That is, to be unconscious of something means we are determined by it.
Sex and aggression are the most animalistic of our urges. In humans, connections to others is also a basic drive. In my psychodynamic formulations, I also consider more humanistic aspirations such as acceptance, self-esteem, productivity/utility, freedom, and emotional validation. These humanistic, relational desires flow out of the attachment system.
In fact, the necessity of a healthy connection to other individuals, groups, and social systems is the reason we have such complex brains to begin with.
Developmental deprivations of any, some, or all of these needs often leads to powerful unconscious insistence on getting them met. If we don’t know what’s driving us, then we are more likely to take destructive paths to attain it.
Working with someone who offers an empathic understanding of what we want and need calms impulsive and compulsive action. It also opens up the possibility that what we need and desire can be achieved within the confines of what society can tolerate.
Insight and awareness is key to minimizing damage to ourselves and others as our unconscious minds insist on getting their way. As G.I. Joe said, “knowledge is half the battle.”
Origins of “pathology” or maladaptive (or insufficiently adaptive defenses) arise out of experiences during sensitive developmental periods
Our minds are open and, for the most part, trusting during early years. This is by design, as our complex, social brains need time and input in order to grow. This is literally a mechanical problem, since if fetal brains developed any further than they already do, vaginal childbirth would not be able to occur at all.
Openness, flexibility, and trust are all essential preconditions for optimal learning. They are also tremendous vulnerabilities when it comes to toxicity in a developmental environment. Researchers can now trace many emotional impairments back to mundane interactions between mother and child at 4 months of age. The implications of this are as fascinating as they are sobering.
The depth, continuity, intimacy, and trust inherent to a good psychodynamic treatment environment are the way to heal early developmental disruptions, say psychodynamic therapists. Merely changing thoughts and behaviors are insufficient.
Change occurs at the level of personality
Psychologists and other mental health professionals like to separate disorders into acute and chronic conditions–which is to say, stress-induced vs. personality-based pathology. The psychodynamic model assumes that acute flare-ups, of anxiety and depression, let’s say, are rooted in personality organization. That is, something about the general adaptations made by a person during formative years have both strengths and weaknesses.
Change in therapy means reshuffling and retooling the personality so weaknesses are a little less weak, and vulnerabilities are a little less vulnerable. One reason psychodynamic models have fallen out of favor is that individuals (and insurance companies) prefer to believe that a problem can be “fixed” without messing with the rest of the system.
Psychodynamic theorists say this is not the case.
The mind is like a hydraulic, thermodynamic system
Like a game of whack-a-mole, when an individual inhibits animalistic drives with frontal lobe energy, then the energy pops up somewhere else. It has been argued that Freud’s theory of the mind is an expression of the leading technologies of his era. Subsequently, more computational, information processing models of the mind have been posited.
While it’s possible to find merit in both computational and hydraulic system models, proponents of psychodynamic theory argue that the hydraulic/thermodynamic analog has more points of comparison.
For meaningful change to happen, the individual must become more aware of unconscious motivations
The oft-cited wisdom from Freud “making the unconscious conscious” is indeed the way for individuals to shape their futures. However, being aware of something does not mean it is controlled by the ego–it merely provides opportunities for better compromises, defenses, and adaptations to take hold.
The more awareness that builds and time that elapses in a psychodynamic treatment, the more opportunity a person has to create improved communications and more seamless integration. And obviously, the more stress an individual is under, the more challenging a healthy dialogue between the conscious mind and unconscious mind is to foster.
Psychodynamic perspective
Now that we have a definition and basic characteristics of the term “psychodynamic” in mind, how might we describe what it means to have a “psychodynamic perspective”?
The psychodynamic perspective on the human mind and personality is one that considers systems, contingencies, interconnectedness, and finding equilibrium. In other models of human psychology, researchers and clinicians treat symptoms as isolated phenomena that need to be removed with surgical precision. What is unique about a psychodynamic perspective is the assumption that removing a symptom likely creates a new problem.
Systems seek equilibrium, and the human mind and personality are no different. Symptoms serve a function–and even though there probably are more empowering and efficient ways of solving a problem than an annoying symptom, psychological problems are not mostly not like appendixes that can be removed without consequence.
The psychodynamic perspective is not one where an omniscient clinician provides expert advice on how to create more equilibrium. Psychodynamic clinicians place their faith in the unconscious of the patient as patient and therapist collaborate in identifying problems and finding their meaning and purpose.
Psychodynamic vs. psychoanalytic
Increasingly, the terms psychodynamic and psychoanalytic are used interchangeably. Most experts believe that differences between the terms are largely academic. Historically, psychodynamic refers to rules governing the flow of psychic energy (i.e., libido) and how these principles can explain human psychology–especially the neuroses. Psychoanalytic traditionally has been applied in a more narrow way; it mostly has been used to mean of or related to psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis refers to the orthodox practices of Freud and his most faithful adherents–practices built around psychodynamic assumptions. As fewer psychoanalysts remain strict adherents to Freud’s more doctrinaire techniques, the two terms are treated more and more as synonyms.
The term “psychodynamic” captures the characteristics of the human mind that are analogous to the laws of thermodynamics–especially the notion that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Ernst von Brücke first popularized this assumption about the human mind. It eventually became a core component of Freud’s theories about the mind and psychotherapeutic change.
The term “psychoanalysis” includes not only psychodynamic theories about the mind, but also aspects of Freud’s theories and practices specifically. For example, some (but not all!) modern psychoanalysts believe in a “death drive”, use an analytic couch, insist on a minimum number of sessions per week (e.g., 4), etc. The term psychodynamic is thus more broad and inclusive, capturing both orthodox classical Freudian analysts and therapists who make use of shared theoretical underpinnings in a once-weekly therapy context.
Psychodynamic examples
The vignettes below provide some examples of psychodynamic psychology and principles. Notice how crises arise out of both/either unawareness of powerful feelings and/or a feeling of conflict around how to express these feelings.
Little Johnny
Little Johnny is angry at his mother for telling him he can’t have waffles for breakfast. He is afraid of expressing this anger directly to his mom because in the past she starts to cry and accuses Little Johnny of not loving and respecting her. Because he must do something with his emotion of anger, Little Johnny sneaks into his mother’s room and hides her favorite slippers (passive-aggression).
Sarah
Sarah doesn’t have many friends, but she does have a very best friend named Becky. Sarah has been seeing less of Becky lately because recently the most popular boy in school has taken an interest in Becky. Not only has Sarah been seeing less of Becky, but also when they do spend time together, Becky wants to talk exclusively about her new love interest. Sarah feels both envy and anger towards Becky. However, Sarah already feels lonely and does not believe she has the right to be upset about Becky’s excitement and happiness. Sarah begins to manage her guilt, envy, and anger by restricting her food intake. When Sarah is able to control and restrict her food intake, she feels a greater mastery over her emotions and feels less guilty about being selfish (masochism).
Timmy
Timmy lives in a single-parent home where money, attention, and consideration for his feelings are scarce. The most attention he gets occurs when he acts out. Screaming, throwing tantrums, making a mess, refusing to do what he’s asked are win-win situations for him. If someone pays attention to him and makes him stop, then great! If he gets to have fun making a mess and doing fun things, then great! Of course, this is not all great. What Timmy would much prefer is attention, healthy limit-setting, and help understanding why he feels so restless and out-of-control. The biggest problem for Timmy is that he’s in 1st grade and has already had tons of problems at school. He can’t sit still, he gets sent out of the classroom, and his teachers have sent him to be evaluated for ADHD. His already-overwhelmed caregiver is losing patience and has even less empathy for Timmy’s antics at home. While Timmy appears to be a wild, but fun-loving kid, his deeper problems don’t get seen because HE doesn’t even understand them. His family, community, and even school psychologist doesn’t get him. What’s worse, he is developing a sense of himself that’s quite painful (not that he has any conscious understanding of this at all). He feels like a nuisance, he can’t do things other kids can do (like sit still), he’s out of control, he’s profoundly anxious (again, he has no idea what this means), and he doesn’t have the slightest sense of how this could be any different.
Exploration attempts to avoid distressing thoughts and emotions
Identification of recurring themes and patterns
Discussion of past experience (developmental focus)
Focus on interpersonal relations
Focus on the therapy relationship
Exploration of fantasy life
Efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy
In addition to providing a basic list of defining features of psychodynamic psychotherapy, Jonathan Shedler also summarized an impressive track-record of therapeutic outcomes when psychodynamic psychotherapy has been studied.
In particular, Shedler focuses on Meta-analyses of psychodynamic psychotherapy research; that is, studies that evaluate pooled results from a wide variety of strong individual studies on psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Some of the key findings are the following:
Large effect sizes in general symptom improvement, anxiety ratings, and somatic symptoms. Moderate effect size improvements in depressive symptoms. Long-term follow-up showed that these effect size improvements continued to increase over time.
Compared to a control group, one meta-analysis showed large effect sizes that increased at long-term follow up; the effect sizes showed that recipients of psychodynamic psychotherapy were better off with regard to their symptoms than 92% of patients prior to treatment
Moderate effect sizes were found among patients experiencing unexplained somatic symptoms, both in terms of reduction of somatic symptoms and general psychiatric symptoms
In a study comparing Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Effect sizes of CBT and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy were both found to have large effect sizes
Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy was found to have large effect sizes for both general psychiatric symptoms and interpersonal functioning
Two individual studies on long-term psychodynamic treatments (more than a year) showed large effect sizes at the end of the trial, with effect sizes increasing at long-term follow up
Shedler points out that one especially intriguing potential advantage to long-term psychodynamic psychotherapies is that the benefits appear to increase over time. In contrast, non-psychodynamic treatments largely show decay in benefits over time.
Confirmation of the compounding benefits of psychodynamic psychotherapy over time could support the theorized mode of therapeutic change in psychodynamic treatment; that is, that the patient internalizes the voice of the therapist and becomes one’s own therapist over time.
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The most widely held theory of etiology for BPD is that sufferers of borderline personality disorder have both a temperamental predisposition (genetic emotional sensitivity and receptivity to one’s emotional environment) AND an emotionally invalidating environment during sensitive developmental periods.
I would add that the larger context for both of these etiological factors is an intergenerational history of trauma. Explaining this is beyond the scope of this question, but an important point to hold in mind.
This context is necessary to answer the question, since we have to consider how likely parents are to really empathize with the pain of their children.
And, the short answer is that parents are not likely to fully comprehend how they have contributed to their child’s BPD. The reasons for this are as follows:
Parents don’t tend to be aware of their contributions to the disorder without significant soul-searching because they are the source of the emotionally-invalidating environment.
“Awareness” as used in the original question, in my reading, implies more than just intellectual understanding. Parents can cognitively “understand” that they contributed to their child’s pain without really conveying an emotional resonance. Many borderline personality disorder sufferers wonder this about their parents’ awareness because they still starve for the emotional validation they lacked when younger. Validation means more than just parents knowing that they had a role–it means empathizing and feeling a sense of responsibility (i.e., validation means emotional understanding).
What I have learned in working with children is that diagnoses carry additional dangers compared to diagnosing adults. Since parents bring children to treatment, and often not as a preventative measure, the diagnosis is a way to locate problems in the child rather than the family system. The nature of BPD is that the signs of the disorder are almost always visible in childhood, parents are likely to have the idea that they have a mentally-ill child rather than a dysfunctional set of family dynamics and/or parenting practices.
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Repairing Relationships
One of the implied questions in the initial query is “how are long-standing grievances repaired?” Or, “how can someone truly forgive parents for creating an environment that has led to so much pain and upheaval?”
The list below describes the 3 Conditions I believe must be met for a nursed grievance to be forgiven:
The offender must express remorse: Remorse usually comes in the form of a heartfelt apology. A good apology consists of both sincerity and an indication that the offended party has been heard and understood.
The offender must mean it: In my work with couples in families, I’ve seen that apologies are almost always followed by re-escalations of the dispute. The offended party does this as a natural “authenticity check.” If the offender reacts in a defensive and/or argumentative manner, then the aggrieved party tends not to believe that the apologizer really means what s/he says.
The expression of remorse must not be transparently self-serving: An apology can be sincere and meant, but is the expression of remorse purely an attempt to deal with nagging guilt? Of course, guilt and remorse are inherent to a strong apology. However, there are some instances where an apology comes more from an offender’s own emotional dysregulation instead of an expressed need from the aggrieved. Signs of a self-serving apology usually have to do with timing. Has the offended party asked for it? Expressed a grievance? Shared pain? Very often apologies come from a transgressor’s own psychotherapy, which often makes the offended party feel like the apology is more about her/him than me.
It should go without saying that all of the above is based on broad-brush assumptions and sweeping generalizations. If it doesn’t resonate with your experience, then of course, disregard it!
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Schizoid Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of asociality, and is what many people refer to when they colloquially describe someone as “antisocial” (in the sense of lacking interest in socializing with others).
Before getting into factors in modern society that promote the schizoid personality type, here are a few things to understand about schizoid PD:
Schizoid PD has been grouped with other “Cluster A” personality disorders. Cluster A personality disorders are marked by “odd or eccentric behavior.” Other Cluster A disorders include Paranoid Personality Disorder & Schizotypal Personality Disorder
Schizoid PD is theorized to be on the Schizophrenia spectrum, meaning that the genotype and phenotype of schizoid PD are “cousins” of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.
Recent estimates suggest that 1% of the population meets criteria for schizoid personality disorder
Identical twin studies show that there is a 30% concordance rate of schizoid PD between twins
While there may be a significant genetic component of schizoid pd, many have speculated that aspects of modern life may be responsible for a growing number of cases and/or a greater expression of schizoid traits throughout the population.
Psychodynamics of Schizoid PD
Schizoid is a term that has the same origins of the “schizo” in schizophrenia, meaning “split.” The split that occurs in schizoid personality disorder is a drastic one, involving a detachment of libido (in other words, psychic energy and attention) away from the social sphere and into the internal world of fantasy.
People with schizoid personality disorder often have rich fantasy lives, which given certain conditions over time, becomes preferable to engagement with others. In other words, when the internal world becomes more appealing than the social world, the developmental conditions for schizoid personality disorder have been met.
Another crucial aspect of the schizoid (“or split”) adaptation to extreme developmental conditions, is that the internal split (i.e., severing most libidinal ties to external reality) is created by rage. And, the rage in schizoid pd arises from two main sources:
Profound emotional invalidation
Consistent overriding of the individual’s healthy attempts to achieve greater autonomy and mastery
Trends in child-rearing
Decreased opportunities for free, imaginative, and social play:
Many pinpoint collective hysteria around the existence of child abduction and satanic, pedophiliac sex cults in the 1980’s as the beginning of the decline in free, unstructured, outside play. Increasing pressures and expectations around academic achievement are also credited for the decline in free play.
Increased management and surveillance of children’s activities:
As a corollary to the decline in unstructured play, children in recent decades have been exposed to an increase in regimented, structured activities. For example, private tutors, demanding extracurricular activities, and closely-monitored homework completion.
Being watched more closely while losing outlets to “blow off steam” is a contributor to the rise in all sorts of mental health problems, including schizoid pd. Anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, bulimia/anorexia nervosa, among other psychiatric disorders may all be rooted in decreased freedom to play and explore in childhood.
Greater external inhibition of healthy expressions of anger and aggression:
The more an individual feels stifled in their expression of healthy anger, the more anger must be dealt with internally. It’s the gradual build-up, or (learned helplessness in behavioral terms) around anger that leads to greater dissociation between communicative engagement and fantasy life.
Inhibition of healthy expressions of anger can either look like harsh punishment for displays of anger, or it can be a more subtle, rigid demand that appearances of a happy, polite, home be upheld.
Expansion in sources of self-stimulation
Video games, online video content, pornography, niche chat forums, etc. all provide the individual highly stimulating and engaging ways to nurture personali interests. For most people, this can be a healthy, validating environment. However, in certain conditions, such as the ones described thus far, the individual can become dependent and even addicted to the refuge of niched interests, fantasy and imagination.
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Granting forgiveness can be one of the most difficult things you ever do.
But, despite its challenges, forgiveness isn’t simply something you are giving to someone else. It can actually be just as important and powerful to your own wellbeing, aside from the feelings of the person who is being forgiven.
We’re previously spoken to experts about how you would define forgiveness – and if you’re wondering “What is true forgiveness?”, you can read our article redefining the term here.
Now, in Part Two of our exclusive series exploring forgiveness through the expertise of qualified psychologists, relationship experts, marriage counselors, psychiatrists, and spirituality experts, we delve into the importance of forgiveness, with particular regard to one’s own mental and spiritual health.
Here, Mindsplain’s network of experts weigh in on the benefits of forgiveness when it comes to your own wellbeing…
Why is forgiveness important?
Award-winning licensed clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Dr Michael Kinsey, Ph.D., explains that, first of all, is a must, but requires work, saying, “It’s essential and very difficult. Pain and loss transform us, but only when we allow them to do so.”
This doesn’t mean that everyone does though. Dr. Kinsey adds, “Grief is bigger than our will to defeat it, and the healthy surrender to it can be avoided for a lifetime.”
Georgina Caro, a certified spiritual life coach, empath and Reiki Master, and specialist in connecting people with their own spiritual power, says that people have to forgive, or risk holding on to their negative emotions forever: “If you’re holding onto things from the past, you can never truly move forward. Humans have this awful habit of either living in the past or constantly worrying about the future. We forget to live in the now.”
“By holding onto unwanted emotions, thoughts or feelings, these get stuck deep down in your psyche, often coming back up to the surface at unusual times. Until you process and deal with these negative emotions they will forever hold you back in life,” Caro adds.
The benefits of forgiveness
Forgiving wrongdoings against you can open up untold health and wellness benefits, believes Milana Perepyolkina MA, an international bestselling author, healer and spiritual guide. She explains, “Forgiveness is the key to treating a long list of psychosomatic illnesses. We should never try to suppress a bad emotion; we should understand why something happened and forgive everyone involved.”
Perepyolkina adds, “If you are lucky enough to have many family members, co-workers and friends, there will always be someone you have to forgive and be forgiven for as well.”
In her spiritual expertise, its power even goes beyond the basic feelings you might expect: “The act of forgiveness releases so much energy that it can be used for healing, making dreams come true, and creating happiness in your life. It is very important to forgive everyone in your life, including yourself.”
Struggling with forgiveness
But, of course, that is easier said than done.
There’s a deeper psychological reason why people find it so difficult to give, reveals Dr. Kinsey, “Humans naturally prefer to hold onto the omnipotent fantasy that our anger can undo an injustice. This is why we both lust after revenge and are terribly disillusioned by having achieved it.”
You can even see an expert illustration of this concept on the silver screen, recommends Kinsey, “For a fascinating and tragic example of this in film, watch Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece Memento.”
For those who find it difficult to forgive, Joanne Ketch, a mental health professional with a Masters in Counseling, LPC, LMFT, LCDC, and SAP, explains that, thankfully, forgiveness is not always essential to your own mental wellbeing. She explains, “I believe that becoming aware of when bitterness, anger, or resentment are present and disrupting the quality of life of the person experiencing these feelings, is when you should take steps to own these detrimental habits – however valid their origin – and to reclaim their personal power and their life.”
“That said, forgiveness can be a powerful spiritual discipline when willingly cultivated,” Ketch adds.
Despite the fact that we are often told, spiritually, to forgive, Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA, an accomplished lawyer-turned-peacemaker and award-winning author, reassures that forgiveness is not essential to your spiritual health, though it usually does help.
“It’s not necessary, but very helpful,” Noll reveals, “Forgiveness is a very personal process. Every victim suffers in different ways and has his or her own resiliency. Thus, making blanket statements about the necessity of forgiveness is wrong.”
As a professional mediator, Noll has a wealth of experience in dealing with forgiveness. “I have coached many therapists and pastors on how to help people forgive. Too often, these people mean well,” he explains, that this isn’t always the best course of action though, and can actually do more harm than good, “However, they end up making matters worse for the victim because they are unconsciously attempting to soothe their personal anxiety caused by the victim’s distress. Or, they think they are acting out some scriptural mandate. Whatever the cause, they abuse rather than help the victim.”
Both because of this scriptural pressure to forgive, and because the process of forgiveness is so difficult, many people don’t do it properly – but this is often to their detriment.
Forgiveness takes time
Forgiveness isn’t black-and-white, but a gradual ongoing process, full of gray areas, Catholic Priest Tom Gibbons reminds us, “Forgiveness is a necessary step, but in many cases I also see forgiveness as a process. Some hurts are so large that we cannot forgive in one fell swoop, so there can be a lot of grace and growth by simply going through the process of forgiveness.”
“In some cases, we may need to go through the process of forgiveness many times depending on the size of the hurt,” considers Gibbons.
This idea, of a long process, factors into many experiences of forgiveness, both when it comes to spiritual and mental wellbeing.
“I think many people want to skip to the end of what can be a very difficult process of forgiving. They convince themselves they have forgiven an offender when they actually have not even begun to do so,” explains Dr. Kinsey.
“After all, the best way to avoid it is to convince yourself you’ve completed it,” adds Dr. Kinsey.
While it’s a difficult journey, forgiveness is ultimately one you should embrace, for your own wellbeing. But that doesn’t mean it will happen quickly. Embark on the journey, but expect to be on it for a while.
According to a UN report, we are collectively living in the hardest time since World War II. Indeed, the coronavirus pandemic is responsible for an ongoing economic and health crisis. In challenging times like these, building resilience is crucial to surviving and thriving.
What Is Resilience?
Psychology Today defines resilience as “the psychological quality that allows some people to be knocked down by the adversities of life and come back at least as strong as before.” In simple words, resilience is a quality that enables an individual to bounce back from challenges like death, unemployment, and trauma.
What is resilience theory?
Resilience theory is a psychological framework used to understand what makes a person resilient or strong enough to withstand hardship in their life. Psychologist Catherine Moore thinks “it’s not the nature of adversity that is most important, but how we deal with it.”
How Is Pandemic Resilience Helpful?
While some people are naturally more resilient than others, anyone can build resilience. Having the ability to bounce back is essential to get through all kinds of challenges. Given that the pandemic has already lasted a year with no end in sight, resilience is essential in the age of COVID-19.
5 ways to build coronavirus resilience
1. Practice Acceptance
If you are unable to sleep well, accept that you are unable to sleep well. If you need some time off, accept that you need some time off, and so on. Acceptance is key when it comes to building resilience. Caroline Vo, the founder of the yoga community Omflow says, “In building resilience through a pandemic, it’s important to recognize and acknowledge how you’re feeling without judgment. Allow yourself the space and time for discovering and coming to terms with your truth.” Once you accept whatever it is you’re struggling with, the struggle becomes a lot easier. Acceptance also helps one have realistic expectations of themselves and life in general.
2. Manage your expectations
We don’t know for sure when the pandemic will end. Even when the situation gets under control, COVID-19 isn’t going away any time soon. For the foreseeable future, life will never go back to the pre-pandemic era. What this means is that we all need to set new expectations in accordance with our new normal. Pre-pandemic goals and plans must be a part of your present only after they have been suitably adjusted. When you have realistic expectations, you can set realistic goals and actually meet them. Plus, you will avoid the unhelpful stress that comes with the inability to meet unrealistic expectations, thereby building resilience.
3. Find some joy
It may seem like an impossible task to find joy in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. But if you look close enough, you’ll find that it’s certainly possible. Brene Brown said that “Joy, collected over time, fuels resilience — ensuring we’ll have reservoirs of emotional strength when hard things do happen.”
Joy, humor, and laughter not only make life worth living, they also boost resilience. Heather S. Lonczak, Ph.D explains: “The belief that laughter heals the mind has been around for centuries. And why not? Humor just feels good; it distracts us from our problems and promotes a lighter perspective.”
4. Turn to community
Resilience cannot be a solo job. You need to have at least one person in your life who you can confide in and rely on. Even if you are someone who doesn’t have a community, make an effort to find like-minded people. Kirsten Samuel, founder of Kamwell, sheds some light on how to do this. “To say that our lives have altered dramatically would be an understatement. Focus on creating a community wherever you are and bring people together to share experiences. Surround yourself with others that fuel and feed you, and vice versa. Through engaging with and fuelling one another, we individually and collectively burn brighter. While this period is rife with uncertainty, one thing that can help is considering what you are excited to do when things return to a level of normalcy. What are you most anticipating? Make a list of all the activities you want to do and who with. This not only keeps us motivated but gives us hope.”
5. Be grateful
Gratitude is a healthy coping mechanism. It helps shift our focus from what is wrong and distressing, and reminds us of better things in our life. Of course, this doesn’t mean challenges go away but it helps put them in context.
Psychotherapist Penny Bedford says: “Gratitude is the practice of acceptance, noticing positives in the here and now, and appreciating what each situation/experience brings. As it helps us to attend to the good, as well as the stressors we face, it increases our awareness of what we have. It enables us to to be kind and empathetic to ourselves and others. Resilience builds naturally when we use gratitude to remain balanced and grounded. It’s no surprise that those who practice gratitude report enhanced mood, a stronger immune system and a more secure sense of connection with themselves and others.”
Final Thoughts on Building Pandemic Resilience
As Maya Angelou said, “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
The path to developing resilience may be unique to you, but you’re not alone. Exploring different therapies and discovering what is best suited to you can make a big difference in your personal growth.
Cold-blooded psychopaths and criminals are fascinating (and terrifying!) creatures. They fascinate us so much because they seem to express normal animalistic feelings, like rage, without much fear of social consequences, shame, or rejection. So what is the subjective world of the psychopath really like? Admittedly, it seems quite foreign to me, but let me take a stab (figuratively speaking–no one was harmed in the writing of this post) at an explanation.
Psychopathy and antisocial Personality disorders are personality pathology
Psychopathy and antisocial traits are fundamentally deficiencies in personality (i.e., they are personality disorders). A defining feature of personality disorders are that the “symptoms” are baked into someone’s day-to-day experience, and are therefore invisible–like water to a fish. The psychology jargon for this is that the traits are “egosyntonic”.
In treating personality disorders, the first step is to build a discrepancy between the patient’s sense of social reality and a more widely-held feeling of social experience. Personality disorders bloom in families that are both extreme, harsh, and/or abnormal in their cultural practices compared to the society at large.
The family may also, without awareness, isolate the family from people or experiences that might call attention to the abnormality. Thus, children grow up to be adults with harsh, odd, and provincial ideas about how things should be–that is, people are stupid or annoying if they don’t follow the cultural customs of my family of origin.
What is different in “healthy” development?
In healthy development, individuals learn both a “normal” way of being in the world, which we define as a common cultural denominator. Healthy people also learn which family adaptations and traits peers like and which idiosyncrasies draw negative attention. In short, healthy people develop “observing egos.”
Observing egos are functional aspects of cognition wherein a person can look at a situation from a third, neutral position. Whenever you are thinking about (or checking in with someone else) to ask “is that normal?”, or “is it weird that I said that?”, you are giving your observing ego data to check future social situations. Individuals with personality disorders, like psychopaths (or people with antisocial personality disorder), narcissists, and sufferers of BPD have impaired observing ego functions.
What’s different about psychopaths?
The added complexity here is that people with antisocial personality disorder, or psychopaths, don’t really worry about whether or not others perceive them negatively. Acting strange is only a problem if it interferes with the attainment of a goal.
Ironically, psychopaths often develop amazing charm because they can practice being disarming with little to no anxiety; they either get what they want or don’t. In this way, psychopaths may feel “bad” (i.e., disappointed), but seldom, guilt, shame, embarrassment, or other emotions associated with social rejection.
Narcissists, even malignant narcissists, feel tremendous pain around social rejection–this is why we use the term “narcissistic injury”. People with BPD are highly affiliative and have deep desires for intimacy and connection, and so abandonment and rejection are fraught with profound pain and anxiety. Psychopaths don’t worry much about the acceptance of others. In fact, antisocial individuals tend to see people who make personal sacrifices for acceptance or the greater good as chumps and fools.
Join the conversation…
For more answers to your most pressing questions about psychology and mental health, explore Mindsplain. If you’d like anything clarified, elaborated, or have constructive comments, leave them in the comment section below.
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