The perpetrators of the recent spate of financial frauds in the United States acted callous disregard for both their employees and shareholders - not to mention other stakeholders. Psychologists have often referred to as "malignant, pathological narcissists" remotely diagnosed.
A concocted, grandiose, and demanding psychological construction typical of the narcissistic personality disorder - are true for narcissists and by the need to maintain a false self driven. The false self is projected into the worldTo g
fff
Arner "narcissistic supply" - admiration, admiration, or even notoriety and infamy. Any kind of attention is usually preferred by narcissists than darkness.
The false self is filled with fantasies of perfection, grandeur, brilliance, infallibility, immunity, significance, omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience. To a narcissist is to be convinced of a great, inevitable personal destiny. The narcissist is ideal love, the construction employsbrilliant, revolutionary scientific theories, the composition or authoring or painting of the greatest work of art, the creation of a new school of thought, the attainment of fabulous wealth, the reshaping of a nation or a conglomerate, and so on. The narcissist never sets realistic goals to himself. He is always preoccupied with fantasies of uniqueness, record breaking, or breathtaking achievements. His verbosity reflects this trend.
The reality is of course very different and thisleads to a "grandiosity gap". The demands of the false self are never satisfied by the narcissist accomplishments, standing, wealth, influence, sexual prowess or knowledge. The narcissist grandiosity and sense of entitlement are equally out of proportion with his performance.
To the grandiosity gap, the malignant (pathological) narcissist resorts to bridge links. These very often lead to fraud.
The narcissist cares only about appearances. What matters to him are the facadeWealth and their social status and narcissistic supply. Experience the extravagance of Tyco travestied Denis Kozlowski. Media attention only exacerbates the narcissist addiction and makes it incumbent upon him to go to ever-wilder extremes to secure uninterrupted supply from this source.
The narcissist lacks empathy - the ability to empathize with other people. He does not recognize boundaries - personal, business or legal. Everything and everyone are to him onlyInstruments, extensions, objects unconditionally and without a murmur to his pursuit of narcissistic gratification.
This makes the narcissist destructive exploitative. He used to abuse devalues, and discards even his nearest and dearest in the cooling way. The narcissist is utility-driven, obsessed by his overwhelming need to reduce his anxiety and regulate his labile sense of self-worth by securing a constant supply of his drug - attention. American executives actedwithout compunction when they sacked their employee pension funds - as well as Robert Maxwell a generation earlier in Britain.
Brain or physically - the narcissist is convinced of his superiority. In his eyes he is a Gulliver by a horde of narrow-minded and envious Lilliputians paralyzed. The dotcom "new economy" was full of "visionaries" with a contemptuous attitude towards the mundane: profits, business cycles, conservative economists, doubtful journalists, and cautiousAnalysts.
But deep inside, the narcissist is painfully aware of his addiction to others - their attention, admiration, applause and approval. He despises himself, because it depends. He hates people the same way a drug addict hates his pusher. He wants "it is in place" to humiliate, to demonstrate to them how inadequate and imperfect they are in comparison to his regal self and how little he craves or needs them.
The narcissist regards himself as one would be aexpensive gift, a gift to his company to his family, his neighbors, his colleagues, to his country. This firm conviction of his inflated importance makes him feel entitled to special treatment, special favors, special results, concessions, subservience, immediate gratification subservience, and forbearance. It also makes him feel immune to mortal laws and somehow divinely protected and insulated from the inevitable consequences of his deeds and misdeeds.
The self-destructiveNarcissist plays the role of the "bad guy" (or "bad girl"). But even that is in t
fff
Traditional social roles cartoonishly he of the narcissist to attract attention over the top. Men are probably intellect, power, aggression, money or social status to be underlined. Narcissistic women are likely to the body, looks, charm, sexuality, feminine "qualities" to emphasize home economics, child and parenting.
Punishment of the wayward narcissist is a veritable catch-22.
A jail term is useless as aDeterrent if it only serves to focus attention to the narcissist. As the notorious second-best, is to be famous - and far preferable to ignore. The only way to effectively punish a narcissist is, withhold narcissistic supply from him and against him so to prevent a notorious celebrity.
Given a sufficient amount of media exposure, book contracts, talk shows, lectures and public attention - the narcissist may even the whole grisly affair emotionally rewarding.To the narcissist, freedom, wealth, social status, family, career - all means to an end. And the end is attention. If it's attention by allowing them to secure the big bad wolf - the narcissist unhesitatingly transforms himself into one. Lord Archer, for example, seems to be positively basking in the media hype about his prison diaries provoked.
The narcissist does not harass plunder, terrorize and abuse others in a cold, calculating manner. He does so casually, as a manifestation of hisgenuine character. To truly "guilty", one must consider the intention of becoming one of the decisions reflect and then to choose one action. The narcissist has none of that.
Sun punishment breeds in him surprise to hurt, and simmering rage. The narcissist is by society's insistence that he be called to account for his deeds and penalized accordingly stunned. He feels wronged, baffled, injured, the victims of prejudice, discrimination and injustice. He rebels and rages.
Depending on thePervasiveness of his magical thinking may be, the narcissist feel besieged by overwhelming powers, forces, cosmic and intrinsically ominous. He may develop compulsive rituals to ward off this "bad", unwarranted persecution influences.
The narcissist, very much the infantile outcome of stunted personal development, is involved in magical thinking. He feels omnipotent, that there is nothing that he could not do or achieve if only he sets his mind to it. He feels omniscient - he rarely admits, ignorance andRespect to his intuitions and intellect as sources of objective data.
So arrogant narcissist convinced that introspection a more important and more efficient (not to mention easier to accomplish) method of obtaining knowledge than the systematic study of outside sources of information in accordance with strict and tedious curricula. Narcissists are "inspired" and they despise paralyzed technocrats.
In part, they feel omnipresent because they are either famous or soonbecome famous, or because of to sell their product or is produced worldwide. Deeply immersed in their delusions of grandeur, they firmly believe that their acts have - or will have - a great influence on not only their companies but to their country, or even to humanity. Having to manipulate their human environment - they are convinced that they always "get away with it." They develop hubris and a false sense of immunity.
Narcissistic immunity is the (erroneous)Feeling of the narcissistic entertained that he insensitive to the consequences of his actions is that he never occur on the results of its own decisions, opinions, beliefs, deeds and misdeeds, acts, inaction, or membership of certain groups that he has any doubt and punishment is that, magically, he is protected and will be miraculously saved at the last moment. Hence the audacity, simplicity and transparency of some of the fraud and corporate looting in the 1990s. Narcissistsrarely bother to cover their tracks, so great is their disdain and conviction that they are above mortal laws and wherewithal.
fff
r /> What are the sources of this unrealistic appraisal of situations and events?
The false self is a childish response to abuse and trauma. Abuse is not limited to sexual molestation or beatings. Wrestling doting, pampering, excess, treating the child as an extension of the parents, not the limits of the child and the burdenChild with excessive expectations are also forms of abuse.
The child responds by false self, of everything that is needed is obsessed, to rule: unlimited and available now Harry Potter-like powers and wisdom. The false self, the Superman, is indifferent to abuse and punishment. In this way the child is his true self from the toddler's harsh reality shielded.
This artificial, maladaptive separation between a vulnerable (but not punishable) true self and apunishable (but invulnerable) false self is an effective mechanism. It isolates the child from the unjust, capricious, emotionally dangerous world that he occupies. But at the same time, it fosters in him a false sense of "anything can happen to me, because I'm not here, I'm not available to be punished, so I am immune to punishment."
The comfort of false immunity is also yielded by the narcissistic sense of entitlement. In his grandiose delusions, the narcissist is sui generis, a gifthumanity, a precious, fragile, object. Moreover, the narcissist is both that this uniqueness is immediately discernible convinced - and that gives him special rights. The narcissist feels that he is by some cosmological law in relation to "endangered species" protected.
He is convinced that his future contribution to others - his firm, his country, humanity - should and must release him from the mundane: daily chores, boring jobs, recurrent tasks, personal exertion, orderly investment ofResources and efforts, laws and regulations, social conventions, and so on.
The narcissist is a "special treatment" with the title: high living standards, constant and immediate catering to their needs, eliminating the friction with the humdrum and the routine, an all-engulfing absolution of his sins, fast track privileges (to higher education , or in his encounters with bureaucracies, for example). Punishment, trusts the narcissist, is for ordinary people, where no great loss to humanityis involved.
Narcissists are possessed excessive charm abilities to convince, to seduce and persuade. Many of them are gifted orators and intellectually endowed. Many of them work in politics, media, fashion, show business, art, medicine or business, and serve as religious leaders.
Because of their position in the community, their charisma, or their ability to find the willing scapegoats, they have released many times to get. Once again "got away" -they develop a theory of personal immunity, a kind of societal and even cosmic "order" in which certain people have founded more punishment.
But there is a fourth, simpler explanation. The narcissist lacks self-confidence. Divorced from his true self, incapable of empathy (understanding what it means to be someone else), unwilling, his actions, the feelings and needs of others just limited to - the narcissist is in a constant dreamlike state.
To the narcissist, his lifeunreal, as if you were an autonomously unfolding movie. The narcissist is a mere spectator, mildly interested, greatly entertained at times. He does not "own" his actions. He can not understand why he should be punished and if he, he feels grossly wronged.
So convinced is the narcissist that he is destined for great things - that he refuses setbacks, mistakes and penalties. He regards them as temporary, since the results of someone else's fault, as part of the futureMythology of his rise to power / brilliance / wealth / ideal love, etc., will be punished a diversion of his precious energy and resources from the all-important task o
fff
f fulfilling his mission in life.
The narcissist is pathologically envious of people and believes that they are equally envious of him. He is paranoid, on guard, ready to repel an imminent attack. A punishment to the narcissist is a big surprise and an annoyance, but it also confirms the suspicion that he bepursued. It proves to him that strong forces arranged against him.
He tells himself that people, envious of his achievements and humiliated by being out to get him. He is a threat to the accepted order. If required to pay for his misdeeds, the narcissist is always contemptible, and bitter and feels misunderstood by his inferiors.
Cooked books, corporate fraud, bending the (GAAP or other) rules sweep the problems under the rug, promises too much, and grandiose claims(The "vision thing") - are characteristic of a narcissist in action. When social cues and norms encourage such behavior rather than inhibit it - in other words, when such behavior elicits abundant narcissistic supply - the pattern is reinforced and hardened and stiff. Even when circumstances change, the narcissist finds it difficult to adapt, shed his routines, and replace them with new ones. He is trapped in his past success. He is a fraud.
But pathological narcissism is notan isolated phenomenon. It is in our culture today. The West is a narcissistic civilization. It keeps narcissistic values and penalizes alternative value systems. From an early age, children are taught to avoid self-criticism, to be mistaken about their skills and knowledge to feel, to exploit the law and others.
As Lilian Katz observed in her important work, "Distinctions between Self-Esteem and Narcissism: Implications for Practice", editedEducational Resources Information Center, the line between self-esteem and improve the promotion of narcissism is often blurred by educators and parents.
Both Christopher Lasch in "The Culture of Narcissism" and Theodore Millon in his books about personality disorders, singled out the American society as narcissistic. Litigiousness may be the flip side of a silly sense of entitlement. Consumption is on this common and communal lie "I can do what I want and do whatever I want, if builtI just for me to get it "and on the pathological envy it fosters.
Not surprisingly, narcissistic disorders more common in men than in women. This may be because narcissism male equivalent social customs and the prevailing ethos of capitalism. Ambition, achievements, hierarchy, ruthlessness, drive - both social values and narcissistic male traits. Social thinkers like Lasch speculated the above, that modern American culture - a self-centered one - increases theIncidence of the narcissistic personality disorder.
Otto Kernberg, a notable scholar of personality disorders, confirmed Lasch intuition: "Society can have serious psychological abnormalities, which already exist in some percentage of the population to make it, seem at least superficially appropriate."
In their book "Personality Disorders in Modern Life", Theodore Millon and Roger Davis state, as was a fact, that pathological narcissism, when the preservation of the "King andthe rich "and that" it seems to have gained prominence only in the late twentieth century higher Maslow's hierarchy of needs. "narcissism, according to them, can be brought in connection with" ... People in less favored nations .. are too busy trying (to survive) ... to be arrogant and grandiose ".
They - like Lasch before them - attribute pathological narcissism, "says a society that individualism and self-gratification at the expense of the community, namely the United States." ToThey claim that the failure to respect common in certain professions with "star power" or. "In an individualistic culture, the narcissist is' God's gift to the world." In a collectivist soc
fff
iety, the narcissistic "God's gift to the collective."
Millon quotes Warren and Caponi "The role of culture in the development of narcissistic personality disorders in America, Japan and Denmark":
"Individualistic narcissistic structures of self-esteem (in individualisticCompanies) ... are rather self-contained and independent ... (In collectivist cultures) narcissistic configurations of the we-self ... denote self-esteem from strong identification with the reputation and honor of the family, groups, and other derived in hierarchical relationships. "
Nevertheless, there are malignant narcissists among small farmers in Africa, nomads in the Sinai desert, day laborers in east Europe, and intellectuals and celebrities in Manhattan. Malignant narcissism isall-pervasive and independent of culture and society. It is true, but that the way pathological narcissism manifests and is experienced depends on the particulars of societies and cultures.
In some cultures it is encouraged, in others suppressed. In some societies it is channeled against minorities - in others it is tainted with paranoia. In collectivist societies, it can be projected onto the collective, in individualistic societies is an individual characteristic.
Nevertheless,Families, organizations, ethnic groups, churches and even entire nations as "narcissistic" or be described as "pathologically self-centered"? Can we speak of a "corporate culture of narcissism"?
Human collectives - states, firms, households, institutions, political parties, cliques, bands - acquire a life and a character in itself. The longer the association or affiliation of the members, the more cohesive and conformist the inner dynamics of the group, the more persecutory ormany of his enemies, rivals or opponents, the more intensive the physical and emotional experiences of individuals, it put together, the stronger the bonds of locale, language and history - the more rigorous might an assertion of a common pathology be.
Such an all-pervasive and extensive pathology manifests itself in the behavior of each member. It is a defining - though often implicit or underlying - mental structure. It has explanatory and predictive powers. It isrecurrent and invariable - a pattern of behavior fusion distorted perception and stunted emotions. And it is often vehemently denied.
My Links : Best Price Babymonitor Reviews