What Dat?

Excerpts from J.F. Masterson's The Search for the Real Self: Unmasking the Personality Disorders of our Age

It is relatively easy to spot narcissistic personalities in politics, business, and social movements. The limelight that goes with leadership is a strong magnet for narcissists, and even though success requires long hours and grueling work schedules, the payoff is worth the effort to them. Frequently, their staffs are overworked and are expected to produce perfect or near perfect results. The narcissistic leader or boss elicits martyrlike devotion from followers by manipulating their desire to be part of his achievements. With rhetoric and ritual, the narcissistic leader creates a sense of excitement and purpose and draws on his workers’ sense of mission. He is often fulsome in his praise of their devotion. In the end, however, the shrewd observer can see through the empty praise and the façade of concern for his supporters, for ultimately the narcissistic leader is only concerned about praise for his own achievements, and values others only in so far as they fulfill their role in promoting his own glory.

And . . .

One of the principal benefits of the activism of the sixties was the change in standards in all these areas – a change from authoritarianism to a greater emphasis on individuation and entitlements. These changes ostensibly created a better environment for the flowering and expression of the real self – in other words, healthy narcissism. Buy to what extent, then, does the sense of individual entitlement, now woven all the more tightly into the fabric of our society, also open the door for pathologic narcissism? Or to put it another way, does the resultant narcissism contribute to a unique and American character, or is it a pathological national flaw?

Ours Is Not

Excerpts from J. G. Stoessenger’s eerily prophetic book Why Nations Go to War, 3^rd Ed., c. 1982.

There is a remarkable consistency in the self-images of most national leaders on the brink of war. Each confidently expects victory after a brief and triumphant campaign.

Doubt about the outcome is the voice of the enemy and therefore inconceivable. This recurring optimism is not to be dismissed lightly by the historian as an ironic example of human folly. It assumes a powerful emotional momentum of its own and thus itself becomes one of the causes of war. Anything that fuels such optimism about a quick and decisive victory makes war more likely, and anything that dampens it becomes a cause for peace.

This common belief in a short, decisive war is usually the overflow from a reservoir of self-delusions held by the leadership about both itself and the nation.

The Kaiser’s appearance in shining amour in August 1914 and his promise to the German nation that its sons would be back home ‘before the leaves had fallen from the trees’ was matched by similar expressions of overconfident and military splendor in Austria, Russia and other nations on the brink of war. … Thus leaders on all sides typically harbor self-delusions on the eve of war. Only the war itself then provides the stinging ice of reality and ultimately helps to restore a measure of perspective in the leadership. The price for this recapture of reality is high indeed. It is unlikely that there ever was a war that fulfilled the initial hopes and expectations of both sides.

And again later . . .

… As these wars resolved less and less, they tended to cost more and more in blood and treasure. The number of dead on all sides bore mute testimony to the fact that America had to fight two of the most terribly and divisive wars in her entire history (Korea and Vietnam) before she gained respect for the realities of power on the other side.

The Even More You Know

The last quote from Johnson's Inner Work was a little weird, I'm the first to admit. I strongly believe there is something to this whole 'unconscious' phenomenon, but "Lady Ingrid" is a little much for even me. The book as a whole is challenging, bizarre and more than a little disconcerting at times, but I thought I would risk another quote which I found much more concrete and helpful.

Ritual, in its true form, is one of the most meaningful channels for our awe and sense of worship. This is why ritual came spontaneously into being among humans in all parts of the earth. This is why modern people who are deprived of meaningful ritual feel a chronic sense of emptiness. They are denied contact with the great archetypes (ie. the Holy Spirit¹) that nourish our soul-life.
- Inner Work, Robert A. Johnson. pg. 102

¹Parenthetical mine

The More You Know

It is best if we get acquainted with our inner personalities as persons in their own right before we start putting distance between us and them by using psychological classifications and jargon. You will get much closer to your inner feminine if you know her as "Lady Ingrid," for example, and think of her as a special and interesting being who lives inside you, than if you call her 'the anima' and turn her into a clinical abstraction.
- Inner Work, Robert A. Johnson. pg. 77

Just thought you should know . . .

You Do the Math

As a Therapist in Training, I fall under the purview of California's Mandatory Reporting Laws. They basically state that if I become privy to any information regarding child abuse while in a professional capacity, I am required by law to make a report to the Child Protective Agency. This weekend I learned that while it is not mandated that I report a client engaging in consensual sexual intercourse between a 46-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl, I am required under penalty of law to report oral sex between partners of which either or both are under the age of 18. Write your congressmen, ladies and gentlemen.

Get Learnt

I have earned a meager income for the last two years of my life working for a tutoring centre that tries to fill in the gaps left by our state's education system. I see lots of kids who don't understand the reading strategies employed by their teachers, kids who have yet to learn their math facts by 10^th grade and kids that can't sit still for more than 83 seconds without climbing the walls and swinging from the ceiling. Some of my closest friends and my mother are also in the educational system, so when my professor recently assigned an article for my practicum cohort based on a lecture by a psychologist named Rudolph Dreikurs, I was extremely impressed by what he had to say. It has certainly given me material to think about as I tutor and work as a therapist. Here is the link to the full article, and below are some of the more exacting excerpts.

First Dreikurs lays some groundwork:

I have found many, many people who try so hard to be good. But I have failed yet to see that they have done so for the welfare of others. What I find behind these people who try to be so good is concern with their own prestige. They are good for the benefit of their own self-evaluation. Anybody who is really concerned with the welfare of others won't have any time or interest to be concerned with the question of how good he is.

There is only one area where we still can feel safely superior: When we are right. It is a new snobbishism of intellectuals: "I know more, therefore, you are stupid and I am superior to you." It is superiority of the moralists: "I am better than you; therefore, I am superior to you." And it is in this competitive strife to establish a moral and intellectual superiority that making a mistake became so dangerous again because, "If you find out that I am wrong, how can I look down at you? And if I can't look down at you, you certainly will look down at me."

And then he gets to the crux of his article . . .

I feel that in the majority of tests given to students the final mark does not depend on how many brilliant things he said and did, but how many mistakes he made. And if he made a mistake he can't get a hundred regardless of how much he has contributed on other parts of the same assignment. Mistakes determine the value. In this way, we unwittingly add to the already tremendous discouragement of our children.

It seems to me that our children are exposed to a sequence of discouraging experiences, both at home and in school. Everybody points out what they did do wrong and what they could do wrong. We deprive the children of the only experience which really can promote growth and development; experience of their own strengths. We impress them with their deficiencies, with their smallness, with their limitations; and at the same time try to drive them on to be much more than they can be. If we want to institute in children the enthusiasm which they need to accomplish something, the faith in themselves, regard for their own strengths; then we have to minimize the mistakes they are making, and emphasize all the good things, not which they could do, but which they do do.

Practical Theology

"[Forgiving and forgetting or ignoring the past are] a travesty, of course, but it is something to beware of. No, we need something more positive to say about forgiveness. We need to recognize both the reality of the past and the hope of a future of forgiveness. Because real forgiveness is something that changes things and so gives hope. The occasions when we feel genuinely forgiven are the moments when we feel, not that someone doesn’t care what we do, but that someone does care what we do because he or she loves us and that love is strong enough to cope with and survive the hurt we have done. Forgiveness of that sort iscreative because it reveals new dimensions to a relationship, new depths, new possibilities. We can find a love richer and more challenging than before. If someone says to me, “Yes, you have hurt me, but that doesn’t mean it’s all over. I forgive you. I still love you,” then that is a moment of enormous liberation. It recognizes that reality of that past, the irreversibility of things, the seriousness of damage done, but then it is all the more joyful and hopeful because of that. Because this kind of love doesn’t have illusions, it is also all the more mature and serious. It can look at and fully feel my weakness, and still say, “I love you.”

- Rowan Williams in Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross

In the Beginning

Then Illúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Aiunr, that I am Illúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'

- From the Ainulindalë¹ creation narrative, Tolkien


^{1. The Ainulindalë is one of the five books contained within The Silmarillion.}

The Unmentionable

I've stumbled across another interesting passage in my reading and thought I would toss it up here for some public reflection. People in every emploi in the Church have debated for centuries about the issue of homosexuality and our appropriate response to it, and I think this guy has something to say worth considering. I don't by any stretch of the imagination agree with everything that he says, but this small bit struck me. This is Willard S. Krabill in Chapter 7 of a book entitled 'Sexuality: God's Gift.'

We have not broken fellowship with those whom we disagree on business practices and ethics, on the payment of war taxes, on registration for the draft, on lavish versus simple lifestyles, on the use of alcohol, and on many other issues. Instead, on these issues we keep talking, praying and striving for the will of God.

Althought the issue of homosexuality tends to be diverse, must it be a matter over which we divide our communion? Personally, I hope not. I believe that, mindful of the inexhaustible grace of God, we need to work responsibly on diverse issues and seek God's will in both our lifestyles and our discernment proceses. This will enable us to maintain fellowship with our fellow believers.

Friends are Friends Forever

The sculpture above is entitled Friendship by Miguel Guía. This week while reading a chapter on intimacy for one of my classes, I read this section I wanted to share with yall.

Most people don't realize that relationship success also creates systemic pressures that make balancing closeness and intimacy difficult. The more valued the relationship, the more there is to lose. We feel more anxiety in being intimate in the sense of being honestly and fully ourselves. Yet if we want passion, we need the spark and invigoration of intimacy. One of the central dilemmas of [relationships] is that the more important a relationship becomes, the more difficult it is to sustain passion. This is so because the tension between closeness and intimacy becomes increasingly profound. The paradox of closeness and intimacy is that the only way to really have either is to be willing at times to sacrifice closeness for the sake of intimacy. In other words, to be liked we have to be willing to risk not being liked, for the sake of being known accurately.

The above paragraph was written with romantic couples in mind, but I think the points presented are readily applicable to all types of relationships. Does this paragraph resonate with yall at all? The line that keeps coming back to me is '[we must be] willing at times to sacrifice closeness for the sake of intimacy.'