Personality Disorders: The Controllers, Abusers, Manipulators and Users in Relationships Part 3

This is a powerful article written by a retired therapist. It very clearly explains Personality Disorders in general and NPD in particular. It is rather long, so I am presenting it in three parts. Herewith, Part 3.

By Dr. Joseph M Carver, PhD

http://www.drjoecarver.com/

 (Reproduced by permission)

Chances are, you’re dealing with an individual with a personality disorder somewhere in your life — whether it’s your spouse, your parent, your co-worker…even your child. Dr Carver’s introduction to personality disorders in relationships puts the reality in plain English; more than just a list of diagnostic criteria, this explanation describes what it’s really like to be dealing with a personality disorder and offers tips for victims.

Unconscious or Calculated Behaviour?

When we look at the emotions, attitudes and behaviours of an individual with a Personality Disorder we eventually begin to question: Are these characteristics calculated and purposeful or are they unconscious behaviours that are not under their control? In working with Personality Disorders, we see both. For example:

Attitudes

The majority of the attitudes we seen in Personality Disorders are very long-standing and have been present since their teen years. Blaming others is a classic personality disorder feature and after believing this for many years, people with a Personality Disorder may not truly feel they are responsible for their behaviour — even their criminal behaviour. They have rethought, reworked, and excused their behaviours to the point that they fail to see that they are the common denominator in all their difficulties. Convicted criminals, with crimes ranging from auto theft to homicide, all have a similar attitude — “Incarceration is unfair”. They don’t factor victims into their crimes in any way. For this reason, those with a Personality Disorder have very little understanding and insight into their attitudes that ruin relationships. Victims will assure you that trying to explain a normal, healthy position to an individual with a Personality Disorder is almost impossible.

Impaired Relationships

In a Personality Disorder, over many years the individual develops impaired ways of relating to others. These impaired ways of relating eventually become their only way of relating to others. Beginning in their childhood, as an adult they now only know how to relate to others with intimidation, threat, anger, manipulation, and dishonesty. This defective social style continues, even when those around them are socially skilled, concerned, accepting, and loving.

Situational Behaviour

Justifying their behaviour with these long-standing attitudes, individuals with a Personality Disorder can be very calculated, purposeful, and manipulative in their behaviour toward others. Their decision making, coping strategies, and manipulations are often well-planned to meet their agenda. Financially, many will purposefully legally obligate you to pay for their debts. They may steal money from you, justifying that behaviour with “I cut the grass for three years — I deserve it.” It is this combination of long-standing attitudes and calculated behaviour that makes a Personality Disorder dangerous in any interpersonal relationship.

What Does This Mean for the Victims?

In a relationship with a Personality Disorder, several basic truths are present. These include:

1. The victim in a relationship with a Personality Disorder did not create the Personality Disorder. Many Personality Disorders blame the victim for their assaults, lies, bad behaviour, deceptions, intimidations, etc. In truth, the Personality Disorder has those behaviours if the victim is present or absent. Victims don’t cause themselves to be assaulted — they are involved with an abusive and assaulting individual.
2. Changing the behaviour of the victim does not change the behaviour of the Personality Disorder. Many victims become superstitious and feel that they can control the behaviour of the Personality Disorder in their life by changing their behaviour. This is often a temporary fix, meaning only that you are now meeting the demands of the Personality Disorder. When the Personality Disorder feels justified, they return to their behaviour with no concern for changes in the behaviour of the victim. Loving sharks doesn’t protect us if we find ourselves dripping blood in a shark tank.
3. A Personality Disorder is a permanent, long-standing pattern. Time doesn’t change these personalities. If your mother or father had a personality disorder in your childhood, returning home after twenty years will find their old behaviour alive and well.
4. Marrying, having a baby with, moving in with, etc. actually makes their dysfunctional behaviour worse. The presence of stress exaggerates and amplifies our normal personality characteristics. Mentally healthy yet shy individuals become even shyer under stress. The stress of additional responsibilities actually increases the bad behaviour of a Personality Disorder.
5. When involved in any manner with a Personality Disorder — as their partner, parent, child, sibling, friend, etc. — we must not only recognize their behaviours but also develop a strategy to protect ourselves. Many of our strategies must focus on protecting our emotional stability, our finances, and our other relationships. As a parent, if our adult son or daughter has a Personality Disorder, we must protect ourselves from their behaviours that might jeopardize our lifestyle and life. As the child of a parent with a Personality Disorder, we must often protect our immediate family and children from the bad behaviour of our parent. It’s important to remember that with a Personality Disorder, their survival and well-being is their priority — not the health or well-being of those around them.

Summary

As we go through life, we encounter a variety of individuals. We also develop a variety of relationships with others including family members, neighbours, fellow workers, friends, and familiar faces. Healthy relationships seem to be healthy in the same way — having characteristics of respect, concern for others, affection, cooperation, honesty, mutual goals, etc. A relationship with a Personality Disorder is totally different. That 9 or 10 percent of adults with a “Cluster B” Personality Disorder can create significant difficulties in our life. In brief contacts they are often troublesome — the uncle who is a con artist or the sister-in-law whom nobody can tolerate at holiday dinners. When we bring them into our lives, however, a Personality Disorder rapidly takes over and our life becomes centred on their needs, demands, and goals. To achieve their self-centred objectives, the Personality Disorder becomes the controller, abuser, manipulator and user in relationships. The early identification of individuals who create unhealthy relationships can save us from years of heartache as well as damage to our personality, self-esteem, finances, and lifestyle.

Specific techniques used by individuals with a Cluster B Personality Disorder can be found in another article “Are You Dating a Loser? Identifying Losers, Controllers and Abusers”. I have also addressed the issues associated with remaining in an abusive or dysfunctional relationship in an article “Stockholm Syndrome: The Psychological Mystery of Loving an Abuser”.

Article originally accessed at http://counsellingresource.com/therapy/self-help/understanding/

Personality Disorders: The Controllers, Abusers, Manipulators and Users in Relationships--Part 1

This is a powerful article written by a retired therapist. It very clearly explains Personality Disorders in general and NPD in particular. It is rather long, so I am presenting it in three parts. Herewith, Part 1.

By Dr. Joseph M Carver, PhD

http://www.drjoecarver.com/

 (Reproduced by permission)

Chances are, you’re dealing with an individual with a personality disorder somewhere in your life — whether it’s your spouse, your parent, your co-worker…even your child. Dr Carver’s introduction to personality disorders in relationships puts the reality in plain English; more than just a list of diagnostic criteria, this explanation describes what it’s really like to be dealing with a personality disorder and offers tips for victims.

Who are these people that damage us emotionally, financially, socially, and even spiritually in relationships? Some are con artists like Victor Lustig (1825) who sold the Eiffel Tower not once, but twice. Some remind us of "Alex Forrest" in the movie "Fatal Attraction" (1987) who screams "I will not be ignored!" In mental health terms, they are Personality Disorders. This article describes the four Personality Disorders that create the most turmoil, damage, and emotional exhaustion in our lives.

Personality Disorders: Who Are They?

Who are these people? In romantic relationships, they are controlling, abusive, manipulative partners who can ruin not only the relationship, but our self-esteem, finances, and reputation. As a parent, they can put the “D” in Dysfunctional Family and be the parent that abuses, neglects, ignores, or psychologically damages their children. As a friend they may be irresponsible, selfish, unreliable, dishonest, and often create significant problems in our life. As a neighbour, they spread rumours, create disharmony in the neighbourhood, and steal our lawnmower. As a family member, they maintain themselves as the centre of attention and keep the family in an uproar, or they may be the 45 year old brother who has never worked and remains dependent on the family for his support. They may be the brother or sister who verbally bullies and intimidates others with their temper tantrums. As a co-worker they are manipulative, unethical, dishonest, and willing to damage co-workers to achieve their employment goals. On the street they are the criminals, con artists, and people-users who purposefully damage others, then quickly move on to avoid detection.

In over three decades of experience of dealing with victims, it’s clear that the majority of emotional victims I see in clinical practice are actually victims of an individual with a “Personality Disorder”. The “Personality Disorder” has been around for many years. For several centuries, professionals working with all types of people recognized that some individuals clearly thought and acted differently — without “normal” feelings, attitudes, behaviours, and interactions. In 1835, Dr. Pritchard suggested the term “moral insanity” to reflect the fact that these individuals were not insane by the standards of the day, yet had significant differences in their behaviour, attitudes, ethics, morality, emotional expressions, and reactions to situations. Despite their significant differences when compared to others in their culture, the individuals exhibited little emotional or social distress.

Personality Disorders are individuals who have a long history of personality, behaviour, emotional, and relationship difficulties.

Personality Disorders are individuals who have a long history of personality, behaviour, emotional, and relationship difficulties. This group is said to have a “personality disorder” — an enduring pattern of inner experience (mood, attitude, beliefs, values, etc.) and behaviour (aggressiveness, instability, etc.) that is significantly different than those in their family or culture. These dysfunctional patterns are inflexible and intrusive into almost every aspect of the individual’s life. These patterns create significant problems in personal and emotional functioning and are often so severe that they lead to distress or impairment in all areas of their life. (Source: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition)

Personality Disorders are divided into three groups, or “clusters”.

• Cluster A personality disorders are individuals who have odd, eccentric behaviours. Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal Personalities fall into this cluster.
• Cluster B are personalities that are highly dramatic, both emotionally and behaviourally. Antisocial, Borderline, Narcissistic, and Histrionic Personality are in this group.
• Cluster C are personalities characterized by being anxious and fearful. Avoidant, Dependent, and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality fall into this cluster.

The Relationship Destroyers: Cluster B

In considering individuals who create the most damage to social and personal relationships, the abusers, manipulators, “players”, controllers, and losers are found in Cluster B. For this reason, this article will focus on the behaviours associated with Cluster B personality disorders.

In the general population, the largest number of personality disorders fall in the Cluster B group. The four personality disorders in Cluster B are:

Antisocial Personality

A pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others and rules of society. The Antisocial Personality ranges from individuals who are chronically irresponsible, unsupportive, con artists to those who have total disregard for the rights of others and commit criminal acts with no remorse, including those involving the death of victims. In clinical practice, the Antisocial Personality has near-total selfishness and typically has a pattern of legal problems, lying and deception, physical assault and intimidation, no regard for the safety of others, unwillingness to meet normal standards for work/support/parenting, and no remorse.

Borderline Personality

A pervasive pattern of intense yet unstable relationships, mood, and self-perception. Impulse control is severely impaired. Common characteristics include panic fears of abandonment, unstable social relationships, unstable self-image, impulsive/self-damaging acts such as promiscuity/substance abuse/alcohol use, recurrent suicide thoughts/attempts, self-injury and self-mutilation, chronic feelings of emptiness, inappropriate yet intense anger, and fleeting paranoia.

Histrionic Personality

A pervasive pattern of excessive emotional display and attention-seeking. Individuals with this personality are excessively dramatic and are often viewed by the public as the “Queen of drama” type of individual. They are often sexually seductive and highly manipulative in relationships.

Narcissistic Personality

A pervasive preoccupation with admiration, entitlement, and egotism. Individuals with this personality exaggerate their accomplishments/talents, have a sense of entitlement, lack empathy or concern for others, are preoccupied with envy and jealousy, and have an arrogant attitude. Their sense of entitlement and inflated self-esteem are unrelated to real talent or accomplishments. They feel entitled to special attention, privileges, and consideration in social settings. This sense of entitlement also produces a feeling that they are entitled to punish those who do not provide their required respect, admiration, or attention.

The majority of clients with difficulties related to their childhood find a Personality Disorder as a parent.

When encountering the victims of emotional and physical abuse, the Personality Disorder individual is already present in their lives as a mother, father, sibling, spouse, partner, or relative. The majority of clients with difficulties related to their childhood find a Personality Disorder as a parent. For many, they have found themselves in a romantic relationship or marriage with a Personality Disorder. Others discover they are working with a Personality Disorder as a co-worker, supervisor, or supervisee. A smaller group finds they are victims of the severe behaviour of a Personality Disorder and have been assaulted, robbed, traumatized, or manipulated.

Personality Disorders are present in 10 to 15 percent of the adult population, with Cluster B accounting for approximately 9 percent based on research. At such a high percentage, it’s important that we learn to identify these individuals in our lives. A failure to identify them may create significant risk. While most of our contact with a Personality Disorder may be brief, the more involved they are in our lives, the higher the risk of emotional, social, and other damage. For this reason, it’s helpful to identify some of the characteristics of a personality disorder.

Article originally accessed at http://counsellingresource.com/therapy/self-help/understanding/