Some Thoughts about Schizoid Dynamics by Nancy McWilliams. [pdf]
Recently I see more and more posts about introversion, how introvert people really are, how to interact with them and so on. I’ve seen dozen of those posts. I’ve read a couple of posts about ‘highly sensitive people’ (HSP) too. Apparently people like those posts. That’s ok. I understand that. People who identify themseles as introvert are pleased to know that there are others like them, that the way they are is just a normal variation within the human population. That makes them feel less alone and more “normal”.
I don’t think that finding a label for one’s own quirks of personality is useful, but that’s me. I don’t think I’m introvert or HSP, although many people have said that to me.
I don’t talk much, that’s true. I’m not easy to talk to, that’s also true. Some people find that unconfortable. I understand that. Just yesterday I had a very awful experience because of my not-talking-much thing.
Today I was searching for articles and I found this one. It’s by one of my favorite psychotherapists and it’s about something others could call introversion. Nancy McWilliams prefer to use the term “schizoid personality”. I personally don’t like the term introversion, mostly because it implies that there are only two ways you could be: you’re an introvert, or an extrovert. I don’t think it is like that. I’m not sure “schizoid personality” is the right term either, but I understand why McWilliams has chosen it.
I thought I’d share this article because I felt it’s not shallow like other I’ve read, and because I felt it as more humane.
[…]
There is no doubt that most of us have become hooked on our electronic devices and that some people are gravely harmed by what develops into an unhealthy and uncontrollable attachment to them. The question is how best to understand, define, and deal with this. What does the term “addiction” mean and when is it a useful way of describing our passions and needs? We don’t consider ourselves addicted to our cars, TV’s, refrigerators, or air conditioners. Is attachment to the Internet fundamentally different?"
Internet Addiction—The Next New Fad Diagnosis by Allen Frances.
The whole concept of behavioral addictions is highly controversial and has never heretofore been given any official status. There is a good reason for this. It is extremely difficult to distinguish the relatively few people who are really enslaved by shopping, sex, work, golf (or the Internet) from the huge army of those who are attached to these as pleasurable recreation. It should not be counted as a mental disorder and be called an “addiction” just because you really love an activity, get a lot of pleasure from it, and spend a lot of time doing it. To be considered “addicted,” you should be compulsively stuck doing something that is no longer fun, feels out of control, serves no useful purpose, and is certainly not worth the pain, costs, and harms. The unfavorable cost/benefit ratio should be pretty lopsided before mental disorder is considered.
We all do dumb things that offer short-term pleasures but cause bad long term consequences. It is not “addiction” whenever someone gets into trouble because of over-spending, golfing too much, or having repeated sexual indiscretions. That’s our human nature—derived from many millions of years of evolutionary experience where life was short, opportunities for pleasure rare, and the long term didn’t count for nearly as much as it does now. There is a risky slippery slope if we medicalize our pleasure seeking, irresponsible selves.
Anonymous
salixj asked something similar:
I don’t think psychotherapy is bad, I think it can be bad. In certain conditions, psychotherapy is harmful. Some form of psychotherapy are harmful and other are more likely to be harmful. A form of psychotherapy could produce a positive effect on a problem/disorder, but negative on others. Some kind of therapeutic relationships could be detrimental for some people. It’s quite a complex subject really.
My opinion is that psychotherapy is more likely to produce a negative effect when the therapist thinks the theory he embraces/the methods he uses is the best. When a psychoanalist (or CBT therapist or any kind of therapist) think psychoanalysis (or CBT or any other form of therapy) is the best of all, the probability of something going wrong increases a lot.
Let me give a simple example.
Critical Incident Stress Debriefing is a form of psychotherapy designed to prevent PTSD and related anxiety disorders among individuals exposed to extreme stressors. It’s administered in group within 24 to 72 hr of the traumatic event. The therapist talks about the PTSD symptoms that the group members are eventually going to experience and encourage them to discuss and ‘‘process’’ their negative emotions. This is based on the assumption that to talk about the stressful experience and the associated emotions is good for you and it will prevent you to experience mental health problems.
That’s not true. The fact is, research shows the CISD can heighten risk for posttraumatic stress. So basically CISD produce the exact effect it is supposed to prevent.
There are several reasons to why that could happen (for example, many people could be not ready to discuss their emotions, talk about your emotions is not always good.) But the main reason is that this program are thought to be useful to every person who had an extremely stressful experience because they’re expected to be more at risk, more in need for help, and when you’re stressed what’s better than talking about how you feel? Right?
No. Not always. Not for everyone.
So, the topic is complex and I don’t think I can explain it in details on tumblr, but, yes, psychotherapy can be bad. It’s not always bad. I think it can be very useful, really. But it can also be bad. That’s the truth.
BJ Fogg: Psychology of Persuasion
(Source: youtube.com)
The Psychopath Test | A radio documentary by This American Life
Recently we heard about this test that could determine if someone was a psychopath. So, naturally, our staff decided to take it.
The Psychopathy Checklist Revised is a psychodiagnostic tool designed by psychologist Robert Hare to assess psychopathy. The PCL-R asks questions designed to see if a person have the personality traits that scientists had consistently found in psychopaths. Here’s Hare’s list of traits of psychopaths:
- Glib and superficial charm;
- Grandiose self-worth;
- Need for stimulation or proneness to boredom;
- Pathological lying;
- Conning and manipulativeness;
- Lack of remorse or guilt;
- Shallow affect;
- Callousness and lack of empathy;
- Parasitic lifestyle;
- Poor behavioral controls;
- Promiscuous sexual behavior;
- Early behavior problems;
- Lack of realistic, long-term goals;
- Impulsivity;
- Irresponsibility;
- Failure to accept responsibility for own actions;
- Many short-term marital relationships;
- Juvenile delinquency;
- Revocation of condition release;
- Criminal versatility.
The Eyes Don’t Have It: Lie Detection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Richard Wiseman et al.
They conducted 3 experiments finding no evidence to support the claim that certain eye-movements can be used to say if someone is lying.
This is in line with findings from a considerable amount of previous work showing that facial clues (including eye movements) are poor indicators of deception.
Elyn Saks: A tale of mental illness
Recently, a friend posed a question: If there were a pill I could take that would instantly cure me, would I take it? The poet Rainer Maria Rilke was offered psychoanalysis. He declined, saying, “Don’t take my devils away, because my angels may flee too.” My psychosis, on the other hand, is a waking nightmare in which my devils are so terrifying that all my angels have already fled. So would I take the pill? In an instant.
